A website isn't enough anymore… Having a website won’t get your sales up, unfortunately. You need a tool to canalize your potential customers through a funnel to lead them to your service/product.

But…

What exactly IS a sales funnel?

Imagine a real life funnel. The traffic you get is being poured down this funnel. However, in this scenario, not all who is poured down the funnel will come out in the end. It is more of a journey of the prospects that may or may not become customers.

OK… So, how do I build one?

With the help of template based platforms, building a funnel became very easy, true. But there are some important points to consider before you go ahead and build it.

1) Choose your platform

There are many build-a-funnel platforms, like Woo, ClickFunnels, SquareSpace, Shopify… Some aspects are slightly different between these platforms. Some of them add costs, some of them require coding for customization, some of them have better community understanding than others etc.

You can find detailed information on these platforms, and what to look for here:

http://blog.12sm.co/best-ecommerce-website-builder-2018

It doesn't really matter what platform you go with. My only suggestion would be choosing one that you feel comfortable working with. In the end, the platform won't matter as much as how you build your funnel.

2) What's the goal?

You have to determine your goal very clearly beforehand. If you don't know what you are shifting the traffic to, then your potential customers will be lost within the journey. Do you need this funnel for sales? Or opt-ins? Do you need to get more members, or do you have physical products that you are trying to sell? All these questions affect the way you build your customer's journey, and the ideal path to a full conversion.

3) Lay the foundation for your customer journey

Creating your funnel won't be sufficient if you don't give your traffic a map. When you start building your funnel, you have to be two, maybe even three steps ahead of your customers. Remember, it is wise to have a map for yourself so you can guide your customers towards the end of your funnel. If you leave them wandering around, you won't be able to get as many conversions. There are, of course, apps for these. There is one website we use in the agency to create these diagrams.

It's called: Funnelytics (https://app.funnelytics.io/)

It is so much easier to see how your funnel is functioning, what are the things that work, and what are the things that are not working in your strategy. Here is an example of a Funnelytics map from OneBook.

Make sure you know your map before you let your potential customers go through it.

4) Start your build

After you have your platform and goal ready, you can start building your funnel.

First thing you need is a landing page. But not just any landing page… This is the first time your potential customers are meeting your product/service. Your landing page has to be catchy. Take your time while you are designing this page. Make sure it encourages visitors to sign up for an email list so that you have all that important contact information.
Next thing you need is an offer. You literally have to be upfront about it. This is called "front-end offer". It presents an opportunity to your potential customers to buy your product, or become a member.
Once your offer is done, you should give an upsell on the back end of your funnel. This is an opportunity for those who have just bought, or about to buy your product/service from you to upgrade. In other words, you are offering the main course instead of the appetizer now. And naturally, the upsell offer is something that is more valuable than your regular front end offer.
You can also help your potential buyers to downgrade. It is not a loss in the sales considering they will get something cheaper from you than nothing at all.
And lastly, you have to keep this going. You have to engage with them, give them new deals and services as they go through their journey within the funnel.

5) Drive traffic

There are millions of different ways to drive traffic to your funnel, and/or to your website. How you bring your target audience to you has a couple crucial points, such as being present on the same platform as your audience (if they are mainly on Facebook, then your presence should be mainly on Facebook), or making sure your ads match your funnel. But in the most general sense, traffic is divided into ‘paid’ and ‘organic’. Paid traffic is mainly Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads… Any ads that you pay for to appear in front of a certain target audience, which will create awareness. Organic traffic, on the contrary, is basically word of mouth. This can be created with blogging, having a social media presence, and with SEOs.

Conclusion

The most important thing in creating your funnel is 'what happens' when potential customers actually arrive. Remember, your goal is to solve their problem. Once you know the problem, you build the path that leads to the solution, and voila! Getting to this stage takes hard work. You create awareness, you get their interest, you help them make up their mind and decide to buy your service/product, and retarget them. Building a strong sales funnel can change the fate of your business. Don't take shortcuts, or skip the steps. Make sure you take every step right, and it will pay off.