Every business has a different sales process and marketing strategy.
- Here's a quick overview of the difference between marketing funnel and sales funnel.
- What is a Marketing Funnel, and What Does It Do?
- How to create a successful Marketing Funnel?
- What is Sales Funnel? How It Works and Why You Need One
- Why Do We Need Sales Funnel?
- Awareness stage
- Interest stage
- Consideration stage
- Decision Stage
- Action Stage
- Conversion Stage
- Similarities Between Marketing Funnel and Sales Funnel
In this article, we will be discussing the difference between a marketing funnel and a sales funnel.
A sales funnel a marketing tool that can direct a customer through a series of steps to buying a product or service.
www.marketingfunnel.org website offers a helpful diagram illustrating the difference between the two.
A marketing funnel is typically used to generate leads and market to potential customers.
A sales funnel, on the other hand, is used to convert leads into customers.
Marketing funnels describe the process of getting leads to become customers. They’re also known as sales funnels, lead generation funnels, or conversion funnels.
Sales funnels are different from marketing funnels because they focus on converting prospects into actual buyers.
Here’s a quick overview of the difference between marketing funnel and sales funnel.
What is a Marketing Funnel, and What Does It Do?
Marketing funnels track the progress of leads throughout the sales process. They allow marketers to understand how well their marketing efforts are performing and identify areas for improvement.
This blog post will explain a funnel, how it works, and how to build one.
- Define a Lead
Leads are individuals who express interest in purchasing a product or service. They may visit your site, fill out a form, call you, or engage with another channel.
You can segment leads based on various criteria, including geography, demographics, interests, purchase intent, etc. - Identify Opportunities
Once you’ve defined your lead pool, you’re ready to identify opportunities. These are the actions you plan to take to convert leads into customers. For example, you might set up a landing page to capture email addresses or ask visitors to sign up for a newsletter. - Measure Success
After identifying opportunities, you measure the results. How did your conversion rate compare to last week? Did your CPA increase after adding a special offer? Are your phone calls increasing? - Adjust Strategy
Based on the answers to these questions, you adjust your Strategy. Perhaps you decide to focus more heavily on social media, or you choose to test different landing pages. - Repeat Steps 1–4
This cycle continues until you reach the end goal: converting all your leads into customers.
How to create a successful Marketing Funnel?
To understand how to build a successful marketing funnel, we first must define what a marketing funnel is.
Marketing funnels guide prospects through a series of stages before they become customers. They’re also known as sales funnels, lead generation funnels, and customer acquisition funnels.
Here’s a visual representation of a marketing funnel: This diagram shows a prospect moving through a series of stages until he becomes a customer.
Each Stage represents a different step along the path to becoming a customer.
For example, let’s say you sell a product online. When a visitor lands on your site, he may be interested in learning more about your company and its products.
He’ll likely click on a link to learn more about your brand, but he won’t buy anything immediately. Instead, he’ll move through several stages before purchasing your product.
Let’s look at some of these stages.
- Awareness Stage
At this point, the visitor knows nothing about your brand. He doesn’t know much about your company or your products. But he does know something about himself. For instance, he may be looking for information about health issues or weight loss. - Interest Stage
Now, the visitor is curious about your brand. He wants to learn more about your company and your products. At this point, he may visit your blog or social media pages. - Decision Stage
Finally, the visitor decides to purchase your product. Now, he must choose between buying your product or waiting to make his final decision later. - Purchase Stage
After making a purchase, the visitor moves into the next StageStage. Here, he receives his product and begins using it. - Loyalty Stage Once the visitor starts using your product, he’ll begin to feel loyal to your brand. He’ll share your content with others and recommend your product to others.
What is Sales Funnel? How It Works and Why You Need One
Sales funnel is a term used to describe a process that leads customers from awareness to purchase.
In simple words, sales funnel is a path that leads visitors to decide to buy something. Once visitors choose to buy, they move along the way until they reach the final Stage of buying.
Let’s look at some examples of sales funnels:
Example 1: Amazon
Amazon sells products online. When a customer visits its site, they see different categories of products.
For example, if we visit amazon.com, we will find several categories like Electronics, Clothing, Books etc.
Each category contains subcategories like Smartphones, Tablets, Cameras, Laptops etc.
Once customers click on a product, they get redirected to another page where they can read detailed information about the product.
There may also be videos, images, reviews and ratings of the product.
After reading all the details, the customer decides to buy the product.
They proceed to the checkout page, where they enter their personal information like shipping address, billing address, phone number, email id etc.
Finally, after entering all the required details, the customer pays for the product and completes the transaction.
Listed below are just a few examples of sales funnels. Online, thousands of websites sell products. All these sites follow similar sales funnels.
Example 2: Ecommerce Website
An ecommerce website is a web store that allows users to shop online.
These stores sell physical goods like clothing, electronics, books, toys etc.
They also sell digital content like music, movies, apps, software etc.
Ecommerce websites usually have multiple pages. On the home page, there is a search box so that users can enter keywords related to the type of products they want.
The search results show various products matching the keyword entered on the search button.
Clicking on a particular product takes the user to a product detail page where they find all the relevant information about the product, including price, features, specifications, availability etc.
After making a choice, the customer proceeds to the cart page, where they add items to the shopping cart.
Finally, when ready to complete the order, the customer goes to the checkout page, where he fills in his details.
At last, the customer receives an invoice and confirms the order. At this point, the customer has made a purchase.
