A sales funnel has a huge impact on consumer behavior. One of the biggest business concepts is the design and management of a sales funnel. In this article, you will learn what a sales funnel is, the different stages of a sales funnel, and how to build one for your business.
Let’s take a closer look at it.
What is a sales funnel?
A sales funnel is a marketing term that describes the path that potential customers go through on their way to making a purchase . A sales funnel is made up of several steps, commonly referred to as the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel, although these may vary depending on the company’s sales model.
Every business owner has probably encountered problems related to lack of sales at some point. After weeks of presentations and demonstrations or various forms of advertising, a potential customer leaves the sales funnel without buying.
It happens. But it happens less often when you have the right help managing your sales funnel. Many small business sales funnels are croatia telephone number data more like sieves, with holes left by patched-up spreadsheets, sticky notes, missed meetings, and forgotten follow-ups.
There is a better way. Sales and marketing automation software can plug those gaps in your sales funnel and turn bad decisions into sales.
Why is a sales funnel important?
A sales funnel helps you 4 types of content that will interest the reader understand what your prospects are thinking and doing at each stage of the buying journey. These insights allow you to invest in the right marketing activities and channels, create the most relevant messaging at each stage, and turn more prospects into converting customers.
Your sales funnel can exist as:
Retail store
Sales Team
Website
E-mail
Personal consultations
Each marketing channel can be part of your sales funnel. Your funnel can be spread across multiple channels.
Learn the 4 stages of a sales funnel
The four stages of a sales funnel are easy to remember because we certainly do a lot of shopping: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action. These four stages represent the mindset of a potential customer.
Each stage requires a different approach from you, the marketer, because you don’t want to send the wrong message at the wrong time. It’s a bit like a waiter asking you what you want for dessert before you’ve even ordered drinks and appetizers.
Let’s look at each stage of the sales funnel in more detail.
Stage 1: Awareness
The first stage of the sales funnel is called the “awareness” level because it’s where people first learn about your product or service. They might hear about you from ads, social media, or even from friends. How and why these people move down the sales funnel depends on your sales and marketing skills, of course. The leads in the middle and bottom stages of the sales funnel are the ones you want to give the most attention to because they have the best chance of converting.Stage 2: Interest
When potential customers learn about your brand,
they will evaluate it based on their conduit china level of interest. They will think about the problem they are trying to solve and conduct competitive research to make sure your offering is the best solution.
Step 3: Decision
Armed with information about your business, prospects will delve into your options. This is where sales pages and phone calls come in handy to encourage prospects to make a purchase.
This is the time to make your best offer. This could be free shipping, a discount code, or a bonus product. Make it an option they can’t refuse!
Stage 4: Action
All your work comes down to this stage: whether or not the potential customer makes a purchase. If they don’t, nothing is lost. You can create remarketing campaigns to encourage them to visit the site again. If they make a purchase – congratulations, your strategy has proven effective!
sales funnel stages
How to build a sales funnel for your company?
For your sales funnel to exist, you first need leads to move through it. Once you have those leads, you can track their behavior and engagement using lead scoring to determine where they are in the funnel.
Here are five steps to help you create a sales funnel:
1. Create a landing page
Your landing page is likely to be the first time potential customers hear about your business. If someone clicks on your ad, signs up for a webinar, or downloads your ebook, they’ll land on your landing page. This page should clearly communicate who you are as a company and what your unique benefits are (after all, it may be the only opportunity you have to wow your prospects). Most importantly, make sure your landing page includes a form where prospects can enter their information—you want to capture their email address so you can continue communicating with them.
2. Offer something of value
This is the part where you need to give your prospects something in exchange for their email address. A lead magnet, such as an ebook or white paper, is an effective way to offer something of value on your landing page.
3. Get started
At this point, your prospects will have moved from awareness to interest. And since you have all of their email addresses from your landing page, you can create a series of emails to share educational content about your offer.