“Websites are the foundation of your online presence, but sales funnels are the lifeblood of your business!”
Wondering why you should choose a sales funnel over a plain website?
Get ready for an argument!
While websites are all the rage these days, have you ever considered what else is possible?
After all, simply having a website isn’t going to get your brand the attention it needs — but with the right sales funnel, you can revolutionize your business success rate.
Come explore the debate between websites and sales funnels and see which solution best meets your business needs.
Websites are the basic building blocks of your online presence. They provide a platform for brand promotion, company information, and product and service listings. Sales funnels, on the other hand, are designed to maximize conversions. Unlike traditional websites that focus on engaging users with content, sales funnels are devised to prompt customers to take action based on tailored offers and incentives.
What is the purpose of a website?
The purpose of a website is to provide information to the user and create a relationship.
The first point is to provide information.
Whether it’s a blog, an ecommerce site or a software as a service (SAAS) company, the website has one purpose: to answer the questions of your visitors and prospects.
I’m sure you can think back to other times when you had some questions about something and rather than call someone up and having to spend 20 minutes on the phone explaining what you’re looking for, just going to Google and typing in a few key words was much easier.
Having information provided on your site makes people’s lives easier and can help grow trust between you and your visitors.
The second thing is creating a relationship with visitors and prospects by having them come back to your site.
If you can do what you say you’re going to do, if people enjoy using your product or service and if they feel like your business is something that they want to be a part of, they will make it known by coming back.
Here are some more reasons why having a website is important:
Instant Authority And Credibility
A regular website can establish instant authority and credibility and act as a reference point.
You don’t need to wait for that big PR campaign or press release to come out about your company.
Having a website shows your prospects that you’re legitimate, you’re not just some fly-by-night business run out of the basement, and they can trust that you’re a business that they want to work with.
Website Organic Traffic Growth
Even if your overall traffic is small, having people come back to your site grows the amount of organic traffic coming from search engines.
The more people who come to your site because of those search terms, the higher your company will rank in google search results.
Recommended Article: 3 Types Of Traffics
How Much Does It Cost To Use A Website?
Website design and hosting can be relatively inexpensive as long as you’re not hiring someone to build the site with custom code and back-end integrations that require a lot of coding or if you don’t need hundreds of thousands of visitors per month (which is pretty much everyone at the beginning).
It doesn’t take much for a prospective customer to do a quick Google search, find your site and click around.
All you have to do is put up a website that’s easy to navigate and has good information on it, then let the search engines work their magic from there.
What is the purpose of sales funnel?
The purpose of a sales funnel is to generate leads and make sales.
This can be achieved by having everything under one roof and providing different prices for everything.
Having everything under one roof
Let’s say you have different price points.
The most expensive one is the highest quality, but it’s also the most expensive. How can you make more money?
You drop your prices on everything else.
Your medium tier goes down by 30%, for example.
This is why it’s important to have everything under one roof – otherwise your medium tier is going to get lost and people aren’t going to buy it.
They may not even know it exists, because you don’t have everything under one roof.
You need a sales funnel where all of your products and services are together in order to make this work properly.
Generating more leads and make more sales
The big benefit about having a sales funnel is that it’s going to generate more leads and make more sales.
It’s about increasing your opt-ins, increasing the level of trust you have with people, and then making sure people know that you’re out there offering services that they want.
Not everyone is on the same mindset when it comes to buying something.
If someone is looking for a specific product or service, then you have to have that available.
If they are just searching for something in general, then you need to ensure your sales funnel is organized properly so they can find what it is that they’re looking for.
When it comes down to it, a sales funnel includes all of your different products and services under one roof.
It would be the same as if you were to go to Amazon, but instead of having one product page, you have all your products on one page.
They’re all organized into different categories so that someone can search for what they need quickly and easily.
You want them to click on their desired product and then check out.
It’s about generating leads and making sales.
The concept is the same for a sales funnel.
