Everything you need to know about the sales funnel. The Ultimate Guide to Building a Sales Funnel Retail Sales Funnel

If you want to increase sales, then you need to build an effective. The success of your business depends on how competently you lead customers along the path from awareness of the need for a purchase to the purchase itself.

In this post, you will find information about what a sales funnel is, how it has changed in recent years, and how to build the optimal sales funnel for your business.

What is a sales funnel?

No matter what industry your business serves and how big your company is, you need to know your sales funnel. For example, if you work in the service industry, as soon as a person enters your office (beauty salon, dental receptionist, chiropractor's office), he immediately enters the sales funnel. Administrator or sales manager collects contact information and leads the client through the funnel to pay for services.

The same thing is happening in the e-commerce industry. But the whole sales process is carried out on the site, not in the office. And the role of an administrator or sales manager is performed by various marketing channels: social networks, Email, contextual advertising etc.

Buyer's journey

A typical sales funnel usually consists of three stages:

1. Awareness A potential client finds out about a problem (e.g. back pain, needs a mortgage, wants to renovate a house) and tries to learn more about the solution.

2. Consideration- At this stage, the potential client is considering options for solving his problem. He usually compares products, brands, prices, features, etc.

3. Conversion is the decision-making stage.

You can bring people into your funnel with educational or informational content that actually helps users solve a problem. Content types that resonate best with users in the awareness stage:

• Blog posts
• Video lessons
• infographics

Run keyword research to find out what problems your potential customers are facing. Create detailed content around these keywords and do SEO to get your site to the top of the search results:

Your goals in the awareness stage (top of the funnel):

• Generate user interest
• Show that there is a solution to his problem
• Position your company as
• Use useful information to inspire confidence.

Inform your potential customers about how they can solve their problem or reach their goal. At this stage, you should definitely avoid presenting your products or services, since potential customers do not know you yet, and any attempt to sell them something can lead to the fact that you lose confidence. Instead, give them a little nudge towards the next stage of your funnel.

Collect contact information

Many sites ask users for addresses Email. In this regard, we are not too willing to share this information. To motivate people, you need to offer them something profitable (lead magnet), for example:

• Free Trial
• discount
• product sample
• Manual/Ebook

As a motivation, you need to use something free, but of value to your audience. And when you get the contact information of your potential client, it will be the beginning of the next stage of your sales funnel.

At this stage, potential customers better understand their problem and learn about possible solution. In addition, they are already aware of what your company does, which gives you the opportunity to build a relationship.

On the other hand, you also know a lot more about your leads at this stage. You understand exactly what they need or are interested in based on their interaction with your content.

For example, if a user reads your article on neck pain and downloads your exercise brochure, you can tell exactly what problem they have.

If you offer different products or services, you can easily segment users according to their interests. This, in turn, means that each segment will target different content and different marketing propositions. In this way, you can establish a close relationship with the user and increase the likelihood that he will make a purchase.

Content types that work best in the consideration stage:

• Reviews
• Product Demos & Tutorials
• Webinars
• Success stories
• Case Studies
• Reports.

As the name suggests, at this stage, your potential customers are considering different options for solving their problem. They can compare different brands, products, prices, categories, etc. Now is your chance to attract them with chain emails or drip marketing.

A drip campaign is a series of targeted emails sent at regular intervals with the goal of converting leads into leads. The simplest example is an email sequence designed to promote content and attract subscribers to some of your offers.

A little more complex example might look something like this:

The above sequence consists of the following emails sent over several days:

1. Free lead magnet
2. Product description/demo version
3. Case study, testimonials
4. Success Story Video
5. Discount
6. Sale.

Bottom of the Funnel - Conversion

It's time to go directly to the sale. Below are the six key methods of persuasion outlined in . With their help, you will increase your chances of conversion:

1. Mutual benefit. The idea is to be helpful to your potential customers. This can be achieved by sending useful articles, free books or video tutorials and other interesting content.

2. Commitment and consistency. This principle is based on the fact that it is psychologically very important for us to complete what we started. This is why, for example, when optimizing checkout, you first request shipping information and then proceed to the billing step. Once users complete the shipping form, they are more likely to make a purchase.

