Are you tired of struggling to convert leads into paying customers? Well, I’m here to introduce you to a system that will improve lead management, customer engagement, and, ultimately, revenue. I’m talking about your automated sales funnel!
In today’s episode of Shop Talk, “How To Build An Automated Sales Funnel Like A Pro,” I take a deep dive into all the steps you will go through to build a sales funnel that guides your prospects through the selling process from identifying your audience, to launching the funnel, and even optimizing it for incredible results.
By following the simple steps, you can create a sales funnel that works like a pro. So, listen to this episode and learn how to create a sales funnel today!
Snapshot of this episode:
- 0:40 – Benefits of an Automated Sales Funnel
- 4:34 – STEP 1 – Identify Your Audience
- 6:33 – STEP 2 – Create Your Irresistible Offer
- 11:27 – STEP 3 – Define Your Goal
- 12:44 – STEP 4 – Map Your Funnel
- 15:53 – STEP 5 – Create Your Content
- 16:56 – STEP 6 – Build Your Pages
- 18:19 – STEP 7 – Build Your Automated Campaign
- 21:09 – STEP 8 – Test the Funnel
- 22:26 – STEP 9 – Launch to Your Audience
- 23:01 – STEP 10 – Analyze And Optimize
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE
If you are going to run a business, at some point, you will have to turn your focus to sales. So, imagine if you could have a powerful tool that could automate your sales process and do the heavy lifting for you. That’s where an automated sales funnel comes in.
Today, I will show you how to create a sales funnel that works like a pro, using the exact process we use when working with clients and creating sales funnels in our own business. By automating your sales funnel, you can save time and increase revenue, allowing you to focus on what you do best – running your business. So let’s get started and learn how to build an automated sales funnel that will help you generate more leads, close more deals, and grow your business!
Benefits of an Automated Sales Funnel
But before we jump into the nitty-gritty of outlining your sales funnel, let’s take a moment to explore the many benefits of this effective selling system.
- Efficiency: An automated sales funnel allows you to streamline your sales and marketing processes, saving you time and resources while increasing overall efficiency.
- Better Lead Management: With an automated sales funnel, you can easily manage and track your leads, ensuring that each one receives the right message at the right time and that no opportunities fall through the cracks.
- Improved Customer Engagement: An automated sales funnel enables you to provide personalized and relevant content to your prospects, which helps you build stronger relationships and increase engagement – which ultimately enables you to sell more.
- Scalability: An automated sales funnel can be easily scaled to handle larger volumes of leads and sales, allowing you to grow your business without sacrificing quality or efficiency. Which leads me to the last benefit…
- Increased Sales Revenue: By using an automated sales funnel, you can convert more leads into paying customers, resulting in increased sales revenue.
Ok, so what is an automated sales funnel?
An automated sales funnel is a series of automated marketing and sales steps designed to guide potential customers through a buying process. The goal is to automate the nurturing process, providing a personalized experience for each potential customer based on their interests, behavior, and stage in the sales process.
When most people think of creating a sales funnel, they immediately dive into designing their sales page. This is a huge mistake, and where you separate the beginners from the pros.
Cullen summed it up best when he said:
“The execution is easy if you have a plan.” – Cullen Kernan
So, that’s what we are going to do – create a plan and get clear on what we want to build before we start building.
There are 10 steps to this process:
- Identify Your Audience
- Create Your Irresistible Offer
- Define Your Goal
- Map Your Funnel
- Create Your Content
- Build Your Pages
- Build Your Automated Campaign
- Test
- Launch
- Analyze And Optimize
STEP 1 – Identify Your Audience
This is the first step you should take when creating a marketing or sales campaign. Specifically, you want to be crystal clear on:
- Who are you selling to?
- What are their pain points?
- What is the dream outcome they are seeking?
- And where are they in the buying journey (meaning, awareness, consideration, decision-making, or action stages)?
By understanding the stage of the buying journey that your potential customers are in, you can create targeted content and offers that speak directly to their needs and interests. For example, suppose a potential customer is in the awareness stage. In that case, they may not yet be familiar with your product or service, so you may need to create educational content to introduce them to your brand. On the other hand, if a potential customer is in the decision-making stage, they may need more detailed information about your product or service to help them make a purchase decision.
