Your website needs to be part of your sales funnel, which means you need specific sales funnel offers that nurture leads into paying customers.

Creating the most beautiful website in the world probably won’t keep the leads pouring in. Will it look awesome? Yes. Will visitors be impressed? Yes. Will a beautiful website without strategic offers lead to converted traffic? Probably not.

You spend a lot of time attracting leads to your website, only to lose them because you don’t have calls to actions that lead them to fill out a form. Your traffic doesn’t convert because you don’t have a top of the sales funnel offer.

What are top of the sales funnel offers?

Top of the sales funnel offers are valuable pieces of content you offer with the goal of moving website traffic into the next level of your sales funnel. The way you get “paid” for these offers is by asking for contact information in exchange for the content.

The purpose of the sales funnel offers is to attract attention and create awareness while you generate leads.

If your website is effective, then your site should be attracting leads left and right. Your offers should be irresistible and give specific value to potential customers in exchange for their contact information.

What sales funnel offers should I be creating?

The offers you create to convert traffic should be part of your overall website design strategy. Depending on your business, there are one to five specific pieces of content you need to create:

1. E-book: You may not think of yourself as one, but you’re an expert. Not in everything, but when it comes to your business, products, or services, you are definitely an expert. You’re full of great insights, tips, and knowledge.

Sales funnel offers should play to your strengths and give readers specific information

When it comes to writing an e-book, you don’t want to give away everything. If you sell a secret sauce that makes every dish better, you don’t want to give your recipe away. But, you could give away 5 recipes that use your secret sauce or different ways the sauce can be used. If leads know all of the uses for the sauce, then they’ll be more tempted to purchase your sauce.

2. Whitepapers: You know your products and services like the back of your hand. Inside and out. You know the best uses for them and the solutions they provide. But, your customers don’t. Whitepapers are your opportunity to give potential customers more information. Typically, in a white paper, you discuss an issue and how your product or service solves the issue.

For example, if your business makes a toothbrush with a special flex grip handle, you might address how plaque buildup and tartar are huge problems for adults. But, with your flex grip handled toothbrush, it’s much easier to reach every area of your mouth. Then, outline all of the ways your toothbrush is advanced and will help brushers.

3. Check Lists: If you aren’t sure what content to offer potential customers, then checklists may be a simple solution for you to create. These are great tools for customers to use to determine if they need a specific product or service. By walking them through a process, you can show them why you provide a great solution without having to go into great detail.

For example, if you’re a realtor and want to bring in more clients, then you can create a checklist for all of the steps involved in selling a house like cleaning, painting, small repair work, finding a realtor, determining a price… The checklist can be 5 things or 25 things. But, one of the steps should highlight the need to “find a realtor.” The person reading over the checklist will have a reminder point back to you that they need a realtor.

4. Infographics: Slightly more information and less traditional than some of the other options for the top of the sales funnel offers, infographics are a series of images or one large image that tells a story. It could be the story of an apple from seed to recycling, so long as the infographic tells a story that relates to your business, products, or services.

Infographics are a great way to show potential customers the benefits of your products or services. For instance, if you manufacture shoelaces that are extra durable because they have tiny metal fibers weaved in them, you could create an infographic showing multiple ways to use the shoelaces. Doing this highlights the versatility of the product and shows potential customers what your product can do.

5. Reports: Perhaps the more formal of all the sales funnel offers, reports are used for technical, financial, and statistical information. Typically, this type of offer is reserved for highly technical and corporate type situations.

 

If you’re trying to convey the strength of your company, then you might use your third quarter revenue numbers in a report. By explaining the 3rd quarter market and impact it had on your revenue, you can establish credibility with potential customers. Even if your numbers were less than stellar, it shows transparency and integrity—just be sure you explain how you plan on making quarter 4 a success.

Checking your sales funnel offers:

Creating a sales funnel offer isn’t as simple as slapping a checklist on a word document and calling it a day. Writing and designing your sales offer takes some skill and time.

Once your offer is created, you should test it to make sure it follows these standards:

Ultra Specific

If you’re trying to be all things to everyone, then you probably aren’t reaching the right people—the people who you can convert into leads. Like all of the content on your website and marketing materials, your offer needs to be targeted to one group, not 12.

The Big Idea

Similarly, the offer should focus on one core idea, not 3 or 4. By offering more focused content, you can tackle the subject without giving too much information away or overwhelming your reader.

Immediate Gratification

You have to ask yourself if your offer has an immediate payoff for readers. If your e-book isn’t something a potential consumer can use until they’ve purchased your services, then they don’t need it until they’re further into the sales funnel, which means they just don’t care, yet.

High Perceived Value

The offer has to be worth something to the lead. While you may not be charging money for your offer, you’re still asking for something in return. The content you provide needs to seem like it’s worth a lot.

Rapid Consumption

Leads at the top of the sales funnel want information quickly. If your checklist spans 9 pages, then a consumer won’t take the time to look at the whole thing. Think about how long it takes to read or view your offer. If it takes three hours to read your report, chances are nobody’s getting to the end.

Creating top of the sales funnel offers is all about staying within your strengths. As you create the offer, keep it simple and make it easy for yourself.

Remember: the faster your promise is paid off, the quicker you can move the lead down to the next level of your sales funnel.

Generating leads should be a function of your site. If it isn’t, then you could be missing out on a lot of leads and revenue. You need a strategic marketing team to make your website start working for you.

START A PROJECT