Does your marketing funnel meet these 7 criteria?

A well-structured funnel is essential. Seven checkpoints — how to spot bottlenecks before they cost you growth.

If you want to turn your website into a well-functioning marketing machine, a properly set-up marketing funnel is essential. This way you maintain an overview of how the whole thing is working and can easily identify bottlenecks at a later stage.

Customer journey and marketing funnel

Via a funnel your prospect takes a journey. If you're a good tour guide – with sufficient attention to what your prospect enjoys and finds pleasant during the journey – then at the end of the journey you'll have a customer. During the journey, each stop plays an important role in guiding your prospect towards becoming a customer. If you don't add value for your prospect, they'll drop out, it's that simple.

We all understand the principle of a funnel: as little as possible is lost. Marketing and sales funnels work the same way. Funnels help you convert more leads into customers. It's the fastest and most efficient way to grow your business.

Read below how you can quickly create or optimise your own marketing and sales funnel using the funnel checklist!

Funnel Checklist

1. Traffic
2. Lead Magnet
3. Landing Page
4. Lead Capture Form
5. Thank You Page
6. Email Marketing Automation
7. Checkout Page

1. Traffic

At this stage, it's all about creating awareness of what you have to offer. Everything is aimed at getting your target audience interested and taking action. You want to generate traffic to your website. You do this by offering prospects something valuable or useful online (a lead magnet, see tip 2), after which they are directed with one click to your landing page (see tip 3) and can take action.

2. Lead Magnet

The useful or valuable thing you offer a potential customer for free or at a discount is called a lead magnet or – valuable – giveaway. Or, in plain English: the offer at the chemist, the bonus at the supermarket, etc. Giveaways generally offer a quick and simple solution with tangible results. What do you have in abundance or can you give away to attract potential customers? What is valuable to them, while keeping costs down for you?

3. Landing Page

A landing page is a regular webpage with just one focused offer. Only one! It's the page that, for example, is set up exclusively to offer your lead magnet/giveaway, so the visitor isn't distracted by other options or buttons. But… there's no such thing as a free lunch… In return for what you give away, you want to receive their contact details. It's not called a lead magnet for nothing…

4. Lead Capture Form

A Lead Capture Form is the form used to capture information about potential customers – such as name and email address – in exchange for the offered lead magnet/giveaway. Once you have their email, you can deliver the giveaway to them. The lead capture form is integrated with your email marketing automation software or CRM (such as Active Campaign or your other favourite). The software we use to create attractive lead capture forms is Convertbox. I'll create a new blog post about using Convertbox because the possibilities are endless.

5. Thank You Page

A thank you page has the primary purpose of thanking your potential customer for requesting the giveaway, leaving their contact details and of course welcoming them to your business. However, it's one of the most underutilised parts of the funnel, the customer journey.

That's a shame, because you can even turn a thank you page into a sales page by offering a quick upsell: a product or service that complements your lead magnet well!

Example: someone has signed up for your free lead magnet 'Top 5 Ways to Eat Healthy While on the Go'. In this case, you can add an excellent upsell on the thank you page for an e-book 'Eating Healthy on the Go' at €10. This also opens up a new opportunity to get in touch with your prospect and build the relationship.

6. Email Marketing Automation

Email marketing automation is about sending the right message to the right person at the right time. A well-set-up marketing automation system can triple your sales. It's an automatic 'answering machine' with high personalisation. There are several providers offering this. Let us highlight the most popular ones, Active Campaign and MailChimp:

Active Campaign

According to our customers, the most user-friendly system. We support that preference. It's also one of the most advanced automation software available. If you're thinking of using Active Campaign yourself, be sure to use our partner link, and we'll help you set it up and provide other technical support. Active Campaign offers a starter package from €49 per month.

MailChimp

If you're looking for a cheaper alternative, MailChimp is an excellent programme. With a free version, MailChimp is also definitely recommended for beginners. The more addresses you link and features you use, the higher the costs will be, of course. From that point on, ActiveCampaign becomes more interesting cost-wise again. So ask yourself what your goal is before you choose a system: to grow your contact list as quickly as possible or to keep it small…?

7. Checkout Page

This is where the money comes rolling in! On this page your potential customers enter their payment information to buy your products online. It's important that the checkout page matches the products you sell. Physical products, for example, have a different 'flow' than digital products, tickets, downloads or bookings. Here are some quick tips:

• Make sure your customer always knows exactly what they're getting. Always state the quantity, package/bundle and contents on the checkout page.
• Show reviews from other customers about your products, including on your checkout page! If you don't have any, be sure to ask your customers for them.
• Offer a money-back guarantee if needed to remove all barriers.

What's your next step?

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got, Einstein once said.

So start today creating or optimising your marketing and sales funnel with the checklist above!