By creating content that is tailored to the specific stage of the buying journey that your potential customers are in, you can increase the effectiveness of your automated sales funnel and improve your overall conversion rates.
STEP 2 – Create Your Irresistible Offer
Once you have identified your audience, the next step is to create an irresistible offer. This offer should be valuable, relevant, and aligned with the needs and desires of your target audience.
I’m going to let you in on a secret: one of the main reasons why sales funnels fail is their offer. An offer that is not compelling, relevant, or valuable to your target audience will not convert.
To know how to create a sales funnel that converts, your offer has to have meaning for your potential customer. This will entice them to take action and move to the next stage. If this is weak, you’ll struggle to generate leads and sales, no matter how well-designed your sales funnel may be. To create a successful sales funnel, you must invest time and effort into crafting a truly irresistible offer that speaks directly to your target audience’s needs and desires.
STEP 3 – Define Your Goal
In order to build an effective sales funnel, you need to define your goals. When setting your goals, you don’t just want to focus on the sales made (although that is an important metric). But you also want to set goals for things like:
- How much will you spend on ads (if your traffic comes from ads)?
- What’s the click-through rate you are shooting for on your ads?
- What is the cost per lead?
- How many leads do you need to go through the funnel?
- How many landing/sales page views?
Having clear goals set will help you measure your funnel’s success all the way through the sales process so that you can see where you need to make improvements.
STEP 4 – Map Your Funnel
The next step is to map out your sales funnel, including the different stages your potential customers will go through on their journey to becoming paying customers.
This will involve identifying the different touchpoints and content that you will use to move prospects through each stage.
This can include things like:
- Ads they will see
- Email messages
- Text messages
- Facebook Messenger messages
- Resources
As well as…
- Landing pages you’ll use to capture leads
- Sales pages
- Order forms
- Thank you pages
- Upsell opportunities
And even…
- Post-purchase follow-up emails
- Onboarding campaigns
STEP 5 – Create Your Content
With your funnel mapped out, the next step is to create the content you will use to attract, engage, and convert potential customers. This may include things like:
- Blog posts
- Videos
- Webinar Presentations
- Emails
- Text messages
- Graphics
If you try to create your content “on the fly” as you are building the sales funnel, you risk creating content that is inconsistent, unfocused, and ineffective.
Without a clear plan and strategy for your content, you may miss critical touchpoints in the sales funnel or fail to address key pain points and objections that potential customers have.
This can lead to lower conversion rates and missed opportunities to grow your business. Instead, it’s important to plan and create your content in advance and ensure that it is aligned with your overall sales funnel strategy.
STEP 6 – Build Your Pages
Once you have your content in place, it’s time to build the landing pages and sales pages that will host your content and guide potential customers through each stage of the funnel. These pages should be designed with conversion in mind. That means creating visually appealing pages that are easy to navigate and optimized for conversions.
To build effective landing and sales pages, you need to think carefully about each page’s messaging, visuals, and layout. Your messaging should be clear, concise, and persuasive, highlighting the key benefits of your product or service and addressing any potential objections or concerns your customers might have. Visually, your pages should be designed to capture attention and convey professionalism, using high-quality images, graphics, and typography.
In addition, it’s important to optimize your landing pages and sales pages for conversions, which means making sure that each page is designed to drive action. This includes using clear calls to action, minimizing distractions, and reducing friction wherever possible.
STEP 7 – Build Your Automated Campaign
This is the step where you take all of your assets (emails, content, graphics, pages, etc.) and create a campaign where you can automate the timing and delivery of your information.
Building an automated campaign aims to create a seamless and personalized experience for your potential customers, guiding them through the different stages of the buying journey and ultimately converting them into paying customers.
Once you have everything set up, you will streamline your marketing and sales efforts through automation. This will save time and resources and increase your revenue with minimal effort.
