Managing sales opportunities effectively is one of the most important tasks in any business. In this sense, the sales funnel is a very interesting tool.
After all, it’s not enough to just attract the target audience, it’s essential to understand how to win them over! Do you want to know how to use the funnel to improve decision-making and generate greater results for your company?
Come with me!
What is a sales funnel?
Every business has a series of stages that its target audience goes through until they become a customer .
However, as you have probably noticed, not all people who show interest in the solutions offered throughout your Digital Marketing strategy end up closing a deal. In other words, there are losses along the way.
The sales funnel works as a visualization of the customer’s purchasing decision process — broad base (interested parties) and narrow base (clientele). Through it, your Marketing and Sales teams can understand the step-by-step process.
This way, teams start working on their business’s actions and strategies, ensuring that as many interested parties as possible become customers of their brand.
What is the sales funnel for?
The main objective of the sales funnel is to seek to optimize your company’s processes when it comes to acquiring and retaining customers.
Once you know how customers behave when choosing a product or service, you can anticipate possible doubts at each stage of the process. And this applies to everything from the brand of washing powder to the postgraduate course!
You start to craft good responses so that these people become increasingly interested in what you have to say. This is a way to build a lasting relationship of trust between the public and the brand.
This way, your brand is recorded as a good option for closing a deal!
Why is the sales funnel important for your business?
From what I have shown so far, it is easy to understand why the sales funnel gives companies the possibility to communicate, in a simple and direct way, what they offer. Not as simple advertising or propaganda, but as a response to the needs and desires of the consumer!
Think of the sales funnel as a gym for your company: just as you need to develop all your muscle groups to have a healthy body — and not just do arm exercises and forget about your legs — a company needs to implement good practices to sustain its growth and have financial health.
For customers, it is an opportunity to inform their purchasing decisions. Often, through the sales funnel and a good marketing strategy, your company can help consumers name what they themselves have not yet been able to identify .
A classic example: in the summer, many people want to cool off. But when they do their research, they end up getting lost among the possibilities — fans, circulators, split units, window units, air conditioners, among others.
Now imagine that a company in the industry starts to identify these issues and offer these people content that helps them understand which product is best for them. It is natural that the company becomes a favorite when the consumer decides to purchase the product!
That’s why the sales funnel is not only important for Marketing. It is essential for any business that wants to grow, have predictability and greater financial health, based on results.
Without a well-structured funnel, your company could end up like that cartoon character who runs in circles but doesn’t get anywhere…
Furthermore, clear management of the sales funnel avoids conflicts between Marketing and Sales, like that classic game of push-and-pull that no one likes to see. Funnel integration and continuous monitoring allow for optimization cycles, which consequently advance the funnel and improve the company’s results.
At Enjoy Minder, for example, we use 4 different funnels: Inbound Marketing, Outbound Marketing, referral and relationship, and after-sales. Each one has its own specificities, but they are all essential for monitoring and optimizing our sales process. This way, we can measure performance and manage effectively!
Instead of just looking at sales results, we can understand the effort required at each stage. Next, I’ll talk more about this so you can understand how it impacts business results.
How is the sales funnel divided?
Sales funnels come in many different formats, and we shouldn’t argue about whether one is right or the other wrong. Each type of funnel plays an essential role in a company’s overall sales strategy, helping to structure and optimize the conversion process!
However, it is important that you understand its fundamentals and choose the best process for your business. When thinking about customizing your strategy, I consider it essential to know the main types that exist. Check it out!
Marketing and Sales Funnel
This is one of the most traditional types that exist! Despite this, the increasing use of digital channels in Marketing and sales strategies has meant that this format is constantly revisited and updated.
This reality, therefore, brought the need to adapt the traditional Marketing and sales funnel to respond to the modern purchasing journey of consumers on the Internet!
Responsibility for the funnel is now shared between the Marketing and Sales teams. Therefore, generating leads that already know the company and intend to buy what it sells is extremely strategic.
The Marketing and Sales Funnel can be compared to a movie script, where each act is crucial to reaching the climax, which is the sale! It is generally divided into three main parts:
- Top of the funnel (ToFu): This is the moment to attract and raise awareness, transforming your website visitor into a potential buyer. The person at this stage is not interested in buying, but in getting answers to a question.
- Middle of the funnel (MoFu): when you have sparked interest in your business, it is time to help your leads understand more deeply the variables involved in the issue of interest to them, understanding what their best choice will be.
- Bottom of the funnel (BoFu): based on more specific information, the lead becomes qualified to make a decision. This is when the sales team starts to act, helping with the purchase.
The idea behind this funnel is to ensure that both teams have visibility over the results, in addition to effectively managing Marketing and Sales. By uniting the two sectors, it is possible to have a more synergistic performance.
Furthermore, this is a way to avoid a negative context when ideal results are not achieved. With this integrated funnel, it is possible to avoid the scenario in which the sales department says that Marketing does not deliver qualified leads, while Marketing says that the sales department cannot sell.
In the Marketing and Sales Funnel Masterclass, I explain all this information in much more depth. It is free and you can access it by clicking on this banner:
Advantages of the traditional funnel
There are several advantages to using this sales and marketing funnel! One of them is the structured vision to understand what the company should do to increase sales.
You can know how many top, middle, and bottom leads you need to generate the number of qualified opportunities you need to increase sales. So it’s all about predictability — of good and bad results.
With this funnel, it is also possible to plan and allocate funds to achieve the numbers, define those responsible and make the necessary adjustments so that the strategy becomes more effective.
