In this series of posts, we’re breaking down how to create a sales funnel, the decisions to make along the way, how to track what happens, and how to interpret the results. We’re doing all this so that we can better answer the question “Where should I focus my energy the next time I launch this offer?”

We’ve gone through each individual step of the funnel for your audience coming from social media, and seen where they fall out and where they continue on. We’ve considered what that means at the micro level – now it’s time to zoom out and consider the overall figures.

What were your overall conversion rates?

Now, we’re looking at your sales compared to your audience size to start with – the very last step compared to the very first step. So, we’re trying to answer the question:

  • How did my entire process do at speaking to this audience’s needs, concerns, hopes, dreams, and desires?
Painter showing his piece of a mountain to a woman.

We divide the number of people who bought your course by your total audience size:

Pie chart showing one-third and two-thirds, with an Instagram logo over the smaller piece.
Instagram: 3 2,000 = 0.3%
Pie chart showing about one-eighth and seven-eighths, with a Facebook logo over the smaller piece.
Facebook: 28 1,500 = 2.3%
Pie chart showing one-third and two-thirds, with a LinkedIn logo over the smaller piece.
LinkedIn: 10 3,175 = 0.9%
Pie chart showing about one-seventh and six-sevenths, with logos for Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn over the smaller piece.
Total: 41 6,675 = 0.6%
It can be helpful to look at the data in different ways. In this graph, we’ve stacked the three networks on top of each other: Instagram is on the bottom, then Facebook in the middle, then LinkedIn on the top. We had 6,675 to start with:
  • 2,000 from Instagram
  • 1,500 from Facebook
  • 3,175 from LinkedIn
You’ll see the far left side shows that 6,675. And we had 41 who bought, which is what you see on the far right. In between, you get each step of the way that we’ve discussed in previous posts.

Do you see it? If you turn that chart on its side and centre it, you get this funnel:

What does that mean?

Overall, we can see that Facebook did far better at converting. That is, turning audience members (leads) into customers (sales). Even though you started off with the smallest audience there, more of them stayed in the funnel from one layer to the next than either other audience, so ultimately, more of them bought.

This could be because your copy and visuals spoke to that audience best.

This could be because you’ve more carefully cultivated that audience, so it contained more of your ideal clients than the others.

This could be because you used a Facebook group for your challenge, and they didn’t mind using Facebook. Perhaps many of your Instagram and LinkedIn followers actively avoid Facebook.

There are other possibilities. You’ll want to brainstorm it, based on what you know about your own audience, once you’ve worked out your numbers.

What next?

Four people of different genders and colours holding cut out speech bubbles over their heads.Once you’ve worked out some possibilities, you could ask your audience.

You could put out some Instagram stories with polls to try to test the theories you came up with for why they didn’t sign up for your masterclass as much – that was where that audience really fell off a cliff.

You could grow a better LinkedIn audience by pruning any connections who are not your ideal client, whilst connecting with more people who are. Then engage with them and your posting analytics so that you get better reach on all your posts. This could be something you decide to focus on for the next 3-6 months before you launch your offer again.

Or, you could simply focus on your Facebook audience for this kind of offer when you launch again.

You’ll want to check the rest of your audience’s conversion rates before making any decisions, though. It could be that these are paltry rates, and you’d be better served by focusing on other segments of your audience.

We’ll look at how those did in coming posts in this series.

 

Hi, I’m Sara-Jayne Slocombe of Amethyst Raccoon. I help your small business thrive using the power of your numbers, empowering you so that you have the confidence and knowledge to run your business profitably and achieve the goals you’re after.

I am a UK-based  Business Insights Consultant, which means I look at your data and turn it into information and insights. I separate the noise from the signal and translate it all into actions that you can actually take in your business.

I also facilitate the Power Pod Roundtable, which is a business discussion group.

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Go from data novice to strategically leading your small business using data

Sara-Jayne Slocombe