Looking to boost sales for your eCommerce business? Sometimes, all it takes is getting down to basics. Read on for our actionable tips on how to build a conversion funnel that will maximize your sales revenue.
Understanding Your Current Funnel
Any eCommerce business owner can tell you that their conversion funnel connects intrinsically to their lead generation strategy. Many advise you to use a free sales funnel template to get yourself started.
However, only some of them could explain how their sales funnel works from start to finish and how their marketing and sales strategies reflect its different elements.
Generally speaking, this job is reserved for the marketing and sales teams, who work together to make this process as streamlined as possible. But looking at your conversion funnel and understanding its current segments doesn't hurt to find out where you could improve.
Conversion Funnel Stages
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Awareness – the point at which people discover and become aware of your brand is crucial for many businesses looking to turn wider audiences into potential leads.
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Consideration is where leads show interest in and desire for your brand. Focus efforts at proving the value and relevance of your offer are essential here.
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Conversion – the endgame or final point where leads will turn into customers after successfully purchasing a product or service from you.
Additionally, many people count retention as the ultimate stage of a successful sales pipeline.
Once you’ve pinpointed each strategy you and your team are currently utilizing to enhance the above stages' outcomes, you can optimize your current methods.
Below are some of the most common sales funnel aspects many online businesses can work on to improve conversions and increase profits.
- Perfect your ICP
Many online businesses already have a roughly defined ICP, which is necessary to break into any niche. However, there are numerous benefits to taking the time to perfect your ICP.
For starters, improving your ICP can contribute to lowering costs associated with poorly targeted (or failed) marketing campaigns. On the other hand, it also increases overall revenue by focusing on people who want to purchase.
Perfecting your ICP will improve the quality of the leads you produce by enabling you to:
- empathize with your customers and provide better content to them,
- determine both their present and future needs, which can improve your offer and identify best-sellers, and
- understand customers’ purchasing habits, which can positively affect a range of things, e.g., how to best optimize your product pages to fit customer expectations better.
Most importantly, the perfect ICP will help you understand how to create the best lead-generating funnel for your specific target market.
- Build brand awareness
After establishing your perfect ICP, the next stage of building a highly profitable conversion funnel is to increase brand recognition, i.e., brand awareness. There are several ways to accomplish this, but we’ll concentrate on the most effective ones.
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Improve your landing pages
A landing page is a unique part of your website that should only deal with a single issue or objective. Each of your landing pages should have only one call to action (CTA), as its only purpose is to close a deal (or, often, to obtain your prospects’ contact information).
If your landing pages fit the above description, you will experience greater website conversion rates after directing traffic to them. Indeed, only some of the best lead-generation tools can top a well-designed landing page.
To better understand what this means, landing pages often don’t even feature any of the regular site navigation found on your website’s standard homepage. Their primary purpose is to get your product sold (or appointment booked).
A targeted landing page with a good CTA is much more likely to convert visitors than your homepage because it is focused, concise, and drives the point home better than your general web presentation.
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Enhance your social media presence
Mastering the art of talking to your (existing and potential) audiences on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok is often the most effective and authentic way to increase awareness of your brand.
In fact, according to a study, 52% of users on the internet desire brands to be more authentic with their advertisements.
We’re not talking about paid digital ads here—at least not yet. We’re talking about continuously publishing posts on people’s social media feeds and helping them discover you and resonate with the people you want to turn into leads, i.e., customers down the line.
Finding your brand’s tone of voice is just as important as keeping up with trends and looking at what your competitors are doing. Your audiences will appreciate your efforts at being unique with your social media marketing, but they will also expect some degree of recognizability related to your niche.
For instance, online clothing stores should focus on trending topics from the fashion world and promote their offer as up-to-date and relevant. Tech stores should feature expert opinions and engage in discussions surrounding the efficacy of their products. Brands working in other niches should also address their audiences accordingly.
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Don’t forget about emails
Email marketing is often left on the back burner, especially if your brand’s target audience is mostly younger.
However, let’s not forget that email addresses are virtual home addresses of internet users; everybody has one, no matter their age, and they are still widely used to stay informed.
Given that every eCommerce brand should have at least one landing page dedicated to collecting users’ email information in exchange for something valuable (e.g., a PDF or unlimited access to unique content), use the data you get to your advantage.
Create a powerful email marketing strategy that will appeal to prospective leads who may need that one extra nudge in the right direction to convert (i.e., a discount code for new users). In addition, keep existing customers coming back for more by sending out regular updates about new offers, special events, and your referral program.
You can drastically simplify email marketing through the use of a dedicated platform. When planning your email strategy, research available platforms today, such as Klaviyo vs. MailChimp, to see which best suits your business needs.
Improve Your Lead Generation Strategy
As previously mentioned, generating leads is inherently tied to the success of your sales funnel. The following are some of the most important ways of improving lead generation.
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Search engine optimization
Many people will stumble upon your website and products simply by looking for similar ones using a search engine. Given that this traffic comes to you through no concerted monetary effort of your own, it is known as organic traffic.
You can increase organic traffic to your sales funnel by putting out easily traceable content and favorable search engine rankings. There are many best practices to achieve this, but the most prominent ones include the following:
- using relevant keywords throughout your website, especially in product titles and descriptions,
- building backlinks to your blog posts, and
- investing in excellent UX (user experience).
SEO is truly a beast, but implementing the above key points is more than enough to give you a headstart in maximizing it for your brand.
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Paid ads
Apart from organic traffic, you can significantly increase your potential leads through paid digital advertisements.
Once you’ve pinpointed which social media platforms your target prospects most frequently use, your marketing teams should focus on crafting engaging and impactful ad copy to get those clicks going.
Paid ads involve quite a significant amount of resources. However, when done right, the returns you get from the outreach they achieve can return your invested capital and double or even triple your sales outcomes through purchases propelled by ads.
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Referral programs
A great referral program can be the heart and soul of your customer retention strategy and lead generation plan. It boils down to creating a win-win scenario for you, the business, and your customers, who are willing to proactively draw in new leads for you in exchange for something valuable to them.
The value for the customer can be something as simple as a discount code, a small commission every time a referred lead becomes a paying customer, or being the first to be notified about new products and offers.
Simply put, referral programs work. Instead of expecting your current customers to text leads and prospects about how great your products are, give them an incentive that ensures they spread the word about your brand.
Final Thoughts
Building a lucrative conversion funnel can be as straightforward as understanding the customer journey and making easy, cost-effective improvements.
Ensuring your brand is easily discoverable, has a solid online outreach, and improves your lead generation techniques will make your sales funnel more effective and profitable.
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Author Bio:
Nina Petrov is a content marketing specialist, passionate about graphic design, content marketing, and the new generation of green and social businesses. She starts the day scrolling her digest on new digital trends while sipping coffee with milk and sugar. Her little white bunny tends to reply to your emails while on vacation. Follow her on LinkedIn
