Marketing funnel. Marketing funnel for "dummies": what, how, why

Read the material to the end, and you will know:

• 1. What is a sales funnel, why does an ordinary manager and leader need it;
• 2. How and why to analyze the funnel;
• 3. What are the stages of the sales funnel;
• 4. Application of the funnel in practice, examples of real sales funnels.

1. What is a sales funnel?

The sales funnel is the number of customers who are at certain stages of the relationship with managers. It reflects the entire sales cycle, from a cold call to a deal. With each stage, the number of potential customers decreases, so the number of deals made is much less than the number of calls made by the manager.

2. Why do you need a sales funnel?

A funnel is an ideal tool for analyzing the performance of both the entire sales department and individual managers. With its help, we can determine at what stages potential customers are most eliminated, which means there are problems, which means we must take action to remove them.

Development and customization of a sales funnel is included in our basic service for creating a sales system. We will select for you the best tools for systematic sales management and teach your staff how to use them rationally!

I'll give a simple example:
It often happens that a manager who made 100 calls and put up 10 commercial offers concluded 0 contracts. There is already a place to analyze and identify the weak points of the funnel. First, why out of 100 calls only 10 commercial offers? Need to work on motivating the client to get offer? Or a lazy manager forgot to present this most commercial offer to a client? There is already room for analysis. Secondly, why didn't any of the 10 CPs fire? Maybe the CP was bad? Or the manager did not finish the client? What if things look a little different? 100 calls, 90 CP and 0 sales, what do we need to pay attention to?
Here we analyzed only 3 stages of sales, in real life there are more, but given example perfectly captures the very essence of using a funnel to analyze sales performance.

To my great regret, the reasons for the failure of managers or the entire department are analyzed after the fact, when sales stagnate in the company, and then the guilty ones are searched for and measures are taken. A sales funnel is a tool that allows you to do something when this stagnation has not yet come, but is only approaching.

3. How to analyze the sales funnel?

To analyze a sales funnel, you need data for comparison. It’s just that data on its own won’t tell us anything, since sales funnels for different markets, companies and even managers can be different.
What metrics can we compare?

• 1. Sales funnels in different periods.
• 2. Sales funnels for different managers.
• 3. Conversion by stages for different managers in different periods.

Comparing the sales funnel of one manager for different periods, we understand whether his performance is improving or not. By comparing conversion rates across different stages, we understand the optimal conversion rate for each stage. Having data for previous periods, we can predict sales in this period.

A simple example of sales funnel analysis:
If last month the manager made 100 calls, set 30 CPs and signed 5 contracts, having fulfilled the plan with a stretch, and this month he made 20 calls, set 2 CPs and says that he will sign 10 contracts. Could this be? Not? But maybe it’s 20 CP shots from last month. But even if they shoot, one cannot be hopeful. What will happen next month? That's right, a maximum of 2 contracts will be fired from this month, and there will be a failure. Therefore, the sales funnel is not only a tool for understanding the manager’s weak sales stages, but also a sales management tool. If the manager sees that managers have begun to call less, a reason to think about expanding the top stage of the sales funnel without waiting for the end of the month. If he sees that many contracts are stuck at the stage of the quotations set, you need to understand why the conditions set for clients do not suit them? Maybe the prices are wrong? Maybe the terms are outdated? Maybe the managers have become lazy and are waiting for the customers themselves to respond to their offer? In order for the sales funnel to give a more accurate answer, smaller stages of the sales funnel are needed. According to our experience, the funnel has 7-12 stages optimally. Less is more difficult to find bottlenecks in the funnel, more is more difficult to keep records for a manager, although there are exceptions.

4. Stages of the sales funnel

I will give an example of the simplest shortened sales funnel for a manager who makes cold calls and the result of his work is an appointment. This is a two-stage sales model, and this is the funnel for the first stage.

