5 expert tips for moving more customers through your sales funnel
If you want to capture more leads and make more sales, you need to focus on moving more customers through your sales funnel.
This is the journey potential customers will typically go through when they’re thinking about buying from you and, if you take steps to optimise your sales funnel, you can increase the chances of people spending money on your site.
There are some techniques you can use to remove friction from your sales funnel and encourage more people to convert. So, we’re going to provide you with our expert tips that will help you with that here.
Make it as easy as possible for people to take the next step
Nobody will want to put a lot of time and energy into buying a product or service from you. So, one of the ways you can encourage more people to move through your sales funnel is by making the purchasing process as quick and simple as possible.
There are a number of tricks you can use to make it as easy as possible for people to take the next step on your website. For instance, you could take a lot of confusion out of the situation and ensure prospective customers know exactly what to do when they land on your website by providing them with strong and convincing calls to action. These are simple but effective instructions that point your website visitors in the right direction. Typically placed on a clickable button, they may include phrases like “buy now”, “download for free”, and “call our team today”.
You could also add a sophisticated search tool to your website that will direct people towards the exact products or services they require. Simply ask for some basic information like their clothing size, color preference, or model of car, depending on what you sell, and then present them with the items that will suit their needs best.
Finally, make it very easy to contact you if someone has any questions and concerns that need to be addressed before they make a purchase. You could do this by displaying your phone number or email address in your website header, adding an easy-to-use contact form to your service pages, or providing a pop-up instant messaging option that will put website visitors in contact with your customer service representatives quickly and easily.
To give you some inspiration, let’s take a look at a couple of businesses that get this right.
Bounce is a company that offers luggage storage solutions across the globe to make life easier for travelers. And, they provide website visitors with a very handy search tool to help them find the best and most suitable location for their bags.
As you can see on their London service page, they simply ask prospective customers to input where they are, which date or dates they would like to store their luggage, and how many bags they want to keep safe. Then, when a user clicks “see all locations”, they’re taken to a new page with all of the options that are going to be suitable. This is so easy to use that it’s sure to help Bounce send more people through their sales funnel to make a purchase.
If you provide a range of products or services and know some will be more suitable for certain people than others depending on their needs, consider adding a tool like this to your site. It will make life much easier for your customers, so they’re more inclined to buy from you.
On the other hand, Rainbow Movers is a company that helps people to move house, and they take a different approach. As you can see, on their long-distance moving service page, they have a very simple form people can fill in to access a quote for the business’s services. This simply asks for their name, phone number, email address, and their estimated move date. From this information, they’ll then be given a rough cost estimate and someone from the company can call them soon after to arrange their move.
Again, this process is incredibly simple for the customer to follow, which is paramount. With just a few basic details and a quick click, they will move further into the company’s sales funnel and will be more likely to actually pay for their services.
Do you run a business that provides tailored quotes for your services? A form like this can be very helpful for both you and your website visitors. It will help to ensure you only get qualified leads and will increase your conversion rate, as it’s so convenient.
Consistently publish expert content to earn customers’ trust
In order to move more people through your sales funnel, you’ll need to work hard to earn their trust. And, one of the most effective ways you can do this is by consistently publishing expert content that does a great job of demonstrating your knowledge and skills.
Think of topics relevant to your business that you know you can explore well, what your audience will actually want to learn more about, and what is going to show off your expertise the best. Then, aim to create high-quality and genuinely valuable content that will help you reach your ultimate goal of making more sales.
Let’s take a look at one business that does this very well to provide you with an idea of how you can use this tactic.
Florin Roebig is a law firm that specializes in cases concerning personal injury, medical malpractice, employee rights, and more. Of course, anyone looking for legal advice is only going to want to invest in the services of a law firm they truly trust, and Florin Roebig does a great job of publishing content that shows they understand their industry inside and out.
For instance, on their motorcycle accident lawyer web page, they provide all of the information someone who has been in this kind of collision may need. They answer questions about when a motorcycle accident claim should be filed, how to choose an attorney if you’ve been in an accident, and more. It’s very clear they’re well-versed in this area of the law and that they want the best for prospective clients, which is sure to win website visitors’ trust and boost the company’s online conversions.
This is a tactic most businesses will be able to use, so consider how you could incorporate similar expert content into your marketing strategy. Could you go into detail about what you do, answer common customer questions, or show off your industry knowledge? This will all help you to earn your target audience’s trust and make more sales.
Take steps to humanise your business and connect with customers
Consumers prefer to buy products or services from people, rather than faceless corporations. So, another way you can effectively move more of your website visitors through your sales funnel is by taking steps to humanize your company. Show who is behind your website and why people should decide to shop with you.
