How to develop the sales funnel in your company?

Generating more sales is the ultimate goal of all companies regardless of the industry sector to which they belong, since the higher the sales, the higher the profits and growth at the market level. However, to achieve these sales sooner it is essential to obtain enough customers to generate those sales opportunities. Feeding your sales funnel the right way can deliver the number of customers you need.

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The term sales funnel refers to how companies have to determine their business processes aimed at establishing interactions with users to promote the conversion of potential customers into real customers.

A sales funnel can help you keep track of potential customers as they move closer to becoming paying customers for your products or services. In this article, you will find the key aspects to develop an effective sales funnel and how to define its stages.

Characteristics of a sales funnel

By examining your sales funnel, you can optimize your sales and marketing efforts. The goal of a sales funnel is to walk people through the various stages of the sales process until they are determined to buy. It consists of 3 segments or stages: upper, middle, and lower.

1. The upper part of the sales funnel is responsible for attracting prospects to your company. For example, the advertising of your shop window or the landing page of your website.
2. The middle of the funnel involves all parts of your sales process before the sale happens. For example, the people who read the contents of your blog about the benefits of certain products for people or about common problems that can be solved with your products or services.
3. The final part of the funnel is the purchase. It is the culmination point of the funnel that coincides with the last stage of the buyer's journey when the customer is determined to purchase.

Importance of a sales funnel

The sales funnel shows the path that your customers will travel to acquire your products or services. Analyzing your funnel will help you understand how it works and where modifications should be included for it to give you more effective results. It will also help you identify the different holes at different stages, that is when your prospects leave before they become customers.

Understanding your sales funnel will allow you to influence how prospects move through it and whether they convert into buying customers. It will also provide insight into what customers are thinking and doing at each stage of the sales funnel to invest in marketing actions aimed at attracting more prospects, developing more relevant propositions, and converting more leads into loyal customers of your brand.

A solid understanding of your sales funnel is essential to understanding your customers' journey so that you can identify gaps in the process and invest in the most effective marketing strategies.

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How to build a successful sales funnel

We said that creating a sales funnel is very important to convert prospects into customers. You can track the level of behavior and engagement at each stage to visualize where the lead is in the sales funnel and how effective the actions being taken are in the sales process.

There are several ways to build a sales funnel and different companies and industries develop their funnels, depending on the goals they set for themselves. Here is a series of standard steps, which while not definitive, can help you outline your roadmap or discover what kinds of actions could improve customer conversion.

1. Create a landing page.

The landing page is often the first opportunity for a potential customer to learn about your company and your products or services. Users will arrive at your landing page in different ways: by clicking on the ad or link, downloading an editorial content or ebook, or signing up for a webinar.

Your landing page must genuinely describe your business and the unique benefits of your product or service. As a landing page can represent the best opportunity to captivate your prospects, you must include a way to capture the contact information of the potential customer, so that you can continue adding value through your commercial proposal.

2. Offer a value proposition appropriate to their needs.

For a prospect or potential customer to provide their email address, you must offer them something in return. For example, you can offer a free ebook or technical and informative content to download.

3. Encourage perspective.

Now that the potential customer has shown enough interest to provide their email address, provide them with content that educates them about your product or service. You'll want to check in with them regularly (once or twice a week), but not so often that they get bored or turned off by all the content. Make sure the content addresses their key needs and overcomes any potential objections.

4. Close the deal.

Make your best offer, one that is difficult for the prospect to ignore or refuse, to seal the deal. For example, you could provide a product demo, a free trial, or a special discount code.

5. Strengthen the relationship with your customers.

At this point in the sales funnel, your prospects have either become customers or have decided not to purchase. In either case, you must continue the communication and relationship-building process.

If the prospect becomes a loyal customer, continue to build the relationship by nurturing them about your products or services, engaging them regularly to build loyalty, and offering great service to retain them as valued customers. If the lead doesn't make a purchase, stay in touch with them through regular emails. Continue to generate actions to convert them into customers by using different email nurturing series.

6. Constantly feed your sales funnel.

At this point in the sales funnel, you should focus on finding new ways to optimize your funnel based on lead leak detection. By responding to their concerns and doubts, you can strengthen relationships with your customers, making them last longer. This will favor the repurchase and delivery of referrals at the end of the sales process.

Start at the top of your funnel by evaluating how well each piece of content performs. Identify if you are capturing enough prospects with your initial content. Remember that the goal of your content is to get potential customers to click on the call to action (CTA). If they aren't, or if a piece of content is getting fewer clicks in the CTA, try to redefine the content targeted at your target audience in favor of their needs.

Evaluate your landing page. Your offer and CTA should reflect the content. For example, a blog post, or a Facebook ad that brought the prospect to your landing page. Do prospects trust your contact information? Test every part of your landing page (headline, images, body text, CTA) to find out what works and what doesn't.

Track your customer retention rates. Determine how often customers return to purchase your products or services. Are customers coming back more than once and are they buying other products or services? Keep track of how often they refer others to your company.

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In a few words, to generate more potential customers in your sales funnel and that it is always allowing new opportunities, there is no specific formula for all companies, but there are actions that work in most cases and act as a trigger for hooking the attention of prospects, increasing the chances of conversion and generating new profitable business at the end of the sales process.