7 Sales Funnel Tips For Small Businesses

Cotswold Web • 23 June 2020

Tips to improve your sales funnel 

Everyone who sells online needs to create a sales funnel to convert website visitors into paying customers. The sales funnel moves visitors from one stage to the next until they make a purchase.


 It is described as a ‘funnel’ because it starts with lots of people – visitors arriving at your site through a Google search, an ad or social media – and ends with a small number of people – customers.


A group of people are working on a funnel with coins coming out of it.
 Your sales funnel consists of four stages:

  • Awareness – when someone visits your website for the first time, following a Google search, after clicking on an ad or responding to a post on social media


  • Interest – your business can offer the solution to a person’s problem, so they subscribe for your email list and/ or follow you on social media


  • Decision – a prospective customer is weighing up what you have to offer, before making a final decision about whether to buy


  • Action – the prospective customer clicks on the purchase button and becomes a customer




The challenge of course is to get as many people as possible to pass through those stages and make it all the way through to the bottom of your sales funnel.



Here we share some tips to improve your sales funnel…



A man with a surprised look on his face is looking at his cell phone.



Use intriguing headlines

You want people to engage with your business, and ultimately to buy from you. To do this, you’ve got to get them interested, but don’t tell them everything in your headline. Because why would they click on your link if they’ve got all their answers already?


Make people curious and desperate to find out more. So your headline could tell people what they are NOT going to find out, but they need to click on your link to find out the answers eg "How I made a six-figure profit in a year with this one service… "


In your sub-heading, you can go on to say that it doesn’t require a lot of extra money or time to achieve it.


Who could resist clicking on your call-to-action button after that?


But if your headline said How I made a six-figure profit in a year by improving my SEO and getting more five-star reviews, many potential customers would think they could work that out for themselves without clicking the link to buy the service you are offering.





A laptop is open on a desk next to a basket of flowers



Make the most of your blog

Your blog is essential to your business, because it can help with both the awareness and interest stages of your sales funnel. For some companies, your blog could be the main source of traffic to your website, so you need to make it count.


Optimise your content with the right keywords, so you can attract customers from organic searches. Sharing your blog content on social media is another way to bring potential customers to your website.


But while very important, your blog can only do so much. It can bring people to your website, but it can’t make them buy. That’s why you need your sales pages to move people onto the decision phase of the sales funnel.




A wooden sign that says checkout with an arrow pointing to the right



Build your sales page to maximise conversions

It seems obvious, but you need to be sure that you have built and designed your sales pages to maximise conversions. There are three key phases of selling:


  • Emotion


  • Logic


  • Fear



Getting engaged in the story of a business or product is emotion. Whether it is a fourth-generation family business started on a kitchen table, a company using only locally sourced produce or a product with low environmental impact, many people buy through emotion.


Some people will need to think more carefully about what they are buying.

Can they justify the purchase?


These people need logic and your sales pages need to appeal to them. Yes, they want to buy a product with low environmental impact, but can their logical side justify a higher price?



The final stage is fear – or urgency or scarcity. The panic buying in supermarkets at the start of the coronavirus pandemic shows just how many people will buy due to fear. Is a product about to run out? Will the special offer finish in the next hour?



With emotion as the key driver, keep the top third of your landing pages dedicated to emotion. The next third of the page should be dedicated to logical arguments – what are the benefits to the potential customer of buying your product or service? But some people need the final push of urgency and scarcity to encourage them to buy something – and to buy it now.



This technique also works for sales emails – if people on your email list don’t respond to an emotional email, send a logical one. And if there are still people who haven’t responded after a logical email, send them one about your time-limited offer. That way, you tick all the boxes and appeal to all customer types.




A man is being attracted by a magnet from a cell phone.



Offer a lead magnet to grow your list

A lead magnet is something extra you can offer through your website, in return for a visitor’s contact information. A lead magnet should be something which is hard to refuse, including things like ebooks, videos and webinars, and is a really effective way of getting those valuable email addresses.



By opting for a lead magnet and signing up to your email list, a visitor is at the interest stage of the sales funnel. When they start receiving your emails, they are moving towards decision, as they begin to pay more attention to what you have to offer.




A triangle with an exclamation point inside of it



Last minute up-selling

Just as we are tempted to pick up a bar of chocolate or a can of drink at the checkout in the supermarket, we can also tempt customers to buy one last thing when they are making a purchase online.



Last minute up-selling needs to be for an impulse buy which is related to what a customer is already ordering. It should be very obvious what it is – they are in the middle of the buying process and don’t want to read an explanation. It should also be cheaper than the item or service they are already buying. You need to make it very easy to click and buy – related to the ‘fear’ factor in purchasing decisions.



To maximise the potential of your last minute up-selling, your offer should pop up after a customer has input their payment details, but before they’ve hit the final button to confirm their purchase.




