Without customers, you don’t have a business. This is true whether you’re an online business or an offline business. Either way you will need to consider building online sales funnels to retain customers. Let’s dive into this topic a bit more!
Many small business owners make the mistake of paying for advertising first as a strategy for acquiring customers. This works well only if you have aligned all your ducks in a row (explained below). And this is where most of them fail. They blame Google or Facebook or whatever channel they paid money to.
But what if I tell you that with a little spare time, a lot of patience and a bucketload of motivation you could get these customers for free online? No more freaking out about Google or Facebook algorithm updates – you can have your cake and eat it without worrying about your calories!
This is very feasible if you have time to spare on building your own automated sales funnel online.
Below is a very basic breakdown of key features to look out for when building your own automated sales funnel.
If you look at an offline business, such as a bricks and mortar shop or a cafe, their sales funnel may include:
- Location – the number of people who pass by their shop is the foot traffic
- Their signage outside the shop – this is their lead magnet
- Their sales hooks inside the shop
- The products and packages on offer – the specials board
- The waiter/waitress or the sales person special customer greeting
- Their telephone manner
- Their attitude, the overall design and the look and feel of the shop
- The merchandising!
- Should we go on?
When it comes to the online world, all they have is a website which, to me, is more like an expensive brochure, with a closed door….or in this case, let’s call it a “contact us” form.
The truth of the matter is that this is not enough anymore. The competition online is fierce, and you can’t afford to blend in.
The audience that searches for information online is typically time poor and also overwhelmed with a lot of information. Big hello to social media – thanks for distracting our visitors!
So the issue is how do you get the attention you deserve when your visitors have short attention spans?
This is simple –
You must focus on your message first
Trust me this is soo easy to say, but very hard to do. The hardest thing about this is knowing where to start. I’ve hired coaches in the past who have helped me understand what my focus should be, because I always seem to ignore what’s in front of me.
Being clear on your message is the first and foremost thing anyone should do before they think about attracting visitors online and well before investing in SEO or social media campaigns.
Be clear on your message. Your point of view. Plain and simple.
The next important thing to follow from here is the design of your sales funnel:
- What do you want it to look like? Colours/Font/Communication style?
- Can you map out your customer’s’ journey on a napkin?
- What does your Opt-In or lead magnet look like?
- How about an email sequence? You don’t want to spam anyone, so you do need to have a plan.
- What is the frequency of emails – once per week? Per month?
- How about key metrics in your business? Do you track opt-in conversions? Do you know what is the lifetime value of your customer?
Forgive me for being direct here, but I’m really giving you the basics here. This is complicated but it can be easy once you break it down into chunks.
As for the technical set-up, well, that’s a whole different ballgame.
If you’re keen to learn what to look out for when designing your own website, so that you can build the best online sales funnels, you can contact us here.