The AIDA sales funnel
The AIDA sales funnel uses a method consisting of four stages: Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. This is a methodology widely used in the construction of persuasive texts, but it can also help to structure a sales funnel.
This type of funnel connects with the consumer journey — even though it is not linear, since people’s behavior can change and even be irrational. The fact is that this structure relates to the different moments of a person’s awareness of a problem, a solution, and a supplier.
In the beginning, the intention is to get the attention of potential customers by helping them discover a problem or need. In this first step, there is a process of awareness, learning and discovery.
Then, there is the development of interest on the part of the person. They have already educated themselves and know that they have a problem, and it is necessary to awaken the interest of this individual in resolving the issue.
In the next step, the idea is to create a desire to consume and capture this desire through the funnel. This is what happens when the person is already aware of the problem or need and begins to look for solutions to meet this demand.
The last stage, action, involves the person taking action to resolve their desire or problem. This is what happens when the customer gets in touch, goes to an establishment or adds items to the virtual cart, for example.
At this stage of the funnel, people are usually more receptive to a sales approach. This means there is a greater chance of achieving conversion!
Advantages of the AIDA funnel
One of the main benefits of this strategy is its flexibility. Depending on your market and your ideal customer profile, you can design the AIDA funnel based on these characteristics.
This ability to adapt is also important when considering that people do not behave in the same way and not always rationally. Therefore, it is possible to adapt the journey in a way that makes sense to attract and capture opportunities.
Furthermore, this is a way to better direct efforts, adopting appropriate strategies to increase the chances of conversion. This also makes it possible to increase commercial efficiency.
The Y-shaped sales funnel
The Y-shaped sales funnel gets its name because it has two potential customer inputs: Inbound and Outbound Marketing. In this way, the two teams integrate and work together to achieve more conversions.
It is different from the traditional sales funnel, which usually has only one customer entry. Therefore, there is the Inbound funnel and the Outbound funnel, but only with the integration of both does the Y structure appear.
In this case, there is an even greater integration between Marketing and Sales, considering both active prospecting and the attraction of opportunities!
For this funnel to work, it is essential that the teams work together, such as sending hot leads generated by Inbound to the Outbound team.
The Outbound team can use Inbound to create a relationship with leads that are not currently ready to purchase.
Instead of letting an opportunity languish at the base, Inbound emerges as a way to nurture, educate and consolidate the relationship. In a future sales approach, the tendency is for conversion to be easier!
Advantages of the Y-Funnel
One of the benefits of adopting the Y-funnel is that it increases the effectiveness of both teams, since the two strategies feed off each other. When approaching a lead generated by Inbound, the team can provide relevant information about it.
Through lead tracking, for example, it is possible to know the behavior of this lead — which pages they visited, what content they consumed and what their needs are. This way, the salesperson can adopt a much more consultative and personalized approach, delivering more value.
Another benefit, as I showed, has to do with keeping the lead warm, in case it was generated by Outbound, but is not yet at the point of purchase.
In general, this integration is especially advantageous for improving the use of efforts employed and opportunities generated. This results in greater effectiveness and, consequently, more sales.
Take advantage and check out the Inbound and Outbound Marketing webinar to learn how to integrate these strategies:
How to make an optimized sales funnel?
Given the predictability that the sales funnel offers in terms of results, it is possible to achieve scalability by optimizing it. This is because there is a cascade effect, as growth at the top can increase the chances of achieving more results at the bottom.
When thinking about optimization, it is essential to start by keeping a history of funnel performance — and seeking to understand conversion rates between stages to know where the bottlenecks and growth opportunities are.
This means that it is possible to implement strategic planning to define what needs to be done to grow. This involves everything from allocating more funds to optimizing steps to increase sales. Therefore, this focus on numbers makes decision-making less intuitive and more data-driven.
To perform conversion rate optimization (CRO), you need to consider both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Simply looking to increase the numbers — especially in the initial stages of the funnel — tends not to be enough.
Imagine a B2B business that applies a CRO strategy and increases the number of leads generated. However, the opportunities generated are not really suited to the ideal customer profile, which causes the rates at the bottom of the funnel to drop.
Therefore, optimizing the conversion rate at the beginning of the funnel will not result in an increase in sales. The ideal, therefore, is to seek strategies that are appropriate to the persona in order to truly attract, capture and convert the right people for each stage.
To get the numbers right and use them in an increasingly strategic way, check out the Lead Calculator Spreadsheet!
How to use automation in the sales funnel?
To make the sales funnel increasingly effective and strategic, it is interesting to use automation tools. Through them, it is possible to capture, classify and monitor opportunities throughout the entire journey more easily.
It is also possible to create appropriate actions for each stage of the funnel, such as sending emails or other types of contact. This way, good opportunities are not missed, increasing the potential for generating results.
One way to do this is by looking for software and resources that perform this process. RD Station is an example that, among other tasks, allows you to create and automate customized funnels for your business needs!
And even with automation, it is still essential to monitor results and make the necessary adaptations. Depending on the case, a simple change in the funnel can significantly change the business’s direction!
The next step for your business!
I showed you what a sales funnel is and the value of having a well-structured funnel to predict results, adjust strategies and ensure sustainable growth for your company!
Your business can (and deserves) to have more precise sales strategies — and Enjoy Minder can help you!
Here, we understand the importance of a well-managed sales funnel and we know that every business is unique. That’s why we offer customized solutions that meet your specific needs!
Get a Digital Marketing Diagnosis + Consultancy with our experts and start transforming your results!