1. The client is entered into the database- the manager got on the Internet, found a suitable client and entered it into CRM for further calls.
2. The decision maker is determined– the manager made a call and found out the full name and position of the person making the decision.
3. Information received- the manager entered into a dialogue with the decision maker, established contact with him and found out the information of interest to us in order to prepare a meeting or commercial offer.
4. Scheduled meeting- The decision maker agrees to the meeting in advance, but he needs to read about us, go on vacation, close the month, or a hundred more reasons why the meeting cannot take place right now.
5. Appointment confirmed- the day before the scheduled meeting, we got through and received confirmation from him that the meeting would take place tomorrow and he remembers about it. This of course does not guarantee that the decision maker actually remembers the meeting; the meeting scheduled two weeks ago will take place with a probability of no more than 20%.
6. Meeting held– the meeting with the LPR took place.
This lists the steps a manager must go through in order to make an appointment. The sales funnel is not strictly sequential. That is, the manager can go from the “Client entered into the database” stage to the “Meeting confirmed” stage if he identified the decision maker from the first call and he was so interested that he immediately made an appointment for tomorrow or today. Also, an already confirmed meeting can move to the “Meeting scheduled” status, or even to the stage of information received.

5. Filling and calculating sales funnel indicators

Suppose we made 100 calls, of which we determined data on decision makers in 73 calls, we managed to enter into a dialogue and collect information about the company and interest 22 decision makers, only 10 people agreed to the meeting, 8 of them confirmed the meeting and 7 actually held. This is what the data in the sales funnel will look like:

This is what the sales funnel would look like if the manager made only 100 calls and continued to finish only these customers before the meeting.
This is a classic funnel (static) that gives us insight into sales conversion when calling.
Conversion is the ratio of the number of transitions from one stage of the funnel to another. The conversion happens for the entire funnel, in our case it is 7%. This is the ratio of the number of meetings held to the number of clients listed in the database. The conversion for each stage can also be calculated. For example, the conversion rate for identifying decision makers is 73%.

6. Putting the funnel into practice

In practice, the situation looks a little different for two reasons:

• Manager keeps making new calls

The manager constantly makes new calls, new customers are constantly added to the funnel, and in order to determine the real indicators, it is necessary to select only the customers who fell into the funnel for a certain period.

• Each client is only at one stage.

For example, we entered one client into the database, made a call and went to the decision maker and immediately scheduled a meeting. In this case, the dynamic or operational funnel would look like this:

That is, the operational sales funnel shows us how many clients a given manager has at which stage. This funnel is necessary for the head of the department in order to understand the operational picture and how many customers are at what stages. To translate this funnel into a classic form and to calculate the conversion, we need to add to each previous stage the numbers that are at all subsequent stages:

Without parentheses, the number of clients currently in each stage. In parentheses are the data of the classic sales funnel for calculating the conversion.
We wish you good luck in system management sales department!
If you have any questions, we will be happy to help you set up your sales funnel and launch systemic sales, please contact us!

To build a funnel, you need to focus on your business process. A business process refers to the activities of a commercial unit that are aimed at generating revenue.

These actions should represent certain stages of the movement of the transaction from the initial contact to payment. For example, it might look like this:

• Cold call / application from the blog
• Sending a relevant commercial offer
• Return call/meeting/presentation
• Signing the contract and invoicing
• Payment

Thus, by identifying the stages of the business process, you form a set control points which you will rely on in the future.

How to build a funnel: using CRM

It is most likely impossible to build a sales funnel without a CRM system. That is, of course, you can put a lot of effort into collecting the necessary information from all available sources, and still do it. But with such energy costs, using this tool on a regular basis will be extremely problematic.

In the end, you will abandon this idea, continue to sell on a whim and lose revenue. Remember, the funnel is the most The best way understand how things really work. Therefore, if you are still serious, then you will have to build it. And not just once, and not even once a month.

So after the formalization of business processes, it is necessary to immediately start “transferring” all stages of the transaction to CRM. As a result, you should get something similar to the figure below, but only with details on the main indicators.

How to build a funnel: understanding the main indicators

With the right settings, CRM will allow you to build and then upload the "picture" of the funnel, which is quite a lot. Even with a simple visual inspection, certain problems can be diagnosed. You will see bottlenecks, disproportionately long stages, perhaps even unnecessary stages, etc.

