Understanding Sales & Marketing Funnels
Written By: Shane Clark on June 17, 2020
A Clickfunnel or sales/marketing funnel describes the process of tracking new customers from a starting point of initial interest to the end of being a paying customer. Attempting to track sales manually lends itself to the loss of potential paying customers. A well-implemented sales/marketing funnel can help increase conversion rates exponentially.
What Is a Sales/Marketing Funnel?
A sales/marketing funnel describes the ability to track and process the sales process broken into individual stages. In many cases, a prospective client will inquire about a product or service and exit the funnel at some point to never convert into a sale. To understand a sales funnel, you must understand how a prospective client turns to an actual sale.
4 Steps in a Sales Funnel:
Awareness
Interest
Decision
Action
Based on the above list, the key to successful client conversion is to be able to identify and track potential customers in the interest/decision stage. The type of software/CRM best suited for the possible client interaction in these stages will depend on your website’s platform. A will outline what is involved conceptually and provide some examples.
Awareness
At this point, the client is aware of your product or service and has not shown interest but is looking. The awareness stage can be a product landing page, website home page, or even an email. The best suite will depend on the product or service you are offering. A Google Ads campaign should be run to a specific landing page to drive the particular awareness with fewer distractions for the user.
Interest
During the interest stage, the user has interacted in a way that shows interest in your product or service. It will be essential to capture the user’s information at this stage in the process. Obtaining user data can be done via an email popup or if it is a shopping cart, as part of the checkout process.
Decision
During the decision stage, the prospective client has proven interested but has not made a purchasing decision. At this point in the process is where many would-be clients will drop off. Following up with emails, webinars, and phone calls can be beneficial to increase the likelihood of a client converting to a sale.
Action
At this point in the process, the customer has successfully converted. The definition of a “conversion” will depend on the product or service that is being offered. In the case of a shopping cart, it is more clear cut. Once a customer has made a sale, that would be considered a conversion. Where I see revenue being lost is when a customer makes a purchase and does not end up a returning customer. A well-structured sales funnel can help with customer retention.
Sales Funnels for WordPress/WooCommerce
One of the more popular sales funnels for WooCommerce is CartFlow. Cartflow has a limited version that will work with for shopping carts with fewer requirements. The pro version of Cartflow has useful features that will help increase your conversion rates. The features I find most useful are building unlimited funnels, cart abandonment & premium templates.
Another useful plugin to create a sales funnel in WordPress is OptinMonster. OptinMonster is used on over 1,000,000 WordPress installs. There is an available plugin that integrates it seamlessly. The cost is between $9 – $49, depending on the number of features you require.
Sales Funnels for Shopify
ClickFunnels™ is probably the most popular on the sales/marketing funnels on the market. ClickFunnels™ will easily integrate with Shopify. There is a 14-day free trial to be able to test out the software. I find ClickFunnels™ a robust system but easy to use.
Summary
Sales & Marketing funnels are a great way to increase your customer base with your existing traffic. The best implementation will depend on the website platform, customer type, and budget. An essential element of a sales funnel is to conceptually understand how your customers are progressing through the pipeline to make adjustments to the process. Contact me if you like to increase your sales to get started.
