The rapidly changing sales landscape presents new challenges for sales and marketing leaders who must adapt the traditional sales funnel or find an effective alternative. The challenge for marketers is made even more difficult by changes in the buyer's journey, which no longer follows a direct path from awareness to purchase decision. Buyers are now choosing solutions that make the traditional sales funnel more efficient. Therefore, it is necessary to take a closer look at the sales funnel to analyze the type of model that is suitable for a particular business.
What is a sales funnel?
A sales funnel is like a road map of a journey that takes you through different stages before becoming a customer. The customer journey consists of several distinct steps from the first touch to the moment of closing the deal. In a graphical representation, the top of the sales funnel is the widest part and is at the top and contains many potential buyers. The pool of potential buyers is gradually narrowed down to a few potential customers along the customer journey. This means that the chances of converting and closing a deal are much lower than the number of prospects who started the journey. The sales process ends with the closing of a deal that represents profit or loss.
As people move through different stages of the buying process, their chances of closing the deal change. As potential customers move up the sales funnel, they gather more information that helps them decide on the product's usefulness as intended. The potential for a successful close is greater when the prospect is closer to the bottom of the funnel.
Opportunities to solve sales funnel problems
Sales management can solve many problems with the help of a sales funnel.
- A funnel is a well-defined process that helps develop ways to close more deals while quantifying the value of future sales.
- Funnel data helps the sales team have a clear idea of the number of transactions and their size, which should help them exceed their sales quota.
- The sales funnel helps salespeople define a methodology for how to logically move customers through the sales process and nurture them in a tight sequence to maximize customer performance and cost per lead.
The difference between a sales funnel and a marketing funnel
A marketing funnel is useful for opening any potential sales, it's like opening a song. The marketing funnel is the most abstract part of the customer journey, as they gradually learn about the product and find reasons to actively engage. When interested visitors browse your website, they enter your marketing funnel and can begin to take an action, such as sign up for a newsletter.
However, the sales funnel is an active engagement and the journey begins when a potential customer has a clear intention to approach purchasing a product, according to CTN News.