After the initial "inspection" we analyze the main indicators:

1. input - the number of leads;
2. output results - the number of payments;
3. overall conversion;
4. conversion between stages;
5. length - the number of days spent on ;
6. the length of each step is the number of days spent on intermediate steps.

How to build a funnel: calculate the conversion correctly

The most serious mistake in determining the conversion in the funnel is to consider the percentage of payments from the total number of leads that came in. In fact, the conversion is the ratio of the number of positive closed deals to the total number of all closed transactions.

The fact is that a transaction can be closed in 2 cases:

• the bill is paid;
• the client stated his firm “no”;

Therefore, it is not enough to build a graph; it is also important to interpret it correctly. To calculate the conversion, use the following formula:

Conversion = Positive closed deals / (positive closed deals + negative closed) * 100%

How to build a funnel: looking at a business from different angles

Building a common funnel is not enough. The company has too many business processes that could be reflected in it in detail. Therefore, proceed to the analysis of different specific sections.

• Primary deals
• Loyal customers
• Channels
• Products
• The target audience
• Employee
• Region

Let's analyze each section separately. It is very important to keep track of the overall sales funnel. How to build specific funnels, however, is even more important.

Primary deals

We build a funnel for new customers. So you can easily understand how the primary sales department works - your "closers". Track milestones and their length to understand problem areas and work with managers on them. This way you can significantly increase your revenue.

Regular customers

This funnel will show you how you work with your current base. Are customers making second, third, fourth purchases? In a good way, this funnel should be “inverted” and resemble a “skirt”, that is, expand towards the bottom.

Channels

Channel analysis by funnel will allow you to track the effectiveness of marketing communications with customers. Identify strong channels and weed out weak ones. Such analytics helps to optimize the budget.

Products

When you see the funnel for each product, you can immediately tell which products are doing well and which ones are not. Such an analysis will make it possible to form such an assortment base that will not “suffer” from poor turnover and illiquidity.

The target audience

Segment buyers by consumer behavior and study their characteristics. This will lead to a clearer understanding of who is target audience business.

Employee

This section is very important, as it is the main one for personnel management. The manager should rely on these data, find out which of the stages for each employee is the most problematic and pointwise way to change the situation.

Region

Follow the regional funnel. This will give a chance to fix losses in time, and not continue the senseless struggle in the territory with poor market conditions.

How to build a funnel: remember the basic principles of work

1. It is important not only to maximize the "throat" of the funnel, due to, but also to expand its "walls". This means that you need to work on each stage, improving the intermediate conversion.

In our article, you found the answer to the question - what is a sales funnel. We also figured out how to correctly calculate the conversion and in what sections to build a funnel. Let's look at common mistakes.

Often extra steps are added - either without much meaning, or duplicating each other. This is due to an attempt to equate the number of defined business processes and the number of funnel stages. But this is wrong: there are usually fewer funnel stages.

Congestion of customers at some stage. The manager is waiting, hoping for the promise of the client, but he does not make a clear decision. You need to focus on the average length of the stage: if somewhere it is longer, it is better to close the deal negatively and not waste time in vain.

Return of the client to the previous stage. Even if something changes for a client, this is not a reason to deploy him back down the funnel. Close this deal and open a new one so as not to confuse the indicators.

Don't get hung up on creating the ideal of your funnel from the start. Start working according to a simplified scheme and gradually refine.

We have given you an algorithm that will help you take control of your business. Follow these tips as you move through the stages described.

This article discusses the sales funnel marketing model, its stages, goals, indicators, methods for calculating conversion and improving efficiency at each stage.

What is a sales funnel?

Sales funnel (sales funnel, purchase funnel)- a marketing model that describes the movement of the buyer through the stages of the sales process: from the first contact to the conclusion of the transaction.

The term was proposed in 1898. E. S. Lewis originally as a “consumer funnel”, which demonstrates the path of buyers from thinking to buying: acquaintance, interest, desire, action.

What does a sales funnel look like?

