The marketing concept of a sales funnel describes the steps prospective buyers take to make a purchase. The typical stages of a sales funnel are the “top,” “middle,” and “bottom” funnel; however, these may vary from business to business. When you’re in business, you know how frustrating it is to lose a potential customer at the last second. The prospect slips out of the sales funnel after weeks of presentations, demonstrations, conversation, and charm.
What is the significance of the sales funnel?
An effective sales funnel provides insight into the mindset and actions of prospective buyers at every point in the buying process. Using this information, you can improve your marketing efforts, allocate resources more efficiently, and convert a larger percentage of your leads into paying customers at each point of the funnel.
What are the steps of the sales funnel?
Prospects go through several phases of your sales funnel from the time they learn about your product or service till they purchase it (or don’t). The path that a prospect takes through your sales funnel may vary depending on their degree of interest, but in the end, they will assess it based on that interest. Consumers will seriously consider your issue and check out the competition to ensure your product or service is the best option.
There are typically four major steps:
1. Awareness
Customers enter the sales funnel during the “awareness” stage when they learn about your company and its products or services for the first time. They could learn about you via commercials, social media, or just word of mouth.
It’s up to your sales and marketing prowess to determine how those leads go through the sales funnel. Since they have already advanced beyond the awareness stage and into the interest stage, leads in the middle and lower stages of the sales funnel are the ones you should focus on most.
When potential customers hear about your business, they are in the “awareness” stage. They may have heard about your product from a friend or coworker, seen one of your adverts online, read a blog post, or stumbled onto your website while doing a Google search.
2. Interest
A consumer’s interest level will dictate how seriously they consider your brand after learning about it. Consumers will seriously consider your issue and check out the competition to ensure your product or service is the best option.
3. Decision
Now that they know more about your organization, potential customers will investigate your pricing and bundles in more detail. Marketing tools like landing pages, webinars, and phone calls might be useful at this point of the buying process to assist in pushing prospects toward making a purchase.
4. Action
The final decision of whether or not the prospect buys is the culmination of your efforts. The transaction isn’t necessarily off the table even if they didn’t. Nurture programs may keep your brand in the minds of your customers and prospects.
Also, read Leveraging Paid Ads to Boost Business Growth
How to build a sales funnel for your company
Prospects who can enter and progress through your sales funnel are the very foundation of that funnel. Once you have your prospects, you can use lead scoring to determine where they are in the sales pipeline based on their activity and level of involvement.
If you want to build a sales funnel, follow these five steps:
1. Set up a landing page
To most visitors, a landing page will be their introduction to your business. A landing page is a page visitors are sent to after clicking on an ad, registering for a webinar, or downloading an ebook. There should be no ambiguity about who you are as a business or what sets you apart from the competition. Ensure the landing page contains a form for potential customers to fill out; this will allow you to collect their email and get in touch with them later.
2. Make a worthwhile offer
Now comes the phase where you provide a freebie in return for the email addresses of your potential customers. Offering a free ebook or whitepaper as a lead magnet on your landing page is a good strategy.
3. Begin nourishing
At this time, your prospects will have progressed from the Awareness stage to the Interest phase. Since you now have all their emails from the landing page, you can set up a nurturing email series to provide them with helpful information about your product.
4. Upsell
Once a prospect reaches the Decision stage, you should encourage them to make a purchase. It might be a sample run of the product, a longer free trial period, or a discounted price.
5. Keep going
Either you’ll close deals with interested parties in the Action phase or learn why your prospects aren’t ready to buy yet. Whatever happens, don’t stop talking to one another. Make sure you do all you can to inform, engage, and retain new clients with your product. Create a new nurturing series to follow up with prospects who didn’t buy after a few months.
Your business is one funnel away from success! Crafting the perfect sales funnel means more leads, conversions, and revenue. Start building your success story today and let your business thrive!
