if you are selling something online in 2016, you need a sales funnel.

It’s that simple.

A well-planned sales funnel is THE backbone of virtually every successful online business. It’s essential, and today, I’m going to break down the reasons why that is.

In case you aren’t familiar with sales funnels, here’s a simple one, courtesy of Digital Marketer.
Basically, it’s an automated journey where you feeds visitors into one end, usually through content marketing or advertising, and they come. Here are 5 major reasons you need one.
1. Consumers Are Sophisticated

Consumers are more sophisticated than ever before. They do their homework. The take the time to identify their options. And they purchase from businesses they trust.

In other words, selling isn’t as simple as sending people to a landing page and telling them to buy.

And I’m saying that as a copywriter. I get paid thousands of dollars to write those pages, and I still realize (and will happily tell you) that if all you are doing is cold-selling ad traffic, you are going to have incredibly suboptimal sales numbers.

A sales funnel allows you to nurture leads into customers over time. To put it simply, it provides you with the sophisticated sales process you need to convert sophisticated modern consumers.
2. The Purchase Cycle Isn’t Instant

Depending on the product or service, the purchase cycle can be anywhere from a few hours to a few months.

You never know where people are going to be in that cycle when they land on your page, so unless you are using a traffic acquisition channel designed to only attract ready buyers, there is a statistical probability that the visitor will NOT be ready to buy.

What happens then? What happens when they aren’t ready to buy right now?

Nothing. They leave.

You probably paid for them to visit, and they just left.

With a sales funnel, that doesn’t have to happen. With a sales funnel, you aren’t trying to get them to buy initially. You are simply trying to catch and hold their attention — to earn the right to market to them by collecting their email address.

Once you have their email address, often by giving them value for free, you can continue to give them value and keep your brand on the forefront of their mind until they enter the buying stage of the purchasing cycle.

At that point, you are the natural choice, because…
3. A Sales Funnel Allows You To Build Trust

People buy more from people they trust.

That has always been true for non-commodities, but in the past, there was not always ample opportunity to build trust with potential customers.

Online sales funnels solve this problem by providing all the room you need to build trust with your audience.

One of the basic feature of most funnels is an email autoresponder. This is an automated email series that goes out to new subscribers. It allows you to market to them, but most importantly, it allows you to introduce yourselves to them on your own terms and provide them with so much value, they can’t wait to hear from you again.

Here’s an example of an email sequence I use to train and sell to freelance writers as part of larger sales funnel:

If you can make out the headlines in the left-hand column, each one of those represent a value-packed email I send to my subscribers giving them key insights on difficult challenges they are facing.

And each time they get value you from me, I build trust with them. That’s what sales funnels are for.

Furthermore, there is a very important advantage to doing this via email…
4. Email Subscribers Convert Like Crazy

Email is the core of the online sales funnel and with good reason. Email has a higher ROI than virtually any other marketing channel.

Email is also approximately 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter, primarily because email subscribers convert at an extraordinarily high rate.

It’s basically the superweapon of the marketing world.

For example, I recently launched a digital career guide to an email list of 265 subscribers and had 53 purchases. That’s a 20% conversion rate, which is incredibly high compared to virtually any other marketing channel.

By building a sales funnel with email marketing at the core, you can take advantage of email’s effectiveness at driving sales to your business. It works for virtually any business type, and it will work for you.
5. Sales Funnels Increase Lifetime Value

Many traditional sales models are one-and-done type operations. Even if the visitor decides to buy upon reaching your landing page, that’s the end of the story.

With sales funnels, the initial purchase is just the beginning.

Returning customers spend 3x more than one-time shoppers and account for 1/3 of all online shopping revenue, despite making up only 15% of online shoppers.

In other words, an entire third of your income will theoretically come from customers who consistently buy from you. But how do you get return customers if you have a one-and-done business model?

Frankly, that business model is stupid.

You need a sales funnel, which will let you upsell and retain buyers, so you can continue to sell to them for years to come. With an effective sales funnel, you can significantly increase the lifetime value of your customers.

Conclusion

Sales funnels are the core of online marketing for a reason.

The allow you to form a lasting connection with potential customers at every stage of the purchase cycle
They help you build trust with potential customers and nurture them towards purchasing
They harness the power of email to convince and convert
They increase the lifetime value of customers, allowing you to sell again and again

If you want to increase your sales, build a sales funnel.

It’s that simple.

It’s a no brainer.
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