The graphic representation of the funnel resembles an inverted pyramid, which can be represented as follows:

AT professional literature you can find a huge number of interpretations of the sales funnel and varieties of its stages / stages, but they are all similar in that the number of initial contacts at the entrance is much greater than the actual purchases at the exit.

If we explain this using the example above, then at the first stage there are people who have a need for our goods / services (Let's say there are 1000).

Of these, only a certain part knows about the existence of our store. (e.g. 700).

Naturally, not everyone who knows about us will make a purchase from us: one will not be satisfied with the location of the store, another - reviews, the third simply does not have enough financial resources. As a result, only a small part will get to us (let's say 300 people). With the arrival of visitors to the store, the sales funnel does not close: you need to direct them to action and turn them into buyers. At this stage, some may not be satisfied with the cost of the product / service, others may not find the desired product, others may not like the service, and only a certain part of the visitors will make a purchase from us (90 people).

We see that at each stage there is a screening out of customers who, for a number of reasons, are not satisfied with some factor, and only 9% of those who have a need for our goods / services make a purchase (in this particular example).

Therefore, the first circles of the funnel are usually much wider than the last circles, and this is usually what the sales funnel looks like.

Why do you need a sales funnel?

A funnel is an ideal tool for analyzing the effectiveness of the entire sales process: from the first stage to the last. It allows you to determine at what stages the loss of potential customers occurs most of all, identify its causes, draw conclusions about the quality of management and the need to intensify efforts at any stage of the sale. A clear understanding of the funnel helps not only to find out the reasons for the failure after the fact, but to predict potential losses and prevent them.

What stages does a sales funnel include and how to build your own?

It is important to note that there is no universal funnel template for everyone: each business is specific depending on the size, field of activity, communication channels, sales process, etc. In one case, this is an online store with different advertising channels leading to a site where the chain of interaction with the consumer is quite long (for example, viewing ads- click and go to website- catalog browsing- adding a product to the cart- registration- ordering- payment). In the other, it is a local beauty salon without any communication channels, where the chain is shorter: salon awareness- visit/use of services- payment.

How to build your own funnel? You only need 1 step: imagine the consumer journey, break down the business into stages (based on the communication channels used) and choose the most measurable ones. The path starts from the very first stages: awareness of the need, awareness, demand, etc. - and ends with a purchase or re-purchase.

What metrics need to be measured?

Sales funnel metrics can be divided into 2 categories: quantitative and qualitative.

Quantitative indicators. Of course, the first step is to analyze the quantitative data of the sales funnel, that is, calculate the conversion from one stage to another.

Conversion = Number of consumers who moved to the next stage of the funnel / Number of consumers of the previous stage of the funnel * 100%

This allows you to find out what percentage of potential customers moved from the previous stage to the next one (for example, they knew about the store and visited the store), identify problem points and work on them.

Qualitative indicators. Many people make the mistake of forgetting that in addition to quantitative data, there is also qualitative data and they are much more important. It is qualitative indicators that allow us to find out the reasons for the loss of customers. It is clear that the more people who need our products and the more people know about us, the more customers will visit the store and the more sales will be. But this is in theory, but in practice it often happens that you spend several months on advertising to attract visitors to the store, and sales assistants do not serve them efficiently, where most of them are eliminated.

It is necessary to develop criteria for analyzing the qualitative component (website convenience, order filling forms, quality of service, etc.) and constantly analyze each stage in order to improve the quality component of the entire funnel.

For example (see funnel), knowing that only 0.48% of those who know about your store makes a purchase, you can take 2 courses of action.

1. Infinitely increase the budget of advertising channels towards increasing awareness in order to attract 0.48% of those who know about your product.
2. Work on the quality indicators of each stage in order to attract more buyers with the same advertising budget.

Therefore, it is important to remember that quantitative indicators are the same for you and for competitors and have a “ceiling”, and working on quality is a unique opportunity to get ahead. The reward for this is choice best clients, the best employees and, as a result, an even greater gap from competitors.

“Focusing on numbers without a clear understanding of how they relate to the end result is like going to dinner at good restaurant and order a kilo of food.”

