This video is based on a series of articles published by Omni Online Strategies. To view a large amount of sales funnel's templates and examples, and for more information on how to build high converting sales funnels, visit Omni Online Strategies. Calm. What is a sales funnel? A sales funnel is a set of automated actions designed to process your sales, from the first impression stage, through lead generating, trust building, action and conversion, the point where a lead is turning into a buying client. To better understand the concept of sales funnels, ask yourself. What does it really take for one to make a purchasing decision? What is really happening psychologically, when a person buys something? A purchasing decision, just like any other decision we make, is a product of an internal process. It is agreed by scholars that every decision making process consists of the following stages. Identifying the decision, gathering information, identifying alternatives, weighing the evidence, choosing among the alternatives and only then taking action. Generally speaking, a purchasing decision is taken only when the following factors are met. A. Awareness. The buyer is aware of the product. B. Consideration. The product promises an outcome that the buyer desires. C. Authority. In the eyes of the buyer, the seller has established a certain degree of authority in the field. D. Trust. The buyer trusts the seller. E. Price. The buyer agrees that the product worth its price. A good sales funnel is structured around these very decision making milestones. Suppose an old market in ancient times, for centuries, the same milestones were conditions for a sale to happen. Just like today. Regardless of the type of the product, be it a grain of salt or fresh fish. The principles are the same. In digital marketing however, the arena is virtual. If at all, you meet your prospects physically only when they become clients. Therefore, the sales funnel stages are designed to encourage a purchasing decision by means of online tools. 1. Awareness. In this stage of the sales funnel, you put your products out there for the first time. You show your target audience that your products exist. This may well be their initial impression of your brand, your services or your products. We know that most chances are that they will not purchase your product after they saw it once. It takes time to make a purchasing decision, so the objective of this stage is pure awareness. Web tools that you may use to create awareness, social media posts and engagement, Facebook, Instagram Stories, LinkedIn articles, Pinterest content, online forums such as Final Thought or Reddit. Blog posts and articles on your site, Google My Business Posts, PaperClick ads including search ads and display ads. Suggested content adds such as tabula and outbrain, TikTok. On top of that you can use press release to get your content to the press. It may surprise you but many of them are keen to find good content. Write guests blog posting. Create videos on YouTube of Facebook or show some authority in your field by answering questions on Kora. Do not forget to keep your content laser targeted. Failing to plan is planning to fail. The same goes with publishing content. Don't spread random content around the web and hope for a bite. Your content needs to be strongly associated with specific search terms. Yes, we are not talking now about CO. But it doesn't matter. Every post you create still needs to be planned to pick the interest of a specific audience. Remember, this stage is about awareness and its objective is to move the prospect to the next stage which is consideration. You want your prospect, who is aware now, to start considering your products. A 65-year-old woman probably won't consider Nintendo Mario for herself. Make sure then that you curate suitable content to target audience. Tip. Use Google Trends to find out popular search terms. It's free. Two. Consideration. The funnel is getting narrower now because we reach the next step. Your content worked. Harae. The prospect is now considering your product, S. At this stage, after reading or watching some of your publications, they took another step further and clicked on your post, your ad or your link. Remember, you still don't know who they are. But they gave you a chance. At this stage, you want to make sure that you will be able to keep communicating with your audience, for them to make a purchasing decision. You may still need to establish a higher level of trust, place yourself as an authority and of course agree on the price. Three. Lead Capture. But how will you be able to communicate with them if you don't have their contact details? That's right, now it's time to ask for their email address. But there is a problem. People don't provide their contact details unless they get something in return. That thing should be free because in return, you are asking them to give you their contact details, also for free. That's where the lead magnet stage takes place. The idea is that you give your prospect something free that has a value. A value for them, remember target audience. That free be can be an e-guide, a valuable newsletter, a recipe, an e-book, a tutorial, waitlist registration, quiz results or anything that is free and requires signing up. Three. Deeper engagement. Hit the steal while it's hot. It's time for a gradual sales pitch or a CTA C below. Hey, your prospects are at leaves now. At this point they are aware of your products. Not only are they aware of them, they actually took a sample, an indication for their high interest. In addition, a good degree of trust has been established. They gave you their contact details. A mutual relationship between you and the buyer is forming. You also know who they are thus new powerful marketing tools such as email marketing can step in and help you communicate with your audience at a new level of segmentation. Yes, time to make a sale, but don't be pushy. Your potential clients are listening. They gave you an opportunity. Make sure to play this right. The emails can play a role, amongst other tools like retargeting ads, as email automation is an excellent cost effective communicating tool. If your leads like your freebie, explain to them why they would absolutely love your actual products. CTA. Often, it is just too early to expect a sale to happen. Sometimes the jump between an email to a sale is still too vast. There is a need for a mid-stage. The mid-stage is an action done by the lead, but not the actual product purchase. When you ask the lead to make that action, you use a CTA which stands for call to action. A CTA can be a free consultation, a demo, a meeting, a questionnaire and so on. In other cases, the product itself simply cannot be sold without a fair one on one consultation or demo. For example, with medical practices or law offices. 3. Cha-Cheng. Congratulation. You made the sale. How do you like the sound of that? Amazing. Right. Not only did you make a sale, you made a healthy sale which was based on real decision making of the client. Not on impulses. Thus, you also managed to reduce the chances of requests for refunds or chargebacks. The client, who was previously at prospect, then at lead, went through all the sales funnel stages and made a purchasing decision. And guess what the decision was about? You guessed that right. That your product is what they currently need. But what happens if there is no sale? That's a great question and a good sales funnel should be prepared for this option as well. Let's think for a second. What are the two optional reasons, for a sale not to happen? Option 1. They don't like the product. Option 2. They don't like the price. If the answer is option 1 in your leads or not in the market for your products. It's either that something with your targeting methods should be improved, or that the leads simply want to think about it. If they are not the right audience, try to find the weak points in your targeting methods. Perhaps you should check your keywords or your audience criteria. On the other hand, if they just want to think about it, stay in touch and let them think. Automate a proper newsletter and make sure to keep around. If option 2 is the answer though, they want the product but hate the price, your sales funnel should be built in a way that a discount offer is automated. Typically with email automation. You are probably asking now. Well how do you know what is the reason they didn't purchase? The answer is that a good email marketing software should come with deep segmentation, capabilities. Segmentation is an essential key in every sales funnel. Email automation should help you automate segmentation based on events like, the lead read the email but didn't click, or the lead viewed the page but didn't purchase, or no action at all. So how to create a sales funnel? Don't worry, we got you covered and created multiple sales funnel templates for you. Visit our sales funnel demo page to see sales funnel's template for different fields and businesses. Cosmetics, legal, health care, insurance, business loans, small business and many more. Click on the link in the description to learn more. And please don't forget to like this