Introduction:
So many small businesses and marketers over complicate a funnel system. The best thing you can do if you are looking to build a funnel is break things down and be as simple as possible. If you over complicate things, you lose interest. Remember, you are the expert in your business. Your customers don’t understand your product or service until you really spell it out in a very simple way. PPC Marketing Solutions often creates funnel systems for clients in 1 day or less.
Where to start?
Many people have no clue where to start and this is because every person and business is starting at a different position. So, let’s just break this down to the basics and start at the beginning. Some of you may be a few steps in, some of you may even realize you should circle back and redo a few, may even all, of your current completed steps.
Step 1
A website. Yes, that is right and you are probably thinking. DUH!!!! No S*t Sherlock. Well, believe it or not regardless of having a website right now or not your website should be ‘conversion focused’ rather than ‘impressive’. What does this mean? I will explain.
Impressive sites are those sites that have the latest and greatest look and feel and you feel the need to show it off to everyone to say ‘HEY! Look at my site and how great it looks compared to others’. Sure, a good-looking site is something you should strive for … BUT … often these sites are missing SEO best practices, are not optimized for speed and most of all are not ‘CONVERSION FOCUSED!!!!’.
Conversion focused sites are sites that focus on getting conversions. Yes, your site should still look good and professional, but your goal should be to get leads, customers and make sales, right? So regardless of having a website right now or not, circle back and make sure it is conversion focused.
You may be asking yourself, how do I do this?
Easy, just make sure you have contact forms, CTA (calls to action) and other elements that make it easy and VERY clear for your website visitors to contact you, subscribe, order products, request quotes, etc. Every website has different goals and requires specialized attention. There is no one size fits all, so to speak. At PPC Marketing Solutions we can help you design or re-design your site to make it conversion focused. We all offer ‘Free Consolations’ so there is not risk or cost to begin that conversation.
Step 2
Now that you have a conversion focused website you must decide and understand what a conversion is for you and your business. Does your business sell products (eCommerce) or offer a service of some kind? Whatever you offer figure out what a conversion for you is.
If you sell products this is simple, a conversion is a sale. If you offer a service a conversion might be a lead form submission, an email subscription, a phone call, etc.
You may, and likely will, have more than one conversion type.
Step 3
Now with this amazing website you now have and the understanding of what your conversions are let’s now understand what your customers do! This will determine your flow and funnel.
Your funnel could look like this.
Example for online course
- Landing page with free trial offer --> Email automation sequence --> Special offers to exit trial and take full course--> checkout and payment confirmations.
Example for eCommerce site
- Product page --> Cart --> Checkout --> Sales confirmation
Example for a type of service
- Landing page with info about service and contact form --> Email automation sequences --> Personal emails between active leads --> Close sale with your payment method
Now these are generic simple and basic examples but depending on the specifics of your business these are decent starting points. Just understand that you do not need some over complicated funnel process. Keep it simple.
Conclusion:
Now that you understand these 3 steps to having a great funnel you can get started. Moving forward an important factor is tracking the metrics so that you know what works and what doesn’t work. If you are running paid ads to drive traffic it is imperative that you know what converts and what doesn’t so you don’t waste a bunch of money for nothing, which happens to many businesses.
If you are considering help in building any part of your online business PPC Marketing Solutions can help. We offer free consolations to those who want to learn what options they have.
Let us know about your business in the comments. It will help others get examples of what others are doing with their funnel systems. Thanks for stopping by and we hope that this article was helpful for you.