The process of turning interested parties into paying customers isn’t as easy as many business owners think. You may believe in your product, but how do you make others believe in it too?
Careful attention and time are necessary to bring in leads that will eventually buy in. One must also understand how crucial each step of the sales funnel is, as consumers’ behavior depends on how well and smart the funneling plan is.
The last thing that businesses want is another prospect wasted, which is why marketers have resorted to intelligent funnel stages to successfully convert leads into sales. If you develop a good sales funnel, figures are bound to increase with each stage, and it can take your venture to another level of success.
The Concept of Sales Funnels
To put it simply, a sales funnel is a series of steps that ensures all prospects reach the final stage of buying your product or signing up for your service. Usually, prospects follow and read about businesses, but only a small percentage will be compelled to spend their money. Once these people decide to check out some products, you’ve brought them deep into your funnel. And once they take the products for purchase, it means that they successfully reached the end of the funnel, which means leads successfully converted into sales.
Funneling is crucial for every business, regardless of nature, as it provides a general overview of your trajectory. A good funneling plan guarantees sustainable and consistent sales numbers no matter the time of year. And an effective sales funnel works as the best intervention that positively influences visitors to add items to their cart and eventually check out.
The Four Pillars of Sales Funnels
AIDA, which stands for Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action, is a leveled structure that gauges prospects’ cognition and behavior. Note that each stage demands varying levels of attention and approach from marketers since one wrong and neglected variable will then lead to a decrease in sales.
- Awareness – This is considered the first level of funneling, wherein your brand has been passively instilled in a prospect’s mindset. It may be because of a promotion seen on Facebook or maybe a recommendation from a friend. Regardless of how you reach their attention, your prospect is aware of your brand in some way. If they determine that your product or service is to their taste, they may pursue the next stage of the funnel.
- Interest – The second stage denotes that a customer has spent time looking up a particular product. Piqued interest is important because it indicates that a potential customer is weighing their options. Many prospects spend a lot of time making assessments, so this is an excellent chance for your business to hook them in with appealing and engaging content to help them make a final decision.
- Decision – After carefully assessing their options, a customer will then finally decide to purchase a product. The common struggle in this stage is that there is still no absolute brand in consumers’ minds, and plenty of choices compete against each other. With this, the best way is to put forward an excellent option that will put you on top of all other considerations.
- Action – The last stage of the funnel is the act of purchase, which automatically makes the customer a part of your network. A common mistake, however, is the belief that a funnel plan is effective after securing sales. The truth is that your sales funnel strategy is only effective if it generates exponential gains for long-term growth and success.
Conclusion
A five-course meal is carried out with drinks and appetizers initially served before the main course. After finishing the main dish, desserts are served for the final part of the dining experience. Similar to this setup, a sales funnel is composed of different, distinct stages, all working to deliver customer satisfaction from beginning to end.
This is part 1 of a 2-part series about building an effective sales funnel. Check out our blog for part 2!
Is your business revenue slumping? If so, now is the perfect time to partner with Alexandria Taylor Cox, a well-established digital marketing consultant that can harness those prospects all the way to the bottom of your sales funnel. Book a discovery call with us, and we’ll craft a good plan for your business!
