A significant piece of knowledge that each small businesswoman should know.

A sales funnel is defined as the journey of prospective customers that starts with awareness of their problem points and ends with a resolution in the form of a purchase.

Most businesses have three levels in each sales funnel - top, middle and bottom. These levels can vary from industry to industry. Large businesses have separate sets of teams to target each level of the sales funnel. However, in small businesses a team has to manage more than one level of a customer's sales journey.

Stages of Sales Funnel

Marketers should have a good understanding of the different stages of the sales funnel. It is helpful in planning their marketing strategies. Let’s understand these sales funnel stages in detail.

Awareness

This is the first stage. At this stage, customers get awareness about your products through advertising, blogs, social influencers etc. Mere awareness can not generate sales. Therefore, marketers have to motivate them to the next stage with a focused marketing strategy.

Let us understand this stage with a famous story of two salesmen. What do you think would the second salesman do to sell shoes on the west coast of Africa? He would not open his shop, instead, he would have realized people need to wear shoes. He might have discussed the benefits of the shoes.

Similarly, many times customers do not have knowledge of their own problem points. Therefore, marketers make customers aware of products, their benefits and the problem points of customers themselves.

Interest

This is the second stage. Once customers get knowledge about their problem points and the benefits they can draw from products, they start taking interest in the product. So they start searching for the authenticity of the seller and their claims, they search for reviews and compare the price with other alternatives.

Decision

At this stage, customers make up their minds for buying. They search for information about outlets, websites and procedures to order your product.

Action

This is one of the complex stages after awareness. Many customers drop buying ideas at this stage. Studies indicate an average cart abandonment rate around 69.57%. Therefore, businesses require a good promotional strategy for lead conversion.

Why is an understanding of sales funnels important?

Each stage in the sales funnel has its unique challenges. Business leaders who have a good understanding of sales funnels can draft better branding and promotional strategies. Such businesses experience better conversion rates than their competitors.

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Author
Rajni Gobhil
Founder: MeriPehchan.Me
Creating Bio Websites & Helping Women solopreneurs/ homepreneurs in Branding & Communications.
Connect at: [email protected]