Sit down and talk with a marketing agency, and before long you are talking all about calculation to tell how many times the client’s clicked here, landed there, posted somewhere, and on it goes. But let’s simplify it all and get a visual of the powerful marketing, or sales, funnel and why you should build one.
Let’s start by picturing the shape of a funnel.
- At the top you have inbound traffic, people searching for your product. Let’s say there are 1000 people
- As you move just into the funnel you have the people that make it to your website – 50% or 500 people
- Now you keep moving into the funnel and you have people who see your CTA (call to action) button – 250 people
- But only half of those people make it to your landing page – 120 people
- And still only half fill out your form – 60 people – this is your online referral
- 50% of those people will become a real sales call – 30 people
- And still only half will become qualified prospects – 15 people
- And finally 2 will become paying customers
Did you notice that it’s actually the prospect that does the work? They do the search. They visit your websites, and so forth. Combining inbound marketing with your marketing funnel can be highly effective.
For your marketing funnel to work you need to give something away free on your landing page so that people fill out your form. What you give away has to be a quality item. For example, perhaps a free report that provides information on something they want to learn about.
Once your visitor fills out the form and provides their email address you can now continue to market to them even if they go away and don’t make a purchase at this time. You can see through our example that it takes a large number of people to make just a couple of sales.
The marketing funnel has worked so well because of the way it basically squeezes visitors down through the channels until it’s time to make that purchase. It does this is a very smooth manner that keeps the potential customer engaged and interested, and wanting to know more. Those who do want to know more continue to move through the funnel until eventually reaching the end where they become that paying customer you are seeking. It’s simple and it’s effective.