The sales funnel is a well-known term in digital marketing to refer to the entire process or “journey” that potential customers go through until they make a purchase or conversion.
It is referred to as a funnel because it consists of 3 parts: the top, the middle and the end. Also, along the way, the potential customers decrease, which is why it is shaped like a funnel.
It must be considered that each of the stages of the sales funnel has a great impact on consumer behavior and therefore it is important to know them in depth.
On the other hand, we must consider that there are other types of funnels such as the marketing funnel , the differences between which we will see later.
What is a sales funnel for?
It is normal to lose sales in the purchasing process that customers go through, however this happens much less frequently if the sales funnel is properly managed.
The sales funnel is used to manage all the sales opportunities distributed within the various stages of the funnel.
This is done with the aim of developing strategic actions to help them advance in the process until reaching closure.
Why is a sales funnel important?
A sales funnel is important because it illustrates the path that potential customers should follow.
When you understand your sales funnel you can understand why some potential customers drop out of the process and never convert.
You can also see the weaknesses that need to be improved so that potential customers do not fall through the funnel like a sieve.
Remember that it is important to constantly optimize this sales funnel through trial and error.
What does a sales funnel look like?
A sales funnel looks like this:
Sales funnel with its stages
Each company identifies the stages of the sales funnel in a different way, but below we will present the most common stages.
First stage – Contact
This is the initial stage of the sales funnel. To be able to enter this first stage, the qualified potential client must show interest in the brand, i.e. subscribe to a newsletter, download content, or complete a form.
To obtain this first contact, it is necessary to implement different methods that can be either traditional marketing or digital marketing since it has multiple advantages to reach the user.
The idea is for the user to interact and leave their most relevant data.
Second stage – Prospect or Lead
At this stage we already have all the user information since they had previously left it.
The next step is to classify them, in order to redirect efforts to those users who showed interest and stop doing so with those people who are not interested.
Third stage – Opportunity
In the opportunity phase, you have to wait for potential customers to express interest in the offers you are offering them. If this is the case, you can continue to delve deeper into the offer they are interested in in order to send the prospect to the next stage.
Fourth stage – Qualifying
In the qualification phase, the products or services of interest to the potential client are determined through tools such as surveys, sales visits, phone calls, messages, among other things, to finally lead us to the closing stage.
Fifth stage – Closing
The closing stage refers to when a sale is made once the product or service of interest as well as the offer have been determined.
What does this process look like?
To apply this to a real-life example you can think about the following.
People at the top of the sales funnel are like those who pass by your store, look at it and decide to enter, that's where recognition is generated.
The next step in the funnel is when the potential customer sees something on the rack that interests them and glances at it.
You move on to the next stage when you look at whether the item suits you in terms of price and mentally compare it to other similar items you have seen.
During this process, a store employee approaches and offers help with the items that the potential customer is interested in, advises them, and encourages them to close the sale.
Finally, he takes action when he goes to the checkout and makes the purchase.
Closing sale
This same process applies to all companies, regardless of their line of business. Also, keep in mind argentina mobile phone numbers database any marketing channel can be part of the sales funnel.
To create your sales funnel, you must take into account the process that the potential client follows, known as the buyer's journey.
It is important to understand this because people do not make decisions lightly, but rather follow a pattern until they make the purchase and convert.
Below we explain each of these phases:
Need
The user begins to have an interest in something in particular, has a need but still does not know how to identify exactly what his need is, however he continues to investigate and delve deeper into the matter.
Consideration
In this phase the user is able to identify what their problem, need or ailment is.
With this starting point, you begin to look for information and something that will help you solve it. It is at this point that we are able to offer information about our products or services.
Decision