Understanding sales funnels: A beginner's guide

If you're selling something you most likely have a sales funnel. Whether you actively created one or if it happened organically, everyone has a sales funnel of some sorts.

In today's episode I'm going to talk about sales funnels and break it down step-by-step for you. You'll walk away with knowing what sales funnel is and how to create one that converts for you business.

Let's dive in

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Transcript

Welcome to the new School of Marketing podcast, the place for smart, simple strategies that will amplify your business results. Sharing practical tips, insider knowledge, and actionable advice. Because marketing is something that every business owner can do. Now, let's get started. Introducing your host, Bianca McKenzie, mum, lover of snow sports, camping, horse riding, and in demand launch strategist and Facebook advertising Knowledge bank.

Hey, welcome back to the new School of Marketing podcast. I'm excited that you're here. Thank you so much for tuning in. And before I dive into this episode, I would love to pay my respect and acknowledgement to the Palawa people of Lutruwita who are the traditional owners of the land on which my business operates. I pay my respect to the eldest past and present. Wow. We just started school holidays, which is always a whole funny rollercoaster in the world of being a business owner on one side. Amazing that. Yeah, I'm in charge of my schedule and I don't have to ask anyone for time off so I can do things with my little girl on the other side. She kind of gets bored at home. So she actually still goes to the school holiday program, not, you know, five days a week like she would go to school, but yes, she does still go to a holiday program just because she has more to do there and more stimulation. But I do like our mother daughter dates that we get on the days that she doesn't go. And we don't get many of those days because, yeah, with her little brother in the mix as well, most of the time when she's home, he's home, too. And, yeah, like, there's two kids. I've kind of reserved some days for her and me just to do things together, which is just really nice. Really. And I'm so mega proud of her. She's just had her dance concert, her mid year dance concert. And if I look back at when she started dancing, wow, she's come in leaps and bounds. Like, she was a little bit, I hate to say it, but a little bit ago, the first few times. Yeah, she's just like, oh, she's just stepped up so much and loving it. So, yeah, I love it. It's great. Anyway, I want to talk about sales funnels, and before you're, like, saying, this is not for me, I'm out of here, or let your eyes glaze over, it's both interesting and necessary. Even if you're not selling courses, you, in a way, have a sales funnel. So let's just have a look at it. I'm going to break it all down for you. So if you are new to it or if you're kind of like, oh, don't worry, I'm going to break it down step by step. At the end of this episode, you'll have a total clear understanding of what a sales funnel is, how to create one, and how to create one that converts for you. So let's get started. Now, when I first, so I studied marketing, and yes, we were introduced to the concept of sales funnels. But you kind of think about it like, oh, that's for, like, big businesses, and it's not something that I will be doing, but actually, no. Every single person who has a business, in a way, has a sales funnel. Whether they actively create one or whether they organically let one happen, every single person, every single business has a sales funnel. And when I first started, I was like, oh, man. It's like, it sounds so complex and maybe a bit overwhelming, but really, once you get the basics of it and you start implementing it, and, like, you might already have one organically that you haven't constructed. Like, you haven't thought about it, but it is right there. You have one. But once you actually create one and construct one and think about it, you can see so much improvement in your sales process. So let's dive in. First things first. What exactly is a sales funnel? Because, you know, it's not the most sexy wording, is it? In essence, a sales funnel is a step by step process that guides your potential customer from the moment that they learn about your business to the point where they make a purchase. And the reason it's called a funnel, because it kind of, if you look at it on paper, it looks like a funnel. It is wide at the top. And that's where, you know, many potential customers go into the funnel. I know they're still people. Sometimes I picture them sliding down, but, yeah, like, it's wide at the top with lots of potential customers going in, and then it narrows down at the bottom to the ones who actually make a purchase. Not everyone's gonna make a purchase from you. Like, it's. That's just, you know, nature of the beast. That's what happens. So really, it is like a real funnel, like lots in at the top and a little bit out at the bottom. Now, a typical sales funnel has four stages. It has the first stage, which is awareness, the next stage, which is interest. Then the next stage is decision. And then number four stage is action. So awareness, interest, decision, action. And each of those stages plays a crucial role in converting someone from getting to know you to becoming an actual customer. So look at this. Let's look at these stages. So the first stage is awareness. And this is where potential customers first learn about your product or your service or your business. And your goal at this stage is to, in a way, capture their attention and make them aware of your brand because they're not aware. It's the awareness stage. They, they won't know about your business, they won't know about what you offer, they won't know about how you can potentially solve a problem for them. Now, to attract potential customers at this stage, there's a number of strategies that you can use and I'm going to walk through those. So to create awareness, you can use content marketing and that could be in the form of blogs, videos, social media, podcasts. So content that provides value and introduces your