© Ilya Groshikov

How to measure indicators?

When carrying out activities offline counting conversions becomes difficult, but you can track the number of visitors by asking (for example, where they came from), or by providing coupons (booklets that give a discount if the visitor indicates where he came from), QR codes, etc.

When it comes to the Internet, then consider an example of a typical funnel to determine the calculation methods:

As a rule, the sales funnel for promoting a business on the Internet looks like this. Below we will analyze how each indicator is calculated.

• After forecasting the coverage and identifying the number of impressions ("Y.Direct", Google Adwords, other forecasting and calculation tools) correctly configured end-to-end analytics allows you to calculate the effectiveness: Yandex.Metrics, Google analytics, Carrotquest, etc. tools. They help determine how many visitors came to your site (and what age, gender, from which country/region), how many of them remained on it, and how many left right away, for what requests they found you, which stage is a failure and where visitors are most eliminated. Qualitative indicators of the same stage can be calculated using the "Webvisor", "Click Maps" and understand what exactly is the difficulty for visitors.

Website clicks/Effective impressions * 100% = “Effective impressions to clicks” conversion rate

• To determine the number of target transitions, you can set goals in the same tools: click on the “learn more” button, view 5 pages of the site, visit a specific page, etc.

Targeted clicks/ Clicks to website * 100% = Conversion rate “from clicks to targeted clicks”

• The above tools are quite sufficient for calculating applications. However, if we are talking about calls, then it is better to use “Call-tracking” tools to track them, which provide information on how many visitors called you, from what source - accurate to the keyword, what percentage of calls were targeted / non-targeted, etc. .d. This information helps to redistribute the advertising budget towards the most effective channels.

Calls, Leads/Targets * 100% = Conversion Rate “From Targeted Leads to Calls/Targets”

• “Call-tracking” is also useful for the next stage of the funnel: tracking the performance of the sales team (how calls are handled). Tools allow you to determine the response time, quality of service, reasons for abandoning a purchase, etc.

Deal/ Calls, requests * 100% = Conversion rate "from calls to purchase"

• If the customer funnel does not end there (and again there is a stage of visiting an offline store), then here you can use QR codes, promotional codes or coupons on the site to track the number of customers who came from the site (this was discussed above).

As noted, it is important to monitor the quality components of each stage.

It is important to remember that the sales funnel is one of the main predictive tools in business. After receiving all the necessary data, it helps to constantly increase the conversion rate of each stage and differentiate from competitors at each stage. The conscious use of the capabilities of this tool will allow you to bring your business to a new level in a short time.

Related article:

Marketing manager

What is a sales funnel and what is it for? What are the stages of a sales funnel? How to do a funnel analysis and increase conversions with the right questions?

Hello dear readers! With you are the authors of the HiterBober.ru business magazine Alexander Berezhnov and Vitaly Tsyganok.

A sales funnel is one of the main business tools for any entrepreneur. If you are in business or just planning, then this article is the first step to your success.

From the article you will learn:

• What is a sales funnel and what is it for?
• What are the stages of a sales funnel?
• How to analyze the funnel and increase the conversion in it?
• What is CRM and CPM and how to work with them?

Thanks to a well-built sales funnel, our business also works well.

We hope that after reading the article you will increase sales in your commercial project.

Any novice businessman engaged in the sale of goods or services should be well versed in the terminology and theory of marketing. One of the key concepts that all entrepreneurs need to learn in order to successful business This is the sales funnel.

1. What is a sales funnel - the concept, terms, where it is applied

In English, this term sounds like "purchase funnel", "sales funnel" or "sales pipeline": the concept can be called conceptual in marketing.

Sales funnel is the path that the average consumer of a product or service takes from attracting his attention to the offer to the moment of purchase.

In the English-language Wikipedia, a sales funnel is defined as a marketing model that, in theory, illustrates the journey through all stages of a purchase: from getting to know the offer (first touch) to closing the deal.

