Sales Funnels vs. Websites: A Better Strategy to Get Your Customer to Checkout

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There is plenty to discuss as we tackle sales funnels vs. websites. When designing your website, the single most important thing to consider is how to generate leads and customers. You’ll see at the end that I think Clickfunnels is the best way to do this. The most common misconception in website design is to focus your attention on beauty and aesthetics. It’s easy to get caught up in how your website portrays your brand. I understand that you want it to look up to date and for your product to look desirable, but if you have an online business, you have got to start seeing your website in a new way.

Consider this. Really, there are only three ways to grow your business:

1. Create new customers

2. Get them to pay more than the average cart price

3. Get those customers to order from you again and again through a repeatable unit (like a subscription) or other products.

Do you think your website enabling you to do these things? Or is it a confusing platform hindering your sales?

Sales Funnels Vs. Websites: Traditional Websites Explained

Your main goal for your website should be increasing sales and converting prospects into customers. According to the CMS Guy, the biggest problem with traditional websites is that your incoming traffic has too many choices to make, and no clear path to follow.

Traditionally, websites contain about 5 to 20 pages that typically include an about us page, a contact page, a services page, a blog or product catalog, etc.

This traditional template can have traffic going all over the place— your about page, your services page— when really all you want to do is lead traffic to the shopping cart. So how can we do that in a clear effective way?

Think in Sales Funnels, Not Websites!

If you’re wanting to grow your online business, you’ve got to retrain your mindset and start thinking in sales funnels instead of websites. I’m not suggesting to throw aesthetics to the wind as you design your platform, but as online entrepreneurs, I do think it is important to revisit the function of our website. According to Converse Digital your website is not an ad and the fundamental role of your website is not to brand your company. The fundamental role of your website is to serve as the ultimate salesperson for your product. It is your job to clearly explain the benefits of your products and give customers a clear path to purchase it. You need to design your website around that function. Don’t function your website around its design. I believe the best way to do that is to build a sales funnel.

If a traditional website is a massive highway with many exits, think of a sales funnels as an easy one-way street. What makes a sales funnel so different from a traditional website is that your traffic only has one way to go and one task to focus on. A sales funnel contains no outside links or distractions; each page presents one objective, and the visitor either completes it or leaves. All traffic is moving towards purchasing, and by removing distractions, your traffic can focus on your offer, which will ultimately lead to more conversions.

The Four Step Process of a Sales Funnel

The Daily Egg says if you’re selling a product or service online, you may be taking your prospects through this process without even realizing it, but if you’re intentional with this process, you can optimize your strategy. I’m going to take you through the four steps of a sales funnel and give you tips for implantation along the way.

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Awareness

“If you build it, they will come” is NOT true! You can have the most savvy product or helpful service out there, but if people don’t know about it, they will not come. In order for your prospect to even have a chance to become a customer, they need to become aware of your business. You have to pull prospects into your funnel through advertising.

I myself am a big fan of Facebook lead generation advertising because you can target the type of audience you want. This will keep you from pulling unqualified prospects into your funnel and will ultimately save you time and money from trying to convert the wrong type of audience. Think of who your ideal client is and target them. You can always cast a wider net later.

Interest

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After making prospects aware of your business and pulling them into your funnel, the next step is to cultivate their interest in your offer.I think its a great idea to offer a free trial of your service or product in this step. You can actually do this within your Facebook ad. Free is a very strong word in the English language, and will without a doubt peak interest in your product. Having people sign up for a free trial is also a great way to measure the interest you’re receiving as you’re able to gather email addresses and other information. This is a great way to cultivate relationships with prospects through email automation or even one-on-one interactions. If you are looking for a superb email marketing system, try ConvertKit here. It’s a GREAT solution for people looking for ease of use and great reputation.

Desire

It’s time to move your prospects from interest to desire. At this point, your prospect has either tried your free trial or in the midst of it, and hopefully they are loving how amazing your product is. They may still be on the fence of whether or not they choose to purchase.

There are ways to push them to desire. Personally, I’m a fan of customer testimonials. It’s hard for prospects to debunk personal experiences, and these stories will remind them how your service or products solves their bleeding neck pain. Now that you have email addresses for your prospects, you can drip these testimonials and other content into their inbox. An autoresponder series is also perfect for dripping discounts into their inbox—personally seeking them out to give them an offer they can’t refuse.

This level of the funnel can be a little tricky to measure. Ultimately, you’ll know you’ve cultivated desire as you see prospects start to purchase.

Action

This is your ultimate goal. After you’ve made yourself known, cultivated interest, given your prospects an amazing offer they can’t refuse, their final step is to click checkout. And while this is your ultimate goal and what you’re striving for, don’t stop there. Your best customers are repeat customers.

If you are not selling something repeatable, consider other product funnels you could move prospects into, like a product that compliments the initial one they purchased. If you only have one product, maybe now is the time to expand your product line.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that the funnel gets smaller throughout the process. This symbolizes the challenge of getting prospects to take action.

Chance are, your prospects will not take action the first time they go through your funnel. If they jump out of your funnel, find another approach to appeal to them. Continue to tempt them with different stories and offers through email automation(Try ConvertKit). You also need to take time to compare and contrast those who took action and those who didn’t.

I think a sales funnel is the best tool you can use to grow your business and improve your marketing efforts. And I think that Clickfunnels is the best software you can use to build your sales funnel. Clickfunnels wants to help entrepreneurs turn their vision into reality. It’s about convenience, efficiency, and ultimately helping you convert your prospects into customers and closing the sale.

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of Click Funnels and will get paid a commission if you choose to start an account by using one of my links in this post…at no additional cost to you. Plus, if you do use my links I will provide you with bonus materials …AND I will share with you my highest converting funnels directly from my account. Sound crazy? Try me. Check out the below section that covers the bonuses I include.