Having an online presence does not suffice the need in this era of cut throat competition. You might ave one of the best websites designed for your business in order to widen your accessibility and gain customers. It also might bring in a lot of traffic on to your website. But how many of them actually turn into potential customers? Therefore its very important that the marketing and sales department work together to design a strategy which can put the potential customers on the right path and turn them into future clients. Today there is no such one golden technique to do this but having sales funnels can put things into place.
What is a Sales Funnel?
When the product or the service is introduced to a potential customer through the various marketing channels of the company he goes through a series of stages before making the purchase decision. This journey form being introduced to the product or the service to becoming a customer are the sales funnels. This can be illustrated as an inverted pyramid that is widest and the top gradually becoming narrow as a potential customer becomes a paying customer. In short we can say that its primary goal is to move people from on stage to another until they are ready to make the purchase decision.
Stages in a Sales Funnel
Generally the journey of each prospect becoming a paying customer depends upon the product or the service and there buying capacity and conditions as well. Also there are no fixed number of stages and can differ with the product. But in general there are four stages which are common to all despite the type of service or the product.
- Awareness: This stage includes the prospect learning about the product or service your company has to offer. The awareness about it is achieved through the various marketing and advertising channels of the company. These include company’s website, print and social media advertisements, email marketing and other such traffic driving sources. Depending on how effective these sources are the potential customer will move down the funnel.
- Interest: At this stage he expresses interest in the products and services of your company. Therefore it is important that you offer interesting deals so that he gets inspired to share the contact information. The prospect moved down the funnel once he has agreed to take the next step.
- Decision: At this stage the prospect sees value in your offering and pays attention to the product details and pricing. This is the right time to make the appropriate sales offer so that he can make the final purchase decision.
- Action: This is the last stage of closing the deal with the customer and involves signing on the dotted line and the money being exchanged between both parties. This is an important stage wherein a customer has the tendency to become a repeat customer and even generate referrals for you. Hence it is important to provide quality customer service.
Not all customers move down the funnel and become customers hence there are potential leaks that occur at every stage of the funnel. A leak is not necessarily a negative influence and positive action by the company can put them back in the funnel. Therefore a sales funnel can be an ideal strategy to convert your potential buyers into buyers.
