Maybe you’re just starting your online business, or you already have one but you’re trying to move portions of It online.
So you’re trying to figure out what is necessary and if you can skip out on one thing so you can focus on another.
And having an established sales funnel isn’t one of those things that you could really afford not to be doing.
If you’ve been in the digital space for any amount of time, I can almost guarantee you’ve heard some buzz about the importance of a sales funnel.
In reality, if you’ve already been doing business, you already have a sales funnel.
As it isn’t a new concept or a strategy being implemented in businesses across the globe, but more of a way to optimize a process online.
So why are sales funnels important?
Sales Funnels Are Important because they give you the ability to guide your potential customers seamlessly through the buying process with minimal distractions. A well-optimized sales funnel will allow you to provide more value to your potential customer while increasing the opportunity to generate more revenue at the same time.
Why Are Sales Funnels Important?
Imagine heading into the electronic store looking to buy a new TV.
You ask an employee that works there where you could find them, and they respond “Over there.”
You might end up purchasing one as you compare the features of one to the other and figure out which one’s best suited for your situation.
Or you might end up leaving because you’re overwhelmed by the number of options and feel like you’ve had a poor experience overall with trying to purchase from them.
This could be a representation of what your sales process would look like without having a sales funnel in place.
Now let us head into that exact same store, but this time you’re greeted upon entry.
And when you say what you’re looking for the employee then takes you over to that section and highlights the various features of the different models and all of the price ranges.
Upon you making a decision, he then talks to you about this surround sound system that pairs really well with the TV you’re about to purchase.
And then a remote that allows you to connect to all of them and control all of your devices with a single remote.
So instead of just purchasing what you initially wanted, you purchased a couple of additional things.
And because it was done in a non-pressurized sales approach, the result is the consumer feel like they gained more value and had a better overall experience.
This is what makes sales funnels so important for your business and could be a representation of what having a sales funnel looks like.
You get to have your best salesman working to provide value and make sales 24 hours a day 7 days a week
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Benefits Of Using Sales Funnels
I broke down all of the best benefits of using sales funnels, so that way you can grasp the full spectrum of just how important they are!
Consumers Experience
If you’ve ever landed on a website looking to find something but the user interface was horrible and your overall experience with the website was poor, you’re not alone.
A significant portion of website visitors will end up on someone’s website and land somewhere on it that isn’t even relevant to why they went there in the first place.
I’ll use one of my family members as an example.
She’s always cooking and looking up recipes but I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve seen her look something up on a website and then have to navigate through all these paragraphs and sections to even find the ingredients needed, not to mention finding the instructions.
At first, she would skim through the copious amounts of text and additional information about how this recipe has been in someone’s family for the last 25 years and how it is a tradition to cook that exact recipe every holiday to find what she was actually looking for.
But now if she looks something up and lands on a site like that, she’ll leave right away and find one that is more suited to giving her direct instructions.
Now picture that as your sales process, you could have the most amazing product or service, but if buying it or acquiring the service from the consumer’s perspective is too convoluted you’ll lose a portion of business right out the gate.
The easier that you can make it for your customer, the higher amount of success you’ll be able to have.
There are too many options and very little direction on most websites.
We live in a time where you can virtually get anything that you want instantly, or delivered to you within 48 hours.
People don’t want to navigate through all the various pages of your site just to find what they are looking for.
Using sales funnels gives you the ability to create a linear traffic source.
Whenever someone lands on your sales funnel they’ll either do what has been prompted whether that is to make a purchase, schedule an appointment, or entering their email address, or they will leave and go somewhere else.
You’re eliminating the possibility that your visitors are going to end up somewhere that negatively impacts their experience because a sales funnel will guide them step by step through the process of what to do and leave very little room for error.
Related Post: Can ClickFunnels Replace Your Website?
Build Trust
Online sales aren’t what they once were.
Driving someone to a page and thinking that they’re going to put in their credit card information and purchase something willy nilly is going to give you sub-par results.
Consumers are getting increasingly smarter, as they should, they’re looking at reviews they’re essentially doing their homework before making purchases.
And this is prevalent whether you’re selling a digital product, physical product, are a consultant or host seminars.
Naturally, people will gravitate towards something that others recommend, even if it doesn’t merit the referral.
Aside from testimonials and reviews sales funnels give you the opportunity to build trust through various channels like email and messenger.
You can also automate this process based on their input throughout your sales process. Making the experience feel more personalized.
