Imagine you had an old empty glass pop bottle, and you stuck a small funnel in the top. Now imagine you took a large firehose and opened the valve all the way, spraying a huge stream of water toward the small funnel.

What would happen?

Well one thing is certain... you'd have plenty of water to try and fill the pop bottle. Yet there would also be a lot of water that would splash out of the funnel and never make it into the bottle.

The internet works a little bit like this metaphor. If you follow the strategies in this report, your new website will bring thousands of potential customers to your site each month (like the water in the firehose). However, only a small percentage of these website visitors will decide to schedule an appointment or order your product or service on their first visit to your website. These new customers are like the water that actually made it into the pop bottle.

So what happens with all the rest of the people who come to your website but DON'T schedule an appointment or purchase anything? They are a like the water that splashed out of the funnel. In most cases, they may be part of your target market but they slip through the cracks, and there's nothing you can do to get them back.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were a way to bring these people back, and get them to enter the funnel at their own pace and eventually help increase sales and become loyal, repeat customers?

What you need is a bigger funnel.


Because you are reading this report, you may visited the website www.spiread.com and request my special article. This is an example of a large "funnel" in action.

The webpage could have told you about my qualifications as a web design & marketing expert, and given you a "take it or leave it" offer to hire me. But very few potential customers would respond to such an offer. Would you have hired me on the spot? Chances are you would have left the website, and I never would hear from you again and my opportunity to increase sales and increase profits would be gone.

Instead, you had the opportunity to download my special report, which is a relatively low-risk decision to make. Now you have time to learn more about company websites and how they can increase sales for you at your own pace, and I have the opportunity to follow up with you later, to see if I can help in any way and hopefully gain a few customers.

This is an example of treating your website like a funnel. The key is to find ways to get to your target market and make the opening in that funnel as wide as possible. This assures that fewer people slip through the cracks and increases your chances of gaining customers, but more importantly, repeat customers.

So how would this work with your organization's website? Here's an example.

You could create a free monthly newsletter. Your newsletter could include money saving specials for subscribers (your potential customers), as well as some handy product or service related tips to help subscribers. Perhaps you could even enter your prospective customers in a monthly drawing where they can win a free gift or dinner for two.

Now you've given these possible customers a reason to sign up. You will quickly build a valuable list of people who you can contact each month. And eventually, these folks are all going to schedule those appointments or purchase from your company...helping you increase sales and increase profits!

You've just made a bigger funnel!

This article contributed by Spire Advertising & Web Design--Leveraging powerful results for small business leaders.

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About the Author

Jeremy Harrison is the founder of Spire Advertising & Web Design.