You want to have everything under one roof and then you need to make sure that you’re organized properly on top of it in order to successfully generate leads and make sales.
If potential customers wants your premium product, they can buy it using one click because everything is under one roof and there’s no confusion.
They trust you because they know that your sales funnel is organized and they like what you offer.
How Much Does It Cost To Use A Sales Funnel?
The cost of using a sales funnel varies depending on the type of one you want to use.
Sales funnels can range from a small, low-cost landing page for lead capture, to a high-touch sales process that costs tens of thousands of dollars.
In order to find out which is the right fit for your particular campaign, take into consideration the resources available and look at your budget.
However, if you’re just starting out and setting up a sales funnel, it is important to understand the costs associated with them.
If you don’t have a large budget and limited time to build your sales funnel, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible for you to implement these strategies into your business.
Recommended Resources: Sales Funnel Templates
What Is A Sales Funnel?
A sales funnel is a series of steps, typically in an automated fashion, which allows you to avoid distraction and stay focused on lead generation and sales.
An effective funnel starts with a high-value free offer, stimulating the prospect’s interest in your brand or product.
The next step is to draw traffic into a subscriber list to build trust and authority over time.
In the final stage, conversions occur by presenting offers that are attractive enough for prospects to buy immediately, or by offering a back-end offer to your most passionate leads.
Sales funnels essentially operate as a multi-step funnel that begins with multiple steps, each of which needs to be completed successfully in order for the next step to become available.
This is how it works:
A prospective customer has either been attracted through an ad you ran, or subscribed to your list.
They are instructed to give their contact information in exchange for a free offer – usually an e-book or instructional video that’s related to the product or service that you sell.
A small percentage of people will simply leave at this stage, while others may download your lead magnet but never open another email from you again.
That’s where the marketing automation comes in!
The people who didn’t unsubscribe are sent educational material that helps qualify them for your top-tier products or services.
These might be webinars, live chats, free online courses, tutorials, etc.
This is essentially how you occupy their time until they can eventually afford your products or services.
The people who show the most interest, passion, and desire for what you have to offer are sent straight to an up-sell page where they can purchase your product as soon as possible.
These are often referred to as “Abandonment Cart Emails” because these people abandoned their cart before completing a purchase.
The final stage is where the highest value offers and products are presented to customers who already trust you, know exactly what they want, and have already had some level of engagement with your business.
They’re sent straight to making a purchase (the sales page) without any delay or hesitation on their end.
This is by far the most important stage in the sales funnel, because conversions happen here.
The Pros of Having a Website
Advantage of Website
As Kraus and Lattin (2006) suggested, there are many advantages of having a website.
- Allows you to expose your business to a bigger audience. You can post your business information such as prices, location and hours of operation on your site which can help you reach more customers.
- It is very easy to visit your site via mobile or laptop. Before this era, people had to search for your company name in the phonebook and call each number until they found the right one. Nowadays, if they want to see your company details or make a purchase order, all they need to do is search for you on the internet via laptop or mobile device and click the link to visit your website.
- It allows you to track visitor data and stats such as where the person comes from, what he/she searched for on your website, his/her demographics etc… You can use this information to make marketing decisions regarding how you promote your business. For example, if you see that most of the visitors come from a certain country or city, it might be a good idea to target people in that region because there is already demand for your products.
- As a marketing tool to promote your business. By adding banners, discounts and coupons on the website, you are instantly able to reach out to potential customers who visit your site or advertise your products/services via email or social media networks which only costs you some time and money.
- Finally, it provides you with a platform to communicate and share information with potential customers or clients. If you want to write a blog about certain topics or upload videos or photos of your products, you can show people how certain things work and tell them some information that is more in-depth than what is on the surface. This will allow them to have a better understanding of your company or help them learn something new. You can also provide contact details so that they know how to reach you if they have any questions or concerns.
