Home runs are a baseball player’s dream. Without it, the long slog to home base is a spasmodic campaign of leading off and dodging base players before rushing to home plate, sliding in just under the catcher’s mitt. But hit a home run, and all those ordinary hurdles vanish. It’s a guaranteed score.
Nudging prospects through the sales funnel can feel a lot like rounding bases through a line-up of no-hitters. You’re left hoping to make the sale before the prospects fall off and the game ends. Building a home run sales funnel means getting more prospects to the sale more quickly.
In this article, we share top tips to building a sales funnel that draws in quality leads and propels them skillfully to the sale.
Know Your Ideal Client
Examine your recent leads and sales. Analyze everything you know about them and look for the traits buyers have in common that are absent from the prospects who fell away. You’ve just identified the traits of your ideal customers.
Create a Strong Brand
Now that you know your ideal client, it’s time to create a strong brand they’ll find attractive. Remember, selling is an emotional experience. That’s why this Diet Coke ad features a customer breaking into a dance on an empty street. Nothing about Diet Coke would make a person suddenly able to keep a beat. But Coke knows that’s how their customers want to feel.
Share and Create Stirring Content
Share and create content that speaks to how your ideal clients want to feel and be. Have you ever noticed that SUV commercials always show drivers enjoying the view from the mountaintop they just drove to? Most SUV owners never kick it into 4-wheel drive much less drive along an empty ocean beach. But they all want to.
Develop Relationships
Just like with other relationships, building a connection takes one-on-one time. That’s where your website comes in. When prospects get to your landing page, it’s just you and them. Make the most of this quality time by building trust.
The trait common to all successful relationships is trust. You can earn the trust of your audience when you create authoritative content that helps them solve their problems. Your goal is to be the website your prospects visit repeatedly to get answers. That takes a lot of great content.
There are well over a billion websites on the internet. Yet content marketing with a one-in-a-billion website is still a top marketing strategy. Of those who use content marketing, 91 percent saw a positive impact.
Trigger the Deal
You’ve zeroed in on your ideal client, spoke to their desires and developed their trust. Now it’s time to close the sale.
No matter how logical a customer seems, making a purchase is largely an emotional decision. And whether the next step is signing on the dotted line or clicking “Place Your Order,” every customer will likely feel at least a twinge of the same emotion: fear.
To close the sale, you have to help the client overcome their fear. To do that, you have to identify what they’re afraid of. Then offer a way to ease that fear.
Score More Sales with a Home Run Sales Funnel
Using data about your existing customers can help you create a brand that will attract your ideal client. Your content marketing strategy can speak to your ideal client’s emotions and earn their trust. With a strong relationship in place, you can score more sales without wasting time on prospects who aren’t a great fit.