STEP 8 – Test the Funnel
Before you launch your funnel to the public, you’ll want to test all of your assets. This involves reviewing your content and pages to ensure everything is functioning as intended.
By testing your funnel, you can identify any issues or bugs that need to be addressed before launching, saving you time and resources in the long run. It’s essential to conduct thorough testing at each stage of your sales funnel to ensure that it runs smoothly and provides a seamless and personalized experience for your potential customers.
STEP 9 – Launch to Your Audience
With everything in place, it’s time to start sharing your funnel and driving traffic to it. This is where the rubber meets the road, and you’ll need to deploy your tactics to start generating leads and sales.
This is when you turn on your ads, send your emails, start posting social content, and publish your blogs or podcasts. This approach will be effective if you have a well-defined audience and a compelling offer.
After you launch, you will create awareness, capture leads, and nurture your prospects as you guide them through the selling process. This will help you create a strong relationship with your audience as you deliver valuable content that resonates with their interests and needs.
By using a combination of tactics and refining your approach, you can learn how to build a successful sales funnel that generates leads and sales on autopilot.
And that leads me to the last (very important) step…
STEP 10 – Analyze And Optimize
There is no doubt that there is a lot of work to be done to create an automated sales funnel. But once you set up your sales funnel, you should start collecting data on your funnel’s performance. It’s important to analyze this data and make adjustments to optimize your funnel for better results. This may involve tweaking your content, adjusting your offers, or refining your targeting to better reach your audience.
Entrepreneurs often make the mistake of skipping the “Analyze and Optimize” step or giving up on the funnel altogether if it doesn’t perform well the first time. But collecting the data doesn’t have to be complicated. We use Keap to give us everything we need to know on how our sales funnels are performing so we can make any necessary adjustments along the way. We even teach entrepreneurs how to implement Keap into their businesses so they can get the most out of this tool, too!
This can be a costly mistake. Learning how to create a sales funnel that converts takes time and effort, and it’s rare for a funnel to perform optimally from the outset.
By skipping this step, you miss opportunities to improve your funnel’s performance, potentially leaving money on the table.
Maximizing Your Sales Funnel
Successful entrepreneurs understand the importance of continuous improvement and optimization. My advice – take the time to analyze your funnel’s performance and make necessary adjustments to improve its effectiveness over time.
Email Broadcast:
Subject line: Discover How to Create a Sales Funnel That Converts Like a Pro
Dear [First name],
Are you tired of spending excessive amounts of time and resources on sales and marketing without getting the results you’re looking for? Do you want to increase your revenue without sacrificing quality or efficiency? If so, I’d like to teach you how to build an effective automated sales funnel.
In my latest episode of Shop Talk, “How To Build An Automated Sales Funnel Like A Pro,” I share the step-by-step process we use with our clients to create sales funnels that work! By automating your funnel, you can guide prospects through the sales process as you effectively manage and track your leads. This allows you to provide a personalized experience for your prospects and ultimately increase your sales revenue.
If you’re serious about growing your business, check out this episode. It will give you the knowledge and tools you need to start automating your sales process like a pro!
LinkedIn Article:
If you are going to run a business, at some point, you will have to turn your focus to sales. So, imagine if you could have a powerful tool that could automate your sales process and do the heavy lifting for you. That’s where an automated sales funnel comes in.
Today, I will show you how to create a sales funnel that works like a pro, using the exact process we use when working with clients and creating sales funnels in our own business. By automating your sales funnel, you can save time and increase revenue, allowing you to focus on what you do best – running your business. So let’s get started and learn how to build an automated sales funnel that will help you generate more leads, close more deals, and grow your business!
Benefits of an Automated Sales Funnel
But before we jump into the nitty-gritty of outlining your sales funnel, let’s take a moment to explore the many benefits of this effective selling system.
- Efficiency: An automated sales funnel allows you to streamline your sales and marketing processes, saving you time and resources while increasing overall efficiency.
- Better Lead Management: With an automated sales funnel, you can easily manage and track your leads, ensuring that each one receives the right message at the right time and that no opportunities fall through the cracks.
