If you’re a network marketer and you haven’t heard of a sales funnel, then you need to be paying attention to the next few words being said. Understanding how sales funnels work is paramount to your success as a marketer in 2018.
The sales funnel definition refers to the buying process that a company leads a customer through when they are purchasing any product. The reality of how content marketing works online today is that it’s more of a buyers journey than a sales process.
With multi-level marketing bringing in $114 billion in revenue yearly, it’s time you started taking sales funnels seriously.
But there’s a problem. If you’ve never heard of a sales funnel before, where on earth do you start?
We can break down sales funnels into different steps and understanding these steps will help you know how to deliver for your business in 2018 and beyond.
Let’s get started.
What’s The Big Deal With Funnels?
In MLM, it’s always finding your new prospects that is the hardest part of your job. You’re not alone here.
In sales, 40% of people think that finding new prospects is the hardest part of their sales process. It’s getting those prospects in contact with you that is the hardest part.
If you could find a way to get more people with an interest in multi-level marketing into your lap, and if those people had an interest in what you were selling and you had a small relationship with them, everything would be easier.
That’s pretty much the sales funnel definition. A sales funnel will bring you prospects, and allow you to bring them through your process and journey so that when you are ready to speak to them about your product offering, they are receptive to what you have to say.
Why We Should Tweak The Sales Funnel Definition
The big thing that scares a lot of people of with the sales funnel definition, is that the very thought of putting your prospects through a ‘sales process’ can sound daunting, impersonal and a little manipulative.
In reality, the sales funnel definition should change so that it isn’t so much a funnel as a buyers journey. You are taking your prospect on an educational journey to help them.
You will provide them value, help them and educate them, and then offer them a solution.
Some of The Issues With Network Marketing
When you are dealing with network marketing, you have some challenges that are going to be coming your way. Firstly, almost six in every ten buyers wants to discuss price on their first call.
And secondly, more than 50% of your prospects want to see how your product works on the first call.
What that means is you need to find a way to shed some light and information to your prospects, and educate and warm them up, before you get on that important first phone call with them.
That’s where your sales funnel comes in.
How a Sales Funnel Can Help
We’ve already mentioned that the sales funnel definition is the marketing term for the journey you are taking your potential prospect on. You can start off with a lot of potential customers, who may have an interest in your offering.
A small portion of that first group may want to find out more, and an even smaller part may contact you directly. As you move through the different processes of the funnel, you are filtering down, and you end up having a lot fewer people but ones who are ready to talk and much more likely to convert.
What the sales funnel definition fails to mention is you automate this process. So instead of you manually prospecting customers and spending all your time filtering through yourself, you have a process in place that does that for you.
Your sales funnel will not only help you filter through, but it also helps you do some of the selling along the way so that your prospect has more information. You do this by educating your prospect on what you offer, and by doing this, they are ultimately more likely to convert when they finally reach you.
Already Have A Funnel? Find The Holes
Some of you reading this may already have a funnel that you are using but aren’t achieving the levels of success that you expected with it. It’s these people that need to look hard at the sales funnel definition and find the holes in their funnel.
Even the very best sales funnels can have leaks in their process where you lose potential prospects through each stage of their funnel. If you have your own funnel, it’s important to look at each stage of your funnel and identify where you are losing your prospects.
There are some important sales pipeline stages that you should understand. Let’s take you through the process of a sales funnel so you can see first hand, what the sales funnel definition really looks like, in a real-life example.
The First Stage Of a Funnel – Find Prospects
When you look at the sales funnel definition, at the very start of your sales funnel, you are looking to find new prospects.
Now that doesn’t mean going door to door, knocking to try and find new customers.
You can find hundreds or thousands of new prospects from the comfort of your living room. You can even wear your favorite pajamas while doing it.
In 2018, everything is digital, and that’s how we communicate, how we find work and how people find information.
That’s why as a network marketer, of all the unique network marketing strategies available, you need to adapt your message and bring yourself up to date with how the internet works.
Social Media
Social media marketing is one of the best places for you to find the majority of your prospects. Facebook is one of the ultimate places to start looking, as you may even have friends of friends who have an interest in what you have to offer.
