Ecommerce stores are increasingly spending a great deal of attention and resources on digital marketing practices to increase brand awareness and traffic to their site. While digital marketing is a very useful practice, you need a high-quality sales funnel in place for businesses to realize their full potential. Implementing an effective sales funnel can help you to win the sales and customers you need to take your Ecommerce store to the next level.
What is an ECommerce Sales Funnel?
The term sales funnel is used to describe the path that an individual will take to become a customer. It is called a funnel because the further that an individual moves down the path, the closer you become to making a purchase. A sales funnel aims to get as many people successful through the journey as possible.
The steps to a sales funnel that are commonly used for Ecommerce stores are as follows:
- Top Funnel – Attention Awareness
This step involves an individual becoming aware of your brand, and you will likely use lead generation marketing at this stage.
- Top/ Middle Funnel – Interest
At this stage, an individual has shown some interest in learning more about your brand.
- Middle/Bottom Funnel – Desire
Once an individual has reached this stage, they have shown some positive feelings and associations with your brand.
- Bottom Funnel – Action
At this point, the individual is taking action towards making a purchase from your eCommerce store.
Why is a Sales Funnel So Important
Now that you understand more about what a sales funnel is and how it works, it is time to explain a few reasons why a sales funnel is so important.
Boost Your Sales
The first reason why a sales funnel is so important is quite simply because it will lead to an increase in sales. This is because you will have a system in place that guides a customer through their journey and streamlines all processes. This means that there is a significantly reduced chance of a customer clicking off your site, as you have designed an optimal customer experience that stimulates sales.
Increase the Return on Marketing Spend
Many Ecommerce stores that are operating today are focusing on increasing brand awareness and boosting the amount of traffic to the business website. While this practice is useful, without a high-quality sales funnel, it will never produce the desired results. This is because marketing alone cannot secure sales. It is not enough to simply increase the number of visitors to your site, in order to secure a return, you need a sales funnel to motivate purchases.
Increase Customer Loyalty
Loyal customers are invaluable to ECommerce businesses, as they provide you with the consistent stream of sales that your company needs to grow. In fact, research has found that returning customers spend an average of five times more per purchase than first-time customers.
Building a base of loyal customers does not happen overnight, in fact, research has found that it takes three purchases before a customer would consider themselves loyal to a brand. Having a high-quality sales funnel in place helps businesses encourage the sales they need to build a loyal customer base.
