Sales Funnel Optimization: The Myths and Facts

"Erroneous preconceptions are the dangerous downside of myths. But heroes are their dangerous upside. Larger than life, highly exaggerated, and always positioned in the most favorable light, a hero is a beautiful lie."

– Roy H. Williams

A hero is idealized and admired for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. We all have our heroes. And we tend to put them on a pedestal, where they often belong. The same goes for myths. A myth is a widely accepted false belief. Myths are dangerous because they often lead us astray, preventing us from seeing the truth. The word myth comes from the Greek word mythos, which means story or tale. A myth is a module of a culture, a system of beliefs shared by a group. There is a magic behind myths – they have a way of taking on a life of their own. Sales funnel optimization is no different. Many myths about it can lead you astray if you believe them. However, just because you hear something repeated often doesn’t make it true. When it comes to business, many myths can hold you back if you believe them. The next time you hear someone say one of these things, you can be the voice of reason and set the record straight. But many myths can motivate you and inspire you to take action and achieve your goals if you understand the truth behind them. The most prevalent myth in heating and air conditioning is that a toaster would be the ideal home warming present.

The fact is, a furnace would be the best home warming present. When it comes to business, there are a lot of myths floating around, passing off as facts. Like, for example, you might believe coffee ground can be flushed down the sink drain. The fact is, your creating a coffee puck that will eventually need to be cleared. And lubing it up with bacon grease ain’t the answer. Am I right?!When it comes to marketing, there is a lot of myths and facts about sales funnels. These nifty tools are awesome for creating an ultra focused message and call to action (CTA). Essentially, if you want a person who is interested in your thing to do one thing, you use a sales funnel. There are many myths surrounding sales funnel optimization too. If you don't know, sales funnel optimization is the process of continually improving your conversion funnel to boost conversions and improve ROI. It's a key part of any successful marketing strategy, yet many misconceptions cloud your success. Sales funnel optimization is a significant yet misunderstood area of online conversions.

Understanding the myths and facts about sales funnels and optimization techniques can boost your conversion rate and sales. You could also use a click funnel. A click funnel is a strategy used to increase the number of conversions by making changes to the design and content of your sales funnel. For example, if you write a sales blog on your website, you could use a click funnel to increase the number of people who subscribe to your blog. You can also use a sales funnel to increase the number of people who buy your product. If you have an eCommerce store, you can use it to do just that. The goal of optimizing your sales funnel is to increase your conversion rate. That is the percentage of people who make the decision to take the desired action, such as booking an appointment with an online scheduler or picking up the phone to book an appointment. Many factors affect your conversion rate, so it's important to continually experiment, test, and refine different elements of your funnel. Find what works best for your business and optimize it. Sales funnel optimization is an essential part of any growth strategy. However, there are many myths to debunk. So let’s go bunking.

This Ain’t Your Average Funnel Anymore

Sales funnels take many shapes. The traditional sales funnel definition is linear, with a consistent journey from customer awareness to purchase. In the early days, a person might call up an HVAC company after seeing a yellow pages ad. Then, they'd receive a series of follow-up calls and postcards in the mail in ongoing efforts to get them as a loyal customer. The flow of a sales funnel follows the same tenants as any sales model.

• Attention: The first of the traditional sales funnel stages is attention, or when people become aware of your product or service. It's essential to ensure they clearly understand what you're offering and why it's valuable or beneficial to them.
• Interest: Just because someone knows your plumbing company exists, doesn’t mean they care. Interest occurs in most home service companies with an externally triggered event, like a leak. You win the game if you capture a buyers attention before they need your service.
• Decision: Marketers think you need to create desire for your product or service, creating elaborate campaigns that are cute and clever. The reality if that if your in the third phase and just starting to generate desire, you’ve lost. At this point, your marketing efforts need to focus on getting the prospect to make the decision to choose you.
• Action: This is the final stage of the sales funnel, where people pick up the phone to book an appointment or fill out an online form. This phase has to have zero friction to finalize the conversion. This means a human picks up your phone and books the appointment or an online scheduler gives them instant gratification of a verified appointment.

While the traditional linear sales funnel doesn't work as well as more dynamic, non-linear sales funnel, the tenants of buyer behavior stay the same. The key is to speak to the actual felt needs of the buyer’s pain and pleasure points. We don’t want to overwhelm or bore the prospect or they will drop out of the funnel entirely. Today’s sales funnel is non-linear and much more complex. With the advent of the digital marketing landscape, businesses now have many more touch points with potential customers. Prospects can enter a sales funnel at any stage in their journey. For example, someone might see a Facebook ad for a new air conditioning unit and click through to learn more. Then they might visit the company's website and read some blog posts before finally making a purchase. Or, someone might Google search for air conditioners and click on a paid ad that takes them directly to a product page. In this case, they bypassed the whole top of the funnel entirely. Just remember, the less time they have going through your funnels, the less invested they are in you other than providing the cheapest price. The modern sales funnel is more like a web, with many different paths leading to the purchase. Because there are so many possible paths a customer can take, it's vital to map out your own unique funnel and optimize each step for maximum conversion rate. The key is to provide enough information and choices at each stage of the funnel so that people can make an informed decision without being overwhelmed. How's your sales funnel looking? Is it optimized for conversion? If not, what can you change to improve it? Want to book a call with Wizard of Ads®, yet? We'll help you configure your sales funnel so your conversion rate soars.

