Not everyone finds a business online that becomes a customer immediately. So how can you convert curious searchers to loyal customers for your business? It all comes down to how you optimize the website for each stage of your sales funnel.
What’s the sales funnel?
The sales funnel shows customers the process from their first interaction with you to when they make a purchase. Customers believe that customer journeys follow a straight progression from awareness (when they first discover your business) through to purchase.
It’s more like a ball of wibbly and timey-wimey stuff, paraphrasing Doctor Who. The traditional sales funnel arranges customer journeys into an Inverted Pyramid with more potential customers at the top than at the bottom.
What are the stages of the sales funnel?
This model shows the stages of the sales funnel, which go from awareness to curiosity to desire to take action. The awareness stage is at the top of your funnel. This stage allows people to become familiar with you and your business. They may consider investing in your product or services if they reach the interest stage. We are closer to the bottom, where we can see what someone is looking for. The action stage is where someone contacts you and makes a purchase. Don’t get me wrong.
Although purchasing habits have changed, many people still follow these “traditional” phases. With so many options online, and so many ways to interact with businesses, customer journeys aren’t easy to pin down. These marketing funnel stages can be broken down into smaller steps like education, justification, and engagement.
Optimizing your funnel to maximize customer experience is not as easy as it once was. However, I have some tips that will help you get more leads and sell more products for your business.
3 Sales funnel optimization strategies
1. Find the holes in your funnel
It is not easy to figure out where customers are going wrong in their customer journeys. You should also look into the analytics tools that you use to see not only your best-performing pages but also your worst-performing ones. You can track specific events on your site using tools like Google Analytics. To see which pages are preventing users from moving on to the next step, you can use metrics such as bounce rate or exit rate.
This data is crucial for understanding why people stop at your funnel. You can combine this quantitative data with qualitative data such as video recordings or heatmaps in Hotjar to gain a better understanding of which pages are causing people to abandon your funnel.
Also, take a look at the competitors. What do they offer to help users get to the next level?
Content marketing is a key factor in getting people converted. What content is your competition producing that you are not?
2. You can run A/B tests for your website
After you have identified your marketing funnel gaps and collected all the data, test. If people are reading your content, but not signing up for your newsletter, it might be time to adjust your call to action, rearrange page elements, or modify some designs. What elements did your top-performing pages share in common? You might be able to transfer the elements that work on your top-performing pages to your lower-performing pages. Be sure to only test one element at a given time. It can be difficult to see which changes made an impact if you update too many elements at once.
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t receive the results you want. According to Appsumo, only one of eight A/B tests is successful. Appsumo tests to find out what works. Even a disappointing result can reveal a lot about your strategy.
3. Make sure your content addresses the customer’s needs
Content marketing has become a huge deal. Blog posts, infographics, and videos can help you 1. meet the needs of your customers no matter where they are on your marketing funnel; 2. save time for your sales team answering questions and 3. build trust and rapport with your audience. Although people don’t necessarily follow the traditional sales funnel stages, they still require content to help them navigate each stage of their journeys. It is easier to break down the sales funnel into the top, middle, and bottom.
Top of the funnel content
The top of the funnel isn’t ready to buy.
Some of these people may never purchase your business. People are seeking general information at this stage of the funnel. They are not ready to listen to a sales pitch.
Yet. Engaging top-of-funnel customers by focusing on educational content is a great strategy. This stage is ideal for infographics, tutorial videos, blog posts, and blog posts. Let’s suppose you own a catering company.
You might consider a blog post about the most popular wedding meals, or even a video showing you cooking one of your favorite dishes. Make it engaging and educational by being creative.
Content In the middle of the funnel
The middle of a funnel is where people can identify what they need and then consider their options. While educational content can still be used, the topics might shift to help people make informed decisions. This stage would be a good time to write a blog about choosing a catering company or even a calculator that calculates the cost of catering.
This is where you should be focusing on creating value for your prospects.
Content At the Bottom of the Funnel
You make the final push to convert people into customers at the bottom. You know they are ready to buy, so what do you do?
Testimonials are great for showing how your business has a positive impact on people. Emails with special offers or discounts can seal the deal. This is the time to focus on your company’s unique selling points and move forward.
Customer retention is something you should not forget. If you are selling products, tutorials, and product demos may help customers feel more familiar and comfortable with the product.
Write about the possibilities for people to do with extra food if you are a catering company.
Do not stop communicating just because someone has made a purchase. Think about past and current customers when you are looking for content ideas. You’ll probably be able to compile a list of the most common questions that you have heard over time.
This is a great place for ideas. If you are looking for inspiration, customers can ask questions. To see what others are discussing, you can also use forums such as Reddit and Quora.
Even Google Trends could help. Your content will be valuable and optimized for search engines, you can reach more people in the future.
