Have you ever asked yourself about the journey your customers goes through before they make a purchase from your business?

The sales funnel maps out the whole customer journey, including every interaction where customers will engage with your brand before being ready to make a purchase.

Your primary goal with your sales funnel is to move people from one stage to another until they are ready to purchase, so your sales funnel needs to be excellent if you want to have a successful strategy.

In this article you’ll learn the following:

• What a sales funnel is

• The Benefits and Stages of a sales funnel

• Best sale funnels builders

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel is a marketing term used to capture and describe the journey that potential customers go through, from prospecting to purchase.

The model uses a funnel as an analogy, because it illustrates the idea that every sale begins with a large number of potential customers and ends with a much smaller number of people who actually make a purchase.

There are several steps to a sales funnel, usually known as the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel, although these steps may vary depending on a company’s sales model.

funnels help businesses guide prospective buyers through the purchasing process and into the conclusion of the transaction.

Well-built sales funnels help businesses guide prospective buyers through the purchasing process and towards the purchase completion. By contrast, those funnels with gaps will lead to potential customers dropping out of the sales process, like water flowing through a sieve.

The four basic Sales Funnel stages are:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Decision
• Action

Before discussing these stages, let’s first discuss why we need a sales funnel. 

Why are sale funnels important (5 benefits)

Good sales funnels guide prospects toward a purchase by capturing their attention, nurturing their interest, and ultimately closing the deal. When all goes well, sales funnels also set you up for good reviews and repeat customers.

Here are some of the benefits of having a sales process funnel in place:

1. A better Customer Journey

Sales funnels offer an organized method to lead potential customers through a well-defined journey, making the change from awareness to conversion smoother.

2. Targeted Marketing

Using various types of content, you can get a better idea of what your customers need and give it to them at the exact moment they need it. You can use an automated sales funnel to do this. What’s more, with understanding comes better communication, and you’re better able to relate to the modern buyer.

3. Customer Retention

As your prospect begins their research and learns about solutions, they will realize how many options they have.

This is why it’s important for you to be present in the sales funnel early on and establish trust with your prospect by addressing all of the concerns that would influence their buying decision, this will lead long-term relationships and encouraging repeat business.

4. Generates referrals

In addition to acquiring a base target audience and group of customers, a sales funnel also spurs satisfied customers to refer other prospects that previously may not have fallen into the original target audience.

5. Monitors and tracks

A sales funnel enables you to see how well each step of the sales process is working and to make adjustments as needed. This helps ensure efficient use of time and sales resources. Pushing customers through the sales funnel creates useful feedback.

What are the sales funnel stages?

From the moment prospects hear about your product or service until the moment they make a purchase (or don’t), they pass through different stages of your sales funnel. That journey through your funnel may change from one prospect to another, but in the end, they’ll evaluate it based on their interest level. It’s important to note that not all companies’ sales funnels will have the same levels or stages. Sales funnels vary in size and shape from company to company and industry to industry. However, a basic sales funnel can be described as consisting of 4 levels.

Stage1: Awareness

This stage includes the largest number of customer prospects. They have determined a problem, begun searching for a solution and become aware of your business via Content marketing, an email campaign, social media marketing or other avenue.

How and why those people move down the sales funnel depends on your own sales and marketing ability, of course. The leads in the middle and lower sales funnel stages are those that you want to pay the most attention to, because they’ve moved beyond awareness to interest.

Stage 2: Interest

The first interactions will hook some of these newly-aware people and draw them slightly deeper into the funnel. 

Once prospects have learned about your brand, they’ll evaluate it based on their interest level. They’ll think about the problem they’re trying to solve and conduct competitive research to make sure your offering is the best solution.

Interest is arguably one of the most important steps in your sales process. How you respond to a potential customer will set the tone for your relationship going forward.

Stage 3: Decision

When a prospect enters the decision stage of the sales funnel, it means they’re ready to make a purchase. They may still be considering a few options, but they’re prepared to buy. In the decision stage, it’s crucial to distinguish your brand and give the potential customer compelling reasons to choose you.

Armed with information about your company, prospects will dig deeper into your pricing and packaging options, so you can offer the a discount code or a free shipping.

Stage 4: Action

The last step in the sales funnel is action, which is the end result of all the previous stages. The buyer has made up their mind at this point regarding whether or not to buy the product. The company can employ other marketing strategies to make sure the prospect remembers their product even if they decide not to buy it.

Best sales funnel builders (4 Recommendations)

Building a strong sales funnel is essential to creating a successful business. And fortunately for business owners, there are a host of software solutions specifically designed to make building, maintaining, and optimizing your sales funnel as simple as possible.

Here are 3 recommended sales funnel builders for beginners.

Systeme.io

Systeme.io is an all-in-one platform where you can create the product, create the funnel stages for its sale, manage your leads and customers with tools like email marketing, as well as get insight into your sales performance — all in one place.

Starting price: Systeme.io offers a completely free plan (No credit card is required)

Click Here to get your free account

Free trial: Yes

Features

·  Unlimited free storage on every plan

·  A/B testing

·  Free plan

·  Data import/export

·  Lead management

GetResponse

GetResponse is an email marketing tool offering a sales funnel builder feature for online business owners. Users like GetResponse for its automation templates feature. It sends automatically-triggered welcome emails, recommends products based on purchasing history, and uses behavioral targeting to track and rate customer actions.

Checkout this GetResponse review

Starting price: $19.00/month

Free trial: Yes

Features

·  clean and easy user interface

·  Drag and drop editor

·  A/B testing

·  Form builder

·  Website visitor tracking

Convertkit

ConvertKit is a sales funnel tool and email marketing platform used by creators of all kinds, business owners, professional bloggers, podcasters and more.  It includes features for growing audiences, including landing pages and email sign up forms.

Try ConvertKit Here

Starting price: Free for the first 1000 subscribers

Free trial: Yes

Features

·  Mobile optimized emails

·  A/B testing

·  AB testing

·  Event triggered actions

Instapage

Instapage empowers marketers to build personalized and optimized landing pages at scale, resulting in improved campaign results and ROI. With no developer needed and a user-friendly interface, you can create relevant ad-to-landing-page experiences quickly that support multiple target audiences and campaign goals. Instapage is the most advanced landing page solution on the market, providing a unified environment for ad mapping, AI-powered content and experimentation, and built-in analytics.

Try Instapage for free Here

Starting price: $299/month

Free trial: Yes

Features

·  Advanced customization

·  Drag and drop editor

·  Ai content generator

·  Mobile responsive

·  Templates

Conclusion

Sales funnels work best when they are built with specific goals for defined target audiences, and are executed using compelling marketing content. Without these three basic tenets, sales funnels tend to be leaky—they let out prospects and leads before converting them into paying customers.

Take action now to get the most out of your leads, optimize your digital marketing efforts and build lasting customer relationships.