It is just an example of how a sales funnel works. It is common for ecommerce websites to have similar sales funnels.
There are several popular ones, such as Flipkart, Snapdeal, eBay, and Alibaba.
Check out this free funnel builder if you’re interested
Why Do We Need Sales Funnel?
A sales funnel necessary to convert traffic into buyers. Without a sales funnel, even though you have great products and services, you won’t be able to reach out to your target audience.
Sales funnel is a term used when we talk about the customer journey. The customer journey starts from the first interaction with the brand till the final purchase.
We call this process a sales funnel.
In simple words, sales funnel a path customers follow before buying a product/service.
It consists of stages like awareness, interest, consideration, decision, action and finally, Conversion.
Let’s understand these stages in detail.
Awareness stage
This is the very beginning of the sales funnel. At this StageStage, the customer does not know anything about your company. He knows something is wrong with his body. So he goes to the doctor and gets diagnosed with diabetes. Now, he needs insulin injections. But he doesn’t know anything about insulin injection. So he searches for information about insulin injection on Google. And he found some websites related to diabetes. So now he has become aware of diabetes.
Now, he wants to buy an insulin injection but doesn’t know anything about brands. So he visits Amazon and buys generic insulin injections.
So here, he is aware of diabetes but unaware of insulin injections.
Interest stage
At this Stage, the customer is interested in buying a product/service. He reads reviews about insulin injections.
He sees ads on TV and decides to visit doctors. He also reads blogs about diabetes.
Different brands of insulin injections are explained to him.
Additional products are compared based on their features and prices.
Other medications are researched for their benefits and side effects.And he makes up his mind to buy an insulin injection.
How to build a sales funnel?
Consideration stage
The customer compares the pros and cons of different brands and chooses the best.
The buyer compares the features and prices of other brands with his own. The quality of medicines and their effectiveness are the subjects of his research.
He thinks about his budget and decides to buy branded insulin injection.
Decision Stage
The sales funnel decision stage occurs when a prospect decides whether they want to buy your product or service. It’s important to understand this point because once prospects decide they don’t want to purchase your product or service, they won’t be able to convert into customers.
This means that you need to focus all of your efforts on converting these prospects into customers. The best way to do this is to create an irresistible offer that will entice them to take action. Once they’ve taken action, you’ll then be able to follow up with them and close the sale.
Action Stage
Sales funnel action stage is when a customer clicks on an ad or sees a product listing and then decides whether they want to buy or not.
It’s important to understand this because it will determine which ads you should be running and where you should place them.
For example, if you’re trying to sell a $50 item, you’ll probably want to run an Adwords campaign that targets people who search for “buy cheap shoes” or “cheap clothes.” But if you’re selling a $100 item, you might want to target people searching for “best laptop,” “best camera,” or “best headphones.”
The best way to figure out what type of ads to use is to test different keywords and see which ones bring in more traffic. Then, once you know which keywords work well, you can create campaigns around those terms.
Conversion Stage
Sales funnel conversion stage refers to the point at which a visitor becomes a customer. It’s usually defined as the percentage of visitors who become customers after visiting your site.
The goal of this step is to convert website traffic into leads. The best way to do this is by providing high-quality content that will attract readers and encourage them to take action.
Once they’ve taken action (such as filling out an application form), you want to nurture these prospects until they’re ready to buy.
This means sending regular emails, making phone calls, and following up via social media.
Similarities Between Marketing Funnel and Sales Funnel
Marketing funnels describe getting customers to convert from prospects into buyers.
Sales funnels are similar but focus on converting leads into customers. Both funnels share common elements, including stages, activities, and metrics.
However, there are some critical differences between these two processes.
Here’s a comparison of the similarities and differences between marketing and sales funnels:
## Similarities Between Marketing Funnel and Sales Funnel
Both marketing and sales funnels consist of four main components:
- Lead generation – This component attracts visitors to your site and entices them to click through to your landing page.
- Landing Page – This is the first step in the conversion process. Landing pages typically contain forms that collect information from interested parties. Once collected, this information is passed along to the next StageStage of the funnel.
- Conversion – This is when a lead becomes a customer. Conversion occurs after the visitor completes a purchase or takes action on your form.
- Customer retention – Customer retention is the final phase of the funnel. Here, you continue to communicate with your customers so that they become brand advocates.
## Differences Between Marketing Funnel and Sale Funnel
While marketing and sales funnels follow the same basic structure, some key distinctions exist. - Sales funnel – The primary difference between a sales funnel and a marketing funnel is that the latter focuses on acquiring new customers. In contrast, the former focuses on retaining existing ones.
- Lead Generation – Lead generation differs slightly between the two processes. For instance, marketers rely heavily on search engine optimization (SEO), social media advertising, email marketing, and display ads. On the other hand, salespeople tend to rely on cold calling, referrals, and networking events.
- Landings Pages – Landing pages differ slightly too. Whereas marketers may use single-page websites, salespeople usually build entire web pages.
- Conversions – Conversions also vary. While marketers tend to offer multiple options to choose from, salespeople tend to provide only one option.
- Customer Retention – Finally, customer retention tends to occur later in the sales funnel compared to the marketing funnel.
In conclusion, the two funnels are very different and have different purposes. The marketing funnel is used to create a market for a product or service, while the sales funnel is used to sell products or services.
Understanding the differences between the two funnels is essential so you can use them to their fullest potential.