- Improved Customer Engagement: An automated sales funnel enables you to provide personalized and relevant content to your prospects, which helps you build stronger relationships and increase engagement – which ultimately enables you to sell more.
- Scalability: An automated sales funnel can be easily scaled to handle larger volumes of leads and sales, allowing you to grow your business without sacrificing quality or efficiency. Which leads me to the last benefit…
- Increased Sales Revenue: By using an automated sales funnel, you can convert more leads into paying customers, resulting in increased sales revenue.
Ok, so what is an automated sales funnel?
An automated sales funnel is a series of automated marketing and sales steps designed to guide potential customers through a buying process. The goal is to automate the nurturing process, providing a personalized experience for each potential customer based on their interests, behavior, and stage in the sales process.
When most people think of creating a sales funnel, they immediately dive into designing their sales page. This is a huge mistake, and where you separate the beginners from the pros.
Cullen summed it up best when he said:
“The execution is easy if you have a plan.” – Cullen Kernan
So, that’s what we are going to do – create a plan and get clear on what we want to build before we start building.
There are 10 steps to this process:
- Identify Your Audience
- Create Your Irresistible Offer
- Define Your Goal
- Map Your Funnel
- Create Your Content
- Build Your Pages
- Build Your Automated Campaign
- Test
- Launch
- Analyze And Optimize
STEP 1 – Identify Your Audience
This is the first step you should take when creating a marketing or sales campaign. Specifically, you want to be crystal clear on:
- Who are you selling to?
- What are their pain points?
- What is the dream outcome they are seeking?
- And where are they in the buying journey (meaning, awareness, consideration, decision-making, or action stages)?
By understanding the stage of the buying journey that your potential customers are in, you can create targeted content and offers that speak directly to their needs and interests. For example, suppose a potential customer is in the awareness stage. In that case, they may not yet be familiar with your product or service, so you may need to create educational content to introduce them to your brand. On the other hand, if a potential customer is in the decision-making stage, they may need more detailed information about your product or service to help them make a purchase decision.
By creating content that is tailored to the specific stage of the buying journey that your potential customers are in, you can increase the effectiveness of your automated sales funnel and improve your overall conversion rates.
STEP 2 – Create Your Irresistible Offer
Once you have identified your audience, the next step is to create an irresistible offer. This offer should be valuable, relevant, and aligned with the needs and desires of your target audience.
I’m going to let you in on a secret: one of the main reasons why sales funnels fail is their offer. An offer that is not compelling, relevant, or valuable to your target audience will not convert.
To know how to create a sales funnel that converts, your offer has to have meaning for your potential customer. This will entice them to take action and move to the next stage. If this is weak, you’ll struggle to generate leads and sales, no matter how well-designed your sales funnel may be. To create a successful sales funnel, you must invest time and effort into crafting a truly irresistible offer that speaks directly to your target audience’s needs and desires.
STEP 3 – Define Your Goal
In order to build an effective sales funnel, you need to define your goals. When setting your goals, you don’t just want to focus on the sales made (although that is an important metric). But you also want to set goals for things like:
- How much will you spend on ads (if your traffic comes from ads)?
- What’s the click-through rate you are shooting for on your ads?
- What is the cost per lead?
- How many leads do you need to go through the funnel?
- How many landing/sales page views?
Having clear goals set will help you measure your funnel’s success all the way through the sales process so that you can see where you need to make improvements.
STEP 4 – Map Your Funnel
The next step is to map out your sales funnel, including the different stages your potential customers will go through on their journey to becoming paying customers.
This will involve identifying the different touchpoints and content that you will use to move prospects through each stage.
This can include things like:
- Ads they will see
- Email messages
- Text messages
- Facebook Messenger messages
- Resources
As well as…
- Landing pages you’ll use to capture leads
- Sales pages
- Order forms
- Thank you pages
- Upsell opportunities
And even…
- Post-purchase follow-up emails
- Onboarding campaigns
STEP 5 – Create Your Content
With your funnel mapped out, the next step is to create the content you will use to attract, engage, and convert potential customers. This may include things like:
- Blog posts
- Videos
- Webinar Presentations
- Emails
- Text messages
- Graphics
If you try to create your content “on the fly” as you are building the sales funnel, you risk creating content that is inconsistent, unfocused, and ineffective.
