What is a Sales funnel?

There has been a lot of talk about sales funnels, shopping cart funnels, and even filling your sales funnel with quality leads. The million-dollar issue is whether we really need a funnel at all.

This is similar to a situation in which a potential client enters the funnel via a bait (links, advertisements, social media postings, etc.) from one end and exits as a customer from the other end, performing the desired action as they progress.

The trip a potential client takes goes via a funnel from the moment a demand for a product or service originates in his or her head to eventually buying or using that product or service.

It’s possible that the potential consumer will pass through several marketing funnels before becoming a customer for the lucky marketer’s final step funnel.

The fact that a huge number of potential clients enter at the beginning of the funnel, similar to the large head of a funnel, and only a few number of clients exit at the other end, similar to the taper end of a funnel, thus the name funnel as the entire scene resembles a funnel.

What is the Goal of a Sales funnel?

The fundamental purpose of the sales funnel design is to guide potential customers down the sales route and qualify them at each sales funnel stage so that only the most qualified consumers exit the marketing funnel who would buy.

The sale funnel journey decreases the risk of catering to the wrong clients and more importantly removes possible customer unhappiness by exceeding their expectations at each level of the funnel.

What are the Stages of a Sales funnel?

How many steps or stages are there in a sales funnel? Some claim there are four phases in a sales funnel, while others say there are seven processes that a prospective consumer must go through before becoming a customer.

A sales funnel can be condensed into a 4 steps process called AIDA:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Decision
• Action

It makes no difference if you describe your sales funnel as four or seven steps process; what matters is how many potential clients who enter the funnel become paying customers. Conversion ration determines the effectiveness of your organisation’s sales funnel.

So, from building your first landing page to engage with your customers to integrating CRM to nurture and convert leads, all these activities will determines the effectiveness of your sales or marketing funnel in generating business.

In your funnel, the potential customers interact with your brand at various touch points. These touch points are basically the contact points where a prospect engages with your brand. They engage with your marketing messages such as published contents/ads/emails you send them or even the direct mails they receive.

That is why these contact points are so important in your sales or marketing funnel since they are responsible for eliciting the desired feeling and encouraging a potential customer to move further in the sales funnel.

A potential consumer becomes aware of your product/services at the very first touch point. These touch points may be a social media ad, a simple status update, a promotional tweet, or even a suggestion from a friend.

The more a potential consumer is exposed to touch points, the more interested they are in learning about your brand.

But prospects compare your brand against other possible alternatives, in order to make a decision based on their expectations and needs. By the time a prospect reaches the decision stage in the funnel, your marketing activities should have persuaded them that your product or service is superior and the best option for them.

Sales funnel marketing strategies

Essentially, marketing activities or strategies used to persuade potential clients along a sales funnel differ depending on where the prospect is in the funnel.

Influencer marketing, for example, plays a critical role in conversion beyond the awareness stage of the funnel.

Similarly, public relations (PR), radio, and advertisements have an important influence in raising awareness; blogs, web stores, and websites affect prospects at the buying stage. Some of the most common marketing actions and methods used at various phases of the funnel are depicted above.

Now that you understand what a sales funnel is and its purpose, the next step is to create one for your business in order to grow. The sales funnel will help you obtain high-quality prospects, which you can nurture and eventually turn them into customers.

Sales funnel automation

It is not always possible to appropriately set up your marketing funnel the first time. As a result, the sales funnel marketing efforts must be tweaked and optimised on a regular basis for the best conversion rate.

That is why businesses employ top sales funnel builders in addition to automating their sales process to get greater conversion rates. Finding the best sales automation and funnel builder for your company should not be a difficult task.

Here are some of the best sales funnel builders and sales automation tools to use in 2022 and beyond:

• ClickFunnels
• LeadPages
• Zendesk Sell
• GetResponse
• Kartra
• Drift
• Systeme
• ActiveCampaign

If you are a large organization or have a huge product lines or services, you may be losing the race if you do not use funnel builders or sales automation tools.

Thus businesses who do not use sales automation solutions can measure and improve their conversion rate using Google Analytics and Google search console.

As a matter of fact, by setting up Goals in Google analytics, businesses can quickly establish their sales funnel and begin generating leads besides tracking it.

Why need a Sales funnel?

Here are some of the reasons why your business needs a sales or a marketing funnel.

#1 – If you sell online, you need a sales funnel to systematically generate new leads regularly.

#2 – Generating clients is tough unless your company attracts, nurtures, and converts prospects into customers through a define process – a funnel.

#3 – Experienced marketers know that a prospect’s journey from the time they first become aware of the brand to becoming a consumer requires on an average 7 touch points (customer interaction points); consequently, only a dedicated funnel can convert a prospect from the awareness stage to the taking action stage before becoming your client.

There are cases where only one touch point is necessary to acquire a client, but these are primarily tied to impulsive purchases or low-value items that do not take much thought or persuasion.

#4 – If your company is aiming for repeat customers rather than one-time transactions, you need a sales funnel. Repeat consumers spend nearly three times (3x) as much as one-time customers, and with the aid of a sales funnel, businesses can maximise the lifetime value of each client.

#5 – When you want to build trust and always wants to stay ahead in prospect’s mind. It is a well-known fact that individuals buy from brands or items they trust and remain loyal to such companies until they receive lower quality products or degraded services.

Rising marketing cost are worsening business prospects, fueling cut throat competition, and threatening business survival.

Thus having an established system for generating and converting prospects into customers is the differentiator between businesses that’s thriving and one that is struggling to survive.

We’d want to hear how your company creates, nurtures, and converts prospects into clients, whether using market tools or an in-house built approach.

PS: If you want our team to help you win and beat your competition, connect with us now.