Any business owner knows the pain of just missing a sale. After weeks of pitches and advertisement,  the prospect drops out of the sales funnel without buying. 

It happens. But it happens less  when you have the right sales funnel management help.

A sales funnel is the marketing term for the journey potential customers go through on the way to purchase. 

There are several steps to a sales funnel, usually known as the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel, although these steps may vary depending on a company’s sales model.

Understanding The Sales Funnel 

A sales funnel helps you understand what potential customers are thinking and doing at each stage of the purchasing journey. 

Remember there are three steps of sales which are the top, middle and bottom of the funnel. 

There are several practices a business owner can follow to build a sales funnel but we will be taking a look at few of them, and they include:

Analyze Audience Behavior

This involves defining a target audience,  the people who will be drawn into the top of the funnel. 

For a web-based business this might mean analyzing metrics on how prospects use the site, including what they find most popular and the bounce rate that shows the amount of time they are on the business’s webpages.

Capture Audience Attention 

There needs to be something that initially draws an audience into the funnel. This may include rich media like infographics and videos or advertisements.

Direct the audience somewhere. Once their attention is captured, the prospects need a place to go

Top Of The Funnel: Awareness Stage

The first of the sales funnel stages is called the awareness level, because this is where people first become aware of your product or service. 

They may hear about you from your advertising, social media, even word of mouth. This stage includes the largest number of customer prospects. 

They have determined a problem, begun searching for a solution and become aware of an organization via Content marketing, an email campaign, social media marketing or other avenue.

The objective at the end of the awareness phase is for your brand to stay top of mind for customers, so that when the time comes for them to make a purchase, they think of you.

There are strategies and tactics a business owner can use to drive awareness. They include:

• Having a professional website
• Always make sure you have a good marketing plan
• Establish your expertise
• Deliver the solutions your clients want, not what you think they want
• Be consistent
• Attend business networking activities

Common examples of awareness stage would be a prospect learning about your company for the first time. 

Perhaps they clicked on one of your ads, read your blog, found your website via a Google search, or heard a colleague talking about your product or service.

Middle Of The Funnel: Consideration Stage

The middle of the marketing funnel can be defined as  the stage in which leads those who are aware of your brand start moving closer to buying your products or services. 

The main goal of consideration marketing is increasing the likelihood that consumers will consider a certain brand and its products when shopping.

Prospects in this stage are looking for more detailed and in-depth information about your brand, so educational content is critical in this part of the buyer’s journey.

People think that the middle of the funnel doesn’t always seem like a valuable place to spend time to those new to the marketing funnel concept. 

After all, doesn’t generating new leads and closing deals matter more than educating prospects and qualifying leads? No, the middle of the funnel is as important as other stages. 

Strategies And Tactics To Nurture Leads In The Consideration Stage

• Invest in email marketing.
• Create detailed how-to guide.
• Make communication easy and simple.
• Examine your Call to Action structure.
• Implement lead scoring.
• Improve internal handoff procedure.

A beautiful case study of a successful consideration stage is Amazon Ads offering solutions for this stage like Sponsored Brands and video and display ads through the Amazon DSP. 

These ad products help create touch points when customers may be actively browsing and researching products to buy

Bottom Of The Funnel: Decision Stage

The decision stage is where the qualified lead decides whether to purchase your product. It is also sometimes called the purchase or conversion stage because it’s where leads can be converted into customers. 

The prospects in this stage already know what problem they’re facing and what the possible solutions are. For your decision stage content, add your product or brand name to high-intent keywords.

According to WordStream, some examples of high-intent keywords include:

• Buy
• Reviews
• Where to buy
• [your product] vs. [competitor’s product]
• Free trial
• Demo
• Coupon codes
• Discounts 

The goal of the decision  stage is to encourage shoppers to purchase a product or service because they believe the brand they’ve chosen is the right solution to their problem or meets their need

Basic Techniques To Help Prospects Make A Purchasing Decision

• Help them see the costs of inaction and the advantages of changing the status quo while eliminating obstacles or friction.
• Keep building loyalty and trust through every interaction.
• Focus on giving your potential customers a clear call to action.
• Provide details about frequently asked questions through sources like web pages, webinars, emails, calls, and social media. 

A great example here includes the use of social proof. 

Evaluating and Optimizing Your Sales Funnel 

Let’s talk about the role of marketing sales funnel metrics in business growth. Conversion funnel metrics must be tracked to pinpoint trends and opportunities in the market. If you can’t measure the performance of your sales funnel, you can’t optimize it. 

Funnel metrics locate the point in the funnel where you lose qualified leads. You can use sales funnel metrics as a guide to improve the weaker points in your funnel and to find and reinforce your strengths. 

Touchpoint-level data from funnel metrics can help with forecasting as well. 

Methods For Optimizing Each Stage Of The Sales Funnel

The following are methods for Optimizing the stages of sales funnels

Awareness Stage

• Define your target audience.
• Create content that solves problems.
• Optimize your landing pages.

Consideration Stage 

• Optimize your Call-To-Actions.
• Capture leads.
• Use email marketing to nurture leads.
• Incorporate trust signals and social proof.

Conversion/Decision Stage

• Reduce friction at the conversion stages.
• Create measurable goals and track key metrics.
• Stay active on social media

Tools And Technologies To Assist With Sales Funnel Management

The following are tools and technologies used to assist the sales funnel management 

• Cacoo
• Involve.me
• Kajabi
• Systeme
• Zendesk Sell
• Pipedrive
• Zeap
• ClickFunnel
• Bitrix 24
• Freshworks 

Common Challenges In Sales Funnel Management 

We will talk about the challenges in sales funnel management before we move to the solutions. 

Inadequate Market Targeting

Not targeting the right market can lead to a trickle of leads, missing potential customers, or targeting the wrong markets altogether. Focusing too much on aspects of the market that are irrelevant or unimportant to your business can drive away your audience quickly

Poorly Defined Marketing Messaging

Developing clear messaging that highlights your product’s features and benefits is crucial when designing a sales funnel. 

The messaging should also address the prospect’s pain points and offer them a clear value proposition, thereby, poorly defined marketing messaging is a very big challenge in sales management. 

Failure To Measure Performance

A very big challenge in developing a sales funnel is failing to evaluate its performance regularly. 

Without data, you cannot tell whether your sales funnel is underperforming, and therefore you will not be able to take action about it.

No Follow Up Process

Some potential customers may visit your website and disappear, considering your product or service and moving on. 

But don’t give up on them just yet. Before they leave, consider offering them a call to action (CTA) to help them re-engage with your business

Solutions For Improving Conversion Rates And Reducing Drop-Offs

Here are the solutions that can help you, they include:

You Must Define Your Target Audience Clearly

Outline a few key characteristics of your target audience: location, age range, job titles, financial status, and so on. Once you have this information, adjust your marketing messaging to reflect your target audience’s interests, values, and language.

Avoid Boilerplate Messaging

Avoid the dreaded copy-pasting of generic templates that generalizes everything. If you don’t do so, it can lead to decreased customer engagement and, ultimately, less revenue.

Make sure you test various messaging techniques and tactics and review them regularly to see what is working best. 

Investing Time In Analyzing Your Data-Gathering Activities

This could make a significant difference in setting you up for success. Using analytics tools, you can set up metrics like conversion rate, click-through rate, and bounce rate, among others, to track and monitor the progress of your sales funnel. 

Conclusion 

The marketing funnel is a critical piece of the marketing process.  It outlines the most straightforward journey customers might take in their path to purchase. 

Ultimately, the marketing funnel is a helpful framework for connecting and engaging with customers along their journey.