Why do you need a sales funnel?
Let’s start with some stats.
According to Salesforce, 68% of companies have not even attempted to identify or measure their sales funnel — the same survey revealed that 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales.
That’s not a coincidence.
As a copywriter and online marketer, I can tell you that businesses that have neglected to create clear-cut sales funnel experiences are leaving money on the table (and they’re usually going to be head-and-shoulders beneath their competitors).
In today’s world of sophisticated online buyers, sales funnels are critical for success.
Here are 6 reasons why.
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1. Build an Experience
We’d all like for our most effective sales funnel to look something like this…
Hey!
Buy this.
Thanks!
… and have people line up to purchase our most high-ticket, high-value offer.
But, of course, that’s simply a fantasy — it neglects the reality of human experience and psychology.
If people just heard about you or your business for the first time, the simple fact is that they don’t trust you (yet) and they’re not going to buy (right away).
If you want to be successful in this online marketing landscape, you’ve got to build an experience that teaches them to trust you and proves the value you have to offer.
That’s why one of our most popular offers here at ClickFunnels is our books…
The above screenshot is from Traffic Secrets, a bestselling book we’ve been giving away for free for quite some time.
And buyers don’t just get the book. They get all of this free stuff as well…
Notice how we’ve removed all risk for the buyer?
They just pay $10 for shipping and they get tons of value… so long as they know we’re not trying to scam them, there’s no reason for them not to buy.
But that’s not where the experience ends.
They receive their book, they read it, and they get added to our email list.
Through our book, they’re getting tons of free value. Through our email list, they’re continuing to hear from us, receive new offers periodically, and become entrenched in our ecosystem.
Because of this long-term experience we’ve built, people don’t just get the free book… they end up buying our software, signing up for our One Funnel Away Challenge, and more.
If you want to grow your company beyond just a few sales here and there, focus on the long-term sales funnel experience. Generate leads, build relationships with those people, and periodically make them compelling offers — you can learn more about building a lead gen sales funnel over here.
2. Increase Average Order Value
Who wouldn’t love to make more money with the same ad spend and the same customers?
That’s one of the strengths of sales funnels — by building an experience with upsells, downsells, and order bumps, you can increase the average order value of your checkout process.
Our Tripwire Sales Funnel, for example, includes what we call an OTO (One Time Offer) Page that triggers right after someone enters their payment and shipping information to purchase the initial offer and clicks through to complete their conversion.
Here’s a closer look at an OTO page.
So why does this happen after the person buys the upfront offer, but before they are taken to the “Thank You” page?
Because the moment right after people commit to buying one thing is the moment that they’re most willing to buy something else as well.
Sales funnels like this are powerful. They capitalize on human psychology by offering additional relevant products and services right when the person gets into a “buyer’s mindset.”
3. Beat Procrastination
The data’s in and it’s undeniable: people are procrastinators.
There are a lot of excuses that people will make for not wanting to take you up on your offer “maybe later.”
Just look at the long list of reasons that people abandon their online shopping cart.
We could probably add in…
- I changed my mind.
- I wasn’t convinced I needed it.
- I’m waiting for payday.
- I wasn’t sure it would actually help me.
So on and so forth.
There are a million different reasons that people decide not to convert — some of them are legitimate, and most of them are simply because of a human tendency known as “risk aversion”.
That is, we fear taking too big of risks.
Fortunately, sales funnels respond to human procrastination by reversing risk (with money-back guarantees), creating urgency, and building credibility (through storytelling and testimonials).
4. Understand Your Dream Customer
Maybe you can make a few lucky sales to an audience that you don’t understand… but you’re never going to build a thriving business if you don’t know exactly who it is that you serve.
And we mean exactly.
It’s even worthwhile to give your customer avatar a name, define their characteristics, demographics, interests, behaviors, desires, fears, and so on and so forth.
The better you understand them, the easier it’ll be to sell to them.
So… why is understanding your dream customer a benefit of the sales funnel?
Because the very act of creating an effective sales funnel is going to require you to do a deep dive on your target market — before you can craft compelling messages, offers, and funnel experiences, you’ve got to know who you’re talking to.
Building a sales funnel will force your hand.
5. Grow An Audience
Gone are the days of witch doctors peddling all-in-one concoctions to whomever passes by.
Today’s online buyers are remarkably sophisticated.
They compare options online before buying, they check reviews, they seek out testimonials and case studies, and they ask their friends and colleagues.
BUT…
There is a way to bypass that initial gauntlet of skepticism: by building authentic relationships with your audience.
That’s a huge part of the sales funnel process.
Imagine that you were trying to woo someone who caught your eye. You’d probably…
- Take them on a date to their favorite restaurant and pick up the tab at the end of the meal.
- Get them flowers.
- Ask them lots of questions and show curiosity about their interests.
- Call them back the day after the date to see if they’d like to go out again.
Think the same way about your customer avatar and the audience that you’re trying to impress:
- Provide them a lot of value for free upfront. Give them exactly what they want for virtually no cost.
- Continue to provide lots of free value over the weeks and months to come, via email, social media, online masterclasses, and so forth.
Then when you make them an offer, they’ll be far more willing to buy because they know you and trust you to provide immense value.
The best example I’ve ever seen of this comes from Rachel Pedersen — she is constantly providing free value to her email list with emails like the one below…
… and so when she does make an offer, people flock to her sales page with their wallets open.
6. Do What’s Already Working
We’ve spent a lot of time talking about why sales funnels are so important for scaling an online business.
But obviously, not all sales funnels are created equal.
In fact, we’ve seen some really bad sales funnels in our time as entrepreneurs and online marketers — sales funnels that don’t convert well at all…
Almost always, that’s because the sales funnel builder is trying to do something completely from scratch.
They aren’t mimicking their most successful competitors and putting their own spin on the sales funnel… they’re trying to do something brand new.
Usually, that’s not the most profitable or effective way to go about building a sales funnel.
This is why we’ve popularized the term “Funnel Hacking”.
Funnel hacking is the process of looking at all of your competitors’ sales funnels, analyzing the most important elements, and crafting your own funnel to get similar results.
Obviously, you don’t want to just copy and paste — it’s the ideas, concepts, and flow that you want to mimic.
The genius behind the funnel hacking process — and one reason that sales funnels are so important — is that you don’t have to start from scratch and just guess at what might work to convert your target market… you can learn from your competitor’s success to figure out what will work well for your own sales funnel.
Final Thoughts
So do you need a sales funnel?
By now the answer should be clear.
Without a sales funnel, you’re leaving money on the table, wasting relationship potential with your customer base, and standing head and shoulders below your competitors.
Today’s buyers are sophisticated.
And that means you need to build an experience that drives people, step by step, toward joining your email list and then buying from you over and over again.
Click below to build your first sales funnel for free using ClickFunnels!