Perfecting Your Sales Funnel – Part 2 of 2

In my previous post describing a sales funnel development case study, I described a particular client that came to us to help them improve the conversion rate of website visitors. I also explained what steps we took to figure out what the problem of the website was.

If you haven’t read Part 1 of Perfecting Your Sales Funnel, please do so now!

The Creative Concept & the ‘Core Website Message’

As we suggested, since we decided to develop a top banner with three separate sections, we call that a 'three part sales funnel'. Here is what we ended up with:

Now when the web site visitor comes to the site their eyes are drawn to content which describes their ‘core site message’!  Lets look a bit deeper:

• The first thing the user sees is a beautiful display of imagery in their three specialty areas; Kitchens, Basements, and Bathrooms.
• The visitor is also exposed to those precise keywords at the top which confirm what they are looking for.
• The visitor is then able to focus on the box that is of interest to them.

In my case, I will pick ‘Kitchens’. I read further in the ‘kitchens' box; “Interested in your dream kitchen? We can help!” Then I am given the option to “Get Started”.

Does it get any better? I am redoing my kitchen and the ‘core site message’ has told me that RENOCanada offers exactly what I was looking for! The chances of keeping the visitor past the five second decision making period has now dramatically increased!

I click on ‘Get Started’ so that I can see what RENOCanada has to offer for my new dream kitchen.

The next page is what we refer to as the ‘goal page’. 

The Sales Funnel 'Goal Page' - Appealing To 3 User Types

The purpose of the 'goal page' is to provide the visitor with enough information and ‘calls to action’ to persuade them to follow through on the overall goal of the website - to persuade the visitor to leave their contact details with the company so that someone can follow up and close some potential business.

There are 3 components or sections within the ‘Sales Funnel Goal Page’. The purpose of this page is to appeal to three different types of website visitor type:.

1. The ‘Glitter’ Visitor – Found in the top banner of the goal page, this visitor should see dramatic imagery,  calls to action to persuade the user and a mode of contact.
2. The ‘Fine Print’ Visitor – This 2^nd section of the goal page outlines the finer details of your product/service and usually provides greater detail to the offer provided to the ‘Glitter’ visitor.
3. The ‘Kitchen Sink’ Visitor – The ‘Kitchen Sink’ visitor is sometimes either a skeptic or hard shopper. This type of visitor needs the ‘kitchen sink’ thrown in (no pun intended). So we create a section with an unbelievable offer!

1. The ‘Glitter Visitor’ looks at the Top Banner of the Goal Page

The inside or ‘goal’ page appeals to all 3 visitor types and keeps the visitors attention. The purpose is to reel in the ‘Glitter’ visitor, and to urge to the other two visitor types to continue on.

In this top banner you will see the following concepts:

1. An image of an attractive ‘dream kitchen’.
2. An engaging message which helps alleviate any concerns.

• Zero percent financing – (ease of acquiring the service)
• Five year warranty, (competence and trust)
• Guaranteed start & completion date (experience and process)

1. You will then notice a ‘Free Consultation’ form which speaks to the visitors more outwardly that RENOCanada is waiting and ready to interact with the visitor.
2. There is also a Request Information button which opens a form for users that are not provoked by the form.
3. Finally at the top of the page you will notice a ‘Call Now and phone number’ call to action giving the visitor the feeling that someone is available to take their phone call.

In short, the visitor is once again given every opportunity to understand who RENOCanada is, what they offer and why the visitor should contact them. The ‘Glitter’ Visitor who already has a rather short attention span is now ready to stop their search and commit to learning more about the company by leaving their information for a call back.  A lead is generated!

Are you a ‘Glitter’ visitor? If not, you may be a ‘Fine Print’ visitor, which means you are certainly going to read on…

2. The ‘Fine Print’ Visitor reads the Detail Section of the Goal Page

Are you the type of person that reads all the details before you ‘sign a contract?’ (or even skims?) Are you the type of person that sometimes thinks there is a catch to things? Are you the type of person that reads the instructions before putting things together? Then this is the section of the Sales Funnel Goal page that will appeal to you.

Sometimes considered a ‘skeptic’ and sometimes just a ‘detail oriented’ person, it is important to appeal to the ‘Fine Print’ visitor by providing details!

The second component is all about detail and that detail must relate to the top banner or the ‘core site message’. This will satisfy the ‘Fine Print’ visitor who is usually interested in the ‘meat in the sandwich’ instead of just the presentation of the ‘meal’.

In this section it is important to write effective content which details the messages you provided to the ‘Glitter Visitor’. This detail should expand on the flashy information and one liner’s that were placed in the top banner.

Of course, we also want to make sure that we provide the ‘Fine Print’ visitor with an opportunity to offer their own seal of approval by offering them a ‘Request Information button’, which will once again mean another successful visitor is converted!

Of course, for some visitors that still isn’t enough. They need to be overwhelmed before they are going to throw the towel in on further research. That is why we develop our final ‘Goal Page’ component just for the ‘Kitchen Sink’ visitor.

3. The ‘Kitchen Sink’ Visitor and the Final Offer

Ever watch those late night infomercials with the steak knives that will cut through everything including metal?

If you are a ‘Glitter’ visitor that is all you need to hear! “Sign me up!”

If you are a ‘Fine Print’ visitor then you need to know how the knife cuts through metal and better yet, you want to see it in action.

The ‘Kitchen Sink’ visitor is the visitor that is interested but only buys the product once the guy making the offer at the end of the show tacks on an extra set of steak knives, the tomato core remover and ‘Norman’ the extra large butcher knife – all FREE OF CHARGE!

The final step in converting your website visitor is offering the ‘Kitchen Sink’ visitor something more.

In this case we are showing the website visitor the special packages that are available. We are allowing the visitor to click to have a pop up open to reveal more information. These packages are exactly what the ‘Kitchen Sink’ visitor needs to be convinced to make the ultimate commitment and that is to press the “Free Consultation” button which just so happens to be located conveniently at the bottom of the page.

All website pages and especially the ‘Sales Funnel Goal Page’ needs to have somewhere at the bottom of the page to lead the visitor. Otherwise you are trapped at something I call a ‘Dead End Page’.

How A Good Internet Marketing Company Can Help This Process

As an internet marketing company, that is where our job lies; to not only build traffic to the company website but also to provide guidance on the creative aspect of the site to help develop and improve conversion rates once the visitor is at the site!

In short, a strong internet marketing company should be interested in the core reason your company is in business, and then help you to develop a ‘core site message’ before even considering to begin driving traffic to your site. Otherwise, you will be wasting a great deal of revenue sending traffic to a site that isn’t converting as well as it should.

The final component that an internet marketing company should be helping you understand is the results of that website traffic and also giving evidence of how your website is converting. This can be done by measuring your website traffic and also helping you manage your leads.

A good internet marketing company should build you a web property that converts traffic, promote effective ways to send targeted traffic to your site and helps you understand the effectiveness of this work.

Stay tuned for the next segments of this series where I explain all of the following:

• how you can determine which internet marketing services are right for your company,
• how you can go about measuring everything online (and offline) today to determine whether your marketing dollars are being well spent.
• what the statistical effects were for RENOCanada of making this change. (at the time of writing this article, the sales funnel has not been promoted live yet)
• some intuitive hints helping you close the sale once the sites goal of bringing you leads has been realized.

These segments will be posted in the next week so make sure you subscribe to our feed to be up to date with our latest posts.

I hope you have found this segment useful and can apply this knowledge to your own business (or clients business). And don’t worry – no matter which visitor type you are – there is always a little ‘kitchen sink’ in all of us. :)

If you have any comments that can help make this article even more useful or if you think I missed anything or if you just want to tell me if this helped you, please post them in the comments section below!