Every step towards customers loses people. The question is which step costs the most.
A funnel is the route that someone takes from first introduction to customer, usually in steps: awareness, interest, consideration and action. With each step a part falls off. The usefulness of the model is that it shows where you lose the most people, so that you do something about that instead of everywhere at once.
IN COMMON LANGUAGE
Why this is practical
Without funnel thinking, you optimise intuitively. With funnel thinking you see that you have enough visitors but hardly anyone opens the form, and you immediately know where the work is.
For business services, the gap is usually between consideration and action: people are interested but lack price, proof or a low barrier to contact.
WHY IT MATTERS
Where you measure
Measure per step, not as a total. Visitors, service pages viewed, forms opened, requests sent, conversations, assignments.
The largest decline between two consecutive steps is your next work. This is almost always one specific place, not the entire site.
- Measure per step — an overall percentage hides the cause.
- Look for the biggest decay — that's where your next profit is.
- Form opened but not sent — too many fields or too much threshold.
- Service page without click-through — usually lacking price or evidence.
- Request without order — then it is a sale or competition.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
More about a funnel
Do I need software for this?
No. For most SMEs, a simple monthly count in a spreadsheet is sufficient. The value is in writing down each step, not in the tools.
How much loss per step is normal?
This varies too much per sector to give a figure. Follow your own development: if the transition from visitor to request improves after a change, then that change worked.
What if I have too few visitors to measure?
Then more traffic is your first problem, not conversion. Below a few hundred visitors per month, percentages are too random to base decisions on.
CONTINUE READING
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