Sales funnels – two words that you might have heard before but doesn’t actually understand what it is. However the truth is, if you’ve ever bought or sold anything, you have been a part of a sales  funnel. If you have a business that offers services or products, you work with at least one sales funnel whether you know it or not. 

First, let’s talk about the role of sales funnels in businesses. 

The Role of Sales Funnels in Businesses

The internet has improved in this modern world that we are living in. As a result it has transformed the way businesses market their brands. Sales funnels are playing a big role in this shift. If you want to drive more sales and grow your business, you need to know what this is all about. 

Basically, a sales funnel is a visual description of your sales process. It presents the customer journey as a series of stages from awareness to the moment of purchase.

It helps you plan and keep track of your sales and marketing processes and provides the canvas for describing and optimizing your sales process so you can maximize your sales and revenue. Through it, you can determine and reflect on the actions your customers take at every stage of the buying cycle. 

As a result, you can design a great customer experience along their customer journey. You can drive more sales by planning your marketing communication along the stages. 

Now, let’s go to some cool things you need to know about sales funnels.

10 Cool Things About A Sales Funnel Every Beginner Should Know

You can find so many stories on the internet about entrepreneurs who switched to sales funnels and grew their businesses multiple times because of it. If you’re interested, start by reading these:

1. It was in the year 1898 when the concept of sales funnels first started. The idea of it dates back to 1898 when E. St. Elmo Lewis developed a purchase funnel or purchasing funnel. Marketing model that illustrates the theoretical customer journey from the moment of attracting customers towards the purchase of a product or service.
   
   
2. Simply imagine a real-world funnel to visualize what a sales funnel is. You pour something at the top of that funnel, which filters down towards one finite destination. In sales, something similar occurs. At the top, lots of visitors arrive who may enter your funnel. However, unlike the real-world funnel, not all who enter the sales funnel will re-emerge out from the other end. 
   
   
3. It allows you to gather hundreds of qualified leads and weed out those who are not your ideal client. The top of the funnel signifies the goal of every business — to generate as many leads as possible. The narrow bottom reflects the leads converted to customers by the end of the sales process.
   
   
4. It is universal and timeless. Sales funnel is sometimes called a purchase funnel, marketing funnel, conversion funnel sometimes. The model stays the same which means that it’s universal or it can be applied to virtually any business in any industry and timeless meaning times change but the idea stays relevant.
   
   
5. You can think of it as an automated sales script. Sales scripts are one of the main tools of a sales representative. It includes the description, capabilities, and the price of the product or service, and acts as the sales agent’s reference when engaging a customer. However, it will take you a number of hours trying to close each sale manually — emailing, calling, etc. But with a sales funnel you can spend a few hours setting it up and reach potentially hundreds of targeted people ready to buy from you. 
   
   
6. The main components of a funnel are always the same. Regardless of what it’s used for, the main parts of a sales funnel are always the Opt-in or Sales Page, Confirmation Page, Autoresponder Sequence, Delivery Page. 
   
   
7. It describes 4 cognitive stages a customer goes through during the buying process namely: Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. This is the AIDA model. 
   
   
8. A well-designed sales funnel focuses on building relationships. Building a strong relationship is the key to success. Having a relationship-building mindset will allow you to provide more value for your customers and accordingly drive more growth to your business over the long term. 
   
   
9. It enables businesses to acquire profitable customers at scale. One of the biggest problems that companies have is customer loyalty. It can cost up to 5 times more to acquire a new customer than retaining an existing one. With the help of a sales funnel, you can create a system to acquire profitable customers at scale.  Having processes in place to systematically generate new leads helps you in getting repeat business by selling more products or services to existing customers. 
   
   
10. The key to creating any successful sales funnel is testing. Testing will allow you to do things like create more opportunities, generate more leads and encourage existing customers. As a result, it allows you to buy more in ways that are smarter, more efficient, and more effective. You have to learn what works best for your audience. What do they resonate with the most? 
    

CONCLUSION

We hope this article gave you some introductory insight on sales funnels – what they are and how they work. Sales funnels are a really great help in converting prospects into customers and at the same time, weed out all those who are not your ideal clients. A well thought out sales funnel can literally take you from a complete unknown to a global powerhouse quickly. So if you have a great product or service but no one seems to be buying, try designing and building a sales funnel that can help your business reach its full potential. 

Sales funnels are effective. However, it doesn’t mean they’re easy to build without any experience. We suggest visiting Funnel Rolodex for all the funnel-related assistance you might need to outsource. If you want to know more, you can refer to our article here: The Relevance of Funnel Rolodex in Today’s Online Business Industry