You will have no doubt already delved into your friends and family so moving onto your friend’s friends is a good move.
Facebook will let you direct message friends of friends, but not total strangers.
If you have already hit up all those contacts, think to move onto Facebook groups, or strangers you find on pages. You can pay-per-message to appear in the right inbox, otherwise, you’ll disappear into the no-mans land of that other inbox that nobody ever checks.
Paid Traffic
Another hugely popular method of finding prospects is through paid traffic. The sales funnel definition that most people follow to use this technique regularly through Facebook ads or Google Adwords.
These digital ad networks allow you to set demographics so that you can target people that best fit your target audience. This is a lot better than just messaging people and hoping for the best.
You can use focused targeting to promote your offer to those who are more interested. You can even use a remarketing pixel on your pages so that you retarget those customers who visited your page but didn’t make a purchase.
With paid advertising, you want to make sure you’re utilizing the tools to its full potential. Make sure to create a strong offer and target the right kind of audience.
The Second Stage Of a Funnel – Generating Those Prospects
Once you’ve figured out where your perfect audience is hanging out, it’s time to start getting those prospects to look at what you’re offering. This doesn’t mean speaking to them in person, on the phone or turning up at their home address.
You can do all of the above with a video or even a slideshow.
Remember that the sales funnel definition is all about bringing people to you, not the other way around.
The difference with a sales funnel is instead of cold-calling prospects; you are going to be selling to them once they have listened to your offering, signed up for more information and then they are reaching out to you.
It puts you in a much stronger position. Once your prospect has seen your offer on social media or an advert, it’s time to send them to your landing page.
Landing Pages
You’ve found a ton of potential new prospects, but you haven’t yet found a way to get their email address and contact them directly. To get their email address, it’s time to send them to a landing page, optimized for conversion.
Your landing page should include a few important elements:
- A contact form
- A capturing headline
- Some key points about the benefits of your offering
- And a compelling call-to-action
You need to make sure that your landing page is relevant to the ad or social media message you’ve put out.
Remember that consistency is crucial.
Call To Actions
You may not have realized this, but having a good call to action on your landing page is critical to your success. It’s what is prompting your prospects to take the next step on your journey.
You should make sure to make your buttons stand out, go for contrasting color and some personalized wording like ‘Send Me My Free Swag.’
You want to make it clear what the user is getting when they subscribe.
The Third Stage Of a Funnel – Converting Your Prospects
Now you’ve got a grasp of the sales funnel definition, and you’ve started to optimize your landing pages and incoming prospects, it’s time for the next step. At this stage, you want to reassure your audience, nurture them.
This is the final, and most important stage of your sales funnel. This is where the magic happens and where the sales funnel definition changes from a sales process, into a customer journey.
At this stage in your sales funnel, your prospect should have a pretty clear idea of what you are offering them. They should also be aware of the benefits after reading your message sent out in the first stage of the funnel.
For those people who have yet to join, it’s time to offer more info and answer any questions.
Email marketing is one of the best tools in your arsenal to deliver this final message. Anybody that’s opted into your email list is giving you permission to email them.
That means you can reach out whenever you want without violating any terms or frustrating your prospect, providing you don’t spam them.
At this stage, it’s the perfect time to reach out to your prospect in a welcome email. Welcome emails on average have 4x the open rate and 5x the click-through rate of a normal email marketing campaign.
Make sure when you are email marketing to segment your list. With network marketing, each of your prospects will be at a different stage in their journey.
By doing this, you’ll build a stronger connection with your prospects, and improve the quality of them before you’ve even spoken to them.
What The Sales Funnel Definition Doesn’t Tell You
When you look at the process of the sales funnel, each of these different steps all has one thing in common. They are utilizing digital marketing.
Take this opportunity to learn how to revamp your marketing efforts, and look at how you recruit your network marketing prospects. There are a lot of people out there that you can reach.
All you need to do is perfect your sales funnel, put it out into the world using ad’s or social marketing and then convert them into leads.
Do you need support giving your network marketing business a boost? Contact us directly today.