So, what are sales funnels, and how do they work? In this post, we’ll tell you everything you need to know, including how to create a sales funnel and how to optimize it for success.
What is a sales funnel?
A sales funnel is a visual representation of the journey made by potential customers as they travel from awareness of your brand to eventual purchase. It involves several distinct stages that prospects move through during the buying process.
Companies often use a sales funnel program to automate, monitor, and optimize this journey.
The funnel is depicted as a container that’s wide at the top and narrow at the bottom because you’re starting out with hundreds or thousands of potential customers and working to funnel sales leads down to a smaller group that will actually make a purchase.
As a sales development representative, your task is to guide prospects ever closer to the bottom of the funnel, using content and personalized interactions to show them the value of your product or service.
Sales funnel vs sales pipeline
People sometimes confuse the sales funnel with the sales pipeline, since recent mobile phone number data both are representations of progress from prospect to paying customer. But the way they depict the journey is different.
The sales funnel’s shape shows how multiple leads are narrowed down to a small group, whereas a pipeline looks more like a flat timeline. Plus, the funnel considers the buyer’s point of view, while the pipeline focuses on the seller’s actions.
Sales funnel vs marketing funnel
The difference between marketing and sales funnels is harder to spot because there’s an overlap between each funnel—sales begins later, while the marketing funnel is focused mainly on brand awareness and drawing prospects toward your offering. As a result, the marketing funnel starts earlier.
However, the marketing and sales funnels will overlap during the awareness stage, which we’ll come to in a moment. After this, the rest of the sales funnel is designed to guide prospects toward a purchase decision.