A “Marketing to Sales funnel” is the term for the journey that prospects go through on the way to becoming a customer, i.e., the point at which they purchase the product being considered.
“Marketing” is a broad function for a company that covers various commercial activities, and “sales” is the core of this function. A marketing funnel presents the brand to the prospect, and helps them to k.now how it solves their problem. It involves two key steps: Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing.
When the prospective customer expresses an interest, the sales function takes over. The sales funnel guides the potential customers from “consideration” to “conversion.” Thus, a sales funnel can be a part of the overall marketing funnel.
For any funnel to be relevant and successful, sales should be aligned with the product and customer journey. It should provide insights into the ideal customer persona. The relation between a typical sales process and customer journey is as below:
In this article, we will look at different funnels and understand how they have developed over time.
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In the pre-digital days, marketing and sales functions approached customer acquisition and retention through four clearly defined stages: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action (AIDA).
The AIDA model was created towards the end of the 19th century by an American advertising practitioner called Elias St. Elmo Lewis. His model worked on a “problem-solution” approach and proposed that every purchase involved the following:
This journey can be visualised as under:
It is noticed that the number of potential leads narrows down as the journey progresses from awareness to action (or purchase) and takes the shape of a funnel.
Customers today are increasingly reliant on digital sources to consume content, shop, entertain themselves and whatnot. It has, hence, become mandatory that companies have an online presence to market themselves digitally.
Interestingly, customer acquisition and sales still go through the AIDA process even in the digital age. The only difference is that this journey is now online. Companies have developed a “marketing to sales funnel” to place consumers in different stages of the purchase process.
This funnel maps customers’ online journeys using the AIDA model. It allows the company to determine the content and digital tools required to convert leads into paying customers.
This funnel can be presented visually as below:
A typical marketing to sales funnel has three parts representing the progress of the customer through the journey from lead (prospect) to confirmed customer. The company should be aware of this structure in order to develop content that helps the customer move smoothly through each stage of the journey
This can be represented graphically as follows:
There are four main stages in the marketing to sales funnel, covering the progress from lead to confirmed customer. Each stage represents a specific “state of mind” of the customer, and knowing these stages will help the company plan its funnel strategy to get maximum conversions:
Visually, this journey can be shown as below:
Automated sales funnels are used where a significant amount of the marketing and sales effort is partially or fully automated. This helps in generating sales constantly.
There are two types of automated sales funnels
An “evergreen sales funnel” is a process that involves running an automated email campaign. An evergreen sales funnel automatically draws customers into the email process once they have signed up, without the sales/marketing team being actively involved in the process. Evergreen sales funnels are particularly useful for industries which do not function on specific sales timelines, i.e., industries that have to find customers for their products all the time. One example of such an industry is online education.
A typical evergreen sales funnel can be represented as below. This example uses a “tripwire offer” as a hook for customers. A tripwire offer is a low cost, limited time offer.
“Marketing automation” is the process of automating repetitive marketing tasks to reduce human intervention and, hence, reduce errors.
A marketing automation sales funnel allows a company to automatically track the actions of a visitor to its website. It helps the company deliver content that leads the visitor to make a decision—an offer that makes the visitor buy or provides more information to push the visitor deeper into the funnel towards a purchase.
This can be represented graphically as follows:
Marketing-sales funnels are vital tools for a company to optimise its customer journey at scale and with minimum wastage. A properly designed funnel maximises conversations and boosts revenue. It also reduces the risk of losing potential customers.
Marketing-sales funnels help companies deliver a personalised experience and friction-free purchase journey to close sales faster and reduce wastage of time, resources and investment.
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