Having a steady flow of leads is the lifeline for sales and marketing. Generating consistent leads is one of the most challenging components for businesses. One of the ways businesses and organizations can start generating consistent leads is by creating a lead generation funnel.
In this short guide we will show you a simple way to build your own lead gen funnel in order to help your business generate a consistent flow of leads. We will also break down what a lead generation funnel is, the different stages associated with a lead generation funnel and also how you can improve your lead generation funnel to generate higher quality leads.
What is a Lead Generation Funnel
Before we get started it’s important to define what a lead generation funnel is and how it works to bring you leads. A lead generation funnel is a system or method that is used in order to help generate leads for your business. Lead generation funnels are typically created with software such as ClickFunnels.
They tend to have four main stages to generate leads and convert clients.
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- Attraction Stage: The first stage requires you to bring traffic to your funnel with an offer or product.
- Interaction Stage: The interaction phase is where you engage with the audience to find out more about their needs.
- Conversion Stage: The conversation stage is where you generate further inquiries and conversation.
- Lead/Customer Stage: The last stage the audience turns into a full lead or even a potential client.
Before all this can happen though, it’s important that you have a steady flow of traffic coming to your funnel.
Different Traffic Sources For Lead Funnels
In order to start getting leads through your funnel you need a steady source of traffic. Traffic comes in many different shapes, sizes and speeds and costs.
Organic Traffic
Organic traffic can enter your funnel from your content getting organically found through either your website or Youtube channel. It’s the most time consuming to get, but it tends to be the highest quality because it’s established over a longer period of time and your audience is very familiar with your work. Conversion rates from organic traffic sources tend to be the highest.
See the best SEO tools which can help you.
Paid Traffic
Paid traffic is traffic that you purchase through ppc campaigns, Facebook ads, Youtube ads and other sources. The great thing about paid traffic is that you generate visitors to your funnel immediately, but you will have to pay quite a bit for it. If you have the budget in place and are willing to spend some money you can get leads on demand.
Social Traffic
Social traffic is traffic that enters your funnel through social media channels such as Facebook groups or pages, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Youtube and others. It’s generated by you sharing your content on different platforms and engaging with your audience.
Email Traffic
Email is one of the most powerful ways to engage your audience and bring them inside your funnel. You should have a proper email marketing strategy in place that is integrated to your funnel. Email traffic is much more engaging and targeted because someone opted into your list. They already have some sort of expectation from you to follow up with them.
Recommended Reading: Converting Clients Using Cold Email Templates
Referral Traffic
Referral traffic is traffic that leaks into your lead generation funnel from external sources that aren’t directly affiliated with your website. This can be someone that has previously had some sort of experience with you and your company and has decided to recommend you. This is essentially word of mouth traffic that can be very high quality
All of these traffic sources are great ways to help your business generate leads, but it’s important to be aware of the different stages of lead generation once that traffic does make it to your lead funnel.
Stages of Lead Generation
Once someone enters your funnel it’s important to know all the stages they are going through so you can accurately present information to them, engage with them and eventually give them the extra push to make a purchase.
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The Lead Capture Stage – This is the initial point of contact that someone has with your funnel and is where they will make the decision to fill out a form or opt-in to your email list with their information. This requires you to have an attractive lead capture page built.
The Prospect Stage – In the prospect stage, a salesperson will follow up with the lead and present them with information and also ask them questions in order to further gauge their level of interest or need.
Offer Stage – In the offer stage the prospect will be presented with solutions to their problem and this will typically come in the form of an offer or product.
Customer Stage – In this stage the prospect decides to buy a product or service and turns into a paying customer.
The lead generation funnel should be structured in a way that encompasses all these stages correctly or in a variation that makes sense for the product or service you have.
How to Create a Lead Generation Funnel ( Step by Step )
In the video below, you will learn the step by step process of creating a lead generation funnel with Clickfunnels. https://www.youtube.com/embed/LLWKv_8d9ek
See here also their Free Webinar on “Funnel Hacking”
Optimizing Your Lead Generation Funnel
Once you have built your lead funnel and have gathered some data on the amount of leads you are getting from your traffic sources, you may want to think about optimizing your lead funnel. Let’s take a look at some strategies that can help you improve your lead generation funnel.
Funnel Hack Your Competitors
It’s no question that your competitors are more than likely using a funnel to capture leads. In order to gain some insight you should take yourself though your competitors funnels and see what kind of ad copy, lead pages, email swipes and offers they are making to their potential customers.
This will help you optimize your lead funnel and gain new ideas that may help improve your ability to generate leads.
Define Each Stage of Your Funnel
It’s important that you know your lead funnels inside and out. This requires you to carefully define each stage of the funnel so you know where your leads stand inside the funnel. Each stage should be carefully designed with the lead in mid and should feature important value added questions that help them make a decision.
Evaluate At Which Stage Rejection Occurs
You will have leads inside your funnel that simply reject your offer. You shouldn’t take this personally. This is an opportunity for you to access which stage inside the funnel your leads went cold. What could have been the reason they rejected?
You should obsess about the small reasons someone rejected you, instead focus on the stage at which it happened and it will help you make improvements to your sales verbiage and even your funnel.
Recommended reading: Unbounce vs Clickfunnels
Conclusion
A lead generation funnel can be a great way for you to put your business in a position to receive a steady flow of leads. They are a great way to keep in constant contact with your leads, develop rapport, learn about your potential customers and offer them value.