(Note: this article is part 6 of 7 in a series on Building a Website to Grow Your Medical Practice. Check out the entire series here.)

Build a Website Part 6: Create a Winning Sales Funnel for Your Website

If you’ve been following along with this blog series on how to build a website to grow your medical practice, you have come a long way. You’ve crafted your message by using the StoryBrand BrandScript and then designed a branded and functional website.

Now that you have an amazing website, you need to convert your site visitors into paying customers. Lots of people aren’t ready to buy or become patients on the first day they discover you. They need to learn from you, experience you, and grow to trust you before being ready to buy.

That’s where a sales funnel comes in. A sales funnel starts with free and valuable content. You give something away in exchange for an email address. Then you follow up with more valuable content as well as an invitation to buy or become a patient. Follow these four simple steps to build a winning sales funnel for your website:

4 Steps to Creating a Winning Sales Funnel

1. Create a lead generator

A lead generator can be a checklist, recipe book, ultimate guide, or any other written document (a lead-generating PDF). It could be a video series, an audio series, or access to a mini online course. It could even be a coupon or discount on your services. Whatever you choose to give away for free, make sure it is valuable and educates the site visitor more about your business.

2. Write a welcome email

Do not underestimate the power of a welcome email. When a person enters their email address to access your free content (your lead generator), you will automatically send them an email to deliver that content. That’s the welcome email. This email is an opportunity for you to introduce yourself and invite the person to take further action—like following you on social media or sharing your free content with a friend.

3. Write a series of automated emails

If the person has consented to receive follow-up emails from you (see my article on GDPR), this is an excellent opportunity to add more value and coach the prospective customer on to become a paying customer. Write a series of 4+ emails to automatically deliver after a person has requested your lead generator. The last email in this series should be a “sales email,” where you invite the person to buy.

 4. Integrate your sales funnel with your website

To integrate your sales funnel with your website, you need to create an email optin form. If you want to go the extra mile, you can also create a dedicated landing page to promote the lead generator. Be sure to follow regulations related to email marketing and personal data privacy. I have written more about this in a previous article on GDPR.

Once you have created your lead generator, email sequence, and website integration, your sales funnel is in place! Now all you need to do is make sure people discover it. We’ll cover that in the last blog post of the series.

Bonus!

Sales funnels do not need to be complicated. Lots of marketing experts recommend them.  Below you'll find a 5-Step process that's recommended by Donald Miller of StoryBrand. Check it out and see how straightforward this can be.