The basic sales funnel model…
There are dozens of different ways of illustrating the sales funnel
concept because the exact make-up of this funnel will vary from
business to business depending upon the demands and operating style
of different businesses.
Nevertheless, there is always a general similarity in the basic depiction
of the sales funnel model. Thus, we can use a general stylized sales
funnel to begin to illustrate exactly how the sales funnel is applicable to
online marketing.
The basic idea of the sales funnel is that at the top (the ‘mouth’ or
widest part of the funnel) you have your potential prospects. At this
point in time, these individuals have done nothing to signify that they
are likely to do business with you at any time in the future.
Depending upon how you create your own funnel model, these
prospects could be just outside the top of your funnel or just inside the
top lip.
However, as a general rule, it is normal to assume that anyone who is
actually inside the funnel has made a least some degree of commitment
to your business, possibly something as simple or basic as visiting your
site.
This is the most basic commitment level from a potential prospect to
your business. The prospect has seen some form of promotional
material that you have ‘seeded’ the net with, was interested in what
you had to say and decided to visit your site to investigate a little
further.
Thus, they have taken the very first step that you wanted them to take,
hence the notion that they have already made some form of
commitment to you, albeit a very small one.
At this point, having just entered the widest, uppermost part of your
sales funnel, the prospect has a choice to make. Either they are going
to find your offer to be of sufficient interest to commit themselves
further or they are going to decide the opposite. In this case, they
jump back out of your funnel, lost to your business forever.
It is this notion that people can ‘jump out’ of your sales system at any
time they want which leads to the basic funnel concept. At every step of
the process, there will be people who make the decision to go no
further and back out. Hence, you have less and less people still
interested in what you are doing as they move through your sales
process (or down your sales funnel) meaning that your scope for
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business narrows because of the dwindling number of people still
involved.
But even at this early stage, your first-time site visitor has a choice to
stay or go. If they do not jump out of your sales funnel by closing your
page for ever, the next logical step is that they will increase their
commitment to you to a greater or lesser degree.
For example, they may browse around your site to see exactly what you
have to offer on a site-wide basis, an act that indicates that they are
seriously interested in what you have to offer. Hence, this simple action
indicates a higher level of commitment.
Alternatively, it is more common to ask them to take a specific action
on this page, such as signing up for your mailing list, providing
additional information or some action of this nature. If they choose to
do this, the element of commitment is considerably higher because they
have taken the action that you required.
In the first of these two commitment examples, the individual who
takes a look at a few more pages on your site pushes themselves a little
further down the funnel (or through your system) by this action.
However, we have already established that some people will already
have backed out before now. Thus, there are less people still interested
in what you have to offer at this slightly more advanced stage, hence
the narrowing of the sales funnel.
On the other hand, the individuals who have taken the action that you
asked them to take have pushed themselves considerably further down
the funnel. At this level, there are again less people and therefore the
funnel continues to get still narrower.
In the following simple sales funnel schematic, you might say that the
upper blue layer represents the first time visitors that you have drawn
to your site:
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Of these visitors, the ones who make a minor commitment to you by
browsing around your site for a reasonable period of time might be
imagined to have moved down to the next (green) level of the funnel.
However, those who subscribed to your mailing list or took whatever
other action you requested have moved past these slightly less
committed people straight down to the red layer, where there are
considerably less people and therefore a narrower funnel.
And so it goes on. The more commitment you are asking for from your
site visitors, the less people are likely to make that commitment.
It should therefore be clear that the whole sales funnel concept is based
upon the idea that selling products or services (whether online or
offline) is a step-by-step process of pushing people down the funnel or
through your sales system.
At each level of the funnel, you have to ask your prospect to increase
their level of commitment knowing that by doing so you are going to
drive some of these prospects or customers away.
This is absolutely inevitable but there is no inevitability attached to the
number of people who might decide to jump out of your sales funnel at
any particular level.
In other words, this book is going to show you how to create a sales
funnel in such a way that you can prevent huge numbers of hot
prospects from jumping back out of your funnel once you have got
them to take the initial step that you want them to take.
Before doing that, let us consider how you get people to take the first
step that you want them to take, which is to visit your site.