Sales funnels are often talked about in internet marketing circles, but not always defined. So what is it? Wikipedia calls it a Purchase Funnel. Simply put, a sales funnel help you to get potential customers to take a certain action in every stage of the sales process. Eventually that will lead to a sale or multiple sales.
If you imagine the shape of a funnel, then you know its extremely wide open at the top and lower into the bottom extremely narrow. You are trying to get as many people as you can into your sales funnel. You do that with different traffic strategies. Only a certain part of the people that come into your sales funnel will take the desired action. This is called “a conversion”.
The Most Simple Sales Funnel
A simple sales funnel might be that you have written an eBook you want to sell on weight loss. If you can get people to your website, then you can show them a sales page that offers your particular eBook. When they make a purchase, they get the eBook; the end of the sales funnel. That is the most simplest sales funnel there is.
More Stages in the Sales Funnel
But you might try and do something more clever. The goal is to develop a lasting, long term relationship with the customer. So instead of sending the potential customer straight to a sales page, offer them a free mini e-course. This mini e-course could for example be “How to Lose 20 pounds in 10 days, naturally and without exercise”. All they have to do to get the course is submit their email address. To get their email address you create a special Squeeze Page. Set up your Auto-Responder to deliver the e-course. This is the 1st stage of your sales funnel.
The mini e-course offers great information and the more the customer reads the more they start to trust you. After the e-course is over you can offer them a low priced product. That is usually called your front-end offer. Or sometimes also referred to as “trip wire”. This is the 2nd stage of your sales funnel. Depending on what action that person takes (the conversion), it will lead them to another part of the sales funnel. If they buy your front offer, you can immediately offer a related product as part of the deal. Or when they don’t buy, offer them another low ticket product.
Why Not Offer High Priced Products Directly
Suppose you have a higher priced product that is closely related to your low priced product you offered. Only it has so much more
value. You are not going to offer that product in the earlier stages of your sales funnel. People don’t know you yet. Therefor they don’t trust you. So they certainly won’t buy from you. So sales funnels build trust and ultimately sales. However you decide to build your sales funnel, think about what you want from your customer at every stage of the funnel. And how you can profit while still offering value for every stage of the process.