How to structure your sales funnel on WhatsApp

If you sell physically and needed to switch to digital or you already have an online sales structure and needed to invest more to stand out from the competition, see if you identify with the following situations:

#1 Hardly anyone opens your advertising emails and therefore they are not interested in your product.

#2 Starting at the beginning of 2020, you had to adapt your sales to online, but your sellers don't sell as well as before.

#3 Have you ever considered giving up because ads alone aren't enough to sell.

There is an application that is in the pocket of almost every Brazilian that can solve almost all of their online sales problems. That's right, you already know which app we're talking about.

Through a well-structured WhatsApp sales funnel, your company can sell as well as before and your entire sales process can become more predictable and controlled.

However, this sale needs to be different from the way you're used to.

In this text you will understand how to make a virtual sale, what a sales funnel is, how to make an irresistible offer and learn the mechanisms that break the possible objections that your customer may have at the time of the sale!

The first step is to discover how to find your ideal customer (the one most favorable to buying your product and making your sales process easier) and how to set up a high-performance funnel so that you can sell more through WhatsApp.

But before saying what you should do in a high-performance WhatsApp sales funnel, you need to understand what DON'T do if you want the customer to stay with you.

There are some practices that will make your clients put on their running shoes and do a half marathon so they DON'T see you. Exaggeration aside, you'll discover the:

4 Customer Repellents

#1 The first impression is what remains

Imagine with me:

You need to buy a t-shirt for work. The customer will visit several stores and decide where to buy.

Arriving at the mall, the seller looks at you from top to bottom. You're wearing flip flops and shorts and he immediately thinks “he's not going to buy it, I'm just going to waste my time” and shows the t-shirt models without much enthusiasm.

At the second store, the seller with a smile shows the options and asks the reason for wanting a new t-shirt. When discovering what you want to use for work, it shows the models that best suit your needs.

So, pay attention to the following aspects:

How do you introduce yourself? Do you make those arrogant introductions positioning yourself as the expert? Or are you already trying to push the product right away?

As you already know, the first impression is the one that remains and you need to generate empathy in your first interaction with your client.

First of all, you need to generate a sense of identification in your customer. It doesn't just buy the product or service, it buys the seller and the customer support and the way in which it was presented.

Another sales wrecker that can make you lose a lot is the cultured norm of the Portuguese language.

Don't get me wrong, obviously there are lapses and problems with typing, but what I want to say is:

Be careful with the form of writing and be aware of errors in grammar and agreement. This adds more credibility to your business.

After all, one of the ways to identify fraud is to understand the way in which the attendant speaks, isn't it?

Because imagine with me again:

You are going to buy a t-shirt online and decide to contact the store by WhatsApp.

When ordering the shirt in size S, the seller replies: “Of course, sir, We will be checking The amount that We'll be having in our stock, a moment, Serto?”

If you don't distrust a speech like that, beware, you're an easy prey to Virtual scams.

Therefore, in addition to the basics, which are the cultured form of the Portuguese language, take care to make the impression that you really want your salespeople to convey to the customer: be polite, pass authority without arrogance, and be courteous.

Speaking of courtesy, the next item on our list is more than a courtesy rule, it's a must for those who answer via WhatsApp:

2- Beware of the WhatsApp podcast

Some people sound like the narrator of a podcast in WhatsApp audio. So here's a question:

Do you love receiving huge audios on WhatsApp?

I can say, with great chances of getting it right, that NO! So why would you do to someone else what you wouldn't want done to you?

Listen, when it comes to making a good first impression, there's a clear rule of etiquette:

DON'T SEND an audio right off the bat for the customer!

Do you know where your customer is? Can he listen to audios at that time?

Don't get me wrong, Audio is a great form of communication, not least because it combines tone of voice with message, which gives more personality. However, not everyone likes to receive audios and not everyone can listen to the “podcast” you have to talk about at all times.

In addition, a text message, depending on the case, gives more credibility because it was more elaborate, more careful.

