If you want to
create an ongoing flow of leads, without spending all day doing cold calls, you
need a sales funnel.
Before you get too
excited this isn’t some kind of magic spell - but it is a process that can be
put in place. It’s not an accident that
people refer to ‘building’ sales funnel.
There are a number of steps that you need to put in place one at a time.
The critical first
step is to plan out your sales funnel; and the bonus is that you don’t need to
have everything in place to get started.
Why is it called a ‘funnel’?
Typically a sales
funnel has four key levels, although some people add one or two more. The key levels to start with are:
1. Top level: the widest part of the funnel. This is your free level where you
offer something that self-identifies the people who are interested in the
service or products you offer.
That means
that your free offer needs to be closely aligned with what your core offering
is. Your aim is to get as many people
interested as possible. Not all of them
will turn into customers, but some of them will.
In order to
get access to your free offer, ask people to provide their name and email - and
that builds your marketing list.
2. Second level: the funnel is a bit narrower, but still
pretty wide. This is where you offer a
low cost item. This is something
that will appeal to the same audience as your free offer, but provides a more
in-depth level of information.
This could
include a book, workbooks, a short course; it should be something with a clear
outcome. If you’re selling products,
this level could be a webinar that shows people how to achieve specific result
with your products. You’ll need to be
creative with how you present this!
Low cost can
be anything from £5 to around £50. This
makes it accessible to people even those who don’t have a huge budget.
3. Third level: the funnel is starting to narrow because
fewer people will pass from the top level, through the second level and sign up
here. This is your main bread and
butter level.
For many
businesses this can be the ‘one-to-many’ model.
For instance, a private subscription membership that offers regular
insights, learning tools, knowledge sharing, etc.
If your
business sells products rather than services, this might be a more
sophisticated product or something that does much more than the low cost level.
4. Bottom level: the
premium level where you
work 1-2-1 with those clients who value your knowledge, skills and experience
and are willing to pay a premium for that.
The idea is to get
lots of people in at the top of the funnel and then encourage them to work
through each level. At every level you
must deliver massive value - or people will opt-out.
Clearly, there is
more to it than simply putting the levels in place - there needs to be activity
around each level to make them link to each other.
Look out for next
week’s blog where I’ll explore this in more depth.
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