Nowadays it is common to use the metaphor of a web sales funnel to describe the sales process.
If you don’t know what a sales funnel is, it resembles a funnel because it is wide at the very top and narrow at the end.
In other words, it is easy to enter the funnel, and we try to get as many people as possible.
Then, we take only a few people that are truly interested in the most expensive offers. The goal is to maximize the revenue.
How a Sales Funnel Works?
The way a sales funnel works is easy to understand. Towards the top of this funnel you’ve got ‘unqualified prospects’. In other words, these are visitors who have not been through the qualification process.
Such visitors are those who you believe may become a customer of your service or product. However, they have not bought anything from you.
At the end of this funnel, after several delivery and sales steps, you have only those who’ve received the service or product. That is, you have purchasing customers.
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Predicting Customer Acquisition
The metaphor of a funnel is used because prospects can drop out at different stages. Thus, this becomes an extended sales process, which can take several steps to occur.
Using the data about this sales funnel, you can calculate the amount of leads at every point of the process. It makes much easier to stop problems.
Using this data collection and statistics, you are also able to predict the percentage of prospects who will, over time, become clients.
Moreover, you’ll be able to spot issues in the sales if you take a look at how these amounts change with time. This way you can check the pipeline and take corrective action early, if needed.
Improving a Web Sales Pipeline
For example, suppose that your stats show that not many mailings were getting response during a month. If this continues, you may be expecting that sales may dry out after a couple of months time.
To fix this problem, you can try corrective action. In this case, in the following month you can ensure that more mailings than usual will be sent.
Utilization of the sales funnel may show problems and lost opportunities. It can also show if there is an insufficient quantity of leads at any point.
Actions in A Web Sales Funnel
Getting this knowledge from web funnels enables you to take decisions. You may decide where sales agents should focus their attention, for example.
Other actionable things you can do with this information include:
- How to increase efforts in your funnel,
- How to help keep sales at a required level,
- How to satisfy previously defined targets,
- And much more.
Having a sales funnel may also be used explain where to add improvements. This allows one to increase or revamp the complete sales procedure.
These might be as straight-forward as introducing extra sales coaching. Another possibility is to make certain sales pages part of another step of the web sales process.
Steps In Creating Sales Funnel Reporting
Creating reports on sales funnel, as we see, if a fundamental activity.
The very first step in establishing proper sales funnel reporting would be to brainstorm the sales process. You can enlist the help of others, with better understanding of sales and marketing.
The important idea is to ensure that your funnel is correct and comprehensive.
As a result of this process, find out the main sequential parts of the sales procedure. From these, you can generate status codes.
Using this information, you can label your leads using these categories (this is easier when you’ve got a funnel management system or email list software).
Finally, you can figure the amount of prospects at every step. You should calculate the changes from the last month (this is a common feature of funnel software reports).
Enhancing Your Web Funnel
Using the method described above, you develop a more complete image of a web funnel.
You’ll see how ir proceeds every month, so you can begin to understand possible improvements. This will results in the enhancement of your web funnel.
If you have a product to sell, using a web based funnel will give you the best platform.