This article is broken down into five parts.
1. The Customers Journey:
Understanding User Search Intent.
What Are The Five Stages Of A Sales Funnel?
What You Should Know About Leads
2. How Customer Relationship Management will 10X Your Business.
3. Four Advantages Funnels Have Over Websites:
Better Conversion
Better Sales Forecasting
Continuous Customer Engagement
Value For the Money
4. Quick Reference Guide To Avoiding Common Mistakes.
5. Best Sales Funnels Of 2021
Note To Reader;
The Customer Journey
The Customer Journey starting with three kinds of search intent:
Informational Search intent: When users perform this kind of search, they are looking for information such as “how to stay healthy,” and “how to choose the right sports shoes,” etc.
Navigational Search Intent: This is when specific names are searched, “Facebook,” “New York Times,” and “Google Maps New York,” etc., are examples of phrases meant to help users find sites and web pages.
Transactional Search Intent: This is when someone wants to buy a product or particular service. Examples of keyword phrases they might use are “Adidas shoe coupons,” or “Best blenders Amazon,” etc.
Businesses that make the buying process easy for their customers are 62% more likely to win a high-quality sale than their competitors. This is why sales funnels exist – to make that process easier.
Savvy entrepreneurs capture customer interest at every stage, and targeting user search intent is the key.
What Are The Stages Of A Marketing Funnel?
Stage One: Awareness
The awareness stage is the first stage of a marketing funnel. This may be your only opportunity to grab attention with your offer.
At this point, people become aware of their problems and your product because of the solutions our brand offers.
Research shows that 96% of your website visitors are not ready to buy anything from you at this stage. But many of them are happy to give you their contact information in return for informative content.
As a starting offer, many marketers choose to offer a low-dollar item to build trust.
Stage Two: Interest
The interest stage is the second stage of the marketing funnel.
In this stage, people start to understand their problems but still fear making a buying decision without more information.
To appeal to people at the interest stage, you need an emotional hook. People need to feel an emotional connection with your product.
Addresses the chief concerns to show how your product or service helps solve their problems.
Relevant content at the interest stage includes data sheets, comprehensive informational guides and ebooks, email campaigns, and case studies. And considering that 59.3% of marketers find videos to be a more effective tool for driving engagement, you should also use how-to videos within your sales funnel at this stage.
Stage Three: Evaluation
78% of marketers believe that customer engagement occurs in the middle and end stages of the marketing funnel.
This stage provides one of the best chances for engagement and leads conversion. Think of it as the pivot point in the sales process.
During this stage, prospects also research other similar brands. Their goal is to come up with a shortlist based on their predetermined criteria.
Your goal, at this evaluation stage, is to make the buying decision as easy as possible, have great sales copy, answer all the objections before they’re asked; remember a confused mind will always say no. People want to buy at this stage, make sure you don’t give them a reason not to.
Stage Four: Decision
During this phase, your potential customer decides to buy or not.
They will also decide on which pricing packages and payment options to choose. In a traditional sale setting, you could expect them to negotiate for the best deals. With online funnel builders, this feature is built-in.
For potential customers at this phase of the funnel, offering Free Product Trials, bundled discounted packages ( as many Amazon sellers do), and even bonus giveaways to help them decide on your brand. Coupons are also great at giving customers that little push to try your brand.
Stage Five: Sales
The closing stage is one of the most challenging stages of the sales process. And that’s no surprise. People don’t want to part with their hard-earned money. As Russell Brunson likes to say ” You must give customers more value than you’re charging”. And customers will decide if you’ve delivered, or not.
So how do you give away more value without losing money?
More value doesn’t necessarily mean free. Example: If you sell a product that needs assembly you can easily add an inexpensive instructional video on putting it together. Or just make it free.
Adding value is easy when you think in terms of; if I were the customer what would make my life easier? Once you figure out what makes life easier for them, just add it.
Note: But, what if your competitor has better products? In this case, you could point out that people don’t often use their competitor’s advantaged features for one reason or nothing. And in most cases, customers are just paying for benefits they never use. This was exactly what KeySearch.co did going up against the industry leader Ahrefs. KeySearch concentrated on a few things and does them so well. How you may ask? By just making it plain easier to use!
In the example above, make sure you can offer social proof or case studies. You don’t want to put down your competitor’s products directly. Acknowledge them, and move on to the benefits of your own products and how you’ve improved on them in some way.
Five More Ways to Add Value
You should consider:
- Offering installation services
- Live coaching
- Access to an online community as incentives
- Upsells through bundling accessories are also a win-win.