For entrepreneurs and businessmen, knowing what a sales funnel is will help you multiply your profits many times over. It does not matter whether it is built in Internet commerce or in the process of "offline" sale of goods in a store - the model works in both cases.

In the modern situation, when the supply of goods often exceeds demand, it is becoming more and more difficult to attract customers directly, which is called “on the forehead”, the use and competent analysis of the sales funnel will allow you to act on potential consumers in a more subtle and unobtrusive way, imperceptibly adjusting to their needs.

The concept of the "acquisition funnel", which describes the psychology of the client, was proposed by the American lawyer Elias Lewis in 1898.

Three decades later, this concept was successfully combined with another well-known concept of trading - AIDA:

• attention (attention);
• interest (interest);
• desire (desire);
• action.

Since then, the concept of a sales funnel in marketing has become one of the basic ones.

This means that the sale itself is preceded by 4 stages of customer readiness:

• first, his attention is captured (for example, by advertising tools);
• then, interest is aroused (by the content of the advertising message);
• then the potential buyer has a desire to take advantage of the offer;
• finally, our client acts (calls the company, enters the store or website).

This is already a “warmed up” potential buyer, it remains to take him “warm” and close the deal.

How to build a working sales funnel - that is, one into which the client "falls" and is guaranteed to reach the bottom - in other words, makes an acquisition?

This is the art of marketing. The number of possible consumers of services and products is influenced by many factors:

• ways to promote goods (advertising, reliability of information, visual demonstration);
• the ability to find the right audience;
• pricing and marketing policy (availability of discounts, promotions, additional benefits).

In a word, the consumer must understand why it is more profitable and better to purchase goods from you.

The AIDA model is described in one of his books by a world-famous business consultant, a leading sales expert.

This model reveals the main stages of sales and shows how they consistently complement each other.

Despite this, certain part managers perceives the sales funnel too narrowly - only as a reporting term, forgetting or not knowing that, first of all, the purchase funnel is a functional tool with great opportunities.

2. Conversion and CPM of sales funnels - how to calculate and increase them

The sales funnel is an ideal technique for analyzing productivity as individual workers, and the entire trade department or site.

One of the newest methods to increase conversions is called A/B testing.

This is a comparison of 2 (or more) resource options in order to find out which method leads to maximum income.

As you can see, any little things can affect the transformation of an offer into a specific purchase - up to the location of the “order goods” button on the page.

You can not talk about the importance of text and graphic content: the importance of these components is clear to everyone.

4. Analysis of the sales funnel on a real example

When consultants and sales promotion experts start their work with a certain company, the first thing that is affected in one way or another is the funnel.

Example:

You, and now you need to make sure that in a certain period, for example, a month, this trade point brought maximum profit.

What will you do? - The answer is simple! You need to know the current performance of your business and understand what exactly affects them.

Here are the metrics:

• the number of people who learned about the store (cold contacts);
• the number of people who entered the store from among those who recognized (interested people);
• the number of people who made a purchase from among those who entered the store (real buyers);
• the average amount that a customer leaves in your store at a time (average check amount).

Separately, it is necessary to analyze the product range and find out which categories of goods your customers prefer in most cases.

As a result, ALL YOUR ACTIVITIES IN BUSINESS come down to 2 points:

1. Increase in the number of purchases;
2. Increase in revenue per purchase.

It doesn’t matter what exactly you sell, it is important that as many people as possible buy from you and at the highest possible price from period to period.

Example:

If 1,000 people bought something from you in the first month of the store’s operation, and each customer left an average of 1,000 rubles in the store, then you need to increase these figures from month to month.

This means that if 1,100 people buy something from you next month and the average purchase price per person rises to 1,200 rubles, then your business is progressing.

Average check- this is the amount of revenue per purchase (per customer).

The formula for calculating the average check:

Average check= revenue for the period (for example, per day) / number of purchases for the same period.

So, if 3 people entered your store in five minutes and bought one for 50 rubles, another on 370 rubles, third on 1000 rubles, the average check for this period is (50+370+1000)/3 = 473 rubles 33 kopecks.

The sales funnel of a website or store allows you not only to study the results of trading, but also to actually manage them.

