How to Spot Sales Funnel Leaks Like a Pro

You don’t have to be a licensed plumber to handle sales funnel leaks. Learn how to analyze your sales data and how you’re leaving money on the table.

First things first: not every lead will convert to a sale. It may seem obvious, but it’s important to remember this otherwise you’ll be chasing an unattainable goal and feeling like a failure. You’re not a failure! You’re not supposed to win every lead. Even though you’re not meant to convert every lead to a sale, you may be losing business via sales funnel leaks. Sales funnel leaks are areas in your sales process where engaged leads become disconnected from you and don’t follow through with a purchase (in this case, insurance sales). Sometimes this is due to simple user experience (UX) issues on your website. Other times it may be something you’re doing (or not doing) as part of your follow-up practices.

What does your funnel look like?

Get into the nitty-gritty and map out every channel you have for leads and every step. This can be a simple list format, or you can create a diagram. This information is just for you so you can identify sales funnel leaks and areas for improvement. How do you get your leads? Do you cold call? Purchase double-verified leads from HBW Leads? Do you have passive website traffic via online forms? Referrals? All of these belong in your map or list. What happens next? How do leads flow through your sales funnel?

Identify drop off points

This can be tricky especially since you likely have more than one channel for insurance sales lead generation. Sales funnel leaks can happen at various stages in a sales process so the key is to use good data points when analyzing your funnel. If you’re isolating your web traffic data, use tools like Google Analytics to track traffic and engagement. Using collected information from a given month, quarter, or year, track your lead numbers at each step of your sales process. If you don’t have past data to work from, use your current funnel as a snapshot to work from. How many leads do you have at each step of your sales process? Do you notice any major drop-off points?

Calculate your drop off percentages

Yes, you’ll need to bust out the calculator for this one, but it’s worth it. To help analyze your sales funnel leaks calculate the percentage of change in numbers from each step to the next. Looking at percentages instead of specific numbers will help you see big-picture trends, especially if you start tracking these numbers month over month.

Now what?

Once you’ve identified your drop-off points, brainstorm ways to improve them at each step of your sales funnel. It may be tempting to look for the biggest drop-off percentage and start there. That’s certainly one strategy to try but consider this: if you repair your sales funnel leaks at the top of your sales funnel, you may incur more leaks further down the funnel. A better strategy is to make improvements or adjustments to multiple areas of your sales funnel.

Try small fixes first

Prevent future sales funnel leaks by trying small adjustments first. Little changes like moving an action button on your website form to a more prominent location or rewording an opening paragraph to include more keywords could make a big difference. Make sure there’s an option for your lead to take action at every step of your sales funnel. For example, you may see an uptick in lead conversions just by changing a basic online form into a Calendly meeting schedule. Your lead can then schedule a meeting directly on your calendar. By doing this, you give your lead the satisfaction of checking something off their to-do list and remove the need for a back-and-forth email trying to schedule a convenient time to meet.

Keep track of your follow-up

You may determine that your lead generation processes are functioning just fine. It’s your follow-up that needs improving. Try to improve on your follow up time by getting back to your leads within 24 hours. Take advantage of customer relationship management (CRM) software that lets you pre-program automatic emails. Adopt some of these auto-emails to remind leads of upcoming appointments and build some drip marketing emails to keep them engaged. Staying disciplined with your lead and customer follow-up can improve your sales funnel leaks.

Data is key

The key to understanding and fixing your sales funnel leaks is reliable data. Be sure you’re using your tools and software to their full extent by tracking every lead touchpoint. Website engagement, click-through rates, email open rates, repeat web-traffic numbers, and other data can be instrumental in discovering where you might be leaving money on the table.

Give yourself plenty of time to analyze your data and address your sales funnel leaks. Save time and let HBW Leads be a part of your lead generation solution. HBW Leads secures double-verified insurance leads exclusively for you and your agency.