After all, when the message is written, the person needs to think about what they are going to say, organize their thoughts, write the message and re-read it before sending. This makes the message more organized and understandable for those who are going to read it.

And finally, another “catch” that we didn't mention is: if you're unsure, it can come through in your voice.

Therefore, use this tool sparingly. NO send audio in the first message and Ask for authorization (during the conversation) to send an audio explaining the product or situation better.

3- Put empathy to work

Have you ever called a telephone company, or rather, any company providing basic services such as energy, telephone, internet, etc.? Have you ever gone through that voice asking you to type 1 and then 2 and then 4 and at the end, when you think it's close to resolution, the call drops?

This is almost an annoying game where you can only talk to an attendant as the final prize of the journey (if the call doesn't fall halfway).

And I assure you that's not what your client wants.

If he can't talk to someone or can't solve his problem quickly, he'll get irritated and go straight to Reclame Aqui to complain! Is that what you want for your company?

That's much worse than losing a sale, that's negative marketing.

So put yourself in the customer's shoes, facilitate chatbot options, and use the chatbot wisely.

After all, you should use the chatbot as a system of filters that direct the customer to whom they actually need to talk and not scare away your potential customer.

This way, you optimize your company's phones, save money and make your customer satisfied with fast and efficient service.

4- “Where did you get my number from?”

DON'T buy phones to find customers!

The same practice of selling email lists to trigger direct mail was unfortunately inherited with lists of WhatsApp numbers. And it still doesn't work right now.

This form of marketing is invasive and you can even be banned by WhatsApp for spam reports.

Therefore, make it easier for your customer to contact your company. That way, your client gave you consent for you to send them messages.

If the customer provides the number to contact them through a form, be objective, identify yourself and say where you received that number, because this gives more credibility and confidence to what you want to say.

For example:

“Hello, Ana! My name is Roberta, I'm from Pink. I received your phone number from a form on our website. And I want to make you an offer: an exclusive discount for the first month of experimentation. Do you have 2 minutes to talk?

So, look...

Ideally, inbound marketing (inbound marketing) should be applied on WhatsApp.

In this case, the customer contacted you and wants more information about your service or product. And it can be captured by advertisements or attractive content.

He's already interested and you just need to come up with the right technique.

Now that you've understood what NOT to do when starting a sale, you're ready to head down the funnel.

Light the Way: Target Audience and Persona

The first step is to understand who you are talking to and here we are talking about the target audience and People.

This process of research and imagination will help you understand the language that will be used, the interests and pain of your client.

These pains are mainly important as a mental trigger for Pain x Pleasure, which you will see later in this text.

And what do you need to include in your persona design?

• Name
• Age
• Local
• sex
• Routine of this character
• What places do you frequent
• What social networks do you use and what are your sources of information
• Psychological characteristics
• Challenges
• Goals you want to achieve
• Possible objections

So let's go to an example:

Let's first think about a company and its product:

The company is located in Rio de Janeiro and sells natural vegan bar shampoos. And the delivery is done with bicycles because it is a faster, cheaper way and does not harm the environment.

The audience is mostly 25-40 year old women from Rio de Janeiro, mainly in the South Zone and middle class.

Sure, a man can buy, but that's not the target audience.

The target audience is women.

Therefore, the avatar (another name given to Person) needs to reflect my target audience.

So, following that line, my avatar would be:

Ana, 25 years old, resident of the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro.

She has a busy routine but likes to take care of herself, to do good for the planet and to take care of her plants. In addition, it is engaged in animal causes and tries as much as possible to reduce its waste production.

Ana doesn't say no to a waterfall on the weekend and loves going to an alternative market to discover new vegan delicacies and plant-based products.

She wants to make consumption more sustainable, plant-based and free from animal suffering.

But she has difficulty buying natural products, because she can't consume everything on time to expire. Also, she doesn't want to shop away from home, because she doesn't want to increase her carbon footprint.

But after the pandemic, he doesn't see any other way.

