A sales funnel is the path your leads take from when they first become aware of your brand until they become a customer. The idea of a sales funnel is quite simple but in order to get a solid ROI, you need to know what you’re doing.

Whether you’re selling an inexpensive pair of shoes or a very expensive software package, the consumers will take a similar journey. They will need information, reassurance, and nurturing to get them from the top of your funnel, where they discover your brand, to the bottom of your funnel, where they ultimately make a purchase.

The Difference Between Inbound and Outbound Marketing

Let’s say our friend, Larry has a digital software product that he spent the last 2 years building and perfecting. Now it’s time to get some customers to buy his product.

Larry decides to hire 8 sales people to start cold calling people off of a lead list he bought online. The sales people have no idea if the people on this list are in the market for this software or even have a need for it. They close less than 1% of their sales because they haven’t qualified any of their leads.

This is outbound marketing.

Stella, on the other hand, has also created a digital software product but uses an inbound marketing strategy to propel her business into the stratosphere.

First, Stella uses SEO optimized content on her website’s blog to generate organic search traffic. She also writes a guest blog post for a popular digital industry website where she discusses problems facing the industry as a whole. She doesn’t write about her product. Stella also joins some specific groups on Facebook where she can offer value to people who could become leads for her.

She also sets up some PPC ads for Facebook targeting people who belong to these groups or groups like them.

This is inbound marketing.

Inbound marketing is all about drawing people to your brand by constantly offering value. Outbound marketing is a volume game in which you try to find people who might be interested in your offer.

Technically, there's no such thing as the perfect marketing funnel. There are so many different combinations and different types of businesses that no one approach is perfect.

One important thing to understand is the process the consumer goes through before making a purchase, whether it’s a $20 pair of shoes or a $20,000 software program.

Making people aware of your brand is one of the hardest parts of marketing your business. By building a structured, engaging marketing funnel, you can drive prospects into your funnel and convert them to customers with ease.

There are many ways to get prospects to the top of your funnel:

Blogs and Articles

The key to succeeding with blog posts is SEO. When writing content, write for the person who will read every word, the person who will skim the article, and Google.

Here’s the basics for you to be successful with SEO:

Social Media

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest are great ways to generate brand awareness. Establish pages for your business and post to them regularly.

Video

In the last few years, video has taken over the top spot as the most used method in content marketing. Brand storytelling and promotional videos are a great way to communicate your message to prospects.

Email Marketing

If you have/or are building an email list, email marketing is very effective. Reach out to those on your list, introduce yourself and your business, and explain your offer.

I've written an article about the importance of email list in your business. Read it here...

PPC

Pay per click is advertising on Google or social media. You can direct the ads to people who would be most likely to be interested in your product and you can set an amount you can afford for advertising everyday.

The middle of the funnel is for building interest and making your product desirable to the prospect. If he/she likes what they see at the top of your funnel, they become a qualified/warm lead. This means that they are interested in learning more, but maybe aren’t quite ready to make a purchase.

There are many different strategies you can use to further educate prospects on your offer.

Case Studies

A case study is the story of a customer’s experience with your product. Case studies are a way for you to explain to your leads how another customer, with similar pain points, used your product to solve their problems.

Product Comparisons

Product comparisons are where you show prospects how your product stacks up against the competition. Be sure to be as accurate as possible and avoid misleading customers.

Drip Email Campaign

A really good, well-written drip email campaign is a rock star in the funnel content world. Once you get a prospects email address, you connect it with a drip sequence and each email gets automatically sent. They can go out every day, once a week, once a month, or whatever time frame you choose.

White Papers

White papers are a staple in the marketing world. A white paper is a report or guide that informs readers about a product, service, or issue. It’s meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision.

Webinars

Webinars are such a great tool for this stage of the funnel. They can be live or pre-recorded. They are a fantastic way to increase engagement and because they are in video format, they feel more personal than an email or white paper.

The bottom of the funnel is for action. It’s time to pull the trigger and get the sale. This is your chance to provide leads with information specific to their needs to help them make the decision to buy. Avoid being too pushy or salesy.

Free Trials

A free trial basically allows the lead to use the product for free for a predetermined amount of time. Long enough for them to use it, fall in love with it, and want it permanently.

Product Demonstrations

Depending on your product, demonstrations can be a great way to showcase what you have to offer. If you have a sales team, they can actually get in touch with the prospect and do a live demonstration (in person or on a conference call, etc). Or you can send out a prerecorded video.

Email Campaigns

Once again, you’ll find email campaigns taking on the tasks of the bottom of the funnel. Email campaigns are so versatile and easy to implement and they work great at every level of the funnel.

Post Purchase

Even after the lead has converted and made the purchase, the nurturing needs to continue. Be sure and have a welcoming onboarding process so they are confident in their decision to buy.

Qualifying a lead is the process of figuring out whether a prospect meets the criteria to purchase your product or service. Qualifying a lead helps you avoid spending time and money pursuing a lead who isn't going to buy your product.

MQL and SQL

There are different types of qualified leads and different ways of determining if they are qualified.

A market-qualified lead is a prospect who has reached a certain level of engagement that suggests they are more likely to become a customer than other leads based on certain intelligence you’ve collected.

A sales-qualified lead is a prospect that the sales team has determined is ready to make a purchase. The SQL is in the purchasing cycle while the MQL has not quite reached the buying stage yet.

Once you’ve created your funnel and determined how prospects will interact with it, you need to figure out which metrics you’ll use to track your results. You can build the greatest marketing funnel of all time but if you’re not monitoring how well it’s functioning, it’s not really worth much.

Some metrics to track include:

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind as you start building your funnel.

Copywriting

Copywriting is simply the words, written in a way to cause a person reading to take action - preferably the action you, the writer, want. Once you build your funnel and start tracking your metrics, try hiring someone else to write an email sequence or landing page to see if it makes a difference. This is often referred to as an A/B test. Money used for hiring a copywriter can be money well spent.

When you start writing copy for your business, it’s important to create a brand voice. That’s the overall tone of your writing and it represents the character and tone of your business.

You should always start your writing process with knowing who you’re marketing to.

Always remember in copywriting that it’s not about YOU, the writer.

It’s about THEM, the customer. Above all else, consumers today are looking for authenticity and something they can easily read on their phone.

Every piece of content in your funnel needs to have a call to action.

Giving Value to Potential Leads

You may struggle with this concept because it feels a little counter productive. Sometimes, you’re going to give information away to leads for free. This is a really useful strategy that builds trust and rapport with prospects.

Be prepared to give away free content in your funnel. Ebooks, webinars, and white papers are examples of content that may cost you some time/money to create but are well worth the return in sales.

Nurturing Leads

Probably the most important thing you can invest in is nurturing your leads. Always strive to figure out what the lead needs to be able to move to the next stage of your funnel.

Retargeting

Some customers will drop out of your funnel, that’s just a fact of marketing. You may be able to figure out why they dropped out with your metric information and then make changes to your funnel to stop more people from dropping out.

But what about the ones you lost?

This is an opportunity to create another stage in your funnel, a retargeting stage. Retargeting monitors your prospects behavior and keeps sending them back to your content which will make your conversions even higher.