What is a Sales Funnel?

As a digital marketing agency, we’re often asked to explain just what is a sales funnel. Many people have heard the term but aren’t sure what it means. So, let’s clear the air …

A sales funnel is a digital marketing tool that moves people along the process of becoming your customer, client, or patient.

It takes them through the steps of:

• the awareness stage — where they know they have a problem and become aware that you might have the solution
• the consideration stage — where they are considering whether or not your product or service is the right solution for them and/or whether they want your product or service
• the buying stage — where they are ready to call you, write you a check, or give you their credit card number to get your product or service.

But instead of being one single thing, a digital marketing sales funnel is made up of several components — multiple pieces of content — working together to help people decide if your product or service will solve their problem … or not.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but a good sales funnel will actually eliminate the people that aren’t your ideal clients, customers, or patients. It will let them opt-out and move on. It saves you wasting your time with someone who isn’t really interested or ready to buy from you.

How a Sales Funnel Works

People come into the top of your sales funnel through a variety of sources. It could be from a Facebook or Google ad. It could be from people who watch a YouTube video or listen to a podcast. It could be from an online search on a search engine.

Whatever the source, this person has a problem or a need, and you may have the solution. You may have a product or service they want.

Your sales funnel helps them decide.

The top of your funnel is the awareness content that tells people you have a product or service that may be what they’re looking for. This can be your website, your blog, videos, social media content, etc.

The middle of the funnel consists of consideration content that helps people decide whether or not what you’re offering is what they want or need. This can be additional web pages, videos, a downloadable PDF, an email sequence, perhaps a free trial … anything that gives them more information about how you can help them and moves them closer to buying.

Your prospect can exit the sales funnel at any time by either opting out and leaving or by taking action and buying your product or service. You don’t really know at what point your prospect will be ready to buy, so each piece of content in your funnel has to keep giving them more useful information as well as make it easy to buy if they’re ready to do so.

It may sound complicated, and it can feel overwhelming to coordinate all the moving pieces of a good sales funnel.

But you don’t have to do it on your own.

We’re here to help.

That’s what we do.

We help our clients set up sales funnels that become cash machines. A good sales funnel becomes a machine that filters out the people that your product or service isn’t right for, focuses on who is a good fit as a customer, client, or patient, and then produces cash when they buy.

It’s a beautiful thing.

Contact us to learn more.