How to Build a Conversion Funnel That Will Triple Your Profits

A conversion funnel is a visual representation of the stages of a buyer's journey. In the funnel, the first stage is when they visit your page, and the last stage is when they make a purchase.

Wondering how to create a conversion funnel? At this time, you may think of going the traditional way to track your customers' journey- The AIDA model.

Let’s briefly discuss the stages of this model to decide whether you should use it for creating your conversion funnel. The AIDA model is based on the 4 classic stages of an individual’s buying process

• Awareness: An individual learns about your brand and becomes a lead.
• Interest: Next, you develop the individual’s interest in your brand’s product.
• Desire: Then, you aim to nudge your prospects to actively wanting something rather than just liking it. You can do this by meticulously placing adverts for repeated exposure or by making proposals.
• Action: Finally, you turn your prospect into your customer by encouraging them to take the desired action.

We use a funnel shape because everyone visiting your site will not become a paying customer of your business.

Based on the above-mentioned model, a traditional-style sales marketing funnel would be something similar to this image:

This funnel is a somewhat unrealistic and rigid way to observe how individuals move through the different stages of a sales cycle. We say this because people often jump back to different stages before they ever decide to make the sale.

Individuals require nurturing before they purchase your product. You need to understand their personalities, needs, and behaviors to turn them into paying customers of your business. For this, you need a more flexible conversion-based funnel than the one we discussed above so that your chances of success increase.

How to Create a More Flexible Conversion Funnel?

Let's now discuss the steps to create a conversion funnel that is a mix of AIDA and some less restrictive techniques.

1. Determine the Journey of Your Ideal Buyer

The aim of a conversion funnel is to create an effective buyer’s journey and increase the number of conversions. You need to identify the below-mentioned things to increase conversions:

• How does the journey of your typical buyer looks at the moment?
• What action do you want your prospect to take (your end goal)?
• How to improve the journey of your existing buyer so that your leads are more likely to become your paying customers?

After you determine your end goal, you can map it out as a conversion funnel, which will help you stay on track.

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2. Set Goals for Every Stage in the Funnel

Visualize that your funnel comprises these three different parts - the top, bottom, and middle.

Determine what you want from every part of the funnel. For instance, you may want to boost your traffic in the funnel's top part, increase the engagement rate in the funnel's middle part, and increase the number of conversions in the funnel's bottom part.

After you set the goals, track the progress you are making and make sure you are achieving the objectives you have set.

Bottom line, spend some time thinking about your overall goals before you create a conversion funnel.

3. Create a Content Plan for the Funnel's Stages

So that your prospects keep moving from one stage to the next, all three parts of the funnel (top, bottom, and middle) need a robust marketing plan.

A. Top

The top part, or the first stage, is about building product and brand awareness. At this stage, you are trying to encourage your prospects to learn more about your business and how your products can benefit them. Therefore, you want to introduce your business and give special attention to your brand story at this stage. To achieve this, ‌use videos, social media posts, short blog posts, and other visually engaging content.

B. Middle

At this stage, you already have the attention of an individual. This is the perfect time to gain their trust and tell them the reasons why they need your product.

We recommend that you concentrate on creating informative, reliable, and valuable content for this stage. Examples include downloads, case studies, and video tutorials.

C. Bottom

The bottom part of the funnel is about focusing on providing your prospects with a reason to sign up for your service, purchase your product, or take some other action you desire.

At this final stage, marketing strategies can include actionable emails, CTAs, and free trials.

4. Generate Content to Create Awareness

As mentioned before, you are trying to create hype around your product and brand at the first stage of your funnel. To create a content strategy for this particular stage, you need to answer some questions such as - Why should a customer care about your business? How do your brand's products provide a solution to their problems? We also recommend that you research your competitors to see what their social media channels, blogs, and landing pages can teach you. Also, check how they reel in their potential customers.

Additionally, here are a few examples of ways in which you can create awareness and develop relatable content for the funnel’s first stage:

• Set up accounts on famous social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Post on a regular basis and engage with followers.
• For your content to rank high in search engine results, optimize it for SEO. This way, the chances of people finding you online will increase.
• Other ways in which you can develop the audience’s interest in your brand are by producing informational guides, hosting interviews, and influencer marketing.

5. Build Interest and Desire

Even though the AIDA model states desire and interest as different outcomes, in reality, they are the same things.

