The sales funnel is a really important process to understand if you want to grow your business. It is a funnel that maps the different stages your customers will go through, from finding your business to purchasing from you. Understanding the process, and utilising it in your business is key to building a successful sales strategy, interacting with your customers and curating content. 

To help you get started, here is everything you need to know about the sales funnel and how you can utilise the process to grow your business. 

What is a sales funnel?

The sales funnel is a concept used in marketing that paves the journey a customer will go through when making a purchase. The image of a funnel is used as the basis for the concept, as it represents the interest of the customer narrowing as they move through the journey. The sales funnel is typically used in business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing. This is the ideal journey a customer would go on, as they get closer to deciding to purchase from your business. 

The sales funnel has 4 main stages. It starts with awareness at the top of the funnel, followed by interest, desire and action. It is a good visual aid that shows the percentage of people who make a purchase. This is because there is usually a large number of customers at the beginning of the process, in the awareness stage, and only a small percentage of these customers will decide to make a purchase. This is normal for any business, as conversion rates tend to sit around 2-5%. As each customer funnels down the process, you know they are more committed to purchasing at the end. 

Benefits of a sales funnel

A sales funnel can benefit your business greatly. The research that goes into creating the sales funnel and mapping out the journey of your customers provides you with all the information you need to understand your potential customers, what they want and need, what they are doing, their behaviours, and much more. This information is key to curating the right steps, content and messaging that will resonate with them, and keep them funnelling down the sales process. A sales funnel will enable you to see what is working in your business and what is not, as you will be able to see where the majority of customers are dropping out of the funnel without making a purchase. This will help you identify why you are missing out on sales, and how you can continue to improve the process for your customers. 

When you take your customers on a well-thought-out journey to making a purchase, you can attract the right kind of customers, and educate them along the way. While the sales funnel is marked out with four stages, each business should personalise it to its specific niche and industry. 

How to build and utilise the sales funnel in your business 

You should start your sales funnel with the 4 main stages, and then you can add in any additional stages that you think are relevant to your business. The sales funnel is the journey that your customers will go through, from the moment they hear about your business, to the moment they make a sale. 

Creating awareness

Awareness is the first step in the sales funnel process. This is the moment potential customers will learn about your product or service that can help solve their problem. 

The best ways to create awareness are through social media posts, word of mouth, search engines and advertising. Social media platforms are free and easy to use. You should create a well-researched content plan that resonates with the struggles that your customers may be having, and provide them with valuable information. You can extend this content through blog posts and tutorials, by building a website with a reputable company such as WebX360.com and deploying an effective search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy. These two strategies alone have the potential to put your business in front of a lot of customers and to start prompting people to go on a journey through your sales funnel. With over 4.62 billion users on social media and 4.3 billion on Google, the awareness stage of the sales funnel is vital, and not something you should miss out on.

Cultivating interest 

Once you have got the attention of your customers, you will need to cultivate interest if you want them to move forward down to the next stage of your sales funnel, as opposed to your competitors. When they get to this point, they are going to evaluate your solutions and how helpful they can be in achieving their goals. It is here they are likely to research the products and services that you offer. 

You must showcase yourself as a reputable and trustworthy company. You need to think about your unique selling point (USP) and how you can market yourself as a worthy cause over your competitors. You should ensure that your customers have access to other reviews and ratings, and you provide them with lots of valuable information about your products and services. This should include why they should choose you, the benefits of your product and service, why it is the best on the market and other solutions that can really help your customers. This information should target their pain points. 

Create desire 

Your potential customers are getting close to making a decision. This is where you need to create a desire to tip them over the edge. One of the biggest factors that helps create desire is the way your product or service is packaged, and the price point it is available. Key information like this is going to create a sense of desire and urgency. 

You can utilise specially created sales pages and sales calls at this point in the journey to answer any questions and help your customers make a decision. 

Prompt customers to take action

The last and most important stage of the sales process is action. The best-case scenario here would be that your customers decide to purchase your goods or services. However, this is not the only action they can take that is beneficial. Customers can also take action by providing you with an email address. 

To utilise this stage of the sales funnel and make sure your customers take action, you should ensure that there is a clear call to action on your platform directing them to take the relevant action. You can also have alternative options to taking action, other than making a sale. For example, you can set up a nurturing email campaign that keeps you in contact with prospects. This is helpful because they have travelled down the funnel so you know they are interested and you can stay in contact and be there for them when they are ready. 

A sales funnel is vital in any business. Follow these top tips to help you understand and utilise the sales funnel to grow your business.