9 Myths & Facts about Sales Funnel Optimization

Many myths exist surrounding sales funnel optimization. Here are 9 of the most common myths, along with the facts that debunk them.

Myth #1: It’s Costly

Optimizing your sales funnel doesn’t have to be a costly process. In fact, you can often do it for free using tools that are already at your disposal. Here are a couple of sales funnel examples. 1) If you’re using Google Analytics, you can use the data you already have to identify areas of improvement, or 2) if you’re using a CRM, utilize its built-in reporting functionality to spot trends and areas for improvement.

Myth #2: You Have to Know How to Write Code or Build Websites

You don’t need to be a coder or web developer to optimize your sales funnel. While some tools may require some coding knowledge, like setting up tracking pixels, there are plenty of options that don’t require any coding whatsoever. For example, if you want to add a popup to your website, there are now numerous plugins and tools that allow you to do this without having to write a single line of code. Many online resources can help you if you need to code something yourself. If you’re not sure where to start, a quick Google search will almost certainly turn up what you’re looking for. For example, going back to that popup site... You could use a tool like Poptin, which provides an easy-to-use editor to create popups and other kinds of lead capture forms. Or, you could code the popup yourself using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. If you decide to go the coding route, plenty of resources online can help you. For example, w3schools.com is a great place to learn about HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Once you have the basics down, you can start creating your own custom popups and forms. If you need a sales funnel, there is likely a online software solution that will work for you. Clickfunnels, LeadPages, Hubspot, and Keap are popular solutions that require little to no knowledge of coding.

Myth #3: You Can Only Use Paid Traffic to Sales Funnels

You can absolutely use paid traffic to drive people to your sales funnel, but you don’t have to. In fact, there are many ways to generate traffic for your funnel without spending a dime. For example, you can use SEO or content marketing to attract organic traffic. Or you can leverage social media platforms and email marketing to reach potential customers. The key is to experiment and find what works best for your business. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to generating traffic.

Myth #4: All Sales Funnel Optimization Works

Just because a certain optimization worked for one person doesn’t mean it will work for you. And even if optimization does work, there’s no guarantee that it will continue to work after some time. That's why testing and experimenting with different optimizations, such as website optimization, is vital to see what works best for your particular situation. What worked yesterday might not work today, so it’s essential to keep up with the latest trends and changes.

Myth #5: You Can Set Your Sales Funnel Up and Forget It

Your sales funnel is never done and will always need to be tested, tweaked, and optimized as time goes on. As your business changes and grows, so too will your sales funnels. What worked last month may not work this month, so it’s crucial to keep track of what works and what doesn't and adjust accordingly. The best way to do this is to set up a tracking system so you can see which steps in your funnel lose people This will tell you what changes you need to make to keep them taking actions. A/B testing is a great way to see what works and what doesn’t. Only change one thing at a time and seeing how it affects your conversion rate. If it goes up, great! If not, try something else.

Myth #6: Instant Results

When you first start optimizing your funnel, you probably won’t see results overnight. It can take weeks or even months to really see your changes take effect. Patience is key with sales funnel optimization– don’t expect miracles overnight. Sales funnel optimization is a process that takes time to see results. Be patient, keep track of your data, and don’t give up!

Myth #7: Leads Are Your Only Goal

Many businesses focus solely on lead generation, but that’s not the only goal of a sales funnel. Yes, generating leads is crucial, but if those leads never convert into customers, what’s the point?

Your ultimate goal should be to generate more customers, not just more leads.- Ryan Chute

A lead is someone who has shown interest in your product or service but hasn’t committed to buying anything. A customer is someone who has made a purchase. Would you rather have 100 leads or 10 customers? Don’t get so caught up in generating leads that you forget your ultimate goal – acquiring more customers.

Myth #8: Sales Funnels Are Only Applicable to Online Businesses

A common misconception is that sales funnels are only applicable to online businesses. Businesses of all types use them – even residential home service companies. If you have a physical product or service to sell, you can use a funnel to increase your sales and conversions. For example, you're a landscaping company, and you want to book appointment for aerating services. You can use a sales funnel to drive leads to your landing page, convert them into appointments, and then sell them into customers. Sales funnels are not just for online businesses. Any type of business uses them to increase sales and conversions.

Myth #9: The Longer the Sales Funnel, the Better

While having a well-thought-out sales funnel is vital, you don’t want to make it so complex that potential customers get discouraged, lost, or bored. The key is to convert them saying the absolute least amount of information. Make your sales funnel comprehensive enough potential customers have all information they need to take action. Period. Full stop. Anything more and you lost them with the boring bits.

Sales Funnel Myths: Debunked

If you keep these myths in mind, you’ll be on the right track to optimizing your funnel and making more sales. Don’t let the myths about sales funnels stop you from using them to grow your business. Use them to your advantage and watch your business take off! Do you need help with your sales funnel? How about your sales funnel optimization? What’s your sales funnel optimization strategy looking like?Wizard of Ads™ is here to serve. Book a call.