The Sales And Marketing Funnel Go Hand In Hand – Find Out Why?

The fast-evolving sales landscape poses new challenges for sales and marketing leaders who must adapt suitable sales funnel, as known traditionally, or find an effective alternative. The task for marketers becomes even more challenging because of the changes in the buyer’s journey, which no more follows a straight path from awareness to consideration for purchase. Buyers are now taking detours that render the traditional Sales Marketing Funnel less effective. Therefore, it is necessary to have a closer look at the sales funnel to explore the type of model that is right for a specific business.

What is a Sales Funnel?

A Sales Funnel is like a roadmap of the path taken by the prospects as they travel through various stages before turning into customers. The course of the customer journey includes multiple discrete steps from the first touch to the time of deal closure. When represented graphically, the top of the sales funnel is the broadest part and is located at the top, accommodating many potential buyers. The pool of potential buyers gradually shrinks during the customer journey and culminates into a few numbers of prospects. It means that the opportunities for conversion and deal closure are much fewer than the number of options that started the journey. The sales process ends with a deal closure indicating victory or loss.

As individuals move through the different stages in the buying journey, the chances of deal closure keep changing. As the prospects move along the sales funnel, they gather more information that helps them decide the product’s usefulness as envisaged by them. The potential of a successful deal closure is the highest when the prospects are nearest to the end of the funnel.

Problem-solving Abilities of the Sales Funnel

The Sales Leadership can solve various problems with the help of the Sales Funnel.

• The funnel represents a clearly defined process that helps to devise ways of closing more deals and, at the same time, quantifying the value of future sales.
• The data derived from the funnel helps the sales team to gather a fair idea about the number of deals and their sizes that should help to exceed the sales quota.
• The sales funnel helps define a methodology to teach sales personnel the techniques of moving customers through a sales process logically and driving it toward a closing sequence for maximizing the salespeople’s cost per lead and productivity.

Difference Between a Sales Funnel and a Marketing Funnel

The marketing funnel is helpful to mark the beginning of every potential sale, which means it is like a prelude to a song. The marketing funnel is the more abstract part of the customer journey as they gradually become aware of the product and find reasons to engage actively. When interested visitors view your website, they step into the marketing funnel and might start taking some actions, like subscribing to the newsletter as they progress.

However, the sales funnel is all about active engagement, and the journey starts when the prospective customer clearly intends to move closer to purchasing the product says CTN News.