The Problem With Your Sales Funnel: Why It's Not Converting
Sales funnels are the key to your company's growth. With a well-optimized sales funnel and the right tools, you can identify which leads are ready to be turned into customers.
You can also use this information to prioritize different types of leads and ensure that your sales team is talking to the right people at the right time.
However, if your funnel isn't optimized properly it may be costing you revenue and nobody wants that! So how do you know if your sales funnel is broken?
Here are seven signs that indicate it might need some work:
Tracking is broken
The most important part of your funnel is the tracking.
Tracking should be done in real time, not retroactively. That means you need to track all the way from the first impression to the sale (and beyond).
Tracking shouldn't just be about clicks, but also about how many people are visiting a certain page and what they do there (or don't). You can also use this information to adapt or change your marketing strategy accordingly.
To get started with tracking, here are some questions you should ask yourself:
What marketing channels are bringing in traffic? Where do they come from? Are they converting into sales? What can I do better next time?
How many people have visited my site? How many times have they visited without converting into a customer yet (or at all)? Which pages did they click on during their visit and what made them leave again without buying anything yet—what could I improve there?
You haven't developed a deep understanding of your personas
When you're creating a sales funnel, one of the most important steps is to understand your personas. Personas are fictional representations of your ideal buyer that help you identify common traits and problems so you can focus on solving them in your marketing.
For example, if I'm selling high-end silk scarves, my persona might be an affluent professional woman who travels frequently and cares about being stylish and polished. This person could be in her mid-30s but still has an active social life. She loves going out with friends but also wants to feel like she's got it together enough to wear something other than jeans when they go out for dinner or drinks after work. So this is the type of woman who needs accessories that look good but don't scream "I'm trying too hard."
When I created the sales funnel for a client around these personas, I found that leads were dropping off at the top of the funnel because we weren't addressing any of their concerns or pain points yet: They didn't know what kind of scarf was best for them or whether we had colors/patterns they liked.
So instead of trying to sell them a scarf, we started by offering them a free consultation. We asked questions about their lifestyle, what they liked and didn't like about scarves currently in their closet, and how often they wore them. Once we had answers to those questions, we could create a custom funnel experience for each persona.
Traffic quality is poor
The quality of your traffic is important, and if the quality is poor, you'll have a hard time converting.
How do you know if your traffic is bad? There are a few key signs:
If your ad campaigns are getting lots of clicks but not much in terms of conversion, this could be a sign that your ads are being viewed by bots instead of people. If you suspect this might be happening to you, try changing up some settings on your ads so that they stop showing up in places where bots tend to click on links.
If the majority of people visiting your site via paid advertising come from suspicious places like dubious websites or affiliates that don't actually sell anything themselves (instead they just make money by sending visitors somewhere else), then these kinds of visits won't result in conversions either—and again can often lead back around again into bot territory!
Your landing pages are not designed to convert leads
The best landing pages are designed to convert leads. That’s because they have a clear call-to-action and value proposition, as well as a layout that is easy to read on mobile devices.
If your sales funnel isn’t converting leads at the bottom of the funnel then maybe it’s time to take a look at how you are using landing pages.
You're not personalizing messaging
The first step to increasing your conversion rate is to personalize your messaging. It can be anything from a subject line or email body, to an ad copy or even a landing page. The more personalized you make your messaging the better chance of engagement and conversions will you get from it.
For example, if a customer has placed an order from your store before and has left feedback on their purchase experience, then it can serve as a good indication as to what type of promotions they are likely interested in seeing again in their inboxes.
Your follow-up emails are failing to deliver value
This is one of the most common problem areas I see in my clients' sales funnels. When I ask them why they're not converting, nine times out of ten it's because their follow-up emails aren't providing enough value for their prospects or customers.
Your content sucks and nobody reads it
"My content is good," you may be thinking. "I know my target audience and they love me!"
Nope. They don't. And let's quickly talk about why that is: You're not talking to them the way they want to be talked to.
When you get right down to it, there are three reasons why your audience isn't engaging with your content.
Either:
(1) they don't see any value in it, or
(2) they don't want to read it, or
(3) they think the content is low-quality and therefore not worth their time and attention.
You're neglecting social media channels
While social media is a great way to reach people who are interested in your product, it can also be an effective tool for building awareness and generating leads. And if you're running a digital marketing agency, you know that leads are the lifeblood of your business.
Social media is also a great way to create brand advocates: when people who have experience with your product or service share glowing reviews on Twitter or Facebook, they're helping other consumers make informed decisions about whether to buy from you.
To leverage from the power of social media for your sales funnel, you should create a strategy that focuses on three areas: building brand awareness, generating leads, and creating brand advocates. We'll break down each of these steps below.
1. Build brand awareness through social media.
Social media is one of the most powerful ways to build your brand's reputation as an industry leader and thought leader—and it can all start with a single tweet or post on Facebook. This is especially true if you're trying to build a B2B business, where your target audience may not be familiar with what you do.
2. Generate leads through social media.
Once you've built a reputation for yourself, it's time to start converting those potential customers into real ones! You can do this by running Facebook ads or Google AdWords campaigns that target your audience based on their interests and past behavior online. This will help you reach people who are already interested in what your business has to offer, making it easier for them to convert into leads and customers.
3. Get free marketing by building relationships with influencers in your industry.
If you're trying to build a B2B business, this can be especially important for gaining exposure among your target audience. Influencers are people who have established themselves as experts in their field, so when you partner with them to share one of your content pieces it helps drive traffic back to your website or landing page (and ideally converts those visitors into leads!).
4. Find out what your audience cares about and create content that solves their problems.
This is the most important thing you can do for your B2B content marketing efforts, so it's worth taking some time to think about how you can best serve your target audience.
It's also important to note that B2B content marketing is a long-term strategy. You won't see immediate results, but if you're putting out high-quality content on a regular basis then your audience will grow over time.
Effective sales funnel optimization requires a data-driven approach.
The only way to truly understand your customers is by using data. As the marketing guru, Neil Patel, put it: “If you can measure something, you can improve it.”
Data-driven sales funnel optimization requires a comprehensive understanding of how well each step in your sales funnel is converting. This means that as soon as you have enough data on a specific part of your sales funnel (e.g., signup form), you should be able to identify where there are problems and opportunities for improvement.
You might find that one step in your process has an extremely high bounce rate which means that users aren't even reaching the next page because they get frustrated with what they're seeing. That's why it's so important to take action immediately!
Conclusion
I could go on, but I think you get the idea. If you want to see your sales funnel start converting leads into customers, you’ve got to get serious about collecting data and using it to make informed decisions about how your marketing assets are performing.
At the end of the day, a prospect is going to convert if they feel like they’re getting something useful and valuable from interacting with your brand. And that means taking time and care in crafting those interactions.
If you want to learn more about designing or fixing a sales funnel that converts leads into sales, click here to schedule a free consultation! I'll help you figure out what's not working, and we'll work together to create an actionable plan that will boost your sales and customer retention rates!