Growing your sales funnel is the most effective way to boost sales performance and grow your business. While it may be easy to generate leads, you need to stay conversant with the entire sales funnel process until you convert the leads into sales. This is why you need to create a strategy to guide you through the entire sales journey and enable you to achieve your goals.
What is a Sales Funnel?
Sales funnel is a process of generating leads and converting them into sales. This is crucial for each organization because most customers begin well by showing interest in products or services, but few people purchase in the long run.
Using this model will guide you in your sales and marketing journey. You will know where you could be going wrong during prospecting, thus, devising creative strategies to optimize your sales funnel and achieve your goals.
The Sales Funnel Stages
It is worth noting that the sales funnel comes in five different stages. Understanding these stages will guide you in your sales journey and give you a heads-up of your strengths and weaknesses. This can have a quick and positive impact on your goals and the growth of your organization.
Stage 1: Awareness and Discovery
At this point, customers get to terms with your products or services. This comes after the customers realize that they need a solution to their existing problems or pain points. Customers go on Google to search for solutions to their problems, and this is how they come across your business.
When they open your website, which is probably among the top pages on the search engine, they navigate to see if you offer solutions to their problems. A customer can also learn about your business through your social media pages, shares, or other traffic sources.
Stage 2: Interest
During the second stage, customers can describe their problem and are now ready for a solution. They begin to show interest by researching intensively about related products or services.
Customers do not only focus on one website. Instead, they research for information from your competitors until they find a source with quality information that can help them make informed decisions.
If they find valuable content on your website, they begin to express interest by giving their contact details, or subscribing to your email list.
Now that you have the contact details of your potential customers, you can create a database of those contacts and begin to interact with them to build trust and meaningful relationships.
Stage 3: Decision Making
Now, your prospects are ready to purchase your products or services. This brings up a negotiation between you and the customer. The customer pays close attention to your solutions by sampling various packages and options to make informed decisions.
If you have offers, you can present them to your customer to draw their attention closer. For instance, if you’re shipping products, you can give a discount or offer free shipping. You aim to let the customer trust you and have a seamless experience.
Stage 4: Action
The customer is now fully convinced to buy your products or services. The customer agrees to the purchase terms and conditions, places an order, and makes the payment by clicking the purchase button. Remember, your interaction with the customer may continue if the customer decides to come back for more. In short, the sales funnel may continue to grow with time.
Stage 5: Customer Retention
Now that you already have the customer in your pipeline, you need to implement retention strategies. Focus on offering quality and satisfactory services that will keep the customer coming back for more.
Repeat purchases are a crucial element that increases your sales funnel smoothly. Follow up with your customers and get feedback about your products. This will help you devise better ways to serve them and build long-lasting relationships.
The Bottom Line
Following the stages above will help you achieve your goals easily. It will be easier to determine what to do next and stay focused on ensuring success in every sales funnel stage. If you need help developing and executing your sales funnel, contact us today for a free consultation to help you make informed decisions.