What is Sales Funnels, Benefits & Importance, Who Can Use?

Nowadays, most of the sales are happening online and online businesses are using different tactics to reach the right audiences. The one who has an online business must have to create a funnel whereas the funnel can convert the website visitors into customers with good profits.

Some of them are successful in using the funnels and some of the businesses fail in utilizing the funnel. The primary goal of a funnel is to convert the visitor into ready-to-purchase your product or service & to upsell. Now, let’s get into the details of What is a funnel, its benefits, pros, and cons, who can use the funnels, how it is purposeful for online business, and more in this article.

What is Sales Funnel?

The mapping of a customer journey from browsing to purchasing a product or service is defined as a funnel. Most of the people search and leave the website but some fraction of people will convert into a paying customer. When you create the right marketing strategy those activities may help you to turn the visitor into a customer. The journey of a visitor is different from each stage of a funnel and now let’s know about the different stages of a funnel.

In general, there are five stages & are Awareness, Interest, Decision, Action, and Retention. These stages are hearing about your product or service until the purchase of the product will deal through different stages of your funnel. The journey differs from one prospect to another and it completely depends on the buying persons, niche, and the different types of products or services that you sell.

At first, you must need a clear version of your business, then develop a marketing strategy for your business website. Next, you have to make sure to define the target audience, and then you have to work towards the growth of your business. You can design a funnel as many stages as you want and the most common stages that every business have to pay attention are

Awareness

In this stage, your visitor deals with the current solution, products, and services that your business offers. This is the stage where a person hears about the product or service that you sell and visits your website for the first time. This means the visitor may be found from an ad, or through a google search, or through a post that you share on social media platforms, and through any other traffic source.

Interest

In this stage, the visitor is actively looking at the problems and their solutions online also search to find more details of the product/service. People may search in a search engine like Google, and this will happens when your product or service attracts some great content to them. The visitor will express his/her interest in your product or service by following you on social media or else can subscribe to your list.

Decision

The third stage is the decision stage, where the visitor takes advantage of your product or service. It means, your business has to focus on what you offer, including the packages, plans, that make a final decision of your audience/visitor to purchase your product/service. In this stage, you can see the sales that offer in the form of sales pages, calls, webinars, etc.

Action

In this stage, the visitor will become a customer where the person finalizes the deal to buy your product or service. The visitors go to the sales page and click on the Buy Button and the money is transferred into your account. If the interaction with your customer does not end, then you can add additional stages to your funnel.

Retention

In the retention stage, your customer onboard your company, and the main focus in this stage is to keep all your customers in order to convert the customer into your potential customer. This means your customers have to make a purchase of your products and services in repeat mode and also to become brand advocates. Word of mouth is a powerful weapon that can make your business a brand and it is possible with a happy customer.

Your business has to keep in touch with your customers with all aspects and clear all the problems to what they brought from you. This makes your customers happy, and you have to always engage with the customers who buy your product and service through emails, special offers, surveys, follow-ups, product usage guides, and others.

Benefits of having a Funnel?

There are various benefits of having a funnel to your online businesses, and here is the list of the benefits. Let’s have a look at them.

Marketing becomes simpler

When you have a funnel, then you can record that how many visitors come to your website and how many of them are converted into paying customers. So, to achieve your targets, you need to calculate how many leads you got and at the same time, you have to wisely spend on the platforms or sources that bring you more profits.

Sales are more Accurate

You have to predict that how many sales will occur in the future, and not only this you must have a clear idea of the sales plan for the next coming months. So, you have to put a target and start investing in the right platform to meet the projected target for the next year of your business too.

Conversion rates will be improved

A clear funnel is more targeted marketing that brings more leads to your online business. If you get more leads means more interest, which can ultimately convert into customers. If a lead passes through a funnel, then there are more chances of getting sales and improvement in the conversion rate too. It helps to refine and personalize the sales pitch.

More Accountability for your sales

There may be confusion in reaching out to the leads then you must need a proper funnel that will track every single activity of your visitor. The best sources for selling your products are based on the location which has the most paying customers, the social media platforms that have more engagements, and the salesperson.

Rake in more revenue

Every single point that is mentioned above will benefit every business and cares at every step. The most important thing is that you have to even know more about what helps you rake into extra profits. This will definitely help your business to double the success and revenue.

Who can use the Funnels?

If you want effective sales for your online business then the funnels are important for you. No matter, what your business niche is, you can use the funnel to get more sales and earn profits. In fact, the funnel will guide you to everything about customer behavior from visiting your website to purchasing a product or service from your website. If you have an effective funnel to your online business, then there is an increase in the lifetime value of all your customers significantly. If you have a funnel means, you can continue to sell your products or services for years to come.

Now, let’s get into the pros and cons of funnels and it is very important to know about the funnel advantages and disadvantages before utilizing it for an online business.

Why a Funnel is important for an online business?

A funnel allows businesses to visualize each step of the process that takes the path from a visitor to the paying customer. In each step, one conversion can be optimized to get more number of conversions. Each step can be analyzed on what’s right and what’s wrong and sort out with the possible improvements.

Funnels that works as the same as Google Analytics, which can visualize the activities of the customer across your web pages and websites. That will show everything how many visitors came and how many of them exit from a website.

If you’re looking for the best funnels for your online business, there are various funnel builders in the market. Among those Clickfunnels, Builderall, Groovefunnels, Kartra, Kajabi, etc. are some of the funnels, picked by many online businesses across the world. Go through every aspect of each funnel and choose according to your business requirements and then proceed to purchase the funnel.

Conclusion

It is always important to scale your business every time by choosing your business goals and then set up a measurement program. If you want better results and sales, then the funnel is for you as it examines the data of your visitors, and tells about your visitor behavior. We have seen all the details of what a funnel can do with your business and if you have an online business then having a funnel is a great opportunity that can drive significant improvements to get more sales and conversion rates.