Getting Potential Customers Into Your Ecosystem
As I touched on briefly above, there is a portion of your customers that won’t purchase right away.
While the amount of times that are needed for you to make contact with a potential customer prior to them making a purchase varies depending on the industry.
However, the rule of thumb/average is 8.
This means that you’ll need to have interacted with a potential customer 8 times prior to them actually purchasing something.
Sales funnels are amazing at introducing customers to your sales process.
Say you start out with a very low offer in the front end of your funnel and introduce up-sells and down-sells in the following steps.
Even if they don’t make the initial purchase or end up following through the entire sales funnel.
Grabbing your free or low introductory offer will have caused you to capture their contact information whether they’ve actually purchased anything or not
Email Subscribers/Email List
One of the most profitable parts about using sales funnels, building your email list.
Email marketing is the most common form of marketing throughout every industry.
And that is because it simply works, it’s effective, and once someone is on your email list you own that data you don’t have to pay anyone to continue to promote things to them.
Collectively the average amount you can make is $1.00 For each person that is on your list every month.
While that number doesn’t seem significant if your list is small, but could you imagine having a subscriber list of 10,000?
And sending out a single email and getting a return like that… and being able to do it over and over again?
Related Post: Is Email Marketing Important In 2020?
Higher Conversion Rates
A well-optimized sales funnel will have a lot higher conversion rate compared to trying to do sales online through a traditional website.
This is because you’ll usually create specific funnels based around certain promotions.
Take my blog as an example, As an affiliate marketer, I promote a plethora of products.
Now if I wanted someone to buy a specific product that I talk about somewhere on my website.
What would be the better option?
- Sending them to my homepage hoping that they stumble upon that exact product review I want them to see.
- Send them directly to a page the was created around that product and a specific promotion related to it.
Number 2 is what makes using sales funnels so important, without them you’re not able to create any predictability.
Lower Your Customer Acquisition Costs
This really only applies if you’re planning on running any type of pay per click advertisements.
Which is where sales funnels really start to shine.
As I’ve touched on throughout this article.
The minimalistic design of sales funnels and the clear direction of what actions need to be taken as your customer goes through each stage of your sales funnel drastically reduce the amount it will cost you to acquire leads and customers.
As there aren’t as many options, so you’ll no longer be paying for people to land on your site and having them end up somewhere that wasn’t intended during that specific promotion.
Perfecting the art of this can be a very powerful tool because if you utilize your digital marketing skills spending $1 and getting $2 back you’ll never have to worry about revenue again.
Related Post: How Can Landing Pages Help Your Business?
Increased Revenue
So not only do sales funnels reduce the cost of acquiring clients but it will also increase the chances of generating more revenue.
You can do this by utilizing up-sell and down-sell features as people go through each stage of your funnel.
Finding products that pair well together, or offering an upgraded version of the service you’re already selling at an additional cost.
This is also known as a value ladder, as your customer goes through each stage of your funnel and you’re building more and more rapport with them you can promote higher tier products.
And if they refuse you can then offer cheaper versions.
Entrepreneur actually has a great article on 5 simple Upsells and Downsells, check it out here.
Increased Lifetime Value
You’re not only able to increase the lifetime value of each customer that goes through your funnel but you’ll also be able to increase the value that you’re truly able to provide for them.
You have the means to stay in contact with them due to your sales funnel which means you have a direct channel to promote to them whenever you see fit or whenever you do a similar promotion to something they’ve already purchased.
Instead of monetizing off of each customer one time, you now have the ability to continue to monetize from them for years to come.
Simplifying Your Marketing
If you’ve done any type of online marketing, you’ll know that the slightest tweaks can make the biggest differences.
And minimizing the opportunities for there to be errors is crucial.
A huge part is split testing and seeing which will perform better and why.
Sales funnels simplify the process because you can create professional-looking sales funnels specific to a promotion in a matter of minutes.
You then have a starting point where you can test each version against itself to see what one performs the best.
It might sound like I’m actually complicating it, but could you imagine driving website visitors to my blog and trying to figure out which portion was causing customers not to convert when I have hundreds of pictures and probably 100,000 words throughout my website.
Related Post: High Ticket vs Low Ticket Affiliate Marketing | Which One’s Best?
Why Are Sales Funnels Important? Summary
Sales Funnels Are Important because they give you the ability to guide your potential customers seamlessly through the buying process with minimal distractions.
A well-optimized sales funnel will allow you to provide more value to your potential customer while increasing the opportunity to generate more revenue at the same time.