- Perfect website sales funnel?
Really perfect?
Okay, well if that's what it says,
that's what we should deliver!
Now chances are, if you're watching this,
then your website is probably the first step
in your company's sales process.
And particularly if your website
is there to generate leads for your business,
it's really important that you're able
to take website visitors on a journey,
which starts from awareness of your business
into a process of actually becoming a customer
and giving you money.
Until they give you money,
your marketing hasn't paid off.
And obviously this is called your sales funnel.
Oh, thanks captain obvious.
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Get this website sales funnel right
and you build a reliable, repeatable,
scalable way of getting more customers.
But get your website sales funnel wrong
and you risk leaving money on the table in unsold customers.
So in this video, we're gonna share some tips
on how to create the perfect website sales process,
which not only generates leads for your business
but actually increases the likelihood
of those leads turning into customers.
So, stay tuned, let's go.
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Okay, so what do we actually mean by a sales funnel?
Well, I don't know about you,
but I'm feeling pretty creative today,
so I thought I'd draw you a little picture.
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- [Man#1] Two hours later.
(Tim exhaling loudly)
Three hours later.
- [Man#2] What? (laughs)
- Look at this beaut, okay,
the masterpiece is ready.
What we've got here is a very simple funnel diagram,
which will be very familiar to you.
So we've got this thing where people come
into the top of the funnel
and they go through some sorts of process
that eventually leads them to spending some money,
hopefully with you, okay?
And we've got people at different stages of this process.
Now, to make this something that we can all understand
and we can all identify,
let's think about the process of buying a new car.
Every time somebody buys a car,
there is a trigger which first starts this process,
kind of gets them into the top of the funnel.
So this trigger could be anything,
it could be something that somebody says,
"Your car looks a bit rubbish",
it could be that they've had a pay rise,
they have more disposable income,
it could be that they see an advert,
it could be that they notice
their car maintenance bills increasing,
whatever it might be.
At some point there's a trigger which begins this process.
Now is someone at that stage ready to take a test drive?
Absolutely not.
They have absolutely no intent,
they have no timeline in mind at all.
At this point, they might do some very top of funnel things.
They might instal the auto trader app, for example,
they might start having a look around,
maybe they might check out some buyers guides,
but really they're very,
very early on in the process,
they're really not ready to take any sort of action,
which would represent commercial intent.
But now their radar is up and as time goes on
and they start, you know,
embedding the idea and getting familiar with it,
they start to notice stuff.
They start to notice cars on the road for the first time,
they start talking to their friends
who've just recently bought a car.
How are you finding it?
And that type of thing.
So they start becoming more interested.
Now, are they ready to book a test drive yet?
No, that's still too high a commitment,
that's still too high commercial intent,
they're really not at that stage yet,
but their radar is definitely up.
So eventually as someone goes through the research phase
they will begin to identify perhaps
the particular make of car that they're interested in.
Maybe the particular model, maybe even the variant.
So at this point, they're much closer to purchase,
if you offer this person a test drive of a particular car,
would they take it?
Well, maybe they would.
Maybe that would be the right stage for them,
but it might still be a little bit too early.
Now at this point, if you're buying a new car,
you might be playing with a build your own car
on the manufacturer's website to see the particular spec.
And you know, you begin to visualise yourself owning it.
Finally, you get to the point
where you're really ready to start looking.
So at this stage,
you're looking on auto trader with intent to purchase.
You might start sizing up local dealerships,
figuring out who you're gonna want to go to.
You might start looking at their inventory
and stuff like that.
Now this point you are a very, very valuable lead
because you're almost ready to go.
You're ready to buy a car,
you know you're gonna do it imminently,
you've kind of come to terms with that.
If someone offers you a test drive, absolutely,
you're there, you're ready to go.
Okay, great story, Tim,
that's a few minutes of my life I'm never gonna go back.
How does this relate to websites sales funnels?
Well, here's the thing,
and here's where it all ties back.
The vast majority of websites, maybe even yours,
only cater to people at this stage.
They're only targeting people
who are right at the bottom of the sales funnel,
they are ready to go.
So if you've got a website which says inquire now,
if you've got a website which says get a quote,
you've got to accept that really,
you're targeting people predominantly at this end.
Now there's nothing wrong with that.
This is the most valuable type of customer.
These people are worth the most
because they are ready to buy.
But here's the thing, they're also the people
that all of your competitors are targeting.
So when this person searches for something on Google,
usually that keyword is going to have a high cost per click,
most commercial intent,
most competitive sorts of terms to target.
So there's a couple of opportunities there.
Firstly, we can increase the number of people in our world
if we expand to be targeting people
that are earlier on in the buying journey.
But the second opportunity is
that by targeting people in this early stage,
we actually get a chance to influence them
as they're going through this process
to becoming a qualified lead.
We get to help them make the decision.
And of course, this means that when they do get
to this point, we don't have to compete
with our competitors for them
because they're already in our world.