A bunch of shopping bags with one that has a snowflake on it



Add an offer wall

An offer wall is another up-selling technique. For some customers, once they have bought something they go into a bit of a buying frenzy and want to buy more. They are excited by what they have bought and want to find something similar. This is where you risk them leaving to go to a competitor’s website.



Adding an offer wall will help these hyperactive buyers to stick with you. Once you have thanked them for ordering your product or service, give them some suggestions of other products or services which can enhance what they have already bought from you.



Even though they have already reached the bottom of your sales funnel, taken action and bought something, the process doesn’t need to end there. There is no reason why they shouldn’t buy something else.




A man is talking to a woman who is holding a cell phone.



Don’t say ‘thank you’ yet

As soon as a customer arrives at a page saying ‘thank you for your order’, they are going to shut the page down and move on. So don’t say ‘thank you’ yet. Offer them one last chance to buy something extra.



Keep the sales funnel open a bit longer with a final ‘your order isn’t complete’ page. If they are buying books, offer them something in the same genre or by the same author. If they are buying jeans, suggest a top or bag to go with them.



Showing customers other items they may be interested in can increase sales dramatically.




A person is writing in a notebook in front of a laptop



Say ‘thank you’ with a webinar

For high-end purchases, particularly in the business-to-business sector, adding a webinar to your thank you pages is an effective way to get customers to come back to your business.



They have bought your product or service, now they want to know how best to use it. A webinar will give them all the information they need to get started and, importantly, it will reinforce the idea that yours is a good company to do business with, which is willing to go the extra mile for customers. The extra gesture provided by the webinar will help them to think of you the next time they want to make a similar purchase.




Whether we realise it or not, all businesses use a sales funnel. Every customer will follow the same process from when they first notice your business to when they go through with a purchase.



The key is to make that journey through the sales funnel more effective by trying to add value to every stage. Whether it’s a few extra sales because of your more effective headlines, or a last minute additional purchase at the checkout stage, it will all boost your bottom line.


More Posts.

A woman is sitting at a desk using a laptop computer.
20 January 2025
While different disciplines, UX is becoming increasingly important to SEO success. It isn’t a direct ranking factor in SEO,
silhouette  of a person against a backdrop of computer text
19 November 2024
Heading 1 Artificial intelligence (AI) has had a huge impact in many areas of life and SEO is no exception. While it has made online searches easier for consumers, keeping up with it and staying ahead as a business can be challenging. As Google integrates advanced AI into its search results, businesses must rethink their SEO strategies. Understanding the future of SEO in the context of AI is essential to appear high on search rankings and remain competitive. Traditionally, search engine optimisation (SEO) has relied largely on keyword optimisation and link building. If you sell garden products, you would make sure the phrase ‘garden products’ was used frequently throughout your website. You would also look to get some links back to your site from other websites – maybe other businesses in your local area or in a complementary sector. These traditional SEO methods are becoming less effective. AI means search engines like Google and Bing have become better at understanding the intent behind a search, through machine learning algorithms analysing huge quantities of data, as well as natural language processing. Natural language processing doesn’t just understand the words in a query, it understands the context and intent behind it. AI can even understand synonyms, slang and regional variation in language! When someone searches for something online, AI can analyse, interpret and predict their behaviour. So businesses have to adapt their SEO strategies to changing algorithms to stay competitive. You need to have a deeper understanding of your target audience and produce content which meets their needs and answers their queries. It is about providing the best answer to the questions your audience is asking, because AI algorithms are skilled at recognising content which meets the search intent of users and provides value. This means that content which is designed to meet specific needs, answer questions and provide the solutions to problems is more likely to rank higher in searches. AI algorithms will prioritise content which resonates with users on a human level – with every paragraph adding more value and depth. This aligns with AI’s preference for content which engages and informs – and also helps build a stronger connection with your target audience. In addition, AI is making voice searches (e.g. Alexa) much more effective. Voice searches tend to use more words than online searches e.g. ‘find me healthy snacks for pre-school children’ rather than just typing ‘healthy snacks’ into Google with no context. This aspect of AI will continue to grow in importance and become even more widely used.
SEO Audit by Cotswold Web Cheltenham
by Cotswold Web 1 October 2024
An SEO audit is a way to evaluate how well your website is optimised for search engines
A computer monitor is sitting on a desk with purple lights behind it.
30 July 2024
When was the last time you had your business website redesigned? If it's been more than two or three years, it likely needs an update...
The word seo is written on scrabble tiles on a wooden table.
24 June 2024
Local SEO (or search engine optimisation) is a way of allowing your business to rank highly in local search results
A black and white logo of a monkey wearing headphones and a hat.
23 May 2024
Automating your business with Connectors - Marketing your business is powered by data – and your company needs that data to stay ahead of the competition.
Share by: