What is Online Sales Funnel? Tips for Sales Funnel that Generates Leads

Everyone who has an online business needs to create a sales funnel in order to convert his website visitors into paying customers. Your primary goal with your  online sales funnel is to move people from one stage to another until they are ready to purchase.

The online sales funnel appears like an inverted triangle. The top broad part is referred to as the awareness stage and is used to drive visitors or leads down the funnel. On your website, your homepage, and blog are the two areas that create awareness or drive traffic to your website. This pages show

The middle stage of the triangle which is narrower represents a lower number of people who show more interest and consideration than the leads. They are known as prospects. On your website, the service pages, about us page and team page present the interest and consideration part of the website. Note that it is important to ensure these pages are as interesting as possible because they determine whether the leads or visitors proceed to buy or leave never to return. Read more about making your website more interesting. 

The tip of the triangle on the lower side of the funnel are the one who proceed to become buyers.
This part of the sales funnel is reprsented on your website by the contact us page, request quote, add in cart, purchase, sign-up  form or download depending on your set goals.

online sales funnel

What a Good Funnel Should Achieve:

In online business, it is imperative for the primary website used for the conduct of business to generate as many leads as possible. The more the leads the website generates, the greater the pool from which prospects may be generated and the greater the possibility that they will turn out to be customers. This means that the funnel should be designed to chaperone as many people as possible through the different levels. The funnel also helps the user to determine which leads are strong and which ones are weak. The determination of which leads are strong and which ones are weak ensures that resources are only dispensed to pursue strong leads.
Examples of the best sales funnels.

Steps to Creating a Good Sales Funnel

i. Have a Good Landing Page
The landing page is usually the first page that a lead visits. It should have a call to action to turn a visitor into a lead. The landing page has links to social media sites, paid ads and other related links. When the lead responds to a call to action by clicking on a link, they are then categorized as prospects. The CTA may be filling a form, if a lead enters their information, they are an even better prospect and should be followed.
The vast majority of businesses fail to capture the interest of leads on the landing page. To be effective, the landing page should:

• Be highly optimized; every word carefully considered to make it count.
• The landing page should have the same name as the URL that can be used to get to it. That way, the lead would see the landing page as being authentic.
• Videos should also be included on the landing page. Studies show that videos increase inquiries by up to 80%.
• Testimonials from real customers, especially while well-designed increase the sense of authenticity for the landing page making it probable that more leads. Testimonials have been seen to lead to up to 32% increase CTAs.

Getting people to visit the landing page may be done through free traffic and paid traffic. Free traffic includes the email marketing, using social media and other organic activities. Paid traffic is achieved by using platforms like Google adwords where you pay to have your ad shown on the 1st page of Google or social media platforms where your ad is shown to targeted groups relevant to your offer.  Read more about advertising your website using Google Adwords.
ii. From Prospects to Customers
The quality of the website determines whether a lead will turn into a prospect. Whether a prospect is converted to a customer depends on the quality of the product, it is imperative for the sales page to package the product in a manner that will make the product even more interesting. It should provide pertinent information on the product such as would be of interest to the client.

Conclusion
The ultimate objective of a sales funnel is to get customers and maintain them. It is imperative for the website to have a proper customer care policy. There should be working contacts through which a customer can contact the company. These contacts should be responsive. Social media is also a great way for companies to engage directly with their customers therefore you should always ensure your social media plugins are working.

Read further: How To Build A Powerful Sales Funnel That Generates Revenue