- Email to follow up with the customer offers a personal touch.
Make sure there is good customer support; I don’t care what’s trendy when I have a confusing issue I want a person to talk with.
10X Your Business with Customer Relationship Management
What Is A CRM, And How Will It Reduce Your Workload?
CRM is an acronym for Customer Relationship Management. It usually refers to combining all systems, strategies, and actions that organizations use to manage their relationship with their potential and existing customers.
CRM systems should provide insight into the purchasing behavior of prospects and customers. When salespeople access relevant data, they can shorten the sales cycle by an average of 8-14 %.
So these systems will help you boost your sales and ensure you have repeat customers.
Source: TRUJAY
A good CRM must align with any sales funnel you use. It must provide corresponding relevant information about prospects at every stage until they eventually become customers.
Source: Cratio CRM
One significant difference between CRMs and sales funnels is that the former offers customer-related data behind the scenes. You can use CRMs to identify and score leads, increase your customer base, and improve customer services. They provide a subtle way of marketing while providing information to the sales team.
On the other hand, a sales funnel is a more aggressive model for attracting prospects and converting them into paying customers. Its ultimate goal is revenue generation.
A CRMs and sales funnel usually work together.
You can use a CRM system to stay in contact with prospects and provide them with meaningful content at each buying process stage. In addition, the information that these systems offer in real-time can help sales reps to close deals.
Companies that invest in CRMs experience an ROI of $8.71 for every dollar spent. And some CRMs can improve company sales by up to 29% and forecast accuracy by 42%.
So, if you want to spend less time digging through prospect-related data and more time selling, then you need to incorporate a CRM into your sales funnel.
Many of the funnel builders I listed below offer intigreated CRM in there funnels. I haven’t evaluated each of them
Four Advantages Funnels Have Over Websites
Four Advantages Funnels Have Over Websites
- Better Conversion
- Better Sales Forecasting
- Customer Engagement
- Value for the Money
Every business should consider having a website and a marketing funnel. But what if you are limited to one?
Here’s why you should consider a marketing funnel over a website:
Marketing funnels capture an extensive audience accommodating more prospects at the beginning. You can create awareness of a problem even among people who don’t realize they have it yet. That means you’ll be in a better position to nurture your leads, generating sales later.
Marketing funnels lead to better conversion rates
The average website conversion rate is about 2.5%. But the top-performing sites have conversion rates of 11% or more. And that’s where you need to be, but these are top converting sites with high domain ratings.
With websites, search intent is still a concern. People who visit your website come for different reasons. Some will call to see what your company is about (tire-kicker). And others will visit to see what is on offer. For this reason, it isn’t easy to know where to insert a call-to-action because you never know what stage a lead is in the buyers’ journey.
But, with marketing funnels, this is not the case. Instead, funnels push people in one direction, and that is towards a purchase.
You can insert strategic calls to action at each stage of the funnel.
Marketing funnels allow for better sales forecasting.
Analytical and tracking tools calculate conversion rates to dial in your progress at every stage.
You can quickly tell whether you or your sales team is meeting its quota. And if not, you can take steps to do just that, improving your financial performance.
During the last stage of the sales funnel, you will continue to engage with your customers. Helping them at this stage will instill a level of trust and reassurance.
Customers will know they’re not alone, and you care about their satisfaction.
Why Continuously engaging with customers is everything.
You will need to spend five times as much money to attract a new customer than to keep an old one. So, repeat customers are great for business. You can sell to them more while spending less on marketing.
Value For The Money
Money is always a factor that influences your ability to buy any product or service.
Research shows that 81% of customer engagement is a result of price alone. And 80% of customer engagements are driven by quality.
Therefore, you need to consider whether it gives you good value for your money. Many of these products charge by the month. But the dollar value is not the only thing you should consider.
You need to think about the number of features the software offers at each price point. Are there any hidden fees?
Would you need to pay more to get useful features, and do you need to buy other apps to work in tandem with the leading software?
Sometimes, cheaper is more expensive. So be wary. Find something that provides the best value for your money without charging hidden fees.
Quick Reference; Guide To Avoiding Common Mistakes
What to Look For In Marketing/Sales Funnel Building Software
Does it provide product updates that factor in user feedback?
There is a reason why 90% of customers are influenced by positive feedback when making buying decisions.
You can tell which companies take user feedback seriously based on the company blogs, software updates, and user ratings and reviews.
Ease Of Use
Most funnel builders are drag and drop. But you may have a learning curve. These are the questions I wish I’d asked upfront:
- How easy is the dashboard to work with?