In business practice, this concept is widely used in foreign companies, but in the Russian Federation the tool is only becoming widespread.

This means that by being able to build an effective sales funnel, you will gain a huge advantage over your competitors, and your business will get a cosmic acceleration!

5. Lead and lead generation - we build a system for obtaining customers

The process of establishing a flow of interested buyers is lead generation.

Leads are people who visited a specific site (store), became interested in purchasing a product, left their application or at least contact information.

A lead is not quite a buyer yet, just a potentially interested person.

In Internet marketing, lead generation is one of the methods for generating profit for sites that are not engaged in direct sales.

Such resources collect user contacts (phones, mail data, social network pages) and deliver them to the customer.

Payment for each lead is negotiated in advance. It can be 10 rubles, and several thousand, depending on the industry and the average bill.

For example, leads in a sales business soft toys may cost 30 rubles ($0.5), and in the business of selling drilling rigs or tower cranes - 5000 rubles ($80).

Any business needs leads, since specific buyers bring specific profits. There is even a special position - lead manager: a person responsible for contact with leads.

6. Sales scripts - a powerful tool to increase your sales + real example

The use of sales scripts allows you to significantly increase the conversion of the funnel at all stages of interaction with the client.

Sales scripts is a pre-designed scenario of interaction with the client, starting from the moment of greeting and ending with the execution of the transaction.

Successful sellers develop their own effective schemes, but there are basic rules that can significantly increase the success of any contact with a potential buyer.

If we are talking about sales scripts, for example for a call center manager, then there are two main types of conversational scripts:

• incoming call script;
• outgoing call script.

Also, in the case of selling through text, for example, on one-page sites or in presentations, sales scripts are used only in text form.

If you are building a sales team, make sure you have good scripts for your negotiators in advance.

7. Conclusion

Now you know how marketing tools and a sales funnel work in practice. By improving the conversion at each stage, you will be able to raise net profit in your business.

Share with friends!

If you want to increase sales, then you need to build an effective. The success of your business depends on how competently you lead customers along the path from awareness of the need for a purchase to the purchase itself.

In this post, you will find information about what a sales funnel is, how it has changed over last years and how to build the best sales funnel for your business.

What is a sales funnel?

No matter what industry your business serves and how big your company is, you need to know your sales funnel. For example, if you work in the service industry, as soon as a person enters your office (beauty salon, dental receptionist, chiropractor's office), he immediately enters the sales funnel. The administrator or sales manager collects contact information and guides the client through the funnel to pay for services.

In the field ecommerce roughly the same thing happens. But the whole sales process is carried out on the site, not in the office. And the role of an administrator or sales manager is performed by various marketing channels: social media, Email, contextual advertising etc.

Buyer's journey

A typical sales funnel usually consists of three stages:

1. Awareness A potential client finds out about a problem (e.g. back pain, needs a mortgage, wants to renovate a house) and tries to learn more about the solution.

2. Consideration- on the this stage The potential client is considering options for solving their problem. He usually compares products, brands, prices, features, etc.

3. Conversion is the decision-making stage.

You can bring people into your funnel with educational or informational content that actually helps users solve a problem. Content types that resonate best with users in the awareness stage:

• Blog posts
• Video lessons
• infographics

Start your research keywords to find out what problems your potential customers are facing. Create detailed content around these keywords and do SEO to get your site to the top of the search results:

Your goals in the awareness stage (top of the funnel):

• Generate user interest
• Show that there is a solution to his problem
• Position your company as
• Use useful information to inspire confidence.

Inform your potential customers about how they can solve their problem or reach their goal. At this stage, you should definitely avoid presenting your products or services, since potential customers do not know you yet, and any attempt to sell them something can lead to you losing confidence. Instead, give them a little nudge towards the next stage of your funnel.

Collect contact information

Many sites ask users for addresses Email. In this regard, we are not too willing to share this information. To motivate people, you need to offer them something profitable (lead magnet), for example:

• Free Trial
• discount
• product sample
• Manual/Ebook

As a motivation, you need to use something free, but of value to your audience. And when you get the contact information of your potential client, it will be the beginning of the next stage of your sales funnel.

