Sales funnel. What it is and how to apply it correctly to your business
Probably, if you are interested in the world of online business and digital marketing, you have ever heard the concept “Sales funnel”, “Sales funnel” or “Funnel model”.
Although they are widely extended concepts in different business models, many people still do not know exactly how this sales model works and in which cases it can help our business grow.
In this publication we are going to tell you in a simple way everything you need to understand the concept of the sales funnel and apply it correctly to your business.
What is a sales funnel?
The sales funnel is a set of Marketing and sales techniques that we define so that users carry out a certain action related to our product.
Through a funnel or sales funnel, a business defines the steps or sales process from contacting target users or customers until they become buyers of our product.
With our sales funnel, we will guide our users or potential customers until they achieve the established final objective, which may vary depending on the business (page registrations, closing a sale, subscription to a newsletter, downloading an ebook, etc.).
In the end, the answer to what is a sales funnel in marketing is quite limited and defined, but the perception of its details and applications may differ depending on the company that applies it or the sector and business model where it is expected to be put into practice. We will go into detail about these aspects a little later.
What is the Buyer Journey?
The Buyer Journey or Purchasing Process is the journey that a user takes from when they hear about a product or service for the first time until they become a customer.
Stages of the Buyer Journey
CONSCIENCE
INTEREST
DECISION AND ACTION
In the first place, in the CONSCIOUSNESS stage, it is when the person realizes that they have a need. At this point, the person begins a search for information to understand the problem or find the appropriate solution.
Secondly, in the INTEREST stage, the user already has different options and compares and assesses which one best suits their needs and the resolution of their problem or pain points.
Finally, in the DECISION and ACTION stage, the person chooses the best solution according to their criteria, budget and has become a client. At this point, it will be up to us to retain these customers and to recommend our products or services to other similar customers.
What is the difference between a sales funnel and the Buyer Journey?
To begin with, the Buyer Journey is defined from the user’s point of view. They include the person’s experiences and behaviors.
Defining the Buyer Journey is very useful to design those contact points with the user depending on the phase they are in. If the user is in a discovery phase, our approach strategies should be different to those users who are in the consideration phase.
On the other hand, the sales funnel is defined from the point of view of Marketing. They are specific marketing and sales actions and techniques. In the sales funnel, the actions necessary for users to go from one phase to another until they become loyal customers are defined.
Despite the differences, they are two concepts that must go hand in hand. If we know the path that the user takes (Buyer Journey), but we do not apply actions on that path (Sales Funnels) we will not have any results and vice versa.
For this reason, it is essential to define the Buyer Person or Purchasing Process to, in this way, specify effective sales funnels that convert and retain customers.
What is the sales funnel for?
In the end, any company, large or small, aspires to generate results, no matter in which sector they are established or under which structure they operate, the objective is results.
But in order to know exactly which actions work well and which ones do not, it is important that we can measure these actions, this is where the online sales funnel methodology comes into action.
The sales funnel allows us to measure and get to know our potential customers in greater depth, segmenting the process into very specific and well-structured steps, which allows us to know, more accurately, on which points we should focus to improve results and in which exactly we are hitting the nail on the head.