Perfect, it's Ana that my business needs to talk to. It's for her that I need to think about my language.

And here you must be wondering: do I need to have just one Person?

The answer is no.

You actually have a niche market and within them there are several People different.

Therefore, you can and should have more than one person to direct your communication. But they will have similar traits, after all, they have some characteristics in common.

Unless your store has the Magalu ratio. Because in that proportion, the strategy is a bit different.

Now that you've made the base, let's go to the funnel itself:

1- Offer a reward (way to enter the sales funnel on WhatsApp)

Yes, the practice of fishing is perfectly adequate for this comparison. The internet is out to sea, so the fish is there for your customer.

That's why it's important to offer something to your customer that they want and that has to do with your product. This is normally done for courses or digital products. But what's stopping you from doing with your product? You just have to be creative.

For example:

If you are an accountant and sell an accounting-related product for MEI that offers ease in red tape, offer a free ebook on how to open an MEI or how to issue a DAS for monthly payment. This will complement your service.

That sounds cool in digital marketing, but trust me, it still works (especially in areas where this strategy isn't that common).

If you still can't think of a strategy without using an ebook, consider offering a free income tax consultation.

However, you don't have to stick to a specific form, the reward can be a discount, gift, class, ebook and whatever else your imagination allows, as long as it attracts your potential client to join your network of contacts and exchange messages for a while with you.

And then we enter our next funnel step: the part of Potential client nutrition (which in marketing and sales is called lEAD)

2- Exchange qualification and nutrition messages

You've probably exchanged messages with a company when you wanted to buy a product or hire a service.

And it is precisely at this stage that you can exercise your conviction, either through persuasion in the text or by showing how the functionalities of that product can overcome your customer's pain.

A good alternative is to create content groups that you feed with valuable information that is not available elsewhere and answer any questions that arise.

In a more practical way (that when you finish reading this text, you can apply) the order you need to follow is:

#1 .1 (morning): Capture the lead from a digital bait on a page made specifically for that.

#1 .2 (afternoon): Add this contact to a WhatsApp group.

#2: Send valuable content and information and ask questions.

#3: Sales video with content (that entertains and draws attention).

#4: Send customer testimonials in varied formats throughout the day (written and short videos).

#5 .1 (morning): Send another group's link with an exclusive and unmissable offer

And here we go to our final stage of the sales funnel on WhatsApp, which is the conversion.

3- Make the offer

#5 .2 (afternoon): Make the offer.

#6: Submit a sales video with valuable content + customer testimonials.

#7: This is recap day. Submit an offer with less advantage, but one that may still attract those who are late. And make it clear that this is the last offer.

Now that you have the sequence for publishing the content, we need to dive into the offer specifically.

This offer must be irresistible.

Because it is the final stage of your sale, it will make you earn money at the end of the day and make the product or service you want to offer palpable.

That's your masterstroke.

But what makes this offer so powerful so that in just a few words the sale takes place?

It must have all the necessary elements to make a sale, just as if it were a mini copy.

But before talking about the elements of an infallible offer, you need to answer a few questions and at the end you will have your final text structure for the offer:

First, take paper, pen, and answer the questions in topic format:

#1 Who does this product talk to? (Person)

#2 What are the universal values involved with this product (love, family, health, safety, etc.)?

#3 How do people who don't have your product feel?

#4 Who could you blame for this problem your product solves?

#5 How successful are the people who use your product?

For example:

Let's go back to that vegan shampoo company that delivers by bike:

#1 Who does this product talk to?

Middle-class women concerned about the impact of consumption and the environment and who are willing to invest in local and artisanal businesses.

A good example of a persona in this case is:

Ana, 25 years old, resident of the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro.

She has a busy routine, but she likes to take care of herself, to do good for the planet, and to take care of her plants. It is committed to animal causes and tries its best to reduce its waste production.

Ana doesn't say no to a waterfall on the weekend and loves going to an alternative market to discover new vegan delicacies and plant-based products.

