Ever feel like you’ve tried everything with your sales funnels, but still not hitting those elusive multi-six and seven figure launches you dream about?
You may have all the right things in place: a great offer, validated pricing, a marketing strategy, and streamlined automations in place so no one is slipping through the cracks. . . so what’s causing you to feel stuck?
Or maybe you’ve reached your goal, but can’t seem to break past it and achieve your next milestone?
The truth is as an experienced sales funnel builder, I have seen many mistakes in some of my client’s funnels. So whether you’re building your first sales funnel, or you’re a seasoned pro, you may be making some mistakes because funnels are not an exact science.
You’re in good hands because I’ve helped hundreds of female business owners just like you build funnels that convert. In the process, I’ve been lucky enough to get to peek under the hood of their business and see common mistakes crop up again and again.
So whether you find yourself wondering if you even need a sales funnel (quick tip: you do! And you can find out what they are in my blog post here), or if you need a reminder of how to use your funnels effectively, read on because in this blog post, I’ll help you fix your funnels, get them converting, and improve your sales funnel marketing overall!
1. Not Understanding the Target Audience Well Enough
This is an easy mistake, especially if you are new in business. We want to believe that we can help everyone with the work we do, so we tend to shy away from niching down or specializing with our audience.
Chances are, when you first started in business, you were told, “The riches were in the niches.” And maybe your coach recommended you specialize with a particular audience you served, a certain tool you worked with, or service you provided. I remember when I started as a virtual assistant, I worried niching down meant narrowing down the number of clients I could work for, so I wanted to stay a generalist. In some ways, it was helpful because it allowed me to learn a lot of different tools and systems pretty quickly and it also allowed me to work with a variety of clients. I realized I liked working with funnels and ads the most over time. I have honed in on the classes and certifications I have taken to lead me to where I am today. It now shows up in my messaging and my offers.
The reason you are encouraged to get clarity around understanding your audience is because failing to do so leads to many other issues such as unmet needs and unheard messaging. It’s said when you try to talk to everyone, you talk to no one.
You must take the time to study the audience, their problems, and their journey. Remember it’s not so much about figuring out their demographics, but more about their psychographics and where they are in their buying journey and level of awareness. Do not neglect the customer journey and how they got to where they are now. If you don’t understand these aspects, you won’t be able to craft a value proposition and it could lead to poor lead qualification.
You can also miss opportunities to engage with the audience if you don’t understand them well enough. If you have poor leads, they won’t want to purchase from you as they may not be ready yet or they may not be able to.
Listening to your audience’s feedback is also critical. You’ll learn how they engage with your content, your website, and your offers so you know what to keep, what to tweak, what needs to be taken away, and what needs to be added.
2. Neglecting the Look and Feel of the Funnel
For this mistake, the reference to a funnel is specifically referring to the sales page and landing page design and not the overarching funnel process that moves your client or customer through the process from attraction to sale.
It’s common knowledge that the eye buys. A recent WebFX study referenced that 94% of our impressions about a site were design related. So it only makes sense that a sales page funnel is one of the most effective lead generation tools. It should be designed well and tested to make sure it works as it should.
When thinking of design, keep it simple. Remember, a confused mind doesn’t buy so your design needs to be simple so it does not to overwhelm your audience.
You should also choose one clear call to action, and use the same button color and language throughout the page so it’s easy to find and understand that this is the signal to sign up or purchase as your potential buyer moves through the sales page funnel. You never know what will trigger someone to buy, so don’t hesitate to place a CTA button at any major decision-making point on your page.
Use high-contrast colors that are on-brand for you or your offer. By doing this, your call to action button will stand out and be easily noticed by your potential customers. Another benefit to using high-contrast colors: this helps those users who need a little help with accessibility too!
Choose easy-to-read fonts and use bold and bullet point formatting where it makes sense. Trust me, I am a font hoarder! Okay, I am getting better with this, but there were some months (years?) that I downloaded every font that came out weekly with my Creative Market email subscription. Your sales funnel is not the time to try out those fancy hand-lettered calligraphy fonts, no matter how beautiful. Most of your readers are going to be skimming your offers on their mobile devices so they want easy to read. I promise.
