How to create an auto sales funnel
An auto sales fun nel is the process of engaging a customer in a sale from the moment the customer first learns about a product to the moment they buy it. The funnel allows you to sell more effectively through unobtrusive marketing and personalized approach.
The point of a sales funnel is to understand and utilize the stages a customer goes through before making a purchase. To do this, marketers use the AIDA model:
- Awareness – The customer learns about the product;
- Interest – The customer is interested in what problems the product solves;
- Decision – The customer realized that the product will solve their problems;
- Action – The customer buys the product.
The number of interested buyers decreases at each stage. Graphically it looks like a funnel, hence the name.
Why do you need an auto sales funnel?
To reduce the cost of the sales funnel, marketers use auto-funnel. In an autofunnel, instead of live salespeople, content – advertising, mailings and automated sms, chatbots – works instead of live salespeople .
Autofunnel Objectives:
- Converting visitors into buyers;
- reducing the cost of attracting customers;
- Reducing customer churn;
- reduction of advertising costs;
- automation of routine work.
Path to purchase: from advertising to checkout
This system works well for digital goods in an online store, but it can also be used to sell services and physical goods.
What does an auto sales funnel consist of?
To create an auto-funnel, you need to create a customer portrait and build their path to purchase. However, it can only be set up effectively after a thorough analysis of potential buyers.
Car salesman replicates the principles of AIDA, but sells content rather than a live person. To create an autofunnel you need:
- website – this is where customers see the product catalog and make purchases;
- Traffic – an autofunnel works with visitors to your website;
- automatic communication systems – these are programs and scripts that will automatically send out content to subscribers;
- Content manager, marketer, copywriter – they will explain the benefits of your product to subscribers to get them interested in buying;
- analytics tools – needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the auto-funnel.
Automated communication systems and analytics tools are usually built into dedicated CRMs for online stores. You need to hook up a CRM and hire people to make content and create offers.
Required content to start autosales:
- A lead magnet is a free cheese that will get a visitor to sign up for one of your communication channels;
- customer scenarios – different customer groups require a different approach;
- mailing list – useful articles and product advertising.
Stages of creating an autofunnel
From lead to loyal customer
1- Awareness Stage. There are a lot of foods that most people don’t know about. For example, a person far from the baking business does not know about industrial dough mixers. And those who don’t do car repair don’t know about torque wrenches.
For the awareness stage, you need to inform the customer about the product. An online store with contextual advertising in Google and Yandex, a page in social networks or a company website with a product catalog can cope with this.
Read also: Lead generation: how to attract customers
2. stage of interest. Interest can be sparked by a colorful product advertisement on the site, useful material or a free “trial”. Marketers also refer to a probem as a lead magnet because it helps “magnetize” the largest number of visitors.
What a lead magnet should be:
- the visitor gets it for free;
- lead magnet represents value to the visitor: useful information or savings;
- moves the customer to the next stage of the auto-funnel with an action, such as signing up for an email newsletter or notification.
Lead Magnet Examples:
- An example of a “trial” is demos of programs. The user receives the product for a limited period of time or with reduced functionality, but this does not prevent the user from appreciating the merits of the program. More than that, the user gets used to this program and likes alternative products less.
- An example of lead magnet for online stores are discounts, promotions with free shipping and useful materials. For example, an in-depth article “7 Rules for Choosing Headphones for Music” or free shipping on your first order. If a visitor likes the materials on your site, then he will then look for articles and products from you.
At this point, you need to get the customer interested – talk about the product and explain what problems it solves. At the end, be sure to add a link to a product or product category on your site. A link that gives the customer more information is the best call to action.
Example of a lead magnet with a call to action
It’s a good tone to thank the customer for subscribing and tell them what they’ll be receiving.
The mailing does not let the customer forget about the company, pushing him to make a decision. and helps to segment the subscriber base on which it operates targeted advertising. Simple segmentation: ask for gender and age when registering. Sophisticated segmentation: analyze the open rate of emails on different topics to create a portrait of each customer.
3- Decision Stage. Making a decision is clicking the link at the end of the email or adding the product to your cart. The customer needs to understand that they have a problem and your product will help solve it.
This is interesting: Increasing sales or how to write a sales text
It is worth describing what benefits the customer will get if they buy the product from you instead of a competitor. You can talk about same-day shipping, 24/7 tech support, or discounts on other products.
