In our previous article, we talked about how sales funnels can help us visualize our businesses’ sales process and how the different steps flow into each other. It begins by addressing a user with general information–a step often called the awareness stage–in each step the focus is narrowed and users are drawn closer into the buying process. 

Maybe you have built one for yourself. Congratulations! You may be getting some leads and conversions here and there as you start your business now, however, you still need to optimize your funnel. 

Why is that so? 

The Secret to A Successful Sales Funnel 

The “secret” that most successful entrepreneurs know is that even when you have a system that works, you need to always keep improving on it. The same applies to your sales funnel. 

If your sales process is not smooth and continuous – if there are gaps or bottlenecks – then it will not function perfectly. When done properly, each step of the process works like an assembly line creating, expanding and passing on. Each part comes full circle to feed other parts of the system. 

A successful sales funnel is one that creates continuous, synergic growth throughout the whole system thus making your conversions of leads into paying customers better and better. 

5 Keys to Making A Successful Funnel 

While it’s important to build a great funnel, it’s not always as easy as it sounds. Like what we’ve mentioned earlier, it is essential to keep on improving it so that your funnel will help you identify the right buyer early, and makes buying your product a happy experience. 

For this section, we will help you by sharing 5 KEYS to a successful funnel whether you’re about to create your first one or you’re in the process of optimizing your current one. 

1. Choosing a niche

Choosing a niche means you’re unearthing the market where your products or services most closely align or belong. It also includes focusing your marketing efforts on reaching that specific market. Niching down will allow you to create your funnel based on the pain points of that specific audience.

This involves the Law of Alignment in action. If you’re not familiar with it, it means your funnel will convert to the level that the offer aligns with the person evaluating the offer. So once you find leads that are closely aligned with your niche, they’re more likely to convert when they land on your offer. 

This is important because offers convert at a much higher rate when they’re specific to the problems and pain points of the audience in your niche. 

2. Creating buyer personas. 

A buyer persona is a detailed description of someone who represents your target audience. This is not a real customer, but a fictional person who embodies the characteristics of your potential customers. You’ll give this persona a name, demographic details, interests, and behavioral traits. 

Why should you do this? First, not every single buyer is the same. Their buying journeys and motivations for making a purchase may differ. By creating buyer personas,  you can personalize and enhance every individual customer’s experience by grouping them into a relevant buyer persona. 

You can create different and accurate buyer personas based on: 

• why they want to buy the product
• how they are going to use the product,
• what motivates them to buy a product 

3. Casual, conversion-focused copywriting 

Copywriting in your sales funnel is the content that appears on your landing pages. It is informative in that it describes the product/service you’re selling. A sales copy is the written content that aims to increase brand awareness and ultimately persuade a person or group to take a particular action. 

An old saying goes “content is king”. 

No matter how great your product or service is, if your copywriting is poor, you’re not going to sell as well as you could. That’s why you or your copywriter should have a firm grasp on the audience the product/service is appealing to.

You can add images, videos and even personal anecdotes when appropriate to spice things up, make it more appealing and not boring. It can also be salesy without being pushy. 

Copywriting is an essential part of your funnel. By having a solid copy, you can ensure your content is engaging to drive more conversions. 

4. Plan on Generating Traffic 

If people are not aware of the products you sell, there will be no sale. That’s why generating traffic is of utmost importance. The more traffic to your funnel, the more opportunities you have to generate qualified leads, to nurture and help solve their problem and ultimately sell your product or service, gain a new customer or client, and continue to grow your business. 

Therefore, you need to use different lead generation strategies to drive users to your sales funnel like the following: 

• PPC campaigns
• SEO
• Landing page optimization
• Influencer marketing
• Guest posting
• Social media marketing

5. A/B Testing

Also known as split testing, this is where you compare two versions of something – a homepage, product page or landing page – in your funnel. Based on the behavior of your site visitors, you can pick which version works the best. 

As a budding entrepreneur, you won’t know how to get better leads unless you’ve A/B tested your pages to see what’s converting and what’s not. Maybe that means a new color scheme, a fresh font or maybe updating links and adding social buttons. You should run an A/B test for a few weeks (up to a month) to get more data on what’s converting the best.

CONCLUSION

So what can we take away from all of the things discussed above? First, there’s no successful sales funnel that’s created on the first try. It is essential to optimize and improve it for it to perform better. You’ll have to create a smooth, continuous sales process that can give the best buyer experience resulting in higher conversions and business growth. 

By trying out the 5 keys that we revealed to you, you can identify the bottlenecks and gaps in your funnel and therefore polish up your sales process. Consult with us now!