There are plenty of techniques you can use to put a face to your business, so consider which approach is going to suit your needs best. For instance, if your staff are quite happy in front of a camera, you could create videos that introduce everyone and explain what each person’s role is at your company. Or, you could add photos and bios of your workers to your ‘about us’ page. Try to include some details that aren’t necessarily related to work, such as your employees’ hobbies, favorite foods, or backgrounds to humanize your company further.
You may even wish to publish regular behind-the-scenes content on your blog to show people more about the inner workings of your business. Here, you could show what different members of your team get up to each day, what their jobs entail, and what their personalities are like.
To give you some inspiration, here’s a company that’s done a great job of introducing its staff on its website to build a stronger connection with prospective customers.
As their business name would suggest, SchoolLockers.com is a company that specializes in providing user-friendly storage solutions for the likes of schools, gyms, and workplaces. Plus, on their website’s homepage, they’ve done a fantastic job of humanizing their brand by introducing the people who work behind it.
As you can see, they have a great video where website visitors can meet some of the company’s key team members, learn about what they do, and find out how they came to work for the business. It’s a very engaging piece of content and is bound to help prospective customers to feel a strong connection with SchoolLockers.com. This will then increase the chances of them moving through their sales funnel and making a purchase.
Consider whether you could create a video like this for your website. Video content is becoming highly sought after, and introducing your team to prospective customers will help you to build a relationship and move more people through your sales funnel.
Provide helpful content for every stage of the buying journey
People are more likely to part with their money if they feel like they’re making an informed purchase. So, they’ll want to fully understand what you’re offering them and exactly how it can make their life better before buying. You can help to provide them with all of the information they might need by creating content that they’ll find useful at every stage of their buying journey.
There are a number of different content types that are great for this. For instance, you could create buying guides that outline all of the factors someone should consider before choosing a product or service to invest in. Comparison pieces that show the similarities and differences between certain options can also help people to choose the solution that is going to be the most suitable for their requirements.
You could create case studies that explain what you can provide, who you’ve helped in the past, and what kinds of results you typically get for your customers. This can help website visitors to work out whether you’re actually able to solve their problems.
And, finally, you could provide user guides that explain exactly how your products work and what kinds of applications they have. Again, this will help your website visitors to work out whether they’re going to be happy with the items they buy, which will move more of the right people through your sales funnel.
SocialPilot is a social media scheduling tool provider, and they regularly publish comparison guides to help their website visitors choose the right solution to suit their needs. For instance, they have an article about the best LinkedIn marketing tools, which compares and contrasts their own tool against some of the other big hitters in the industry.
This is an effective approach for a number of reasons. To start, it’s great for helping people make an informed and suitable purchase, which will lead to more happy customers and fewer complaints. Plus, because the article is impartial and shows that the company genuinely wants the best for their prospective clients, it is sure to help earn people’s trust and move more website visitors through the business’s sales funnel.
If you offer numerous services that are quite similar or you have well-known competitors, this is an approach you could also take on your website. Not only will comparison pieces like this be genuinely helpful for your prospective customers, but they will also help you to win people’s trust and make more sales.
Make it easy to contact you with questions or concerns
Finally, if people who land on your website have any questions or concerns, they’ll want to be able to reach out to you quickly and easily. And, as we’ve previously mentioned, if they can’t do this, they’ll be unlikely to convert. So, to move more people through your sales funnel, you need to ensure your contact options are incredibly easy to find and access.
This means you need to ensure your main contact options, such as your phone number or email address, are displayed prominently on your website. In your header is ideal, and you could also add a second mention in your footer. A dedicated “contact us” page always tends to be useful, too.
To give people a quick and direct line to your customer service team, you could also install an instant messaging option on your website. This could be designed to provide people who have FAQs with resources already on your website, and then pass people over to a human support agent when needed.
Making it very easy for people to get in touch with you will remove a lot of friction from their journey and help to move more customers through your sales funnel.
Summary
If you want to give your bottom line a boost, you need to ensure you’re doing everything you can to move more people through your sales funnel.
There are lots of tactics you can use, such as removing friction from their journey, publishing expert content that earns their trust, and humanising your business to build a stronger connection. Take these tips on board and it won’t be long before you start to see some fantastic results.
Author bio & headshot:
Aaron Haynes is CEO and co-founder of Loganix. The company is an SEO fulfillment partner for digital marketing agencies and professionals, which provides the services businesses need to improve their online visibility and grow. If you liked this article, check out the Loganix blog, where you’ll find more SEO guides full of expert advice.