4. Action Step. The customer has added a product to the cart and is about to pay for it. Now the key is not to scare him off with a broken or confusing form of payment. If a customer doesn’t like something and doesn’t complete the purchase, they are unlikely to return to it in the future.
5- Retention Stage. After payment, the fifth stage begins – customer retention. If a person is satisfied with a purchase from your online store, they will prefer to buy from you further. But it needs to be incentivized with additional mailings and advertising from the first phase.
Example of an auto sales funnel
Let’s break down a service with an effective auto-funnel – Glavred. Glavred teaches writers and editors how to make good content. The owner of the service makes money by selling subscriptions, books, and training courses.
Glavred immediately offers to subscribe to the channel in Telegram
Glavred’s autofunnel:
- Awareness – advertising of the service on specialized resources.
- Interest is a lead magnet in the form of free tips and snippets of paid content. Free information helps the lead realize the benefits of the product and warms the lead to purchase.
- Solution – Glavred shows the benefit of the main product: a “before” text, an “after” text, and an assurance that the lead will be able to write just as well if they take the course.
- Action is a simple payment page with tips and promotions.
- Retention – the product is sure to have links to other products, and the service sends offers with other products to the mail.
The Glavred service earns money by constantly reminding subscribers about the quality and benefits of products. Over time, subscribers mature and become customers.
Communication channels for an automated sales funnel
The standard communication channel is email. Most CMSs have built-in email subscription modules, making it easy to gather subscribers. With email newsletters, you can analyze and segment subscribers, create scripts with email chains, and curate beautiful content.
Social media and messengers are the second most popular channel. People open a messenger more often than an email client, so integrating an autofunnel with social media brings in more leads. Social networks are often used by restaurants and food delivery services: they send discount coupons and information about new dishes.
Online chat and chatbots – used in b2b sales. Online chat allows you to tell the lead about important product benefits and show a personalized approach.
Sales autofunnel customization and integration
You need a CRM system to run your website and store customer data. For example, Bitrix 24 or Amo CRM. For mailing you need a special tool: Mailchimp, Getresponse or Unisender. These tools help you segment subscribers, layout beautiful emails, and automate your newsletter.
Mailing list analysis example from Mailchimp
- Setting up an autofunnel is different in every CRM. Most CRMs with auto-funnel functionality allow you to integrate mailing via third-party email services or messengers, there is nothing complicated about it.
- You can also connect third-party analytics services, such as Google Analytics, to CRM. You need analytics to evaluate the effectiveness of scenarios, conduct A/B testing, and test hypotheses. A basic feature like email open rate is a powerful tool to improve your sales funnel.
How CRM with auto-funnel is useful
- With the help of such CRMs, you can automate all stages of the customer funnel. For example, set triggers to move to the next stage of the funnel. If a customer asks something about a product or services in an online chat – CRM takes them to the interest stage and sends relevant content.
- CRM can also be configured to collect information about the customer: mail, phone number, product categories they are interested in. This will help you segment your customers more accurately and improve your funnel to increase sales.
- CRMs allow you to automate most actions, but sometimes you can’t do without live managers. To optimize their work, you can set up automatic tasking. For example, “Confirm order with a call” tasks after checkout.
- For cyclical sales like service subscriptions, there are presale tools. You can set up special sales scenarios for these customers. For example, send a reminder that your subscription is about to expire.
- Amo SRM has a feature of deployed scenarios that are triggered by visitor actions. For example, if a visitor has been on the site for more than 30 seconds or clicked on several links, CRM will add him to the retargeting database. Such a visitor will see targeted ads for your site in the following days.
Order creation of sales autofunnel
An autofunnel is a great tool for online sales. It can be used to optimize the cost per sale, as the computer will have time to handle more customers than an army of sales managers.
The most important thing in an auto-funnel is quality content that will convince customers of the benefits of your product. You should also keep an eye on the quality of the design and UX, so that pop-ups don’t cover the entire screen on mobile devices, and emails don’t have broken links.
COLORO can help with strategy development, analyzing results and improving your sales funnel.
COLORO can help with strategy development, analyzing results and improving your sales funnel.
Contact information:
hi@koloro.ua
+38 (044) 223 51 20
