Why does your business need a sales funnel?
It may seem obvious, but often a business will forget the fact that the only way to make money is to get customers to buy. And the best way to get customers to buy is to have an effective sales funnel.
A sales funnel is a set of steps in which you guide a potential customer through a series of communications that result in them buying from you.
But what happens after that first sale is made? Existing customers are the people who are most likely to buy back from you.
How does a sales funnel work?
At the top of the funnel, offer something for free in exchange for getting a potential customer’s contact information. It can be a report, a checklist, a video, or an e-book. Then you start marketing, following up with emails and other communications to try and make a sale.
Throughout your sales funnel process, you should have multiple offers that complement each other. For example, before you buy a car, try it for free. If you like the car and buy it, the seller doesn’t just hand you the keys and then disappear. You are offered extended auto warranties, upgrades like upholstery and wheel options.
After a couple of months, the salesperson will contact you to see if you are satisfied with your new car and inform you of a discount or a sale, and the sales process goes on and on.
How many levels in the sales funnel process?
As you can see from the example above, there can be many different levels in a sales funnel. A one-level funnel is where after a customer buys from you, you move on to the next prospect.
But this is a critical mistake.
It costs 6 to 7 times more to get a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. It makes sense to sell to someone who has already bought one of your products, rather than trying to convince new people to buy your services. An existing customer already knows you and your business. If they ever received great value from you, they will be more prepared to spend money with you again, rather than someone who has never heard of you.
There is no “ideal number” of sales funnel levels. Every business, product and service is different. Just be sure to continually provide your prospects and customers with opportunities to improve their lives or solve their problems with future purchases from you.