How your website turns potential clients into paying clients

The first time someone stumbles across your brand, there might only be a small spark of initial interest. It could just be a little bulb that lights up in their mind and makes them think, “Oh, this might be worth looking into further,” but chances are they aren’t ready to pull out their wallet and hand over any money. They probably don’t quite know what you even offer yet!

But given more time and more interactions with your brand, that initial spark might build to a bigger flame of excitement and eagerness. If they resonate with what you’re doing, they can reach a point where they’re ready to take that step to become a client.

While not all client journeys look the same, it’s important to consider this general pathway from someone having no awareness of your brand at all, to gaining enough understanding to become a paying customer — and a well-designed website can help you to elevate that journey for your potential clients.

The stages of a marketing sales funnel

The funnel framework is a common one you’ll find in the world of brand awareness, marketing, and sales. It can be segmented into three broad stages:

Awareness
Consideration
Conversion

The awareness stage is the top of the funnel. This is the stage where people first discover your brand.

Then, comes the consideration stage in the middle of the funnel. This is where they’re starting to learn more about your brand, what you do and why it’s valuable.

Finally, there’s the conversion stage at the bottom of the funnel. This is the point where they move from being a potential client to a paying client.

Why the client journey is a funnel

Like a funnel, each new stage of the client journey becomes smaller and smaller. Not everyone who enters the awareness stage will be interested enough to enter the consideration stage. Some of the people in the consideration stage will realise they’re not a good fit for your services and never convert. At each stage, there’s going to be some drop-off, and the size of the audience shrinks along the way.

But this is a good thing! A strong, clear brand is one that is designed for a specific type of person. (Trying to please everyone is an easy way to become generic and bland.)

And so, a strong, clear brand with a specific target audience is bound to turn off some of the people who come into its orbit, because it wasn’t made for them! But it WILL resonate with the people it was designed for.

The awareness stage – top of the funnel

Now, let’s get into the funnel and see some of the ways you can optimise your website for each stage.

Remember, the awareness stage is all about capturing that initial interest, and it’s important to think about where your potential client’s head is at. It’s possible that they recognise that they have a problem, but don’t know the solution yet. Or, they might not have been able to fully articulate even the problem yet!

For example, if you’re a therapist, your potential client might realise they’re struggling with sleep, or interpersonal relationships, or anxiety… but haven’t yet connected it to a need to address past traumas.

If you’re a leadership coach, your potential client might be overwhelmed by a new management position, and don’t yet know what skills they need to advance so they can perform more confidently at work.

At this stage, you can help by providing information that helps your potential clients to start clarifying their problem and asking the right questions. And, of course, you want to make sure you’re putting that information somewhere they can find it! Consider where your client might seek out that information, or where they would be in a place to see it.

Things you can use to move people along your funnel

Blog posts — this can be powerful, as it gets people straight onto your website and is likely to attract those who’ve actively sought out the information you’re sharing by using a search engine like Google.
Podcasts — whether by starting your own or guesting on other people’s, podcasts are a great way to reach an audience, demonstrate your expertise, and make more long-term connections (important for the next stage of the funnel)
Lead magnets — A freebie that provides valuable content and gives people a quick win is a great way to attract people into your brand and immediately start providing results.
Social media — Consistently sharing helpful content on social media can help you to build an audience of people who resonate with your message. You can use social media to promote content like the examples above, moving people further into your brand.
Run ads — Putting money behind your marketing tactics can boost the speed at which you can reach people.

The consideration stage – middle of the funnel

I believe your website is potentially the most impactful at the consideration stage. Your website is YOUR platform, where you can take full control of how people learn about your brand and your offers. You can be clear about what sets you apart, why your work is valuable, and who it will benefit the most.

These are all the things that potential clients want to understand, as they begin to make that decision about how they’ll go about solving their problem. They’ll be confirming what they need to know and weighing their options.

Maintaining your connection

Depending on your target audience and the type of services you offer, people might stay in the consideration stage for days, weeks, months or even longer! So, it’s important to stay in touch with your audience. Some of the marketing tactics listed above can help you to maintain that ongoing connection (building an audience on social media, for example).

Growing your email list and sending consistent email campaigns is another low-cost and often highly effective way to stay top-of-mind and continue growing the relationship with your potential client. Lead magnets, blog posts and podcasts can all be used to encourage people to join your email list so you can stay in close contact, and link them to your website to learn more about your offers.

Making your offer clear

At this stage, your offer needs to be clear. The problem you solve, the approach you take, and the desired outcome you help your clients reach — those are the things that should be easy to understand by someone who is exploring your website.

Clear doesn’t mean overwhelming though. Don’t feel the need to pack every minor detail and answer every possible question on your website. You only need enough for a potential client to feel confident and ready for the next stage:

The conversion stage – bottom of the funnel

For those who have moved through the consideration stage and are ready to go from being a potential client to an actual client, you want to make the experience smooth and simple.

For many of us service-based business owners, the major part of a conversion happens over a discovery call. Make the process for booking that call easy for people to do, by setting up a calendar or contact form on your website. Ask people to answer questions that will provide you with the kind of information that will make your call with them as fruitful as possible.

And for every person who does choose to become a client, remember that your brand experience doesn’t stop at the outward marketing. The high-quality nature of your brand should seamlessly continue for those who are now using your services. From the way you organise communication, send documents, and move clients towards their desired outcome, everything should be aligned with the professionalism and core nature of your brand.

Last thoughts

The progress of your client journey is all about providing valuable information and positioning your brand as a key source of help and expertise. For a potential client to be ready to become a paying client, they need to reach a place where they understand the problem that they’re seeking to solve, and are also confident in your ability to provide that solution. The stages of the client journey are essentially about taking them from a state of being unaware (“don’t know what they don’t know”) to being sure about the destination they want to reach i.e. their desired outcome.

Your website can be a powerful tool to not only provide the kind of information they need to make that transition, but to position yourself as the ideal partner that will help them reach their desired outcome.