A marketing funnel is essential for marketing your business and promoting your brand. Here are the top 10 mistakes many business owners make in their marketing funnels.

1. Top 10 Rookie Marketing
Funnel Mistakes
Anita Hales

2. What’s a Funnel?
• Whether you are a brick and mortar business or a solopreneur working an online
business, your marketing funnel is your lifeblood.
• In this day of increased competition created by the internet, it’s vital that you have a
well-thought out and implemented marketing funnel.
• What is a marketing funnel? It’s the way you get the attention of potential
customers and turn them into buyers and faithful return customers.
• A business person launches an attention-getting campaign through advertising. The
potential customer is then wooed into becoming a lead and finally making a
purchase. It starts out broad and narrows which is why it’s called a funnel.

3. Rookie Mistake #1
• Not giving site visitors a clear idea of your business. Advertising is easy.
Advertising effectively is not. Making a landing page is where you begin
putting your potential customer into the top of your funnel. If you don’t let
your customer know clearly what they are getting into, they won’t get far into
your funnel. Having more than one landing page with different approaches
will attract different types of customers. It also gives you a way to split test
and see what approaches work best.

4. Rookie Mistake #2
• No clear call to action. You have to tell people what to do, click the button,
fill in the information form, check their emails for more information. Have a
way they can contact you through your web page and social media.

5. Rookie Mistake #3
• Failing to follow up with leads. Collecting leads isn’t enough. If you stop
with a list, you won’t make any sales. It’s imperative to communicate with
your leads regularly through emails and phone calls. Remember the old
adage, “The fortune is in the follow-up”.

6. Rookie Mistake #4
• Confusing Funnel Progression. Is your funnel easy to follow? Don’t make
too many steps. Don’t have distractions. Have you ever been on one of those
pages where there are so many ads you can’t tell the ads from the actual
information? I hate those and just click away. Lots of people do. Have you
created a sense of urgency to keep people in the funnel so they don’t get
lost?

7. Rookie Mistake #5
• Funnel is so wide at the top that people drop off in the middle and bottom
of the funnel. Providing support throughout the funnel keeps people
engaged. Narrow your focus at the top so your funnel remains relevant to the
people you have attracted. Tell them what they will be getting as the progress
through the funnel so they anticipate what comes next.

8. Rookie Mistake #6
• Targeting the wrong audience. It’s not the number of visitors that increases
conversions, it’s the number of visitors willing to make a purchase. You can
make a lot of sales with a very small list if you have the right people on that
list. Take the time to define your niche and target audience.

9. Rookie Mistake #7
• Ignoring or misunderstanding analytics data. Analytics were an anathema to
me in the beginning. They were confusing and mind boggling. But you need
to understand it and learn to use the tools to your benefit. Analytics tell the
story you need to hear. Learn how to use them. There are a lot of online
resources for learning to use analytics.

10. Rookie Mistake #8
• Overlooking Marketing Opportunities. Just putting your stuff on the web
and hoping people will see it means they never will. Even worse, not putting
things on the web at all. You have to put the plate in front of them or they
will eat dinner somewhere else. Use social media tools, information sharing
resources and engage with related communities online.
• The day has long passed when you could just hang out a shingle and have
customers come.

11. Rookie Mistake #9
• Stopping your funnel at the sale. Your converted lead is golden. It can mean
more sales down the road and more leads as that person shares with others.
Provide continued support showing them how to get the most from their
purchase. Provide speedy customer service. Use social media and emails to
stay in contact and keep the converted lead engaged.

12. Rookie Mistake #10
• Expecting immediate results. Although things can happen rather quickly in a
well-defined funnel, it takes time to refine the funnel to get the results you
want. Many potential entrepreneurs get discouraged and give up too soon.
They don’t give their promotions time to work and they don’t work their
promotions until they produce results. Testing and trial always precedes
success. No funnel is perfect and you shouldn’t worry too much about
perfection. Just keep improving until you get the results you want.
• Jim Rohn said, “You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can
change your direction overnight.”

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• Have you made funnel mistakes? What have you found to be successful?
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