Without a clear plan and strategy for your content, you may miss critical touchpoints in the sales funnel or fail to address key pain points and objections that potential customers have.
This can lead to lower conversion rates and missed opportunities to grow your business. Instead, it’s important to plan and create your content in advance and ensure that it is aligned with your overall sales funnel strategy.
STEP 6 – Build Your Pages
Once you have your content in place, it’s time to build the landing pages and sales pages that will host your content and guide potential customers through each stage of the funnel. These pages should be designed with conversion in mind. That means creating visually appealing pages that are easy to navigate and optimized for conversions.
To build effective landing and sales pages, you need to think carefully about each page’s messaging, visuals, and layout. Your messaging should be clear, concise, and persuasive, highlighting the key benefits of your product or service and addressing any potential objections or concerns your customers might have. Visually, your pages should be designed to capture attention and convey professionalism, using high-quality images, graphics, and typography.
In addition, it’s important to optimize your landing pages and sales pages for conversions, which means making sure that each page is designed to drive action. This includes using clear calls to action, minimizing distractions, and reducing friction wherever possible.
STEP 7 – Build Your Automated Campaign
This is the step where you take all of your assets (emails, content, graphics, pages, etc.) and create a campaign where you can automate the timing and delivery of your information.
Building an automated campaign aims to create a seamless and personalized experience for your potential customers, guiding them through the different stages of the buying journey and ultimately converting them into paying customers.
Once you have everything set up, you will streamline your marketing and sales efforts through automation. This will save time and resources and increase your revenue with minimal effort.
STEP 8 – Test the Funnel
Before you launch your funnel to the public, you’ll want to test all of your assets. This involves reviewing your content and pages to ensure everything is functioning as intended.
By testing your funnel, you can identify any issues or bugs that need to be addressed before launching, saving you time and resources in the long run. It’s essential to conduct thorough testing at each stage of your sales funnel to ensure that it runs smoothly and provides a seamless and personalized experience for your potential customers.
STEP 9 – Launch to Your Audience
With everything in place, it’s time to start sharing your funnel and driving traffic to it. This is where the rubber meets the road, and you’ll need to deploy your tactics to start generating leads and sales.
This is when you turn on your ads, send your emails, start posting social content, and publish your blogs or podcasts. This approach will be effective if you have a well-defined audience and a compelling offer.
After you launch, you will create awareness, capture leads, and nurture your prospects as you guide them through the selling process. This will help you create a strong relationship with your audience as you deliver valuable content that resonates with their interests and needs.
By using a combination of tactics and refining your approach, you can learn how to build a successful sales funnel that generates leads and sales on autopilot.
And that leads me to the last (very important) step…
STEP 10 – Analyze And Optimize
There is no doubt that there is a lot of work to be done to create an automated sales funnel. But once you set up your sales funnel, you should start collecting data on your funnel’s performance. It’s important to analyze this data and make adjustments to optimize your funnel for better results. This may involve tweaking your content, adjusting your offers, or refining your targeting to better reach your audience.
Entrepreneurs often make the mistake of skipping the “Analyze and Optimize” step or giving up on the funnel altogether if it doesn’t perform well the first time. But collecting the data doesn’t have to be complicated. We use Keap to give us everything we need to know on how our sales funnels are performing so we can make any necessary adjustments along the way. We even teach entrepreneurs how to implement Keap into their businesses so they can get the most out of this tool, too!
This can be a costly mistake. Learning how to create a sales funnel that converts takes time and effort, and it’s rare for a funnel to perform optimally from the outset.
By skipping this step, you miss opportunities to improve your funnel’s performance, potentially leaving money on the table.
Maximizing Your Sales Funnel
Successful entrepreneurs understand the importance of continuous improvement and optimization. My advice – take the time to analyze your funnel’s performance and make necessary adjustments to improve its effectiveness over time.
#sales, #salesfunnel, #entrepreneur, #emailmarketing, #marketing