brand. So this is not at the problem solving stage, this is awareness. So introducing your business to people. Another one is SEO. So you can optimize that content that you're creating so that it actually appears in certain search engines like Google when people are actually looking for relevant information. So if you're creating content for a blog, think about how someone might be searching for that specific content and you try to use words that will come up in those search results. Like, look, I'm not an SEO expert, I will pop some links in the show notes that you can look at for, you know, if you wanted to do SEO. So SEO, another one is paid advertising. So you can actually run ads on platforms like Google, Facebook, Instagram to get in front of a broader audience. One little thing to say here, Google and Facebook ads are very different in the way they work. So Google Ads work on search intent. So people should already have some sort of awareness around a solution that they're looking for, but they don't know that your brand offers that solution. Whereas on Facebook and Instagram, you can get in front of people that might not even be problem aware, but they might be interested in your solution once they become problem aware. So they have two different places. So that's awareness stage. You can use content marketing, SEO, paid advertising to kind of create that awareness. The next stage is the interest stage. So once you've actually got their attention, you move on to this next stage and this is where potential customers are interested in learning more about your product or service. So now they, they know that they have a problem potentially. Like they're aware, now they're into that next stage. Like, okay, well, who's got the solution? And your business is one of those that might have a solution. So to engage customers, potential customers at this stage, you might want to consider things like email marketing. So you can offer a free resource or a low cost resource, like an e book or a webinar, or like a, like a small training, and you get their details, their email address, and then you can send them further content, a mixture of like informative content, as well as like building that relationship and nurturing that relationship with them. The other piece is social media engagement. So, interacting with your audience on social media, answering questions, providing valuable content still and insight. But like this is that next stage. So in a way, your social media content needs to touch on all four of these stages. So you need to create specific content that addresses each of those stages. There will be people that are at the awareness stage, interest stage, decision stage, and then action stage, and your content should be addressing each one of these stages. So social media engagement is another one. If you're using paid ads, using retargeting ads is really good. So show ads to people who have visited your website or engaged with your content, but they haven't yet taken the next step and they might be ready to take the next step. So having that next step option in your ads, that is like a really good idea. You've already spent money or time to get them aware. Now you want them to move to the next step. And that next step is the decision stage. And in the decision stage, your potential customers are considering whether to make a purchase and they might be comparing your products with other products. They'll be reading reviews, they'll be looking for testimonials. So to help them make a decision, you can provide detailed information. So you might want to offer a comprehensive guide. If you offer services like you might like, you know, want to have a user's guide or like just some more information, you can offer case studies, like, you know, what kind of results have other people gotten from working with you using faqs that really talk about the common concerns that someone might have. So it's like, it's that next step. Like more information. You definitely want to have this on like a potential sales page. If you're working with a sales page, you want to show social proof. So having testimonials reviews success stories, that's like a trust piece and that will help people make a decision. If they see that, like there's thousands or like, you know, or even a handful of really good testimonials of people explaining what results they got from working with you, that really helps that decision making. You can also offer incentives. So if you're doing a launch, you can have like limited time discounts. It can help someone make a decision. Right now, you can offer a free trial and again, put a timeline on that because people do need a little bit of an incentive, whether that is a money incentive, a time incentive, you can encourage them with bonuses to choose your brand. Like if they buy before x date, get a certain bonus. So sometimes people feel like some incentives can feel not genuine. But trust me, we all need a little bit of a nudge. And sometimes an incentive can just be that nudge because some of us, we might know that we need that specific product or service. But if there's no need, no real need to buy it right now, we will keep putting it off. So incentives can really help. So that's the decision stage. Then the next stage is the action stage. So the final stage is the action stage. And this is where the potential customer makes a purchase, right. They've gone through the awareness interest decision and now they've decided your business is the one that they want to buy from. So they're going to take the next step. And your goal in this next step is to make the process as smooth and as easy as possible. And to do that, you can what one, simplify the checkout process. Make sure that your checkout process is straightforward, minimal steps, clear instructions. If you're gonna make people go through hoops, they are going to just leave it. I use the example once. I can't even remember what I was buying, but I was trying to buy something. And I swear I went through five steps to actually get to the final checkout because every single time I went to the next step, it was, oh, do you want to buy this as well? I'm like, no, I just want to buy this one thing. Stop