We've had a relationship,
we've been building trust with them throughout.
So the first principles of building
a killer website sales funnel
is to meet people where they are at.
Yes, you wanna give these people
a compelling call to action,
but also a good idea to give these people
a compelling call to action as well.
If you're offering everyone a test drive,
bear in mind, that only these folk are gonna take it.
Ah, okay, metaphoritis,
you're overwhelmed, forget it, right?
Okay, so let's look at a real life example
of how this applies to a website.
So let's take a look at HubSpot as an example.
Now HubSpot offers marketing automation, CRM type software,
it's a software subscription.
When you come onto the HubSpot home page
the call to action is get HubSpot free.
Now this is really compelling
for people that are ready
to take a test drive of marketing and sales automation,
and CRM software.
This is great, this is a test drive,
free, no obligation, let's get started.
Perfect for people that are at that stage.
And if you go to their case studies page
you will see that the call to action is get HubSpot free.
Why?
Because case studies are for people that are interested
in a solution and they're researching
how they might be able to benefit from that solution.
So get HubSpot free is absolutely perfect.
I can read about their story,
I can watch a video,
or I can then go and get the software free.
That's perfect and that's the test drive
call to action for people that are at that stage.
But HubSpot also has content on their site,
which is targeted at people further up the funnel.
Ie, marketing managers who may not know
that HubSpot is the right solution for them.
They may not know that they have a need for,
say marketing automation software.
So have all these resources on the site,
and typically these resources are like eBooks,
and if you click on it
then you can click to download it for free,
and what happens is an email capture.
So these people may or may not be even thinking
about marketing automation software.
They might be very top of funnel,
but here's something which is targeted at those people.
This is great, this is meeting me exactly where I am.
Now what's gonna happen is I'm gonna put my email in here
and I'm gonna start getting emails about HubSpot service.
They now know that I'm a good potential target customer
if I'm interested in this topic,
and eventually I'm gonna be
at a point where I understand enough about HubSpot offering
that I can make a decision
about whether or not I want to purchase it.
So this is targeting top of funnel traffic.
We also see they've got courses,
and certifications, and lessons,
exactly the same sorts of thing.
So what's this got to do with marketing automation software?
Almost nothing other than they know
that anybody who signs up for this
is interested in marketing,
and there's a chance that that person might then go
on to become a HubSpot customer at some point down the line.
So action item number one is to think
about the different stages in your sales journey
that people will go through,
and what you could offer on your website
that targets people at these different levels.
If you're just starting out,
you're probably only going to be targeting people
with commercial intent at the bottom of the funnel,
but as your business grows
and as you want to increase your visibility,
it's gonna be more important
that you bring more of these other people
into play by offering calls to action
and stuff that is interesting and relevant
for them at the stage they are at.
Key sales funnel principle number two
is to make your sales funnel a slippery slide.
I'm gonna tell you another story
'cause I think you're up for it.
Fast food drive-through,
they really made absolutely no sense at all.
Imagine you've got a McDonald's, it's got a car park,
and people drive up and they get out of their car,
and they go into the restaurant,
they order their food, they have their food,
they leave the restaurant, they drive away.
Imagine thinking, do you know what'd be good?
If they didn't even have to leave their car.
So they drive up, they go around the little thing,
they order from a hatch, then they sit in their car,
they then often go and park in the car park
and eat their food in the car park
instead of coming into the restaurant.
Why does that make any sense at all?
Well, the reason why it makes so much sense,
and the reason that the drive-through
is often way busier than even the restaurant,
is because Ronald and his friends knew
that the key to maximising sales
was to reduce the friction
at every point in the sales process.
So you don't even have to leave your car
to get McDonald's.
Okay, what does this gotta do with sales funnel, Tim?
Well, we need to make your sales funnel a slippery slope.
And that means we need to reduce friction
at every stage in the sales funnel.
And if you find that you've got blockages
in your sales funnel,
where maybe you're getting lots of leads
through your website but you're not turning
those leads into customers.
Then the problem may be
that we don't have a slippery enough slide.
Ie, the stages in your sales funnel
don't flow naturally into each other.
I think I'm gonna do some more drawing.
Okay, so let's assume
that your sales process looks something like this.
So at some point someone's
gonna become a lead on your website,
or they might give you a call or something,
that's the first interaction.
Then there's gonna be a number of interactions
that happen over time until eventually
they become a customer and they give you money.
What we need to do is we need to make
each step in this process, three things.
Firstly, we need to make it easy.
Secondly, we need to make it attractive.
That's supposed to be a heart by the way.
And thirdly, we need to make it low risk.
So every step in your process should feel each of these,
and that's what we call a slippery slide.
So for example, Exposure Ninja,
we're a digital marketing agency.
So when you go on to the Exposure Ninja website,
we've got a short questionnaire for you to fill in,
which asks you a bit about your business,
a bit about your current digital marketing,
and your marketing goals.
