A sales funnel is a highly effective way to nurture prospects through the conversion process, encouraging them to buy your products or services.
Instead of blasting your ads to a large audience and not following up with those users you can customize your advertising/marketing experience to yield a stronger response and more sales.
For helpful tips on how to optimize your online sales funnel, keep reading.
1. Start at the Top
One of the biggest mistakes that small business owners and digital marketers make with their online sales funnel is starting at a narrow section of the funnel.
Start at the top of the sales funnel first, nurturing these users, so they are more likely to buy your products or services.
2. Customize Each Stage of the Sales Funnel
Each stage of your sales funnel should be customized. After all, the entire purpose of a sales funnel is to appeal to a different demographic, nurturing those users through the sales process.
Take a few moments to create a rough draft of your sales funnel, defining each section with a specific focus.
You can always go back and restructure your sales funnel, but it’s a good idea to have a rough draft on hand for a source of reference.
3. Personalize Emails
There are dozens of ways to attract customers or clients to your sales funnel, but one of the most effective is email.
With email, you can personalize your marketing messages and promotional material according to the recipient’s demographic.
Here are some tips to improve the effectiveness of your marketing emails and attract more prospects to your sales funnel:
- Set up an email newsletter on your blog or website.
- Send prospects a combination of a both informative, non-commercial emails AND promotional emails.
- Use a recognizable “from name.”
- Use a mobile-friendly email template, preferably designed with a Responsive theme.
- Clean up your email list on a regular basis, removing duplicate and inactive emails.
- Keep your subject lines under 60 characters for maximum visibility.
- Split test different timings and frequencies for your emails.
4. Create a Strong Content Strategy
You can’t expect to have a successful sales funnel without a strong content marketing strategy.
Content is a fundamental component of any online sales funnel process, as it allows the business owner to engage with his or her prospects and keep them interested in their respective product or service.
5. Monitor Metrics
As with any online marketing and advertising campaign, it’s important to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) throughout your sales funnel.
- How many prospects are abandoning the funnel?
- How many are following through to the next step?
- What is their level of engagement?
- How many prospects are clicking on your call to action?
6. Identify the Bottom of Your Sales Funnel
Of course, the bottom of your sales funnel is arguably the most important section. This is where prospects take “action.”
But you’ll need to determine what this action is. For an e-commerce site, the bottom of the sales funnel may consist of a sale.
7. Get Back Lost Prospects
Just because a prospect backs out of your sales funnel doesn’t mean that he or she is a lost sale. There are ways to recapture these prospects, encouraging them to come back to your sales funnel.
Assuming you have the prospect’s email address, for instance, you can send a personalized email, including a special “come back to us” promotional offer.
8. Keep Optimizing!
Even if your sales funnel is currently attracting new customers or clients and generating sales, you should continue optimizing it for a higher conversion rate and better return on investment (ROI), because there’s ALWAYS room for improvement.
Continue analyzing your sales funnel’s metrics and split-testing different promotional material to see what works and what doesn’t.
How have you optimized your sales funnel? We want to know, contact us today.
