Tell A Relevant Story Based On The Funnel Stages
It is the Sales funnel that pushes your leads into becoming customers. Also called as a sales pipeline, conversion funnel or marketing funnel, it is an end source for marketers to add new traffic to a website and then nurture them down through different stages until they land on your revenue generating department – sales.
Industries across e-commerce, technology and business services are driven by the sales funnel. Not just that, recruiters and B2B companies also focus on sales funnel best practices while looking for clients or businesses.
Tell Your Story
The story your brand speaks is the reason people choose to buy from you. The catch here is how relevant it is to your customer. Your customer's story is similar, but it goes even deeper: It talks about who they are, what they need and how relevant your product or service is to them.
All you have to do is understand what you are trying to fulfil. Why do you want this? Who are you trying to serve and what will your customer get if they pick you?
Story at Every Stage
How you tell a relevant story depends on the level of the sales funnel you target your customers at. Your audience at the top of the sales funnel is wider. Your content here is not specific to a particular segmented audience. It caters to a larger crowd. However, this is different when you want to focus on middle and bottom of the sales funnel. The narration of your story becomes different at these two stages to narrow down the wider audience to fit into the intent and decision stages of the sales funnel.
Use content marketing as a part of this process: Send relevant articles and videos; create case studies; provide longer-form content (such as white papers) that educates prospects further about your product/service offerings.
How to engage and push leads down the marketing funnel
- Qualify leads
- Set expectations
- Offer a sale
- Ask for the business (and contact information)
- Offer assessments, demos and consultations for free
Click here for HubSpot Onboarding: Difference between Marketing Hub vs Sales Hub
Nurture to Close
Never give up is the mantra here! Keep nurturing your leads until they are ready to make a purchase or at least looking for more information about it.
Response Time
When a prospect reaches out to you via email, social media or any other channel of contact with your business, make sure that you are able to respond within 24 hours (or 48 hours with prior intimation as a thank you message in case of a form fill).
Close the Deal
At this point, you've made your pitch and convinced your lead to make a purchase. Now it's time for them to actually make a purchase. These can be some of the possible situations:
- They could choose not to buy from you
- You can offer an incentive or discount if they decide that now would be a good time for them to take their business elsewhere
- You can offer them a product or service related specifically towards what they were looking for when speaking with you as an incentive
Sales Funnel Best Practices
The first step in creating a sales funnel is to define the problem/pain point before you begin. This establishes that you know exactly how your product or service can solve the problem for your customers. You cannot move ahead without this.
Once you've identified the problem, it's important that you set goals for achieving those results. Be ambitious but realistic. You can think of tangible fitness goals as examples:
- 2 pounds lost per week
- 10 push-ups each day
Conclusion
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to sales funnel. You will be able to create an effective sales funnel to generate more leads and close more deals by taking into consideration your end goal and the pain points of your customers. Tailoring your marketing automation strategy accordingly is key.
TransFunnel is a marketing automation and inbound marketing solutions company that can help you with the right strategies aligned with the sales funnel.