Disadvantage of a Website
- It takes time before the site becomes established in search engine results
- You are required to update it regularly to keep things fresh
- It requires the support of an internet marketing campaign to reach potential customers
- The process of updating itself can take hours or even days
- You need lots of time to build quality content on your website
- People prefer to visit websites that they have heard of before instead of taking a risk on new ones. This makes it harder for new businesses to establish themselves online.
- According to Kraus & Lattin (2011), 78% of all websites are unrelated to the company’s business, making it harder for customers to find relevant information.
The Pros of Having a Sales Funnel
The Advantages of Sales funnel
- Sales funnel are able to provide visitors with the information that they need which means that users will become familiar with your brand and products much more quickly.
- Easy for customers to understand: Landing page is easy for customers to understand because it clearly explains all about a product or service in detail, helping them make a decision whether or not to buy the product.
- Easy to use: Sales funnels are easier for customers to use because everything is presented in detail so even newcomers will be able to use it easily.
- Clear Calls-to-Action- Sales funnel shows a clear call to action which means that users will not need to go through a lot of hassle in order to make a purchase or use the service. This makes it easier for customers and better for businesses, generating higher sales revenue over time.
- Sales- Sales funnel can make it easier for businesses to sell their products by presenting them in a more attractive manner which will attract customers and increase sales revenue significantly over time.
- Sales: Sales Funnel are able to provide users with the information that they need which can result in an increase of sales revenue for businesses over time.
- According to Forbes (2011), only 2.35% of customers will buy a product or service on their first visit to your website which means that it can be hard to get the attention of customers and generate sales over time.
Sales funnels help by tracking customer preferences, behavior, and other relevant information which results in an increase in sales revenue for businesses over time.
Sales funnel is easy for customers to understand because it clearly explains all about a product or service in detail, helping them make a decision whether or not to buy the product.
Disadvantage of sales funnel
Search Engine Optimization
An important disadvantage of landing pages is that they do not rank well in search engine rankings.
This causes a lot of people to miss out on the great content that you have created.
You will have to put a lot more effort into social media marketing and other forms of advertising if you hope for this page to rank well in search engines.
Related Article: What Is Native Advertising
Sales Funnel Vs Website Conclusion: What Should You Use?
A good digital marketing strategy will utilize a variety of channels to get the most from your website’s SEO and traffic.
But what about sales?
Does it make sense for you to incorporate a traditional, in-person sales funnel into your online marketing mix too?
The answer is yes!
It makes perfect sense that all of these channels should work together seamlessly.
In this blog post we’ve discussed how neuroscience can be used as part of an effective your marketing plan—and why both are important when thinking about getting more revenue from each customer or lead on your site.
What is your ultimate goal?
Your goal with a website is to attract the right people, share valuable content, and motivate them to move up your value ladder buy your products or services.
You can do this by using a sales funnel that’s simple.
Your first sales funnel doesn’t have to be too complicated because you want to keep your costs low for the time being.
This will allow you to learn more about your website traffic and how they interact with your sales funnel so that you can adjust it accordingly over time.
Buying Digital Products Has Become Increasingly Popular
The global digital transformation market size was estimated at USD 608.72 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 723.77 billion in 2022.
Grandviewresearch.com
One of the most popular ways to make money online is through affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing simply means that you sell someone else’s product and earn a commission fee on every sale made on your website.
This is typically done on a low-cost site, such as Shopify.
When it comes down to it, no matter what types of sales funnel you’re choosing to use, the most important thing is that it works for your needs. In order for this to happen, you have to have a product or service that people need and want.
Once you have those two things, then it’s about getting those leads and making sales through a simple website funnels. Keep it simple and low-cost.
Your long-term goal with your website is to learn more about how you can progress to the next level that is most suitable for your needs.
A website is a powerful tool to help you establish your brand and reach potential customers.
However, if it’s not paired with the right sales funnel strategy, then visitors will leave without buying anything.
