By Neil Patel

A conversion funnel is a visual representation of the stages in a buyer’s journey, from the moment they land on your page until they complete a purchase. How do you create a conversion funnel, though, and how do you get the most from this tool? Let’s take a look.

Should I Use the AIDA Model to Create My Conversion Funnel?

The AIDA model is the traditional way to track the customer journey. It’s based on the four classic stages people move through during the buying process: awareness, interest, desire, and action.

• Awareness: First, a person discovers your brand and becomes a lead.
• Interest: Next, you build their interest in your product.
• Desire: Then, your goal should be nudging prospects from simply thinking they like something to actively wanting it, possibly by making proposals or carefully placing glamorous adverts for repeat exposure.
• Action: Finally, you encourage a prospect to take the desired action―turning them into a customer.

Realistically, not everyone who visits your website will convert to a paying customer, which is why we use a funnel shape. Based on the AIDA model, then, a traditional-style sales marketing funnel might look something like this:

The problem? This is a rigid and fairly unrealistic way to view how people move through the stages of a sales cycle.

Leads are human, and the sales process is rarely linear. Often, people loop back to different stages in the sales cycle before they’re ever ready to complete the sale. In other words, people need nurturing before they’ll buy a product. As a marketer, you must understand their behaviors, their personalities, and their needs to convert them into paying customers.

Rather than a straightforward sales funnel, you need a more flexible conversion-based funnel, which will look something like this:

Don’t let the graphic intimidate you! While you might be tempted to start with a simple sales funnel, you’ll increase your chances of success if you start with a more flexible conversion funnel. Let me take you through exactly how it’s done.

How to Create a Conversion Funnel

There are nine main steps to creating a successful conversion funnel, based on a blend of AIDA and less restrictive techniques.

1. Determine Your Ideal Buyer Journey and Map It Out as a Funnel

The point of a conversion funnel is to build an effective buyer’s journey and increase your conversions. To increase your conversions, you must first identify your starting point and your end goal. In other words, you must identify three things:

• what your typical buyer’s journey looks like right now
• what your end goal is, or what action you want …read more

  Source:: Kiss Metrics Blog

        

  

  Author: Aaron