Taking your business online was certainly an important decision and quite a smart move. After all, we’re living in the digital world and we have to obey the laws of the digital God. Okay, I might have taken it too far there, but I’m pretty sure you do get my point. Just in case you don’t, the point is that you need to follow the technological developments and digital trends in order to succeed in this world. And, unsurprisingly, marketing is the one thing that you must never fail to take into consideration.
Here’s how the digital God, oops, I mean, the digital age, has changed marketing for good: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2016/02/15/how-the-digital-age-has-changed-marketing-channels-forever/?sh=7fff0602680a
Quick And Easy – Seriously?
If you are one of those people who are running a business and want to find a simple, easy, and straightforward way to get customers rather quickly, then you are in for a surprise. No, not that kind of a surprise. I certainly don’t have the secret method to this process and I’ll tell you something about why it isn’t as good as you might think. Quickly obtained customers are usually one-time customers and that’s not how your business succeeds.
What is it that I am actually saying with this? Well, I’m saying that you should drop the idea of developing an easy way to get customers quickly and instead focus on the long-term strategy of actually getting and retaining customers. Let’s face it. If you don’t retain them, then you might as well shut down your business right away.
Since I don’t have the secret to success that you probably expected me to give you, the question is if I really have anything important to say and to offer. Oh, I definitely do. It’s just that, I’m not sure if you will like it, since the method I’m going to be talking about requires you to do a lot of work and put in a large amount of effort. Who am I kidding, though? Of course, you’ll like the method, since it offers a sure and clear path towards success and all the work you put into it will quickly pay off and be worth it.
Powerful And Effective – That’s The Way
So, we have made it clear that any quick and easy methods that you might have in mind are probably not going to bring you the results you desire. You need something powerful. You need something effective. You need something that will gradually change the whole mindset of your customers and put you in the center of that mindset, as a king of the jungle. The market is a jungle, you know, but you have to fight for the position of the king among your particular target group.
When you think about it, it’s just like democracy itself. People are those who have a say in everything and people are the ones who are choosing the king. The only difference is, businesses can certainly influence people’s minds and opinions and make them attached to one company rather than another by using their very own tricks. Wait a minute! Is that a difference at all?
No, we’re not doing this. I’m certainly not engaging in the talk about democracy. We are here to talk about something better, something much more important, something… powerful and effective. So, let us skip the democracy issues and jump right to the point. Brace yourselves, because you are about to get acquainted with the marketing strategy that can save your whole business and make you the king of the jungle.
Sales Funnel
Every king has his or her minions, am I right? Well, in this case, your “minion” is a marketing strategy known as the sales funnel. I’m pretty sure that, when you finally get to understand what a sales funnel is, you’ll fall in love with it so much so that you will start worshiping it. Basically, if you are the king, then the sales funnel is the ruler from the shadows.
But, enough with all the king analogies. Let us cut right to the chase. There’s no way that you can manage to get long-term and loyal customers without understanding and creating a sales funnel for your business. That’s why we will first see what it is and then we will proceed to explain its importance for your particular business. Understanding this importance is of crucial value, since, as I have already mentioned a few times, the sales funnel is your path towards success.
In essence, a sales funnel is the purchasing process through which businesses need to take people in order to turn them into buying customers. People don’t just wake up one day and decide that they want to become loyal customers of a company that they never heard of before and that isn’t selling the products or services they need. This is certainly not how things work, so let me tell you how they do work.
This is called the sales funnel simply because, if you visualized the whole process while taking into account the stages through which people go during a shopping decision, as well as the volume of the people reaching certain stages, it would resemble a funnel. The volume is biggest in the first stage and it gradually decreases as specific people proceed to the next stages. That leaves you with a rather smaller amount of people who are turning into your customers in the very last stage.
Since I am talking about stages, it’s only fair to let you know a bit more about every single one of those. This will help you understand the whole strategy much better and, of course, realize its importance for your business. Before I get to the stages, let me just quickly tell you that you already have a sales funnel in place even though you aren’t aware of it. The only difference is, once you become aware of it, you’ll get much better at influencing potential customers and their shopping decision and thus manage to create the perfect sales funnel for you. Now, let’s get back to those stages.
1.Attract
The first step is, of course, to attract visitors to your website, because if you don’t do that, you definitely won’t have anything to funnel down to the last stage. When the digital age is in question, you will have to step up your game and attract the customers through valuable content that can speak to some of their pain-points potentially solve their issues. There are a lot of different techniques you can use in order to bring people to this stage, so make sure to look into those and succeed in attracting as many visitors as possible.
2.Convert
Attracting people won’t do you any good if you don’t proceed to convert them into leads. This can also be done through quality content including calls-to-action and similar tactics. People you manage to convert are slowly going down the sales funnel by becoming serious, high-quality leads. Go here to get some more tips on how to successfully do this conversion.
3.Close
No, I’m not talking about closing your website for any new visitors. That would be a huge non-sense, wouldn’t it? I’m simply speaking in marketing terms and informing you that the next step is to close the deal. There are quite a few different ways to do this. You can either do it through e-mails, phone calls, or even personal meetings.
This is the stage in which you are actually addressing your customer’s pain-points and offering high-quality solutions. In other words, you will have to have something to offer before you even start thinking about converting and let alone closing. As much as marketing is important, it’s also important for your products and services to be of high-quality if you want to get returning customers.
4.Delight
Now, only a small fraction of the people who were present in the first stage of the sales funnel will reach this particular stage that comes after you have closed the deal. This is where you make sure to keep in touch with your customers and frequently remind them of the problem that you solved, while also trying to identify their other pain-points and offer other types of solutions. Don’t overlook this step, because if you forget about the customer, the customer will forget about you too, and you want to be remembered.
The Importance Of The Sales Funnel For Your Business
I assume that you already understand the importance of the sales funnels for your business after having read the above, but let us just quickly remind you of those things that you should always keep in mind while doing business.
A great sales funnel will make it much easier to turn visitors into leads and then leads into customers, which is the whole point of any marketing strategy. If you don’t pay attention to it, you will definitely lose a lot of valuable visitors that might have been the perfect customers in the future.
Another great thing about having a sales funnel lies in the fact that you are minimizing your risks of failure as well as unnecessary expenses, both time and money-wise.
Nobody will even reach the first stage of the funnel if they don’t have the potential to go through the whole process and become a paying customer. In other words, you won’t be wasting your time and money attracting people who aren’t actually in your target group. Instead, you’ll be specifically targeting those individuals who are bound to pay for your products and services.