If you want to build desire or interest, you need to generate compelling content. You create some brand awareness, you tell individuals why they require what your business is selling, and they decide they want your product as a result of it.

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Now you may think about how you can create content that helps people move forward from this stage of your conversion funnel. Take a look at a few ideas:

• Create a YouTube video that shows your product in use. Video marketing statistics for 2021 show that 84% of customers claim they got convinced to buy a service or product after seeing a video by a brand. With the help of videos, people can easily imagine how a product can benefit them.
• Create authoritative blog posts that help in educating your target audience. The user is more likely to put their faith in your product and purchase if they find your content valuable.
• Email your prospects carefully curated email content like – customer testimonials or tips and hints that can benefit them.
• You can also think of providing product samples, crafting product guides, or starting a podcast.

6. Encourage Leads to Take Action

Your aim at the end of the funnel - turn a lead into a customer by encouraging them to take the required action. To optimize your strategy for this stage, we suggest the following methods:

A. Incorporate a CTA in Your Content: Adding a Call To Action (CTA) to your content helps clarify the action you want individuals to take. Make your CTA sound urgent as you want customers to take the final step. Emphasize on how the product you offer can provide a solution to their problem and why they must take an action at the moment. Place your CTA somewhere prominent, like the end of a guide post or the top of a landing page.

B. Send Clear and Actionable Emails: Send your potential customers emails that are concise, clear, and actionable. In these emails, you emphasize how your services or products can provide a solution to the problems. Do add a CTA in these emails as well.C. Showcase Customer Testimonials: Roughly 89% of consumers around the world read reviews before purchasing products. So, we highly recommend that you add testimonials to your page. They give your customers the reassurance they require in order to take the final step.

7. Focus On Retaining Your Customers

You need to concentrate on retaining your customers apart from finding new ones. Go through these statistics and you will know why we say this:

• The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60% – 70%.
• The probability of selling to a new customer is only 5% – 20%.
• 44% of millennials have said that they stay loyal to their favorite brands.

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Next, let’s discuss some strategies for retaining your loyal customers.

A. Next-Selling: Next-selling is when you follow up with a customer after they have made a purchase and offer them a similar product with an exclusive offer. The offer can be, for instance, an attractive discount. When you do this, you get a chance to talk to them and make your customer feel valued. Plus, you increase the likelihood of potentially increasing your revenue. Next-selling even offers you insightful data to further create effective funnels.

B. Product Updates: When you update your products based on customer feedback, you inform your loyal customers that their loyalty is valuable to you. You also offer them an enhanced user experience. For instance, you can update a glitch in your app based on the feedback from a user.

C. Loyalty Programs: Loyalty programs are a vital part of a customer retention strategy. You can even use your loyalty program to monitor buyer behavior and customer preferences. When you create this program, think about implementing the following:

• Provide extra benefits and perks
• Use a high amount of personalization

8. Grow Customers

Lastly, look for ways in which you can capitalize on your existing customers. For doing so, you need to encourage them to go ahead and make more purchases from your business. Some strategies that can help in this respect are:

A. Cross-Sell: When you decide to cross-sell, you check the most recent purchase of your customer and show them a similar product that may interest them. Or, at the time of the sales process, you can offer them other items that you think will complement the item they are purchasing at the moment.‍

B. Upsell: Upselling is when you offer a customer a pricier alternative to the service or item they have an interest in. For instance, if a person chooses a free subscription to your service, you can bring to their notice the option of the cheapest paid subscription to your service. A word of caution here - don't attempt to upsell a product that is substantially more expensive than the one the potential customer is choosing to purchase. You don't want the strategy to backfire, do you?

9. Take Care of Funnel Problems

One thing you need to understand is - a perfect funnel simply does not exist. In case your funnel is not performing as expected, it can be due to common errors such as not starting with a clear brand message or adding too many steps in the funnel.

To address funnel problems, you can consider performing some lead outreach. You can ask for feedback regarding website user experience or send out surveys. A useful tip is to always consider negative comments at the time of refining your funnel.

Conclusion

Always consider your conversion funnel as a process that will evolve over time. The needs and wants of your customers will vary over time, and hence, adapting your funnel strategy and goals accordingly is something you must do during those times. In the end, remember, a sure-shot way of standing out and creating a loyal client base is by providing your customers the user experience they want.

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