The sales funnel is one of the core concepts in the realm of digital marketing. It’s something you’ve probably heard multiple times already, but one that might still sound too confusing and complicated. That’s the nature of sales funnels, but build them right and you get the opportunity to turn your business from virtually unknown into an automated selling machine. Reeve Yew has built a career around building and implementing sales funnels, and there’s nobody better than him to explain how it all works.
Understanding the Basics
Think of a sales funnel as a real-world funnel. At the top, you can pour in a substance and expect the same substance to reemerge from the other end. In sales, however, things work a little differently. Your sales funnel essentially serves as a filtration system. You want a lot of people to enter your sales funnel and then filter out those who may not be interested in what you have to offer. Those who reemerge from the other end have a better shot at converting into actual customers.
According to Reeve Yew, co-founder of Funnel Duo Media, sales funnels consist of multiple steps, each of which needs to work in cohesion in order to move prospective customers into buyers. Several things need to happen from the time a prospect gets acquainted with a product to the time he finally decides to complete a purchase.
How Traffic Generation Impacts the Success of Sales Funnels
Reeve goes on to explain that the way in which you generate prospective customers ultimately impacts the effectiveness of your sales funnels. For instance, you can attract more site visitors through email marketing campaigns, offering e-books or discounts, and leveraging the power of social media. In Reeve’s case, he has used social media with plenty of success in the past. During his early attempts at online marketing, he used a growth strategy on Facebook and Instagram to amass thousands of followers in a short period, which helped raise awareness about his new website and gradually earn the trust of his visitors.
This isn’t to say that social media traffic converts at a higher rate than other traffic sources. Reeve initially struggled to increase his conversions. This problem is more commonplace when using social media ads, which may be difficult to target. It isn’t enough to reach as many eyes when launching these ads. And it’s certainly unreasonable to think that prospective customers will blindly open their wallets or enter their credit card information right after seeing your ads.
Reeve says that just as important as increasing awareness among your target audience are getting their interest, helping them decide, and guiding them toward a specific action. If your traffic comes from social media, for example, what’s the next step in your funnel that piques the interest of your visitors? Is your offer compelling enough that those who see it will have an easy time deciding whether to push through with the purchase? Does your sales funnel include a clear and concise call to action so prospective customers know exactly what to do?
Putting Everything Together
According to Reeve Yew, getting answers to these questions form the building blocks of any sales funnel. Any marketer who plans to build out a sales funnel must take these factors into consideration. And once the sales funnel is set in place, you just might see your website turn into a selling machine. From there, it’s all a matter of duplicating the process and making adjustments where necessary, depending on the unique requirements of your business.
Finally, Reeve recommends avoiding hacks or shortcuts before automating the entire process because putting in the time and effort allows you to gain a better understanding of how sales funnels work and what it takes to produce the results you want.