At this stage, potential customers better understand their problem and learn about possible solution. In addition, they are already aware of what your company does, which gives you the opportunity to build a relationship.

On the other hand, you also know a lot more about your leads at this stage. You understand exactly what they need or are interested in based on their interaction with your content.

For example, if a user reads your article on neck pain and downloads your exercise brochure, you can tell exactly what problem they have.

If you offer various goods or services, you can easily segment users according to their interests. This, in turn, means that each segment will target different content and different marketing offer. In this way, you can establish a close relationship with the user and increase the likelihood that he will make a purchase.

Content types that work best in the consideration stage:

• Reviews
• Product Demos & Tutorials
• Webinars
• Success stories
• Case Studies
• Reports.

As the name suggests, at this stage, your potential customers are considering different options for solving their problem. They can compare different brands, products, prices, categories, etc. Now is your chance to attract them with chain emails or drip marketing.

A drip campaign is a series of targeted emails sent at regular intervals with the goal of converting leads into leads. The simplest example is an email sequence designed to promote content and attract subscribers to some of your offers.

A slightly more complex example might look something like this:

The above sequence consists of the following emails sent over several days:

1. Free lead magnet
2. Product description/demo version
3. Case study, testimonials
4. Success Story Video
5. Discount
6. Sale.

Bottom of the Funnel - Conversion

It's time to go directly to the sale. Below are six key ways the beliefs set out in . With their help, you will increase your chances of conversion:

1. Mutual benefit. The idea is to be helpful to your potential customers. This can be achieved by sending useful articles, free books or video tutorials and other interesting content.

2. Commitment and consistency. This principle is based on the fact that it is psychologically very important for us to complete what we started. This is why, for example, when optimizing checkout, you first request shipping information and then proceed to the billing step. Once users complete the shipping form, they are more likely to make a purchase.

3. The principle of sympathy. Everything is pretty simple here, the more people who buy your product, the more others want to join. This is where content and . Present your brand as something alive, show that there are real people behind it, and don't forget to use humor.

4. Authority. When you demonstrate knowledge and experience, you position yourself as an authoritative source. And if you manage to get your posts to the top of search results, then you will establish yourself as an industry leader. Managing your online reputation also helps build trust and credibility.

• Ad retargeting is a form of advertising for users who have already entered your funnel but have not made a purchase. For a certain period of time, users will see advertisements calling to return to the site. These ads will "stalk" them while surfing the web.
• Remarketing campaign can be configured via email. This means that subscribers will receive emails reminding them that they added an item to their cart but didn't make a purchase, or that they viewed a certain category of items but didn't make a selection.

Both of these tactics are designed to re-engage and remind users to return to your site and re-enter the sales funnel.

You can bring back lost users and bring them back to where they dropped out of the funnel, or send them back to the very top.

Don't commit typical mistake, neglecting existing customers. Instead, focus on keeping them. By maintaining relationships with existing customers, you will be able to generate consistent profits and increase sales. In addition, it is much cheaper to retain existing customers than to attract new ones:

It is very difficult to motivate a person to make a purchase for the first time. But if your product or service impresses him, he will return to you again and again. Express your gratitude to them for the purchase, offer to contact you for help. Another way to retain current customers is loyalty programs and discount systems.

Customer retention also opens the door to new sales. You can offer other, more expensive products or services to add value to your customers and increase the profitability of your business.

And who knows, maybe some of these regular customers become true advocates for your brand. Admiration from buyers as a result can lead to the fact that more and more positive reviews will appear on the network, and new customers will come to you thanks to the effect.

Main conclusions

Having an effective sales funnel is exactly what distinguishes an industry leader from a new company that no one knows about yet.

With a well-designed online sales funnel, you can automate your marketing process for maximum conversions and ROI.

Use these online marketing techniques to take your potential customers from awareness to conversion (and even loyalty).

Track the performance of your marketing funnel with Google Analytics to identify problem areas and make necessary adjustments.