The Sales Funnel for Solopreneurs: Understanding the Journey from Awareness to Loyalty
A sales funnel is a marketing model that describes the journey a customer goes through before making a purchase. Whether you know it or not, you’re already using a sales funnel! If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a sales funnel, don’t worry. In this article, we’re going to explain each stage.
Image sourced from Sprout Social
By having awareness of each stage, you can be more conscious of your actions, which can lead to increased sales and the growth your business. So here we go!
Awareness
The first stage of the sales funnel is awareness. This is where potential customers become aware of your product/service. As an example, this could be a Life Coach sharing information their on social media platforms, promoting a new online group, or receiving press coverage. The goal of this stage is to attract attention and generate interest in what you have to offer.
Tools to use: As mentioned above, social media platforms are very useful at this stage. The social media platforms you use depends on the demographics of your community. While Facebook has a narrower active audience age of 35-44, Instagram casts a wider net of 18-34. This may take some trial and error but it’s worth investing in the most aligned platforms so you get the most return.
Consideration
Once potential customers are aware of a solopreneurs offering, they enter the consideration stage of the sales funnel. In this stage, they evaluate your offering and decide whether or not they are interested in investing in it. For an Personal Trainer for example, this could mean providing detailed information about the training programs, as well as providing testimonials from clients.
Example: An busy professional in her 40s comes across a video of your on Instagram about creating a fitness routine. They start to ask questions about the times, cost and expectations of investing in a personal trainer. They can then decide if they want to further consider the offering.
Tools to use: we love using Squarespace, and so do solopreneurs! Squarespace has a wide range of templates which can help clients learn more information about solopreneurs and their offerings. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools such as Tonnta are essential from this point onward as it helps you manage your relationship with customers along the way by centralizing your contact list and conversations.
Conversion
The next stage of the sales funnel is conversion. This is where potential customers make the decision to make a purchase. For an solopreneur, this means making the purchase as easy as possible by responding on time, helping them make decisions such as whether they want help with the frame selection or not, etc.
Example: In the example of a content creator working for themselves, once a client has decided to avail of their services, the conversation might evolve into discussing what their contract should entail. The content creator should make it as easy as possible to lay out the terms in conversation and make the client feel they have the best option selected.
Tools to use: CRMs such as Tonnta help you respond to potential buyers and to keep notes of your conversations. By giving each customer an experience they enjoy, it will make the decision for the buyer to commit that much easier. Notes on preferences, vision and the goal of the project allows you help the client feel considered and cared for, making it an easy decision to invest in your work.
Loyalty
Once a customer has made a purchase or paid for your completed service, they enter the loyalty stage of the sales funnel. This is where they become a repeat customer. For an solopreneur, this could mean staying in touch with customers and building relationships, and sharing recent projects with them.
Example: A wellness practioner, such as a Phsychotherapist might send out a regular newsletter that has some of their writing and share resources they thought to be useful.
Tools to use: email marketing is a very important tool here as you can use a mailing list to give your loyal clients valuable information. You can use the mailing list included in your website builder, such as Squarespace, or use the likes of Mailchimp to build a mailing list and create emails for your community. Using a CRM like Tonnta at this stage allows you to keep record of your clients and allow you to acknowledge their kindness and loyalty with an email card at the end of the year.
Advocacy
The final stage of the sales funnel is advocacy. This is where customers go above and beyond to promote the solopreneur and their work to others. Going back to the Life Coach, this could mean receiving positive word-of-mouth reviews or having customers post about their work on social media.
Example: Current and past clients of a Life Coach talk about how much they enjoy learning and growing with a life coach, which makes their friends and family reach out to inquire.
Tools to use: Continued use of a CRM tool is as important as ever at this stage. Keep tabs on who are sharing your work and who are listening to them. It’s important to acknowledge these people who are advocating for you.
So there you go! There are many ways you can use your knowledge of the sales funnel once you know about it. You can draw it out and review the activities you do at each stage, visualize where all your potential and current customers are in the sales funnel, etc.
As mentioned above, it’s very important to have a customer relationship process in place that works for you. For some people, something as simple as a notebook works.
For others, especially those who sell through multiple channels, it’s important to have a tool to keep on top of everything, such as Tonnta.
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