Sales funnels are common, and so are these mistakes…
Avoid these and don’t be surprised if you double conversions and ROI in one fell swoop.
5 common sales funnel mistakes
In no particular order, here they are:
1. Generic Thank You Page
Generic thank you pages don’t give customers any reinforcement.
They don’t:
- Reinforce the buying decision
- Offer cross-sells
- Or offer any post-purchase benefits
In the case of an opt-in, many customers don’t actually read the content they chose to download — making this a perfect place to present that content.
2. No Upsell or Cross-Sell Series
If you look at the biggest industry titans, from Amazon to Steam, you’ll notice that upsells, bundles, and cross-sells are automated on every product page.
They realize how much value they add to each purchase, so they’ve automated the process.
Depending on the scale of your business — and your product or service — it’s always a good idea to include some form of cross-sell or upsell automation.
In the case of service agencies, there’s no reason you can’t include these in a project proposal or on a pricing table.
3. Not Following Up Cart Abandoners
Cart abandonment is a major pain point for many customers.
Yet many businesses don’t follow up with abandoners.
While you want to avoid being creepy with your follow-up, doing some form of follow-up will put a nice chunk of change back in your pocket.
And it can help you grab customers before they run off to a competitor.
4. Avoiding Top-of-Funnel Demand Gen
Are you marketing, or just selling?
Around 90% of your market isn’t aware of your products, their need for your products, let alone that they have a problem.
Demand generation shifts core beliefs, educates prospects, and creates the right belief set needed for a buying mindset.
5. Walking Away from Your Funnel
Making this mistake is like flushing money down the toilet.
Let’s say you’ve spent weeks on a new funnel…
…and it doesn’t convert.
You can’t get customers at cost, you’re below targets, et cetera.
In many cases, you can optimize funnels and generate ROI up to 10X (or more) with testing, copy optimization, and design changes.
Don’t walk away from a broken funnel — fix it.
Final Thoughts
These funnel mistakes are easy to avoid.
Yet in today’s modernizing world, they’re still too common. While it’s easy to gloss over marketing as an expense, remember that it’s really an investment.
In this case, think of the money that’s falling out of your pocket with every hole in your funnel … and how much you can lift your ROI.