Speaking of mobile, your sales funnel should be mobile-optimized. Most people search and buy things on their phones so not optimizing your funnel for mobile can cause the audience to leave the page and not end up buying because they are frustrated. This is a pretty easy solution as most page builders (ShowIt, WordPress, GoHighLevel variations, Systeme, etc) have a back-end option to toggle between desktop and mobile view and allow you to make tweaks between each version.
3. Not Utilizing Data and Analytics
While I admit I am a bit of a numbers nerd, I do think not using data and analytics to improve your sales funnel is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.
Numbers don’t lie and we all like to celebrate our big wins. More importantly, though, analytics and data can tell you what went wrong, what people did and didn’t like, and what needs to be adjusted moving forward. It’s those data-driven decisions that help you understand you don’t need to burn it all to the ground and start from zero. You can use the data to make only the tweaks you need.
If you neglect your numbers (I promise they aren’t that scary!), you won’t be able to improve your funnels.
Which numbers do I recommend starting with?
Entry point: this is the number of people coming into your funnel. Who is coming in from your Instagram? Who is coming in from the opt-in page on your website? Who is coming in from the sales page you’re running ads to? Is it warm or cold traffic that is opting into your funnel?
Conversion rate: Your conversion rate is the percentage of leads who convert into customers. Remember this isn’t always about sales. You could be converting people into leads for webinars, your email list, downloads of a free pdf, or enrollments into your free challenge, etc. To get this number, you’ll divide the number of people who took the action (purchased, signed up, etc) divided by the number of people in the funnel and multiply by 100.
Total sales: Total sales are important because you’re running a business, not a hobby. You’re here to make money, after all. How many things did you sell and what did they cost = your total revenue. If your conversions (above) were high, but your sales were not, then you need to consider adjusting your pricing or you need more customers for your next launch.
If you don’t look at data and analytics, chances are you aren’t testing and optimizing which is another mistake. You don’t simply build a funnel and leave it. You have to continually review the analytics to improve conversion rates.
If all this sounds like fuzzy math and you need some help with your funnel analytics, get Funnel Metrics Demystified.
You’ll learn to track your analytics and conversions, learn what they mean, and figure out what to do to optimize your funnel.
4. Having Poor Follow Up Processes
Life is busy, business is busy. Often that’s why we set up our business with evergreen models and automation so we can “set it and forget it.” But I’m here to remind you, follow up is important. We are still people dealing with people. If you don’t follow up with your audience, you are missing opportunities to make sales.
If your potential customer didn’t buy the first time around, a follow-up might make them buy. If you have an evergreen automation setup, take the time to include an abandoned cart email sequence in your funnel. Almost 70% of carts are abandoned, on average, across industries, so any recovery can be helpful. Another effective email is a survey to inquire why they choose not to buy/participate. It may provide insight as to what is going on with your ideal customers or if your messaging was off or if your pricing needed to be adjusted or a payment plan needed to be offered, etc.
5. Not Utilizing Social Proof and Testimonials
Thankfully, this is an easy fix.
One of the sales funnel mistakes I see business owners make is underestimating the importance of trust. They often forget to include a variety of social proof and testimonials within their sales funnels.
Remember, your credibility goes down if you don’t provide proof that you are qualified to fix your audience’s problems. It’s easy for you to say you can do this or that, but for them to hear from others who are like them bring another level of trust. Not being a credible source can make the audience hesitant to purchase from you. So it is key in the funnel and in all other parts of your business to provide reviews, social proof, and testimonials.
Wrapping it Up
If you’ve been making theses mistakes with your sales funnel, it’s not your fault. Sometimes it’s just easier to skip over what we don’t know or don’t understand (like design or numbers). But the good news is we are are always able to go back and improve.
Now that you are aware of them, you can start making the changes you need to start making the income you deserve with your funnels.
In fact, by reading this post, you’ve just taken a huge step toward doing that. High-five!
If you’re still unsure where the gaps in your funnel may be and would like an audit, or would like a complete funnel build, check our our services.