She wants to make consumption more sustainable, plant-based and free from animal suffering.

But she has difficulty buying natural products, because she can't consume everything on time to expire. Also, she doesn't want to shop away from home, because she doesn't want to increase her carbon footprint.

But after the pandemic, he doesn't see any other way.

#2 What are the universal values involved with this product (love, family, health, safety, etc.)?

Safety — large industries use chemicals that, when released into the atmosphere, harm the environment and human beings.

Health — selected ingredients that do not harm health, in addition to being delivered by bicycle, which reduces the release of carbon into the atmosphere and increases quality of life.

Love — handmade products are made by hand with care and love is placed on each order.

#3 How do people who don't have your product feel?

• People clogged with toxic products on their skin.
• Stressed by the delay in the post office because the product needs to take a trip to reach the customer's home.
• World ending climate problems caused by human abuse
• Clogged plastic dumps
• Frequent animal testing to create new products that only benefit humans

#4 Who could you blame for this problem your product solves?

• Government for doing nothing and still giving tax incentives to the planet's major polluting industries.
• Agribusiness that cruelly breeds cattle and other animals to serve as food, but ends up spoiling because it doesn't need all that production.
• Big cosmetic companies, which aim only for profit and don't really want to know about their health and the ingredients they're using.

#5 How successful are the people who use your product?

• Healthier people, without allergies
• Incredible hair protected from toxic products
• Healthier environment
• Less plastic

Now, with the result of this exercise in hand, you're ready to start writing your offer that needs to contain the following elements:

#1 Title

The title is the most important part of your offer because it serves to draw attention for the interested party to read in full!

Therefore, it needs to be emotional, to attract attention through curiosity, fear, or greed.

Start taking care of the planet while taking a bath and prevent your child from footing the bill for your carbon credit!

#2 Pain (increase the stress that the lack of your product causes to the tenth power!)

Once you've caught your reader's attention, you need to generate identification. Make him understand that you also understand his pain, know his problems and can solve them.

Use the following structure: “see if you identify with XXX (a problem that is directly linked to how people who don't have your product feel from the previous exercise).”

At that moment you open a loop that will close when talking about the benefits.

For example:

If you have allergies, feel like you're poisoning your body with chemicals, know that you're not alone. And also know that this has a solution and is much closer than you imagined.

#3 Social proof (customer testimonial)

Normally, the mental trigger for social proof is linked to testimony. But at this point in your offer, there are 3 possibilities:

1- Video or written testimonials;

2- Playful story based on testimonials;

3- Statistics based on testimonials.

For example:

10 customers sent you a message saying that your product helped end allergies and dandruff.

Therefore, your testimonial inspired by those of customers can be:

I had already tried everything to improve my dandruff, but nothing solved it. Until I found the vegan shampoo from the brand [BRAND_NAME] and everything changed. Now I can take a bath guilt-free and confident that I take care of my body and the planet at the same time.

#4 Benefits

What can your customer gain when buying your product? How successful are the people who use your product?

According to the same example, what will the consumer of vegan shampoos gain by buying this product:

• Healthier people, without allergies
• Incredible hair protected from toxic products
• Healthier environment
• Less plastic

So your presentation can be:

Do you want to have kids? And what kind of world do you want them to find? With all this plastic in the world, the use of pesticides and what are they doing to the animals...

But what if you discover that it's possible to take a step towards change? After all, someone needs to take the first step.

You can end your allergies once and for all, become a healthier person, and still take care of the environment with a simple change.

Yes, simple, you won't stop using anything, just make a more conscious exchange.

Swap your shampoo filled with chemicals and a polluted planet for a better world.

Then, enter the offer.

#5 Payment and Call to Action

Now that your reader is very anxious for the opportunity to consume your product, you have the knife and cheese in hand.

Therefore, explain the price and, if necessary, make comparisons to measure the real value of your product or installment payment so that the customer has a perception of cost-benefit.

