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A Comprehensive Guide To Sales Funnel Optimization

Sales funnel

Is your marketing campaign not delivering you the expected results? Are you looking for more effective ways to generate leads, boost conversions and jump up sales? Then probably it is time to optimize your sales funnel.

You might have heard about this term sales funnel if you are into marketing for some time, but if you don’t know what it means and how can you optimize your sales funnel then worry not!

Here in this article, we will be diving deep into the world of sales funnel and how can you optimize it.

Selling products or services in the e-commerce market is not that easy as it seems to be. You need to take your audience through multiple phases before they actually turn into your customer.

This route where an audience goes through multiple steps to become a customer is known as sales funnel. The route basically consists of different stages like; Prospects, Leads, Connection, Follow-up, Conversion, and Sales.

Around 40% of marketers claim that the most demanding part of their job is prospecting.

So basically in sales funnel you prepare a route from analyzing prospects, generating leads to getting actual customers. This route can be long or short depending upon the business and your audience. You have to make great efforts to successfully take your customer to the next step from the previous one.

These sales funnel can be different for different businesses depending upon the goal, product, and audience but stages are always going to be the same.

Let us understand the definition of sales funnel first and later, we will be learning the process of best sales funnel optimization-

What is a Sales Funnel?

Sales funnel enables you to track the sales process from start to finish. The process begins from the primary stage, interest generation and goes up-to sales.

By the end of your sales funnel, you will be having the leads that are most relevant for you’re business and qualified enough to opt for immediate purchase.

As discussed above, Prospects, Leads, Connection, Follow-up, Conversion, and Sales can for sure be a Sales Funnel for you.

Now, the time has come to understand best Sales Funnel Optimization-

How To Optimize Sales Funnel?

Sales funnel
Optimization of sales funnel

If a small business will prepare its sales to funnel, it will come out to be shorter when compared to large business because conversion in short business is faster than large business.

Preparing sales to funnel actually gives you complete control over multiple conversion stages.

You can monitor each stage and optimize it when there seems to be any flaw as such. Without sales funnel you won’t be able to understand which stage in your conversion process needs improvement.

If your marketing tactics are not working well and you are not getting the desired results then it is probably the time to optimize your sales funnel. Here in this article, we will let you know the steps through which you can actually boost your conversions. We will provide you with a complete step by step guide to optimize your best sales funnel, read in order to improve your conversions.

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So starting from the top of the sales funnel, let us learn about lead generation and how can you optimize it:

First Stage of Sales Funnel Optimization

The first stage through which you take users is traffic generation.

Sales funnel
Traffic generation

If your marketing goals are not fulfilled then probably you should take a look over here, if you are able to generate enough website traffic or not? The major problem here is not only traffic generation but also engagement. Thus, traffic generation comes at the top of the sales funnel.

If you are able to generate more traffic then that not necessarily mean that you will get more conversions. Most of the people are interpreting this thing in the wrong way. ROI can never be best tracked through traffic generation rather you will have to find the number of visitors that are showing engagement in your content.

Let us suppose for a moment if someone is visiting your page because your web page has a good rank on a search engine that not necessarily mean that the person will also show an engagement with your content.

They might just read your entire content and do not take any action on that and just bounce back. There could be plenty of reasons to it; they might have not found your content credible or they might not be interested in your offerings.

So what is the solution to this problem?

Let us discuss that as well:

Don’t concentrate on raw numbers too much rather than focus on where your traffic is coming from?

You need to find their interest and what can you do to drive conversions.

You need to figure out what type of contents are relevant to them.

Sales funnel
The content matrix

Avoid creation of bland and insipid contents as they will only become detrimental for your campaign.

Now just suppose if a professional is looking for fictional books and they end up landing on your web page so what will he/she expect from you?

They will only show engagement and take action on your web page if you would have written an engaging content regarding best fictional books along with their characteristics, pricing and other details.

They don’t want your content to talk about books other than fictional ones or they are not looking for a content where you would talk about such books which are already read by them.

You must have got me by now, people make a web search if they are having any query as such and they want web pages to solve their queries.

You will have to focus on giving them what they want and then only you can expect your marketing campaign to flourish. If things are still not clear to you try to imagine yourself as a person who makes a web search and just tries to deliver what you would want from other web pages.

Now, most of you might be thinking that how can you track the engagement?

Sales funnel
Tracking engagement

Well, you can go for tracking likes, shares, comments, etc on your posts.

These actions suggest that people are able to locate your content and they are reading it.

A report was published by content marketing institute; it suggested that traffic can be best gained through social media, newsletters, blogs and so on. Here we are not suggesting you to completely focus on one type of content rather than you should post a mixed type of content.

