How to Create and Optimize Your Marketing Funnel
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Your marketing funnel is another name for the path that people take from being a visitor to your site, to being a prospective customer and then a customer. If you have been in business for any length of time and you have sold goods and services then you have a marketing funnel. The purpose of this article is to give you some ideas for refining and optimizing that process so that you can be very intentional about how you move people through the funnel and then retain them as loyal, satisfied customers.
We use a funnel as a visual metaphor because large number of leads goes into the wide part at the top, and a smaller number of those leads comes out the other end as paying customers. But it's not always a smooth process. You can have a lot of website traffic that sends lots of people into the funnel, but not enough of them are converting to leads and then to sales. You could also have the challenge of not having enough traffic to send people through the funnel. Regardless of what is going on now, let's look at some ways that you can optimize the process.
How are you creating the prospects that go into the top of your funnel? What current marketing campaigns are yielding visitors that are qualified enough to move through the funnel? Document these efforts and come up with a way to identify how customers move through this process according to how your business operates.
Beginning at the top, you want to touch your prospective customers as soon as you can and start building rapport, and increasing that all-important, "know, like and trust," factor. This can be accomplished through email, social media, phone calls or even in person.
Set up mechanisms for monitoring how your prospects are moving through the funnel and try to pin-point potential areas where they could get stuck. What are some of the key ways you are measuring conversions? How effective are your lead generation offers? When people subscribe to your email list do they stay long or do they take the free offers and then un-subscribe?
The ultimate goal in all of this is to create a system for ushering your visitors through the process of becoming a customer, and then encouraging your customers to become repeat customers. It's important to make sure that your products and services are designed to serve your audience at the various stages of their maturity through the sales cycle. You might have a lower-priced introductory product, and then a series of more advanced or more expensive products that you can offer to your customers.
Keep a system in place to continue to nurture prospects that might take a longer time than you expect to move through your funnel. When they have had enough exposure to your brand, when they see you as a trusted, subject matter expert, or simply when the time is right for them to make a purchase they will feel completely comfortable buying from you.
Do you want to learn more about how to grow your online business? Visit http://www.mcreasite.com/blog where you will discover lots of resources about Internet marketing and affiliate marketing today.
We use a funnel as a visual metaphor because large number of leads goes into the wide part at the top, and a smaller number of those leads comes out the other end as paying customers. But it's not always a smooth process. You can have a lot of website traffic that sends lots of people into the funnel, but not enough of them are converting to leads and then to sales. You could also have the challenge of not having enough traffic to send people through the funnel. Regardless of what is going on now, let's look at some ways that you can optimize the process.
How are you creating the prospects that go into the top of your funnel? What current marketing campaigns are yielding visitors that are qualified enough to move through the funnel? Document these efforts and come up with a way to identify how customers move through this process according to how your business operates.
Beginning at the top, you want to touch your prospective customers as soon as you can and start building rapport, and increasing that all-important, "know, like and trust," factor. This can be accomplished through email, social media, phone calls or even in person.
Set up mechanisms for monitoring how your prospects are moving through the funnel and try to pin-point potential areas where they could get stuck. What are some of the key ways you are measuring conversions? How effective are your lead generation offers? When people subscribe to your email list do they stay long or do they take the free offers and then un-subscribe?
The ultimate goal in all of this is to create a system for ushering your visitors through the process of becoming a customer, and then encouraging your customers to become repeat customers. It's important to make sure that your products and services are designed to serve your audience at the various stages of their maturity through the sales cycle. You might have a lower-priced introductory product, and then a series of more advanced or more expensive products that you can offer to your customers.
Keep a system in place to continue to nurture prospects that might take a longer time than you expect to move through your funnel. When they have had enough exposure to your brand, when they see you as a trusted, subject matter expert, or simply when the time is right for them to make a purchase they will feel completely comfortable buying from you.
Do you want to learn more about how to grow your online business? Visit http://www.mcreasite.com/blog where you will discover lots of resources about Internet marketing and affiliate marketing today.