In 1898, a 26-year-old marketing agent Elias St. Elmo Lewis have noticed that the customer\u2019s interest in anything follows a similar pattern. That\u2019s how the famous sales funnel was born to become the main instrument of the marketing.<\/p>\n
And even though it\u2019s been more than a century since the times of Elias, and the marketing itself became digital, the sales funnel remains a key element of turning a potential customer into a paying one.<\/span><\/p>\n St. Elmo Lewis\u2019s funnel consists of four levels of engagement \u2014 Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. AIDA, for short.<\/span><\/p>\n Any contact between your customer and the product \u2014 for example, them seeing a product page \u2014 is attention.<\/span><\/p>\n On the first stage, the number of the potential customers is much larger. But most of them are not interested in your product and never will be since they opened the link just to browse. It is considered normal to lose more than 50% of customers at this level.<\/span><\/p>\n Your mission here is to convince people that they need your product. For example, a shaving kit. Not Philips shaving kit with LEDs, diamond-cut blades and an ebony handle \u2014 that\u2019s what the next stage is for \u2014 but simply the shaving kit.<\/span><\/p>\n The more people are interested \u2014 the better.<\/span><\/p>\n Once your customers are interested, they\u2019ll start browsing the wares \u2014 both yours and competitors. A lot of people will browse other wares even if they already found something that suits them perfectly.<\/span><\/p>\n Interest is a stage of comparisons. At this point, your mission is to convince the customer that your product is the better one.<\/span><\/p>\n Interest stage ends, when an interested customer decides that they want some specific product.<\/span><\/p>\n Desire is a powerful factor. But it doesn\u2019t mean that you can let the client go and hope that they will make a right decision. You have to remind them that they like your product and simply can\u2019t live without it.<\/span><\/p>\n At this stage, you don\u2019t have to talk about your product. You customer already knows it all and simply tries to rationalize the purchase, especially if it is a pricey one. What you have to tell them, is how it will change and improve their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n A successful third stage always ends with an action.<\/span><\/p>\n The purchase itself. The call to action has been answered and you get a yet another happy customer. Everyone can go home and enjoy a celebrational dinner. Except, not really.<\/span><\/p>\n If someone already bought something \u2014 they can buy some more! Offer them accessories to their main purchase. Ask to showcase the product on the social media \u2014 in exchange for some bonus. Did you release an updated version of the product? Shoot them a newsletter, maybe they\u2019d like to upgrade!<\/span><\/p>\n Also, don\u2019t forget that each customer becomes disappointed in the product. Maybe in a year or two, but it happens. So don\u2019t leave your customers without a guiding hand and show them where to find a better product (hint \u2014 in your own store).<\/span><\/p>\n You can write a book on the theory behind the sales funnel. And you can write a small library on the theory of its application. But if you want to get into it quick, the best way is to see it in action. So I\u2019ll show you how it works in practice and explain how and why exactly everything happens.<\/span><\/p>\n Imagine a situation: an accessory start-up plans to sell $6000 worth of wallets in October 2017. This should be enough to cover all the expenses, pay the salaries and even get 25% in profit. A single wallet is $68, which means that they need to sell at least 88 of them.<\/span><\/p>\n The marketing department opens up their statistics and sees that in September they\u2019ve had 1000 website visitors, 400 of them actually went to a different website page, 250 added a wallet to the wishlist and 67 of them actually bought one. It sounds kind of bad, but it\u2019s actually normal stats in this day and age. But they have to do better.<\/span><\/p>\n The first move would be to define all stages.<\/span><\/p>\n Based on this info, the department can start planning their further actions.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, that\u2019s a pretty rough example. Everything is getting done at the very last moment and there\u2019s an end result \u2014 sell 21 wallets more than the last month.<\/span><\/p>\n In real life, the marketing team should have a global plan for working with clients on every level. Let\u2019s imagine ourselves in their place and try to develop one:<\/span><\/p>\n Sounds complicated? Unusual? A lot of work? Yeah, sure. But that will give you the best result and up the sales funnel efficiency.<\/span><\/p>\n Sales funnel is the foundation of the marketing as the science and the first tool to transform a quantitative marketing into the qualitative one. Yes, there are more delicate and interesting techniques, but all of them come back to the works of St. Elmo Lewis in some way or the other. So, if you are not using the sales funnel in your business \u2014 start immediately!<\/span><\/p>\n And if you are using it and don\u2019t mind sharing some inside \u2014 let\u2019s talk in the comments about interesting ways of interacting with a client at different stages!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n In 1898, a 26-year-old marketing agent Elias St. Elmo Lewis have noticed that the customer\u2019s interest in anything follows a similar pattern. That\u2019s how the famous sales funnel was born to become the main instrument of the marketing. And even though it\u2019s been more than a century since the times of Elias, and the marketing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-market","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"yoast_head":"\nHow does it work<\/span><\/h2>\n
Attention<\/span><\/h3>\n
Interest<\/span><\/h3>\n
Desire<\/span><\/h3>\n
Action<\/span><\/h3>\n
How to apply the sales funnel<\/span><\/h2>\n
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Conclusion<\/span><\/h2>\n