A website without a funnel is like a car without an engine
Traffic, leads, sales and customers are all we want from a website, right? Well, much like our metaphorical car, no matter how well designed, how shiny and how large it is, we’re not going to gain any traction or momentum without an engine.
If you read this post, you’ll know exactly how to get more leads, traffic, sales and customers from your website.
The problem is that marketers love buzzwords. Heck, I’m a marketer myself and I love terms like funnel, disintermediate and specificity.
Lingo like this can detract from what is really a very powerful business tool – the funnel. Funnels are the key to your website and indeed your business success.
There’s a myth that all you need to do is get a website designed and built and watch the orders roll in.
The truth is that your website is like a car. You need fuel and investment. You need to make sure it’s getting the attention it needs to get the results that you’re expecting.
The way that customers find, like and understand our business is changing. They no longer rely on salespeople to be the gatekeepers of information. They know they can research their needs in their own time.
It’s your job to offer them useful, helpful advice and position yourself as the most helpful person in your market.
Before we get into it, my name is Mike Killen and I build and run marketing funnels for other businesses. I’m good enough at what I do to teach other website designers and consultants how to build their own funnels.
I’m not great at chess, I’m a lousy Boggle player – but generating leads and customers from websites? That I am good at.
Most recently, I generated $100,000 in 30 days for a US-based insurance company using a website and a marketing funnel. The good news? Your website right now can be turned into a lead and sales machine in the shape of a funnel.
There’s a myth that all you need to do is get a website and watch the orders roll in. Share on XGet more traffic
To generate more leads and sales, you need more traffic. Traffic is the fuel for your car.
Think of having a shop on a high street. What do you need to make sales? You need people to walk through that door and start to browse your products.
Our job as business owners is to help people find our store and help them make the right decision.
There is no quick fix for traffic, but no matter what, you don’t have a traffic problem. We could get you traffic right this second if you need it.
The harsh truth? Traffic needs investment. It’s the most basic form of promotion available. There are many types of traffic activity, but there is no such thing as free traffic.
Either you have to write and publish quality content on a regular basis. Or be willing to pay for people to come to your site.
Pay per click advertising allows you to target people who are interested in your business and send them to your site.
You need one (if not both of these) if you’re serious about growing your business and having a profitable website.
Traffic is the top of our funnel.
Leads
Leads are where we can start to automate the funnel and sales process.
If you want to be known for selling red cars and that’s all you sell, what do you think you should be talking about?
Correct – red cars is all you should be talking about.
If you drive a load of traffic to your site, you want to collect enough contact information from that traffic to market to them later.
These are our leads. Even if we just collect an email address and a name from your traffic, we can market to them later.
The fastest way to collect leads is to offer them what they want. It sounds obvious, but if you’re talking about red cars, because that’s all you sell, then offer them more content about red cars.
Traffic on your site is obviously interested in what you’ve got to say. You need to offer them a lead magnet. A lead magnet is a specific, interesting and valuable piece of content that people can get in exchange for some contact information – an email address and a name.
A lead magnet is something related to the content that they’re reading, but solves a specific problem. A report, a case study or a template. Something that will help your leads see how valuable and helpful you are.
Once you’ve collected a lead, you can start to market to them and sell to them. Leads are the middle of our funnel.
Sales
This is my favourite part of the funnel. Sales automation is so massive that you could write an entire book on it.
But at its core, selling to a lead, who has consumed a lead magnet, is as simple as saying “if you thought that was useful, you need to see this”.
All a sale is, is helping a lead get the same results that they’re trying to get with your free content. We just charge them to help get their results faster.
For example, let’s say you’re a flower shop. If you write content on your blog regularly about flowers, anniversaries, gifts for men to give their wife and celebrating – you’ll get traffic from people looking for advice on giving flowers in celebration and anniversaries.
If you then offer that traffic a lead magnet, something like a ‘15 important dates’ calendar. A free download with 15 important dates that they have to remember, we’ll even give them space to write their anniversary date down. That way they have a simple template reminder of when to get gifts for their wife.
Now, if you send an email to that lead saying “Hey, how about you send that list to me and I’ll arrange flowers to be sent on 3 of the most important dates? We’ll even organise a card and a small gift, and remind you when you need to pick it up?”
I’d order that. I’d be all over that. It’s giving me the same results I was looking for – faster.
We call this a sales conversion. Sales conversions are the bottom of our funnel.
Takeaway
We’ve looked at why a funnel is so important to your website and your business.
It’s not hard to create a fast effective funnel for your website that attracts leads and generates sales.
Traffic needs investment and if you’re not serious about generating traffic to your site, you won’t see any sales.
Finally, all we’re doing is helping your customers. We’re being as helpful as we can and offering them what we can do. No hard sales, no marketing buzzwords – just helpful content.
Michael Killen is a WordPress lead generation specialist. As a digital marketer he and his team build beautiful, engaging WordPress websites and turn them into profitable, lead generating marketing machines.
