There is increased competition for customers and many businesses resort to price wars in order to attract more customers. More shrewd businesses, however, have recognized the need for a more effective way to attract customers and retain them. This has led to increased use of a sales funnel.
Customers today have a plethora of information online and they are doing their research. Such people need to be skillfully attracted to a business and then directed through that funnel. It is however not so easy to build an online funnel to grow a business.
These 6 steps should guide you towards successfully setting up one.
Do Research
We mentioned that customers are doing research on companies, now companies should also do their research on the clients. But not just on the clients, the competition to should be researched.
Starting with the clients, at the point of research, they are actually just targets and not clients. Find out as much as you can about them. What interests them? What do they look for when choosing a service or product? Where are they? How educated are they? Try to know everything that will help you target them effectively.
Next, do research on the competition. This is both direct and indirect competition. Find out the businesses that are producing exactly the same product as you and then those who may not be producing the same product but are targeting the same targets you identified. Look at the funnel they have and understand how it works. When you begin building your own, borrow a few ideas from the most successful competitors and then plan to make yours better and more effective.
Setup a Landing Page
Not just any landing page, you need to have a great landing page. This is the first thing visitors to your site are going to see so it needs to move them. Some of the tips to set up a great landing page include:
- Have a call to action. This could be inviting them to sign up for a newsletter, buy a product or whatever you need them to do
- Keep the call to action simple but very clear so that the message does not get mixed up
- Let the call to action stand out, for example with a different color that would attract attention
- Give them a reason to take action with an incentive, like free shipping or a coupon or discount
- By all means, avoid clutter and be straight to the point
- Use A/B testing to find the best call to action
- Target the audience using information you know about them
Make a Front end Offer
Just like the landing page, the front end offer is very important, it is like the bait for your target. You need to come up with an offer that will entice your visitor to try out your service or product. Do not just put together any offer without giving it sufficient thought and lowering the price alone is not enough to make an attractive front end offer.
The front end offer is setting the stage for the backend offer which is actually where your business will make the real money. This offer should brew demand and desire for the back end offer. Some of the components you need to include in this offer include:
Best quality: Remember you want to brew desire for the product or service, so make sure you present the best quality. Price should not be the issue, but the future prospect of up-selling and getting referrals.
Over deliver: You will make a promise that will raise expectations and by all means meet the expectation and then exceed it. You can do that with a bonus that was not advertised. Surprise them with some more goodies.
Give the best experience: Let their first purchase be the best experience they can ever get from you
Upsell
After you have managed to make a front end offer and they have purchased the product, you will need to give them more value. Create an offer that has more benefits in comparison to the first sale. Make it more of an upgrade so that the customer feels like it is worth spending more on the offer.
An upsell on the back end is like the main course. When you made the front end offer, that was the appetizer to get them prepared for the main course. Ensure that like the main course, this will actually get them satisfied and will feel better than the first offer.
Downgrade
You need to realize that not every customer will be able to keep up the purchase at the same level so just as you upsell, you can downgrade. This will ensure you are able to retain customers. It takes consideration for your customers to keep them loyal. There is a big chance that if a customer may be going through a tough financial squeeze, it may not last forever and eventually they may be able to upgrade once again.
Maintain the Relationship
Do not let the first or second sale be the end of the relationship with the customer, continue to check on them and ensure they are happy with their purchase. It may be a good idea to create a loyalty program where customers who have been purchasing often can gain more goodies.
You should also not forget the potential customers, the funnel is supposed to get more customers and that is done by converting potentials into actual customers so continue with the same momentum to attract more and channel them through the funnel.
Conclusion
This is a funnel for online business but the model can work just as well for a physical business. The idea behind this is creating and nurturing a sales relationship between the business and its customers. The funnel helps to plan a way of getting an edge over the competition without having to get into cut-throat price competition which sometimes can run the business to the ground.