showing me all these other things. I persisted because, one, as a marketer, I was curious what they were doing and how many extra hoops and steps I was going to get. Two, I wanted that one product, the one that I put in my cart, and not these five other ones that they showed me. But I was, because I'm a marketer, I was interested to see the process. But oh my goodness, it drove me crazy. So make it easy and make it straightforward. Another one is offer multiple payment options. So providing a number of payment methods can really help people's preferences. Some people don't really want to reach for their credit card because it's like in the other room and they have to go and get it, blah, blah, blah, payPal, super easy stripe, but people like different options. So give them different options and another one. And it's like, I know this is going to sound very simple, but follow up. Send a confirmation email and consider some follow up emails to say thank you and also to give them additional support and related products. Like, there's nothing worse than buying something and getting zero. At a minimum, you want to get an order confirmation, right? But having an automated process in place that welcomes people, especially when you're selling online courses, people need to know where to go to watch their videos, how to log in, how they can get in touch with you if stuff is not working, because sometimes it just like, it isn't. So send a confirmation email and follow up with some emails to say thank you and how what the next steps are. So, sounds simple, but do it. So putting it all together. So each stage of the sales funnel is crucial. And they all work together to basically guide a potential customer from not knowing you or not being aware at all to making a purchase. And by understanding each of these stages, you can create more of a seamless and effective sales funnel. And like I said, you might already have a sales funnel that's kind of like organically happened. But sit down and look at each of these stages and how you can potentially support that even more. So that is a, so that it is a better experience for your potential customer as well as a better experience for your customer. So like imagine if you're selling an online course. So at the awareness stage, you might attract people with a blog post about a relevant topic. And then at the interest stage, you offer a free webinar. So someone is like getting deeper into your network, like reading a blog post, pretty like easy to do, right? It's there, they can read it. But the next step, like, because they might be interested in what you have to offer. The next step, having a webinar, that's more commitment from them to sit through a webinar or even a video, that's more commitment. So they're like, they're taking that next step and then they might be getting to a decision stage. At that decision stage, you have a sales page that really paints the picture of where they're at now, where they're going to be at when they work with you and have testimonials on that sales page. Really like map it all out, address faqs, give a limited time discount, like, so people actually have a bit of an incentive to get it right now. And then finally at the action stage, you get, you give them a smooth checkout process. And you follow up with a thank you email and an email to say, here's your. This is how you log in. This is when the calls are like, if you have it in your platform, like I do, you, like I tell people, go into the platform, this is where you go. You can find out how to book one on one calls with me for the program. You'll find the calendar there for the group calls. So like, make that. Give them each of those steps. And, like, it sounds so simple when you put it down like that. But you want to, in a way, be the architect of your sales funnel and work out how someone is going from discovering you to trusting you enough to give them their money and then being happy with that process. Like, don't forget that action stage where you actually onboard them and show them love because they've given you their money. And at the top stage, the awareness stage, even this, like when you build this out, this is a sales funnel. And not only the people that go into the funnel are in a funnel, but in a way, the process is a funnel because at the top you have all of these content pieces, all of the attraction pieces. And that would be like, could be like a ton of content, like social media content, blogs, podcasts, interviews. That could be like a whole library of a lot of free content. And then it gets narrowed down because the next might be like one piece of content, like a webinar that they watch. And then, you know, they go down and get funneled down to trusting you enough to buy from you. So to recap, a sales funnel guides potential customers from awareness all the way through to action. So you want to focus on creating valuable content. You want to focus on engaging with your audience, giving them detailed information, and then making the process to purchase from you as easy as possible. So how can you do this yourself? Well, start building your own sales funnel. You can start today. You know, piece of paper, bag of a napkin. Lots of things happen. Good things happen from that. So start mapping out each stage and then implementing the strategies that I talked about. And I'd love to know your process. I'd love to hear about your successes and maybe challenges that you are coming across. So feel free to reach out on DM's, on Instagram or send me an email. I would love to hear about this. And if you have questions, reach out. I'm always here to answer. All right, thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the new School of Marketing podcast. As always, I hope it was helpful. And I can't wait to share more marketing tips with you next week. Now, if you are ready to take your business to the next level with Facebook and Instagram advertising, make sure that you visit newschoolofmarketing.com where you can download practical, free resources and subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. I can't wait to go on this journey with you. Until next time, take care and don't forget, market your business every day.