What is a sales funnel and what is it for?
A sales funnel is avisual representation of your prospects’ journey from first contact with your business until the purchase is completed. It focuses on changing business intervention and quality needs as they progress through the buying cycle.
All of your qualified leads start at the widest point in the funnel, which narrows as inadequate leads cool and drop off. For this, each stage is based on the needs of each prospect and is measured according to the cycle they are in.
A sales funnel is itself a pyramidal market study and can be classified into 3 parts: top, middle and bottom, going from the study of prospects and leads to the closing of the sale. To do this, you can generate content specific to your company to attract the right leads and take them from one part of the funnel to the next.
A sales funnel is vital in your business, as it helps you understand your customers’ needs, likes and even desires to convert them into a sure sale. Understanding your sales funnel in depth helps you send the right messages at the perfect times or even create systems that allow you to forecast your revenue.
Having a healthy funnel is reflected in the growth of your company, in the right decision making, in a better efficiency of communications, agility in your processes, time savings and, therefore, a conscious and consistent increase in your sales.
Components of the sales funnel
As mentioned earlier, the sales funnel has three key components:
- At the top are awareness and discovery. Here clients are identifying the challenge they are facing. They may not know the problem, only the symptoms.
- In the middle we find research and solutions. They are digging deeper into the problem, not necessarily evaluating specific companies and their products as solutions. Instead, they are looking at the types of solutions available to them and deciding which is the most appropriate.
- At the bottom, potential customers are making an informed buying decision. When they get here, they are ready to select the solution and, most importantly, the supplier.
Stages within the sales funnel
Within these three elements we can also find stages, which each customer names in their own way, according to their sales cycle. Whatever you call them, these stages exist:
- Prospecting. This is where the different strategies to attract new potential customers to your business come in.
- Lead qualification. This is where you evaluate your potential customers and analyze who are the most suitable to work with and close the sale.
- Proposal. It is at this stage where you present your offer to the clients who are willing to listen to you. At this stage is where you will also have to solve the doubts and details of your proposal.
- Purchase decision. The decisive point of all your actions is here, since this is the moment when your customer decides to buy or decline your offer.
- Customer experience. Happy customers attract new customers, that’s why an excellent experience throughout the process and beyond is vital. Don’t forget about your customers even if they have already closed the deal, follow up with them and keep them loyal!
How to create a great sales funnel?
With these practices you will be able to implement the ideal sales funnel for your company in a simple way and in a very short time:
- Define your sales process and objectives. It is vital that you and your employees understand all the steps of the sales process and its phases: learning, problem recognition, solution consideration, etc. Define activities, issues and solutions in each phase.
- Know the consumer’s consumption process and match it with your sales process. Remember that knowledge is power, so it is important that you know the activity of your customers as well as your sales strategies so you can make a correct match and therefore a well-planned strategy.
- Know your sales funnel and adapt your process. Take a close look at your funnel and see how your process fits into it and make sure it is applied correctly.
- Create your action strategies. Each deal is different, which is why you must define strategies according to the type of customer and the stages. This is a decisive step since leads either advance or leave your funnel.
- Execute your strategy. Do this as soon as possible so that the sale does not go cold and the customer experience is positive and memorable.
- Monitor and improve. Always review the activities carried out, analyze the points that were positive and improve the weak points. This will help you to always have a constant update and improvement.
Not everything is simple! You must pay attention to other variables
Not only understanding your customer and having a great sales funnel will be enough for success, it is important that you also take into account other variables:
- Pay close attention to your team, give them the tools they require and support their constant updating on your sales process and funnel efficiency.
- Constantly review your sales strategy, either for accessibility or innovation so that you always stay current in your business, so you always know what your audience wants to buy.
- Today’s world suffers from information overload, so your customers have a lot of information at hand, help them find and understand your offer in a simpler way, less is more!
- Have all the information about your products and services at hand, know what customers need to know and offer a unique shopping experience.
The Pipedrive sales funnel
Pipedrive’s main sales funnel view is a clear, understandable and visual interface that gives you the possibility to organize yourself in an efficient way by controlling your sales actions as well as controlling your process.
Pipedrive comes with a basic sales funnel from your free trial that simply explains the funnel. Besides this there are many other reasons why sales professionals love it:
Clarity assured. The funnel view is so intuitive that you can see the sales stages perfectly well, giving you a quick overview and a clear understanding of your sales efforts.
Find the right statistics. The statistics feature is ideal for understanding your processes and of course your customers as it tells you the health of your funnel, the stages to improve, allows you to filter the information for personalized analysis and many more benefits.
Customizable to 1 000%. Sales funnels should fit your process, not the other way around, and Pipedrive understands this, which is why you can customize them as you need. From modifying stages and assigning them specific names to activating or deactivating functions.
No restrictions! It doesn’t matter what you do, indeed, it doesn’t matter if your business is not focused on sales, you can use Pipedrive for whatever your area of expertise is because of its ease of use, clear and simple flows and versatility.
Above all, very easy to use. Your possibilities are endless and just one click away! With the intuitive interface and simplified menus, Pipedrive gives you the ability to do what you want with the visibility you need anytime, anywhere.
Promote new business opportunities with Pipedrive!
Managing your customers, sales and business using the sales funnel provides a powerful tool for your business to grow exponentially.
With the funnel you can understand the probability of conversion of each sale, verify current and future transactions to adopt more efficient strategies, identify points of improvement, evaluate the performance of the sales team and therefore obtain more prominent results and achieve your objectives.
If you want to try Pipedrive 30 days free of chargeenter this promotional code when you create the account: pdp-vilarroig. And to create the account, follow this link. You can also contact us to help you in choosing or accelerating the use of Pipedrive if you are already using it.
