What Is a Sales Funnel and How Does It Work?
The Basics
Introduction
What Is a Sales Funnel and How Does It Work? An important part of online marketing, the sales funnel is a system that helps convert prospects into customers. A prospect is someone who has just learned about your business or product but hasn’t yet made a purchase. Customers are people who have made a purchase and continue to buy from you.
Typically a sales funnel will consist of six stages:
✅ Awareness,
✅ Interest,
✅ Consideration,
✅ Decision/Commitment,
✅ Action and Loyalty.
Your goal at each stage is to move people along from one stage to the next by providing information that helps them make decisions about what they need and how much they are willing to spend. This will enable you to only focus on buyers who are ready for the next step in their buying process.
“No matter what you sell, getting prospective customers to buy doesn’t happen in an instant.” – Aaron Orendorff
What Is a Sales Funnel?
A sales funnel is essentially a structured process that companies use to guide customers through each stage of the sale.
The sales funnel starts with broad marketing efforts designed to attract as many people as possible. Predominately this might include social media campaigns although advertising on billboards and television commercials are also used.
Once you’ve identified potential customers, your next step is to turn them into leads by asking for their contact information in exchange for something like an ebook, short course or 1:1 training.
After converting a lead into a customer requires another step. This step involves generating revenue from them by selling them something of value. You’ll continue this process until the customer has received enough value from you that they’re willing to pay full price for whatever it is you’re selling.
This final stage of the sale happens when someone makes their first purchase after getting hooked on one product in particular and then goes on to buy multiple products over time.
What Are The Stages Of A Sales Funnel?
To keep it simple, the sales funnel is a metaphor for the process of turning leads into customers. The idea is that you start with a large number of potential customers. These are then narrowed down with each step until you have just one or two people who will become your customers.
Each stage in the sales funnel represents a step towards securing that sale, while also helping you determine where and how to focus your efforts.
The two basic stages of a sales funnel are:
✅ Awareness: This is when potential buyers are first exposed to your product or service and begin to consider whether they might want it enough to take action.
✅ Interest: When someone has been exposed to something enough times that they start thinking about it as something they might actually want in their lives, he or she has entered the interest stage of the sales funnel.
Funnel Building Software
There are a number of funnel building software on the market today. Some have free versions and some have paid subscriptions. Depending on your situation there is a funnel builder out there for you. Below are five different funnel building software to consider.
✅ HubSpot Lead Management
✅ PlusThis
✅ Systeme.io
✅ Leadpages
Conclusion
The importance of the sales funnel concept in digital marketing strategy cannot be overstated. By understanding how a sales funnel works, you’ll be able to determine where to focus your marketing efforts and make sure that you’re getting the most value from your efforts. Sales funnels should be used alongside your online SEO, content and digital marketing strategies.
I hope that this short article will help you to understand the basics of a sales funnel and perhaps will enable you to build your profitable funnel.
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Regards
Morgan Lewis
P.S If you want to know the common mistakes to avoid when starting an online business, then download my PDF here.
