07/08/2022

How To Build Effective Ecommerce Sales Funnel?

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A winning ecommerce funnel can help you gain the competitive edge that you desire. This article will show you how to create a sales funnel that drives growth and helps you step up your ecommerce game.

Business owners who want to maximize their potential need to optimize their sales funnel. The right digital marketing strategies will increase conversion rates and efficiency of your sales funnel for ecommerce businesses. It is crucial to create a customized marketing plan that covers every step of the customer journey, as customers move through the funnel.

The ecommerce funnel does not only consider the number of leads or prospects that you can convert into paying customers, but also how likely it is to retain them. The sales funnel is a comprehensive model of how customers make purchases, from creating awareness to maintaining customer loyalty to increasing product awareness.

Only 3.3% of customers who land on an eCommerce website make a purchase. The final step of the funnel is purchase. You must strategize how to avoid losing prospects at each step of your customer journey to increase your conversion rate. These micro-conversions are equally important as they ensure that the customer purchases.

Ecommerce businesses often neglect key elements of their ecommerce sales funnel. All elements of the funnel make sure the customer journey is simple and provides a great customer experience. A poorly-designed sales funnel can mean you are losing money.

What is an Ecommerce Sales Funnel and how do you use it?

Your sales funnel describes the steps your potential customers take to become customers. The sales funnel includes customer retention strategies and other post-sales strategies that ensure customer loyalty as well as long-term recurring sales. While businesses can create their own sales funnels, the basic principles of an ecommerce funnel are the same.

The funnel is intended to keep prospects engaged and move them along the funnel towards the conversion point. Each stage of the funnel can be measured using different metrics. It is crucial to measure these metrics in order to determine if your marketing and engagement tactics are effective.

Four stages are typical for an ecommerce conversion funnel:

  • Awareness
  • Interest
  • Conversion or decision
  • Retention (post-conversion Phase)

You must map and optimize the buyer’s journey before you can build an ecommerce funnel. Each stage of your funnel should be created with the customer in view and show how you can make them’s lives easier. This will allow you to determine how each stage should be designed with minimum friction.

A sales funnel will ensure that your website design and all marketing assets work together.

It is important to determine if your sales funnel performs well or if it can convert maximum prospects into paying customers. You can generate leads and reduce unnecessary eCommerce costs while increasing revenue.

Here are some benefits of an ecommerce funnel that will help you understand why it is important to create a roadmap for prospects towards a purchase decision.

  • Because it focuses on solving the customer’s problems, a sales funnel can increase conversion rates and profits. 
  • After you have designed it properly, it can be set up on autopilot.
  • With the right metrics, you can quickly identify which part of your sales funnel is weak and fix it.
  • A personalized customer journey can be created, which will increase conversions and profit margins.

These are some strategies that will help you design a winning ecommerce funnel.

Awareness

This page is designed to bring customers. Find ways to get them to your landing pages. There are many ways to do this in the digital age. There are many ways to do this in the digital world. You can use outbound and inbound marketing, blogs or content marketing or SEO (search engine optimizing). You can also use paid ads to increase traffic to your website. SEO is an organic method to get web visitors.

It doesn’t matter if you are driving organic or paid traffic to your site, it must be high-quality. Targeting the right audience is crucial. Otherwise, your marketing dollars will be wasted on people who are not the right target audience. Except if you are focusing on international growth, your targeting must be geographically focused and based on your key demographic. Your targeting can be improved by creating a customer persona for your customer.

Tips for improving your stage

Make content that offers value 

Blogs that are informative and increase your SEO need to be written. Content does not have to be selling at the awareness stage. It should inform. You can write about the problems your customers are facing and how you can best help them. Blogs are a great way to educate leads and can be used as an organic ecommerce strategy. With a small budget, you can create engaging content that reflects your brand’s voice.

Ecommerce websites can drive traffic to their sites with good content. Customers will remember your value proposition, and they may share posts that are relevant to them.

To Attract Customers, Use Social Media

Social media is a powerful tool in today’s digital age. There are over 3.6 million users. You must be present on social media if you want to reach your customers. Social media is an excellent place to find new leads. The best part about social media is that you can use both organic and paid options to drive traffic towards your website.

Paid ads can be run or you can create a page or profile and build an organic following. Both options are great for building brand awareness and driving traffic towards your website. Facebook ads can be very targeted. By showing ads to the right audience, you can reach your conversion goals and make the most of your marketing budget.

Engaging and useful content can increase organic traffic to your site by using social media. You don’t need an advertising budget to create simple how-to videos on Instagram or Facebook. This allows users to be educated and entertained at the awareness stage, and then pushes them on to the next stage.

