The sales funnel or sales funnel narrates the set of stages that exist from the moment a customer maintains their first contact with the product or business until the purchase is finally made . In this article we will make all these stages clear, as well as define the key points to control to be successful in your business.
What is a sales funnel?
The sales funnel is the strategy that is planned in a company to attract its customers . Every business has one, even if it is not conscious or is not optimized, since it is derived naturally from the business objective itself.
In the case of the sales funnel oriented to the digital world, we talk about the entire process that a client goes through from the moment he first arrives at the website (visit), until he begins to have a relationship with the brand and ends up becoming an opportunity to sale (lead) until, finally, buy.
Stages of the digital sales funnel
The sales funnel concept is funnel-shaped and consists of different stages:
1. Visitors
For a web page to have visitors it is necessary that it have visibility . The strategy to publicize a website and appear in search engines is based, in part, on content optimization (SEO). For the other half of the web strategy , it is necessary to invest in online advertising and have a vision and social media plan in line with the objective.
The visitors at this point of the funnel may only be interested in learning that are not necessarily going to buy the product. However, the fact that we have quality and optimized content gives us prestige, relevance and credibility as a brand.
At this point there are controls and indicators that we can take into account such as the number of visits, the return that the visits become and other data that we observe relevant.
2. Leads
The challenge of the sales funnel is the creation of relevant and quality leads . A lead is a potential buyer : an opportunity for your sale. Through landings pages, for example, we can create leads with interested visitors. The information that the visitor would have to enter, that is, their personal data and their email for example, will allow us a contact later in the funnel to be able to offer them a purchase solution that suits their interests.
3. Relevant or qualified leads
Once the lead has provided us with their data and is interested in our product or service, it is time to segment those visitors converted into leads with different parameters adjusted to our activity: age, origin, connection days … The conversion of leads in clients it can be carried out with strategies of mailing marketing, suggestions of ebooks or webinars.
4. The opportunities
It is time for leads to become sales opportunities . It is also the moment for the commercials to get down to work and develop action guidelines with that information provided by the leads. A CRM will help to record the interaction and interest data of the leads that are needed to address it.
5. Sales
The recording of the results is what characterizes this stage. Now we can analyze our sales funnel as a whole and be able to make decisions in one direction or another in front of the billing data.
The digital world has evolved in such a way that it is able to find customers and generate sales thanks to a very high level of personalization , at levels that are difficult to achieve in the traditional sales world. At Cognodata we are experts in analysis and strategies so that each phase of the sales funnel is optimal. If you want more information on how to optimize your digital sales strategy, you can contact us and we will study your specific case.