How to Create High Converting eCommerce Funnels

​A lot of people are going to tell you that eCommerce is dead. Private labeling is dead. Dropshipping is dead.

The people who say these things typically fall into two categories:

●They are trying to scare potential competitors out of the market

●They entered the market and failed

Online sales are not going away. They aren't even slowing down. This is why so many new entrepreneurs are turning to ecommerce, and embracing all sorts of inventive ways to create ongoing conversions — take recurring billing as a prime example. But what is recurring billing? In simple terms, it is a billing arrangement where a customer agrees to pay a vendor on a regular basis for goods or services received. This can be done on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis and is often used in subscription-based models, where customers are charged automatically at regular intervals. With the growth of online sales, this is just one of the ways businesses can build and maintain a loyal customer base.

The overall pie is getting larger every year. All you need is a small slice to change your life forever.

To do that, you need sales. So today we're going to give you some tips on how to create high converting eCommerce funnels.

What is an eCommerce Funnel?

Sales funnels have evolved with time. However, the basic fundamentals are still the same. There are four main pillars you should consider:

The first thing we'd like to point out is that the funnel gets smaller with each step. You can't please all of the people all of the time. Ten thousand people may hear about your product or service, but getting every single one of them all the way through to the action step is impossible.

What you can do is broaden the funnel to maximize the number of people who hear about your brand. If 1% of people who enter the funnel convert, you probably want to increase the number of people who enter the funnel. 1% of 100,000 is a much bigger number than 1% of 10,000.

In today's post, we're going to break down each part of the funnel with some tips and tricks to help you maximize your ROI and turn your marketing strategy into a well-oiled sales generating machine. Let's get started.

Awareness

Awareness is the stage where you want to become known. This is where new businesses start or older businesses come in that are trying to build an online presence for the first time.

When you're introducing a new product or business or service, it's important to remember that the awareness part of the funnel is not used for sales. You're not looking to make money here.

Instead, your goal is to build a brand identity, educate your target audience, and provide immense value they cannot find anywhere else. The purpose is to get people talking, build trust and authority, and generate shareable content.

During the awareness stage, you want to think about the search intent that comes with your content creation.

You want them to be curious about what you do and why you do it. This is where you can talk about a problem that needs to be solved. Now is the time to make friends and be helpful to the community where you want to have a large impact.

Tips for being successful in this part of the funnel

The secret to success in this stage is the word build. You want to build content, a brand, and a following.

It all starts with content. Most of the people who failed with eCommerce did so because they didn't understand the value of great content with search intent in mind.

It's not just your audience that's going to notice, it's search engines as well. You need to appeal to both Google and your tribe.

Once you've built a ton of great informational content, get the word out by building a following on social media where your target audience lives online. Be helpful. Make friends. Share your content. Like other people's posts. Retweet them. Leave comments.

The awareness stage is where you start to set a standard of excellence. The better you are here, the most people you can funnel through to the interest stage.

Interest

​This is where you're going to see your first big drop-off. People who came to check you out in the awareness stage may not like what you're doing. They simply aren't interested. Maybe the problem you're trying to fix isn't something that's a problem for them.

Maybe it's just not a problem right now.

Don't spend too much time wondering why you lost people from awareness to interest. Spend the majority of your time on the people who did come through to this part of the funnel.

These are people who like your message and your brand but they aren't ready to make a purchase. As far as search intent is concerned, some people are still looking for informational content but some are entering the phase known as commercial investigation.

Commercial investigation is defined as a consumer who knows they want a certain product. This could be a computer, TV, or something like a new pair of pants. Now they've moved on to which computer is the best for them. What TVs have the best features?

Tips for being successful in this part of the funnel

In the awareness stage, whoever comes in is welcome. This is mainly due to the large number of potential customers. Welcome them all. But fewer people will get to this stage. This is where you want to start holding people's hands.

The interest stage is where you want to push subscribing to a newsletter or email list. Affiliate marketers have been using this tactic for decades.

If you come across any type of content for people who want to know if affiliate marketing is worth it, those article writers will tell you that it definitely is if you're willing to put time and effort into building a verified email list. There is so much you can do with email that you can't do anywhere else.

The ROI is still fantastic and stands out amongst every other marketing strategy.

As far as social media, this is when you start to see engagement. Your job should be to interact with people in this part of the funnel. Answer questions. Suggest content they'll find helpful.

You can also start hunting for influencers in this stage. Influencer marketing is a great way to help build trust and authority in your brand.

Decision

Decisions are hard for all of us. It's been proven that if you give people too many options, they likely won't choose any or they won't be happy with their final decision.

In this stage, people have finally honed down their search. They maybe have a couple of options and they're nearing the action stage of the funnel. Now is the time to prove the value of your product or service.

When it comes to content, this is where you want to start developing blog posts and social networks to show relevant data. Charts, infographics, and case studies are all great ways to prove you're the best at what you do.

Tips for being successful in this part of the funnel​

The customer is nearing the action stage. They're about to pull the trigger. Do not let them go here. This is an important and possibly the most fragile part of the sales funnel.

You have to be delicate with your tactics, which is difficult, considering your strategy is to prove you deserve this person's business.

To make this easier, you want to have features on your website to help with this push. Photos should be high resolution. Product descriptions should be incredibly well thought out and worded.

Homepage information can be pivotal here. Not only should you clearly display what you do and why it solves a certain problem, but you want back-up in the form of testimonials and reviews.

When it comes to eCommerce, there is no shortage of competition. The more people you can get to say nice things about the product or service, the more customers you'll have making it to the end of the funnel.

Action

Congratulations. It's not easy getting customers to this part of the funnel. You're almost to the point where you can take a few seconds to pat yourself on the back. You just need to give your customers that final nudge in the right direction.

When users are in this stage, they have what we call transactional intent. They're looking to buy a certain product from a particular business. Now they're just looking for the best deal.

This part of the funnel can get pretty nasty. The battles for the best keywords are never-ending. Marketers and sales teams aren't afraid to fight dirty.

Tips for being successful in this part of the funnel

​If you have a lot of competition for the same product or type of product, a lot of what it's going to boil down to is how easy do you make it for customers to make a purchase.

As far as options, do you offer PayPal, all major cards, GooglePay, ApplePay, and possibly even Bitcoin?

This is the time you want to give your cart pages a once over. Can you deliver autofill capabilities so people don't have to put in their information manually?

Something else to think about is your site security. Place any kind of badges or security measures on your site where people can see them so they don't think your business is a scam or easily hackable.

Conclusion - How to Create High Converting eCommerce Funnels

It's pretty easy to write about how to create high-converting eCommerce funnels. But getting down and dirty in the trenches takes a lot of hard work.

Many people who fail with eCommerce weren't willing to put in the effort or they tried to build a funnel that didn't satisfy all of the phases so they lost a lot of potential customers. Do it the right way, work hard, and you'll find success.

Thanks for stopping by and reading today's post. If you've got the time to read another, check out this one on the 5 must-have Wix apps for photography websites

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