Establishing your first sales funnel is exciting when you first create an online business. You have researched your options and determined what will work best for you. Now, you must wait for the sales to start rolling in.
However, what happens if they don’t? While you may have had a few sales trickle in, you may have no sales at all in other cases.
If you find yourself in this situation, it means that there is a part (or several parts) of your sales funnel that isn’t working like you hoped it would.
Here, you can learn more about some of the most common reasons your sales funnel may not work. For each problem presented, you will also find a few strategies to fix the issue.
Finding Problems in Your Sales Funnel
The first step to determining why your sales funnel is not working properly is identifying the problems. This requires you to look at the data and information you have.
The insight you gather from your sales funnel can help you take steps to improve your overall marketing strategy.
It may be necessary to gather data from a few different places, including Google Analytics, your checkout cart system, and your email service provider.
When you use Google Analytics, you can see the amount of traffic your site receives, the total number of clicks your landing page receives, how much time people spend on different pages, where they left the site, and more. If you set up goals, you can also see your opt-in sales rate, conversion rate, and other information.
The email service provider you use can provide information on abandoned cards, conversion rates, and more.
After you have the proper data, it is possible to analyze every metric and compare it to past results or different industry benchmarks. With this information, you can find the areas that need improvement and be fixed.
Problem Number 1: You Don’t Get Enough Traffic
The first step in any sales funnel is based on your traffic. If no one is coming to your website, then your sales funnel isn’t getting the chance to work.
If people don’t come to your website or your landing pages, then you aren’t going to have any subscribers. If you don’t have subscribers, you won’t have sales. With no sales, you don’t have a business.
Before optimizing other parts of your sales funnel, you must focus on why you don’t have any traffic.
There are a few options to consider when it comes to fixing your traffic issue. These include the following:
- Implement the right SEO practices to ensure your blog content is found when people search for what you offer.
- Be present where your ideal customer spends time. This includes their favorite social media platform, going to virtual or live events, participating in social media live events, and more.
- Use a promoted campaign to increase traffic to certain blog posts or landing pages.
- Collaborate with others in the office to get more people trying to get new people to your site.
Problem Number 2: You Are Not Targeting the Right People
If you don’t target the right people, there is no way your funnel will work. For example, if you create a lifestyle blog and offer Pinterest templates for bloggers, you need to ensure your audience is bloggers. If not, you won’t make very many sales (if any).
To fix your targeting problem, you can try the following:
- Know the target market for your business.
- Create an online survey or an email survey to discover what your existing audience is thinking, what pain points they have, and what they need help with.
- Google Forms is a great option; it is free and simple.
- Create a buyer persona for your service or product. Create a story about your ideal customer, which should include their behavior patterns, motivations, goals, and demographics.
Problem Number 3: You Do Not Have Enough Subscribers
If you are getting plenty of traffic and targeting the right people, but when they visit your website, they don’t subscribe to your email list, then the issue is likely with the opt-in offer you have.
There are a few things you can do to help increase your total email conversions, which include the following:
- Be sure the freebie offer is something your audience wants. Review the buyer persona and survey results to ensure your offer matches your customers’ needs.
- Create a different free offer to see if it results in better conversions. An example is if you have a checklist as your existing offer. If that is the case, you may want to try a template or tip sheet.
- Invest in A/B testing to help improve your landing pages. Some of the parts to test include your headline, the copy, the button colors, the call to action, and other elements. Be sure to make one change at a time to see what type of results you achieve.
- Test different types of lead-generation forms. For example, if you are using an inline form that is not working well, consider an exit intent pop-up. Or, if you have a two-step lead box, change it to a one-step inline form.
Problem Number 4: You Do Not Follow Up
This is a very common sales funnel mistake for entrepreneurs. You put a lot of time and effort into creating an amazing landing page, send traffic to it to get them to subscribe, and then nothing else happens.
You never send follow-up emails or make an offer for other services or products. You may not even have anything to offer.
If this is the case, there are a few things you can do to improve or fix your follow-up issue, which include the following:
- Start with the offer. Do not try to create any type of offer or a landing page until you have something to offer.
- Build an email follow-up campaign that will go out automatically if someone signs up for the freebie you are offering as part of the funnel. Make sure you include the sales offers you have available in the email sequence.
- Use Facebook to create and run a retargeting campaign.
- If you use a checkout cart system that allows you to send follow-up emails to anyone who abandons their cart. You can find some options that will let you designate a certain amount of time to wait to send a follow-up email to someone who abandons their cart and encourage them to complete their purchase.
Problem Number 5: You Do Not Spend Time Nurturing Your Leads
Did you know it usually requires multiple touches to turn a potential customer into an actual customer? This means you must create and implement a lead nurturing strategy.
There are a few methods you can use to try to nurture your leads, which include the following:
- Use targeted email marketing. You can find some services that let you tag different subscribers so they receive email content based on their assigned tags. It is more effective to only send content to groups of people who are interested in it than to everyone you have on your list.
- Use different channels to stay in touch with potential clients. You can write several blog posts on the funnel topic. Be sure to engage with the prospects through social media. Another option is to host a webinar or a live-stream video. You also need to email your leads often without seeming spammy.
Problem Number 6: You Have Not Created a Strong Call-to-Action (CTA)
Usually, this is something that is seen at the top of the sales funnel. Your free content, such as your videos, podcasts, social media, videos, and anything else, needs a call to action. If you don’t have this, you are wasting your time.
There is an easy and effective way to fix your CTA issue. Each time you create free content, think about the next step you would want someone to take. For example, do you want them to follow you on Facebook? Do you have a YouTube channel they should subscribe to? Should they sign up for your email list?
No matter what you request, be sure to spell it out and ask them to do it. This serves as your call to action.
Remember, if you do not tell a potential customer what you want them to do, there is a very minimal chance they will do it. With an effective CTA, you can get more conversions and continue to move people through your sales funnel.
Minimizing Issues with Your Sales Funnel
As you can see, several issues may arise with your sales funnel. You need to take steps to figure out what problems you are dealing with and use the tips here to fix them.
If you are having trouble figuring out how to fix the issue, contact our professional team at Small Business SEO. We can help you create a sales funnel that works and that continues to grow and get better.
By, Peter Roesler, President of Small Business SEO. 25+ years in marketing! Yippee.
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