Sales funnels for online products
When you’re selling products or lower value services online, you’re going to need a lot more people to make all this work worthwhile for you. So you can’t spend that much time per lead.
To handle this type of volume, you’ll need an automated sales funnel. This means creating an email series. This is much more successful than social media, advertising, or Facebook ad retargeting because you already have a relationship with that person through regular email. through letters.
An automated email series is also useful when you’re selling high-value services to people who aren’t on your A list. So you can automate keeping in touch with people who are slightly less likely to buy from you or less likely to buy right now.
Most people I talk to are either completely new to the idea of building an email sales funnel. Or they already use e-mail a little, but send e-mail. newsletters that write just before sending.
Maybe you have a list you’ve already built, or send a regular email newsletter, or have an automated email series. The next part of this article is what I’ve learned the hard way about emailing leads.
The different stages of the sales funnel
Sales Funnel Stage 1 – Welcome!
The first phase of meeting a new leader is important. When you meet someone, you want to understand what you’re doing. And the benefits you bring with the work you do for clients. Especially the benefits.
If I lazily tell you that I’m a business coach, you’ll immediately pigeonhole me. You will picture me in your head with my competitors and business coaches you have met before.
If I tell you that I help people make more money and have more fun by giving them everything they need to run a successful business, that’s a lot more appealing. And that’s what I do, coaching, business advice, programs and books are exactly how I do it.
If you were to meet a gardener, he wouldn’t tell you he was a shoveler, would he? So don’t focus on how you do your job or the tools you use; first tell them about the results people get from working with you.
Here are some thoughts on how to have a hot elevator pitch that you can also use to focus your mind on seeing the benefits and results for your prospects at the beginning of your sales funnel.
And if you’re not sure who you want to attract, here’s a handy guide to developing your customer avatar.
You also want to get familiar with your brand. Make it clear that you are happy to talk to them and interact. And start encouraging interaction and engagement right from the start.
But don’t bombard people with how great you are and all the great things you can do for them. In our dating analogy, this would be like meeting someone at a bar and telling them how great you are in bed. Be friendly, take an interest in them and be helpful.
Asking people questions, getting their feedback, and sending them great content are all part of the process of driving people into your sales pipeline. All these steps bring them closer to the point where they order you to do some work or buy one of your products.
Sales Funnel Stage 2 – Qualify and Segment
We’ve already talked about the A list of premium services. As you take a more hands-on, personalized approach to your sales funnel, you’ll want to qualify your leads in some way. Your criteria might look like this:
- Do they sound curious?
- Were they referred by someone else, especially someone who has sent you high-quality leads in the past?
- Are they right for you? I mean, can you help them in any way?
- Do they have a certain budget to spend?
My confession
I look at a potential client’s website, their LinkedIn profile, and other social media to get an idea of whether they would be a good fit for me.
Partly this is to judge if I can help them and partly it’s just research to learn more about their business before talking to them.
But one time I had very little information about a new customer, but I could see his home address. I googled this and found out via Zoopla that his house is worth about a million so I made sure I made a special effort to talk to him.
When you’re working on an automated sales funnel online or just bringing in new leads through your website, you often don’t get a lot of information to qualify people and see which ones are more targeted for you.
It can be tempting to send everyone the same exhortations and nurturing emails. And there is nothing wrong with this at all. If you are just starting out, it is much better to start building your list and communicating with potential people.
Don’t make your sales funnel too complicated
It’s tempting to overcomplicate your sales funnel too early, then never get around to completing it, and so you end up talking to no one.
Don’t try to run before you can walk. just write six good emails with useful, engaging content and send them every two weeks to people who join your list.
That gives you 12 weeks to write a few more emails and delve into a more sophisticated approach.
Below is more information on how to write those emails and get your list of lovely new people early on.
You can qualify people even if you’ve never actually spoken to them and only have their email addresses just by seeing if they read your emails. This corresponds to “do they seem interested?” the above criteria.
I use Drip email to send automated emails. Drip was my upgrade from MailChimp, which is good for a series of emails.
In Drip, I can see who reads my emails the most, who is most likely to buy something from me. And who might it be good to send more engaging content so I can engage them more?
Sales Funnel Stage 3 – Make Friends
Remember, this isn’t just about talking about yourself and what you sell. We want to make friends so the people you love on your list love you, trust you, and come to you first when they’re ready to buy.
When you think about how people shop, they always make emotional decisions. Sure, we tell ourselves we’ve made a rational decision about which video hosting software or new shoes to buy, but we’re human. And human behavior is not rational.
Your potential customers are much more likely to buy from you if they think well of you. If they regularly hear from you interesting, useful content, written in a friendly approachable way, they are much more likely to buy from you and recommend you to their friends.
And if they regularly click on your website, take a quiz or survey, or email you because you asked for their opinion on something, they’re much more likely to buy from you.
You probably send interesting snippets to your friends and family. A friend can tell me.
“Hey Julia, here’s a website with easy vegetarian Japanese food recipes you might like…”
Because they know I’m trying to learn how to cook Japanese food. Or they’ve tested my experiments so far and desperately want me to get better at it.
“Hey Julia, here’s a report on how pension funds are forcing companies they own shares to be more environmentally conscious.”
This is a real one that someone sent me yesterday because they know I’m interested in business, economics and green politics.
Think of your potential customers as your friends and send them content they will find useful.