Sales Funnel Series: How to Increase Conversion Rate Across Your Sales Funnel
The sales funnel is an essential digital marketing model that helps businesses better understand the buyer’s journey. If you want to increase sales, you’ll need to focus on increasing the conversion rate across the sales funnel. But first you need to understand each stage in the sales funnel and what consumers need to get them to the next step. Below, we’ll investigate what happens during each stage of the sales conversion funnel and discuss how to optimize your campaigns for maximum conversions each step of the way.
What is a Sales Funnel?The sales funnel is a digital marketing tool that helps marketers visualize the process buyers go through as they make a purchasing decision. Much like any other type of funnel, the sales conversion funnel is wider at the top and tapers down. That’s because at the top of the funnel, you have prospects with all levels of engagement and the number of prospects starts to decrease as less qualified prospects stop engaging with your brand throughout their buyer’s journey.
ales Conversion Funnel Stage 1 - AwarenessThe awareness stage is when consumers start their buyer’s journey. This is when they first become aware that they have a problem or challenge that they want to solve. They may enter your brand’s funnel through a variety of different channels like search engines or social media or may encounter your brand through different assets including email newsletters, e-books, blogs, online quizzes, and more.
At this stage of the funnel, consumers don’t know what they need yet. They may not even be able to give voice to their problems or concerns. They just know that they face certain challenges that they need help with. During this stage in the funnel, you are building content that helps draw these consumers in and better understand their needs and challenges. Rather than telling consumers about your products, you’re educating them about their unique challenges.
Sales Conversion Funnel Stage 2 - InterestThe interest stage of the sales conversion funnel is when prospects start to demonstrate interest in a product or solution. Research becomes an important part of this stage for most consumers. Now that they are educated about their challenges and aware of potential solutions, they will now take the time to research and consider which products or solutions might be right for them.
At this stage, consumers know what they are looking for. It’s just a matter of learning more about their options. To appeal to consumers in this stage, you will need to build content that helps consumers relate to your brand and understand your products. Your business has the opportunity to position your brand in a number of different ways that help you get the attention of your target audience
Sales Conversion Funnel Stage 3 - DecisionThe decision stage is just that – the time when consumers make a decision on which product or solution they will purchase. Getting prospective customers to make a decision isn’t easy. No matter what industry you are in, there will always be competition. And the online marketplace makes it easy for consumers to gain access to a variety of options. Your goal during this stage is to make an effort to convince consumers that your product or service is the best option.