- Is the dashboard navigation fast? Can you move back and forth without lag time?
- Are the buttons/options easy to find and well-marked? Are they intuitive? Or are buttons hidden under many sub-layers? (Which begs the question. How in the heck was anyone supposed to find that?)
- Will you have access to a built-in email autoresponder? If no, then check the ease of compatibility with the brand you pick.
- How quickly can you build landing pages?
- Can you carry out A/B testing? Will you need to pay more for A/B testing?
- Are there readily available templates you can customize, if not, how easy are they to build?
Compatibility With Supporting Software
Sales funnel building software needs to be compatible with any supporting software, like CRM software that you may already be using. It should integrate into existing software seamlessly.
Please do not buy any sales funnel software without researching its compatibility with existing software.
Also, check to see what kind of tech support is offers; this will make integration easy to carry out. Most tech support is by on-screen texting; make sure you or with what is offered before buying. Some companies like Clickfunnels have really upped their game by offering live screen-sharing while you talk on the phone.
Scalability
I found a lot of companies will want to charge more as your company grows. As you acquire more contacts, customers, and employees, what will these additional charges be?
- Can you quickly add sub-domains for employees to handle workflow?
- Is there an additional cost for sub-domains?
- Would you need to get accounts for each person?
- Can you purchase a package that accommodates many team members simultaneously?
Getting this sorted now will save you lots of future headaches.
Content Ownership
You must have guaranteed security and ownership of your content from the outset.
- Who owns the content within your sales funnel software?
- If it’s you, then to what extent do you possess that content?
- Where is it going to be stored?
- Are there backups if you lose your data? And how fast can you get your hands on them?
- What happens if the company that holds your sales funnel software goes out of business?
- Also, find out what happens if the site goes down? Are there redundant servers ready to go with a copy?
The Best Sales Funnels For 2021
The kind of sales funnel-building software that you choose depends on your business needs. Below are some of the best sales funnel building software for 2021:
ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels is a Website, Marketing, and Sales funnel builder integrated into one seamless experience that entrepreneurs can use to grow their businesses.
It has over 110,000 active users who have collectively built 8.49 million sales funnels so far. Along with easy to follow training that gets you up and working fast.
Key Features and benefits
- They have a drag-and-drop style editor with predesigned templates for building funnels.
- Integrations with multiple payment gateways.
- They have 24/7 technical support teams that will answer questions.
- ClickFunnels is backed up by Cloudflare Security and CDN while being hosted by Amazon.
- With Robust CRM
Pricing
- The Basic plan starts at $97 per month.
- The Platinum plan starts at $297 per month. It comes with additional training courses for all things sales funnels.
- If you are still undecided, take the 14-day trial.
GrooveFunnels
GrooveFunnels is one of the fastest-growing funnel-building systems around. It currently has over 100,000 users and projects another 1 million by the end of 2021.
Key Features and benefits
- With a combination of 20 powerful apps in one sales funnel, you can run an online store, keep track of your funnel data, or create membership funnels.
- A robust affiliate platform enables you to make money even if you don’t have anything to sell.
- They have payment integrations with PayPal, Braintree, Stripe, etc.
- Automated email tools make it easier for you to keep track of your prospects.
Pricing
- The Basic plan is free.
- The Silver plan will be $99 per month.
- The Gold plan is $199 per month.
- The Platinum lifetime option will cost you about $299 per month. Each plan gives you additional access to some of the over 20 apps and features that GrooveFunnels offers.
- 30-day money-back guarantee and opt-out.
Ontraport
Ontraport is a suite of tools. It offers CRM, marketing, and sales services to entrepreneurs looking to build effective sales funnels.
Key Features and benefits
- Pages and forms capture comprehensive information about all of your prospects and existing customers.
- CRM platforms enable you to collect data and keep track of your prospects and customers along with sales and marketing.
- Sales teams can access all information in one place, which is quite convenient for everyone.
- Lead scoring and routing tools enable you to determine which prospects are ready to be moved to the next stage to improve your conversion rates.
- Automation capabilities that reduce your workload and help you concentrate on the business of selling. These include task automation tools for relationship management.
- Integration with Google Calendar.
- The drag-and-drop pages and forms make it easier to build web pages.
Pricing
- The Basic plans start at $79 for 1000 contacts.
- The Plus plan starts at $147 per month for 2500 contacts.
- The Pro plan stands at $297 per month for 10,000 contacts.
- The enterprise plan costs $497 per month for up to 20,000 contacts.
- 14-day free trial
If you have more than 20,000 contacts, Ontraport offers customized price plans upon request.
GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel is an all-in-one marketing and sales platform that entrepreneurs can use to create effective sales funnels.
It is best for digital course creation. There are currently over 7000 agencies and 252,000+ businesses using this product for that purpose.
Key Features and benefits
- Seamless integration capabilities that enable GoHighLevel to work with some of your existing software. These include Voicemail Drops, Phone Connect, SMS/MMS, emails, and even Facebook Messenger.
- An intuitive design platform enables you to build sales funnels, websites, and landing pages using the available custom menus.
- The drag-and-drop editors make it easy to do so even if you don’t have a programming background.
- Lead management capabilities that enable you to identify the most amenable prospects and nurture them into customers after closing the deal
- Appointment automation makes it easy for you to reach out to and follow up with your prospects online.
Pricing
- The Basic plan starts at $97 per month.
- The Agency Unlimited Account plan is $297 per month.
- 14-day free trial.
GetResponse
GetResponse started as an autoresponder but has grown into a suite of tools. It is best suited for digital course creators. So, you can use it to build courses and then market them on the same platform.
Key Points and benefits
- Lead generation tools that include email marketing software as well as webinar creation tools.
- Predesigned templates that make it easy for you to deliver content in whatever format that you prefer. It makes it easier for you if you don’t have a graphic design background.
- Dedicated support helps you figure out the system and get answers to your questions.
- Email support available in eight languages in over 180 countries. But the platform as a whole is available in 26 languages.
- Automated sales funnel creation capabilities.
- Landing page creation lets you sell products and recover abandoned orders.
- Autoresponder lets you send out automated emails for lead nurturing and customer follow-ups. You can take advantage of the prebuilt workflows to create marketing campaigns.
- Tracking website visitors and analyzing their behavior. The insight you gain can help you improve the way you market or sell to them.
Pricing
- The Basic plan starts at $10.50 per month.
- The Plus plan costs $34.30 per month.
- The Professional plan is $69.30 per month.
- The Max plan is customized based on your financial needs. There is something for everyone.
- There is a 30-day free trial available. You can cancel at any time, and no credit card is required.
Deadline Funnel
Deadline Funnel is an excellent option for digital course creators.
Deadline Funnel is far more than a funnel builder; it creates legitimate scarcity.
We’ve all been there. You go to a website to see a countdown timer, but the timer restarts when you refresh the page. To me, this is silly. Everyone knows they won’t run out of time. However, this is not the case with Deadline Funnels. When you refresh the page, the time left has decreased. And once you reach the deadline, it’s over!
Key Features and benefits
- Customizable blueprints you create and personalize, suited to your business needs.
- An easy-to-use portal editor that enables you to build a customized customer experience.
- It has good integration capabilities with your existing software, such as HubSpot, Ontraport, ConvertKit, and Shopify, to create unique limited offers to boost sales.
- In-app and email reporting tools measure the ROI at every step.
- You can automatically generate weekly reports.
- Customize buyer journeys and present unique offers at every stage of the funnel.
Pricing
- The Basic plan is $49 per month. You can use it to reach 1000 leads.
- The Creator plan is $99 per month and targets 10,000 leads.
- The Scale plan is $199 per month while reaching 100,000 leads.
- If you choose to pay annually, you get to save up to 20%.
- Free 14-day trial.
Kajabi
Kajabi is a suite of programs for those entrepreneurs that do not want to waste a lot of time.
It’s great for digital product creators and online-based coaches. Everything is available in one place.
Key Features and benefits
- A powerful website builder with many themes to customize and launched quickly.
- Excellent integration capabilities that allow your website to work with your existing business solutions.
- Connect to payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe seamlessly.
- Email marketing tools offer customizable email templates.
- Incorporate video content into themes.
- They also offer the ability to send email sequences or one-time email blasts.
- The product generator enables you to monetize your knowledge. You can create a profitable digital product or service.
- There is also an option of creating a members-only community if you would instead offer exclusive content.
- The customizable pipelines will enhance your ability to scale your business in the future.
- Streamline reporting capabilities to track and analyze data. These include revenue, offers sold, number of subscriptions, etc.
- Mobile app capabilities.
Pricing
- The Basic plan costs $119 per month. It accommodates 1,000 members and 10,000 contacts.
- The Growth plan costs $159 per month. You can use it to build a membership of up to 10,000 people, in addition to keeping records of 25,000 contacts.
- The Pro plan costs $319 monthly. It makes it easy for you to keep track of 100,000 contacts and 20,000 members.
- 14-day free trial.