We will then record a 15 minute video,
which shows you some ways to increase
the leads and sales that your website generates for you.
We send this to you completely free of charge by email,
and it's fantastic.
So that's the first step in our process.
Now is it easy for you to request it?
Absolutely.
Is it attractive?
Absolutely, it's a brilliant service.
We've had people say they've just followed
the advice in the review
and they've improved their marketing results.
And is it low risk?
Completely, it's totally free of charge,
there's no obligation to use our service.
So that's the first step in our sales process.
The next step after that is we offer a free consultation.
So in this free consultation,
you'll have a chance to talk to the person
who put your review together.
So this is a great opportunity to ask them any questions,
ask them for any additional advice,
and they can also see
if you need some help with your digital marketing.
Now, if you do need some help in your digital marketing,
then we go through a process
which moves you through the sales process
to potentially becoming a client of ours.
So this is our sales process.
Notice how we've made the first step as easy,
attractive, and low risk as possible.
And this is really important,
but every step in your process needs to be easy,
low risk, and attractive.
So the action step for you at this stage
is to think about each of the stages in your process.
How can you position that?
How can you essentially sell it to your customer
as something that's easy,
attractive, and low risk to do?
What do they take away from it?
And how can we reduce friction?
Think the drive-through,
how can we make it as easy as possible
for someone to move through your sales process
without really introducing risk,
without forcing them to do things
that they don't want to do.
So component number three
of a perfect website sales funnel
is that it's systemizable and scalable.
So what do we mean by that?
Well, each of these steps
in your sales process should be easy to repeat.
They should all be built from, essentially templates,
they should have very clear processes built for each one.
Now over the years, we've had a lots of clients
who have had a very ad hoc sales process.
Ie, we generate them a lead through their website,
and hopefully if that sales person continues
to do something, at some point,
those leads will become sales eventually.
But this isn't really ideal
because it's very difficult to improve a system
if you don't know what's actually happening in the system.
So that's why you'll notice
the most effective sales organisations
will have very clearly mapped processes
for each of these stages along their sales journey.
One of our clients that did a fantastic job of this
was a legal lead generation business.
So we blew up their marketing
to the stage where they were getting over 400 leads a day.
Now, when you're getting 400 leads a day,
you can't have an ad hoc sales process,
that can't be people making a general inquiry
and just giving you a call, and seeing what happens.
You need a very clear straightforward system
for processing that.
So what our client did was build a form on their site,
which took information from the website visitor,
which allowed their team to pre-qualify people,
just through the information in the form.
They could then process that information
according to what people's answers were in the form,
send them out an information pack,
in this case by post,
and when the person sent that pack back,
they could process the legal claim.
So it's very systemizable, very scalable,
and they can track improvements in the process
through things like tweaking the wording
in the pack that they send out,
adding in a call before they send out the pack
to see what that does to response rates, and so on.
But they built a process which allowed us
to scale their lead volume
without the whole business completely collapsing
under the weight of all these leads.
So action item number three
is to map out the interactions
at each stage in your sales funnel
and think through what's the desired outcome.
What are the possible objections
someone might have at this stage?
And how can we handle them?
How can we build scripts,
which allow our team to handle each of those objections.
And doing that is obviously gonna build you
a highly effective sales funnel,
which'll you to increase your marketing investment,
which'll allows you to throw more leads through it.
So it's a self perpetuating cycle of awesomeness,
the S, P, C, O, A. (laughs)
So I hope you've enjoyed this video,
I know it's a little bit outside
the kind of digital marketing stuff
that we normally look up,
but this website sales funnel stuff
is a really important consideration to make
if you're looking to scale your digital marketing.
So remember we looked at the three components
of an awesome website sales funnel.
Firstly, it meets your audience where they are,
remember we're not gonna be offering everyone a test drive,
because they're not ready for that yet.
The second thing that we looked at
was making sure that your sales funnel was a slippery slide.
Ie, moving to every step was easy,
attractive, and low risk.
And then the third thing that we looked at
was making your sales funnel repeatable,
scalable, and systemizable
by mapping out each interaction point,
thinking through what's the outcome that we want?
What are the possible objections
we might receive at this point?
And basically meticulously designing
each step of the process,
so you know exactly what sort of percentage conversion rate
you're gonna expect at each point,
so you can then make some changes
and see how things interact.
This is how you test, measure, and improve.
So if you've enjoyed this video,
then please feel free to subscribe to our channel.
We post at least one digital marketing video every week.
And we also have a live digital marketing workshop here
on our YouTube channel.
You might also be interested
in checking out the Exposure Ninja podcast.
You can go on a podcast app and search Exposure Ninja,
you know how to do that by now, right?
And of course, don't forget to request
your free website and marketing review
from the Exposure Ninja site
at exposureninja.com.
Until next time, see you soon.
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