For example:

Instead of saying it costs less than 5 reais a month, say it costs less than a cup of coffee.

Another way to apply this technique is to present the broken amount in the form of installments such as: 12x of R$3.92

Rest assured that we will still talk about anchoring and comparison when we talk about money objections.

But the payment cannot be included in your offer, it is not with it that you are going to close your speech. After the price part, you need to make a call to action.

And you must probably be thinking, it's a “buy it now”, but you can be more subtle than that by expressing a wish.

Following our example of vegan shampoos, it would look like this:

If you want to help your body and the planet, say yes right now and we will send you the product that will make your routine easier!

Do you understand that it's not a “buy here”? This is very obvious, the ideal is that you always touch the emotions of those who are reading your offer and reinforce your client's ultimate objective.

Now, you have the gold, you have the information you need to start this new strategy. But here's a bonus, the chest to help you carry this gold.

Because you already know how to make the offer, but that's not enough, the customer will still have questions. The customer is constantly struggling to say YES to you and your product, but they're still finding your offer too good to be true (“Wait, there's something you're hiding!”). So, you need to know how to overcome those objections to score the goal.

A 6-paragraph break to discuss a problem you may have on the way down the sales funnel on WhatsApp

But before talking about the objections, there is a necessary point to note. WhatsApp, where you will finalize your sales funnel, is an excellent marketing, sales, and customer service tool.

But when your call volume increases a lot, just one device isn't enough. So, to be able to respond to this volume of messages, you have two paths:

#1 increase the cost of your operation, have several cell phones, several accounts and lose control of your sellers or...

#2 use a multi-service platform such as PinkApp to help you on the communication path.

The choice is completely yours!

Now that this point is properly clarified, we can talk about the objections.

How to break customer objections in the sales funnel on WhatsApp?

— No money

Have you ever heard the phrase: “There is no lack of time, there is a lack of priority”. It's exactly the same logic that happens with money. There's no lack of money, there's a lack of priority.

If you see a promotion for a product you want to buy, even though you've scheduled it for the next semester, aren't you going to buy it AT THAT TIME?

That would be a smart step, after all, it would be an economy!

And it is precisely this feeling that you need to convey, and for that, there are two ways to overcome this distorted perception of the value of your product:

1 — Plot

If the price is high and the customer thinks your product is expensive, is it possible to pay in installments?

Thus, a product that costs R$1,000 starts to cost R$100 for 10 months. The price is the same, but the customer has the perception that they are spending less and increasing the cost-benefit ratio.

And be aware, your client will often tangence and make excuses that they don't have the money for that, they just “need to think”.

2- Compare

Now, if we're talking about a monthly fee, the way to change your customer's perception of value can be sharpened comparatively.

Calm down, I'll explain:

If you sell life insurance that costs R$365.00 and needs to be paid in just one go, what is the right way to present it?

“You don't know tomorrow... Are you really going to leave your family unprotected without having you to support the household? What will become of your children? Invest 1 real a day (less than a little coffee) and guarantee all the security your family deserves.”

That's the same sentiment you need to pass on to your client: the comparative sentiment of how your client can best invest their money. And that it would be extremely stupid not to accept your proposal. After all, it's a unique opportunity: exchanging a little coffee for family safety.

— No need

Selling is a game of seduction. Can you imagine someone proposing to you the first moment you meet? She didn't even invite you for coffee and she already wants to marry you. That's what happens in most sales: the seller proposes before they even flirt.

Flirting is just a look, a check out the possibilities. And that's exactly what needs to happen in the sale.

The customer searches for a product and flirts with several sellers. He has a pain and is searching for a solution, but he doesn't always know what to look for.

I'll give you a very clear example:

I lived in a very small apartment, I needed more space and I found a new place. But now I need to buy furniture. I'm going to buy it little by little, after all I don't want to commit a large part of my income to it, I still have a life and I love to travel. That's why I'm looking for a sofa, then a TV, a dining table, kitchen cabinets.