Write content on its merit, if a content is more about visuals then you don’t go for writing a simple blog as such rather you will have to focus on including more pictures, videos and make it interesting. If the content is more about explaining minor points then you will have to write accordingly. People will love your content if the overall context of the content matches how it is drafted.

As per the above report, social media content are really effective when it comes to developing engagement so you must focus on those type of contents more rather than focusing on research reports, Microsites which are not that much effective. Your website should talk about topics that are presented in different ways.

Just by focusing on these things don’t mean that your sales funnel is completely optimized rather you need to focus on other stages as well if you want to get maximum out of your campaign.

Now, after the top of the sales funnel, let us get to the second major stage which is the middle of the sales funnel, here we will talk about conversions.

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Second Stage of Sales Funnel Optimization

Naming this stage the core of your sales funnel won’t be wrong because this is the area which requires maximum focus and efforts.

Now in this step, your main target should be to engage your audience.

Most of the marketers struggle in this area where they are not able to create engaging contents which are the core of this stage.

Here the major problem is that marketers create contents and they get it to read by their audience, they may get shares as well but they miss to get conversions or in other words, they don’t earn subscriptions, downloads, etc.

Now, what is the solution to this problem?

Firstly you have to understand that a person is not taking action on your campaign, there could be different reasons for that. He/she might not be having enough money at that time, he/she might not be interested in your offerings, he/she might not need that product/service at that point of time and so on. So basically you will have to target different areas through your content if you want to get the best conversions.

Through your content, you will have to let them know what will happen if they took an action, a total of stock left at that price, and so on. Here one of the major factors that you should understand is to create a feeling of urgency.

What do we mean by urgency?

You will have to let them know that only a limited stock at that price point is available. Now, what can be done to build trust? You can put a comparison between your product and your competitor, you can ask any third party to review your product, you can take guarantee of your product and so on.

Always remember that no matter how good your product is and how well your marketing campaigns are going on, you will have to make efforts to win your audience’s trust always. The more credible you will prove yourself before them the more conversions you will get.

In this stage you will have to understand if your users are going out of your best sales funnel at the checkout process then it might be due to the high cost of your product or unworthy product at that price.

You will have to think according to their point of view, the price of your product should suit them. Many people may judge your product by itself so if you are losing them don’t worry as they are not your targeted audience in any case.

Now since we are done with this stage as well, so more than half of your sales funnel is optimized and in order to get the best sales to funnel you will have to optimize the third and the last stage which is about the acquisition;

Third Stage of Sales Funnel Optimization

Till now you have done everything right and you have also made your user to purchase your product and become your customer.

Now what? Is it all done? Definitely not.

Here you have to understand that holding a customer is another tough task to do, you don’t want to lose them.

Sales funnel
Customer retention

Here the major problem is with after conversion metrics, additional orders, prospects convert and so on.

Now, what is to be done here? Let us find that out;

You will have to make your customer believe that they have made an awesome choice by choosing your product. This can be best done through case studies, news, etc. Here you are basically supporting your other sales funnel efforts. You will have to focus on strengthening your relationship with your customer and nurturing it.

Every time you earn a customer you should try to hold them. Earn their trust by delivering relevant contents. You might have earned a customer but taking them for granted and compromising on their loyalty will cost you heavily and you may even lose that customer forever.

So if you have correctly done all the above-mentioned things then you have successfully optimized your sales funnel and you will definitely see results in your marketing campaign after this. You will earn more conversions and customers will also hold.

Final Words 

Developing sales funnel is really essential if you want to track your overall marketing campaign and improve the shortcomings in minimum time. There might be certain flaws with your marketing campaigns which you can track through your sales funnel and then you can further optimize your sales funnel and get everything on the track.

There is no denying the fact that no matter how well you are trying, you might slip a few important things while optimizing your sales funnel. With experience, you will understand that not only conversion rates matter but also there are a lot of other things that matter while your marketing campaign is going on.

You will have to understand what your audience like, what do they expect from you, etc. If your sales funnel is able to fetch you good returns then that means you have successfully achieved your goal. Take the help from your sales funnel to actually nurture your marketing campaign.

If you want to master the Sales Funnel procedures, Inbound Marketing Certification course can be of great help for you.

To know more about Sales Funnel Optimization, feel free to share your queries in the comments below.

Avatar of shivendra tiwari
Shivendra Tiwari
Engineer by Education, Marketing Influencer by Profession, and Creative Writer by Passion- Shivendra is involved in Branding, Advertising & Consulting in the domain of Digital Marketing over the years. He relies upon his Digital Marketing learnings and uses the creative DNA for composing blogs that have the applied zeal to engage, entertain and inspire the readers- to Connect- Convince- Convert their target audiences via different digital media channels.

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