Interest

This stage is where you must create a desire to purchase your products. You already have people interested in your brand. Now you must pique them further. It is important to dispel all doubts so that they can take the next step and buy your product. You need to capitalize on the fact that your prospects have likely identified the solution to their problems.

They are mid-funnel and it took a lot of money and effort to get them there. Here are some strategies to help them get to the next stage.

Email Marketing

Email marketing campaigns have a return on investment of 4200%. They are very effective. Email is a very old marketing channel but we have yet to find one that compares. After a lead has provided their email address, it is up to you to engage them via a good email Onboarding process. Keep them interested in your content, and your brand by sending regular emails that aren’t aggressive.

Your email strategy should be personal and not pushy. Each time a lead visits your site, they leave a trace. To collect this information and personalize emails, you can use cookies.

Social proof is a great way to prove your worth

Social proof can be a powerful tool for conversion. People love to hear what others think about brands. Social proof can be used to humanize your marketing, such as customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies. It can be added to your social media pages and email copy. Social proof adds credibility to your brand and convinces prospects of your quality.

An ISO certificate is another way to convince your customers of quality. Your customers’ reviews are not as persuasive and valuable as ISO standards. An ISO standard is the gold standard in quality and everyone knows what it represents.

Take the decision

You’re at the bottom of the funnel and have convinced your customer to purchase your product. Beware, though. There are many things that can happen before the customer makes the purchase. Many customers abandon their digital shopping cart because they are not satisfied with the product. This is a delicate stage. Even the slightest distraction can prevent them from purchasing, and gentle nudges can help ensure that they do.

Checkout Incentives

Shipping free is a strong incentive to drive sales. Half of abandoned carts are because of shipping fees. If they are unable to choose the payment method they prefer, some users won’t make the purchase. Multiple payment options are available. Make sure your return policy is clearly stated and in the customer’s best interest. This could be a crucial factor.

It is also possible to mention that the product in your shopping cart may be out of stock. Customers will often speed up their shopping when they are aware that the product they desire is in high demand or may be out of stock.

Reduce Friction at Checkout

You want the checkout page to be clear and uncluttered. You should choose a payment gateway that is easy to use and only ask for the essential information on the ecommerce checkout forms.

Retention

It would seem that the ecommerce sales funnel is complete when the customer does what you want. Your relationship with your customer is just beginning. Ecommerce businesses have realized the importance of customer retention. Customers can’t make one purchase and then forget about it.

It is much easier to keep customers than it is to find new ones. By ensuring repeat sales and loyalty, you can maximize the return on every dollar invested in a lead customer.

These strategies will help you retain customers and get the most from your business.

Amazing Customer Service

The satisfaction of the customer throughout the buying process is a key factor in customer retention. Your customer service quality is directly proportional to how many customers you have returned. Was the product delivered on time? They liked the product. Was your after-sales service flawless? Customers were kept informed about the status of their orders. 

An EDI system can be used to send purchase order acknowledgments, order changes and advance shipping notices to customers to keep them informed about their orders. You may be asking, “What is EDI?” Electronic Data Interchange is a digital way to exchange documents with customers.

Upselling and cross-selling

Upselling is the act of selling a product that has a higher price to customers when they are about to purchase it. Cross-selling refers to the act of suggesting small additions that make the purchase more appealing. These strategies can increase your average order value and help you improve your bottom line.

AI is a powerful tool to boost your business. It uses accurate information from customers’ purchases to show you which products you should upsell or cross-sell.

Increase traffic to your sales funnel

You can generate traffic to your sales funnel and keep customers interested. Your sales funnel should help increase your profit. You can use the strategies and tips listed above to improve your sales funnel.

Digital marketing is a great way to drive traffic to your site, nurture leads through email marketing, and use social evidence to convince them your products are worth the effort. If you want to maximize your sales, make your checkout easy and ensure client retention.

To optimize each stage, define metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). Traction is a great book by Gino Wickman that explains data as one of six essential components to your business. The business intelligence tool can help you quickly correct mistakes and make informed decisions for the future.

Your ecommerce sales funnel should help customers navigate the buying process. This can be simplified, but each step of the sales funnel is crucial to your customer’s journey. A great customer experience is a result of how you respond to customers’ needs through the entire funnel.

Conclusion

A well-designed ecommerce funnel can help you to have a brighter future. Whether you realize it or not, your customers will be going through each of the four stages. You must understand each stage’s importance and optimize each stage to increase conversions.

About the author

Kobe Digital is a unified team of performance marketing, design, and video production experts. Our mastery of these disciplines is what makes us effective. Our ability to integrate them seamlessly is what makes us unique.