Running a business comes hand in hand with plenty of processes, to dos and tasks. It’s important that you dedicate time to learning about and optimising each of them. One area you might not have placed too much emphasis on so far? The sales funnel. All too many business owners get wrapped up in simply generating sales and don’t pay attention to the individual steps that help them to generate profit. Here’s a brief overview of the sales funnel, which should give you a chance to reflect and see which parts you need to work on within your own business!
Marketing
If you have a product ready to sell, you need to start your journey with effective marketing campaigns. Marketing is the process of showing customers what you have to offer and letting them know why they should buy it. You can engage in countless activities, ranging from email marketing to social media campaigns, competitions, PPC, TV, radio, billboards, posters, flyers and more. The best type will depend on your target demographic and their niche preferences.
Payment Processing
Caught your customer’s interest successfully? It’s time to make the sale and process their payment. Ideally, you should offer multiple payment options to ensure that there’s something that meets their needs. The top recommended payment options tend to include card payment, Apple Pay and Paypal. You may also want to offer third party finance options, such as Klarna.
Order Fulfilment
Once a sale goes through, it’s going to head into the order fulfilment process. This is what will guide the item out of storage in your stock room or warehouse and make its way into your customers’ hands. Generally, small business will do this themselves if they’re selling in very small volumes. However, as soon as you experience increased demand, it’s generally best to outsource. This will provide you with picking and packing teams who can package up your goods and hand them onto your chosen courier.
Shipping
Of course, order fulfilment finalises in shipping, but we’ll take a moment to separate shipping out and really focus on it. Shipping is what can really make or break your sale. The issue here? Shipping can often be outside of your control, as very few companies have their own fleets and ship goods directly to their customer. You need to make sure that you choose a reliable and trusted shipping provider to get goods to your customers in good time. UPS International Shipping for Small to Mid-Sized Businesses is a reliable bet. Not only will this ensure that products actually get to your customers, but it will help them to get there in good shape and on good time.
Feedback and Returns
Hopefully, your customer will be happy with their goods. This is when you should request feedback. Gathering reviews can encourage future customers to buy from you. If the customer is unhappy, it’s time to implement a returns process where they can get their money back.
The sales funnel does contain more niche steps, but the above information should serve as a good overview.
