Setting up “funnels” for your online sales process, subscription and opt-ins, and your social media expansion is paramount for your business to grow in a sustainable and predictable way.
Rarely will a visitor complete your desired conversion outcome on their first visit. They need to be nurtured, cajoled, and “funneled” towards a desired action or series of actions.
The sales funnel needs to be able to weed out the “tire kickers” and give value to the “buyers” at each step of the funnel process so that they can be moved forward with the least amount of friction.
So you offer them value when they subscribe to your newsletter or opt-in for your free gift. Then you become the provider of useful information throughout your autoresponder campaigns. Then you become a trusted vendor when you provide them the opportunity to purchase your products and services. Then you offer further product or service additions, items, one-time-offers, up-sells, and down-sells, in order to maximize the profit potential of your sales funnel.
Having a well planned, structured and systematized funnel is one part of the equation. The other is to have the ability to track your visitors and their actions throughout the funnel process.
Being able to track and monitor the statistical information will allow you to know how many visitors entered your funnel (conversion) and how many came out the other end. What numbers dropped off at each step of the funnel, and what were the numbers taking certain actions while in your funnel.
With access to this highly valuable information you can work out where the bottlenecks are, why people are choosing to leave your funnel, and how you can fix these issues when they arise.
Always keep in mind that the least amount of friction within the sales funnel process, leads to the maximum number of conversions which, of course, leads to more profit for your business.
Note also that there are as many different types of funnels as there are different types of business models. Not all funnels will relate to sales and profits. The objective of a funnel may be to increase public awareness to a certain issue, to pass on information, to educate, to increase branding awareness, to increase the subscription and use of your various social media channels, and so on.
Whatever your objective is, the more people entering your funnel, and the more people funneling through the other end, means that you are well on the way to maximizing the number of desired actions taken by your website traffic.
