When a lead is interested in buying anything, they enter into something called the Sales Funnel. The Sales Funnel represents the different steps of the journey that a lead goes through before they make the decision to become a customer. By closely examining the process of how a lead is acquired, retained, and (potentially) lost, you can determine the strong and weak points in your funnel. Improving these weaknesses will help improve your lead’s overall journey and strengthen their chances of converting into a customer. In this blog, we will cover ways to assess your sales funnel, and improve it.
Map Out your Successes and Failures
To get the full picture of what aspects of your sales funnel need to be improved, you need to take a look back at how you have handled current and prospective customers in the past. Choose some of your most notable case studies, ones that have been failures and ones that have been successes, and map their journey through the sales funnel. Take notice of how far your customers have made it. Do most of your leads become customers, or is there a distinctive point where they lose interest and fall off? This exercise is not meant to be reflective of your business today, but it is a way to identify patterns that can help you in the future.
Review Your Materials for Each Stage
Now that you’ve taken a look at your customer’s past interactions with your sales funnel, it’s time to look at what you’re doing presently. What activities or materials do you currently provide to entice potential leads to move to the next stage? Even though you may think you’ve made moving to the next stage appealing, put yourself in the shoes of a potential lead with relevant interests. You may find that even though the path is clear to you, your customers have been forced to forge their own paths through the funnel. Are your potential customers receiving the same amount of support at each stage? For instance, if you spend a substantial amount of time with them in the awareness phase, provide a strong purchasing process, and then fail to provide the same level of support in the consideration stage, there is a high possibility that they won’t end up converting. If you are having trouble identifying issues with your materials, asking the following questions may be a huge help:
- Does your offer seem worthwhile?
- Can you find the information that you need to make an informed decision?
- Is the next step in the process clear?
- Is there assistance if you’re unsure?
The more detail you get into the more minimal the chance is that you’ve overlooked something important. Sales funnel material that is informative and eye-catching while being succinct has the highest chances of conversion.
Collect and Review Analytics Data and Customer Feedback
As in any marketing campaign, extracting and reviewing data is one of the only ways to determine if something is truly successful. Looking at their behavioral flow will give you an idea of how your website factors into the conversion process. The data will give you insights on how leads are interacting with your website- what actions are being taken and which pages get the most views. From there you can ask the following questions: Does your website convey the same message that your materials do? Does the intended purpose of your pages match their current state? If the answer to some of these questions is no, then there lies one of the reasons as to why some of your leads are not converting.
Additionally reaching out to current and past customers to ask about their experience is beneficial. Not only will you get an honest perspective but you may gain insight as to why customers chose you or chose to avoid your product or service.
Prioritize the Issues you Identified Appropriately
Having reflected on past customer journeys, reviewed your sales funnel and analyzed behavioral data, you will now be able to determine the importance of the issues that have been identified and can focus on how to solve them. The first instinct may be to try and tackle the hardest changes, but tackling some of the easier changes can improve your customer’s journey faster and is more cost effective. If you are having issues solving some of your problems, looking at your competitors can go a long way. Look at what they are doing better and use the information to improve.
If you would like to learn more about improving your sales funnel click on the link below to schedule your free 30-minute consultation with us today.