Can I buy everything together in just one purchase? I can.

But it's no advantage for me... In the meantime, I'm researching, finding the best options, or even finding a seller that makes me buy everything at once and get a good deal.

And that's exactly the role of your salesperson and your company's sales process: creating the need to make your customer buy everything at once, as in this example above.

— No glare in the eyes

Have you ever bought something just out of desire? Or is everything you buy out of necessity?

It's not enough to speak superficially here, because that's the lifeblood of a sales process and it's a powerful weapon of persuasion.

You probably have a sales department, you've heard about mental triggers. But here we're going to dive specifically into the Pain x Pleasure trigger.

Let's take a practical example:

You're watching a movie on open TV, the kind of movie that has commercials. And in the middle of a scene, you feel thirsty. Can your thirst wait until halftime in the movie? Probably yes. Because here your body is seeking pleasure.

But what if you're watching the same movie and instead of thirsty, you feel a pin sticking up your leg?

Wouldn't you get up (even with the movie rolling) to remove the pin from the couch? The answer is probably yes, because you don't want to continue to feel pain.

And that's exactly what happens when selling, your product has to heal the pain and give pleasure to get rid of the pin.

I'm going to give you another example to make it more than crystal clear in your mind:

Why does someone buy a Ferrari?

He could buy a goal. Both are cars that take you from one side to the other, they have the same type of fuel and everything else.

What sets these two products apart?

The former is synonymous with status, luxury. A powerful man or a powerful woman wants to show society that she can afford and can even improve networking relationships at work. While the other one is just a car.

Your product needs to be the Ferrari of your niche, no matter the price.

Your product must be desired, it must be necessary because it directly affects the customer's pain and must be desired, whether for status, beauty, fashion, you need to identify what can generate and attack this point.

— Without urgency

Why do it today if I can do it tomorrow? The only thing in life that this theory doesn't apply to are accounts, other than that, you, like me or anyone else, are a procrastinator.

Or are you going to tell me that you always leave everything ready in advance?

This happens with everything, whether to buy clothes to go to a wedding or to subscribe to the monthly gym membership.

One way to overcome this problem is to give an expiration date for that offer you are offering. Thus, you guarantee that that sale will be made in that period of time. Or limit the number of units sold.

Remember that Ferrari example, it's exclusive because it's limited. Not everyone can afford it, but even if they could and even if everyone could, there would be a limited number for production.

Another example, which is still very clear in our minds, was the scarcity of toilet paper on the market at the beginning of the pandemic. Everyone rushed to buy basic supplies and sold out the markets.

Toilet paper isn't food, and before it was invented, nobody knew they needed toilet paper to live. Today it is essential and one of the first items to end up in a household supply race.

And it's that feeling of “it's going to end, run” that you have to generate in your customer, your product must be the toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic in their life.

— Trustless

You sometimes shop by brand, don't you? Trying new product brands is a challenge, because you already know what works.

That same fear happens with your client. He may be wary of buying a product he doesn't know. Your job is to provide the necessary guarantees so that he feels in a safe environment.

Especially because if that doesn't happen, there's no urgency or scarcity to secure a sale.

And what can we do to address this lack of trust?

Offer a guarantee!

Yes, if what you sell is a subscription product, give a money back guarantee if you don't like the product, if you give up the purchase or offer a trial. This will make you more certain that you will not lose money.

So...

Do I need a script?

You need to understand between the lines and unravel what that customer's objections are and why they're scrambling to close the sale.

If you followed the step by step correctly in the following order:

• defined the target audience in an efficient manner;
• offered an attractive reward;
• exchanged content nutrition messages;
• made an irresistible offer;
• killed any and all “but...” of your client.

Your sales will never be the same again!

You will be able to double your revenue. But this also has impacts on other parts of your company.

This increase in sales will also increase your customer service flow in after-sales and customer support.

Your success is done in steps, isn't it?

Then it's time to take the next step, which is to structure your customer service!