3. The principle of sympathy. Everything is pretty simple here, the more people who buy your product, the more others want to join. This is where content and . Present your brand as something alive, show that there are real people behind it, and don't forget to use humor.

4. Authority. When you demonstrate knowledge and experience, you position yourself as an authoritative source. And if you manage to get your posts to the top of search results, then you will establish yourself as an industry leader. Managing your online reputation also helps build trust and credibility.

• Ad retargeting is a form of advertising for users who have already entered your funnel but have not made a purchase. For a certain period of time, users will see advertisements calling to return to the site. These ads will "stalk" them while surfing the web.
• Remarketing campaign can be configured via email. This means that subscribers will receive emails reminding them that they added an item to their cart but didn't make a purchase, or that they viewed a certain category of items but didn't make a selection.

Both of these tactics are designed to re-engage and remind users to return to your site and re-enter the sales funnel.

You can bring back lost users and bring them back to where they dropped out of the funnel, or send them back to the very top.

Don't commit typical mistake, neglecting existing customers. Instead, focus on keeping them. By maintaining relationships with existing customers, you will be able to generate consistent profits and increase sales. In addition, it is much cheaper to retain existing customers than to attract new ones:

It is very difficult to motivate a person to make a purchase for the first time. But if your product or service impresses him, he will return to you again and again. Express your gratitude to them for the purchase, offer to contact you for help. Another way to retain current customers is loyalty programs and discount systems.

Customer retention also opens the door to new sales. You can offer other, more expensive products or services to add value to your customers and increase the profitability of your business.

And who knows, maybe some of these regular customers become true advocates for your brand. Admiration from buyers as a result can lead to the fact that more and more new products will appear on the network. positive reviews, and new customers will come to you, thanks to the effect.

Main conclusions

Having an effective sales funnel is exactly what distinguishes an industry leader from a new company that no one knows about yet.

With a well-designed online sales funnel, you can automate your marketing process for maximum conversions and ROI.

Use these online marketing techniques to take your prospects from awareness to conversion (and even loyalty).

Track the performance of your marketing funnel with Google Analytics to identify problem areas and make necessary adjustments.

The sales funnel is one of key concepts marketing and an important business tool. Everyone who sells goods or services should be familiar with it. This concept appeared in 1898 and illustrates the path that the client goes through at all stages of the purchase - from familiarization with the offer to the completion of the transaction. Moreover, this model is applicable to both online and offline sales, to the B2B and B2C segments.

The sales funnel is the path that a customer takes from the moment they attract attention to the offer to the moment they make a purchase.

By formalizing the customer journey, the sales funnel helps to eliminate problem stages, bottlenecks and is an attribute of any marketing strategy. The sales funnel depends on the specifics of the business - on the product or service, sales channels, distribution scale, etc.

Types of sales funnels

At each stage, a certain number of customers are weeded out, hence the term "funnel". For example, out of several dozen leads, only a few customers end up signing a contract. The task is to minimize the loss of customers at each stage and optimize the stages themselves.

A common type of funnel is "acquiring a customer to closing a deal". The sales-only funnel focuses on the sales cycle when a customer is interested in a particular product or service. The “sales and sales” funnel contains the stages of selling a product to a buyer, completed by installation, connection and configuration. Cross-selling funnels are usually included in the main funnel.

Sales funnels are also divided into cumulative and current. The first shows the number of customers who have passed a certain stage. In this case, customers go through the stages sequentially. The current funnel only shows the customers in the current sales stage, minus the customers who have moved on to the next stage.

Example

The sales funnel in trade can include such stages as information through cold calls, product / service selection, commercial offer, contract and invoicing, payment and delivery of goods. Ideally, this is followed by a repeat purchase or even purchases on a regular basis. This is an example of a B2B sales funnel.

The sales funnel in retail has a different look. For example, for an online store, the stages may be: online advertising, visit by the consumer, product selection, adding to the cart, checkout, delivery, receipt and payment.

Or another example for a retail store: a customer learns about an offer from an advertisement, goes to the store, sees the product, decides to buy it, pays for it, receives it and starts using it, makes a purchase again, becomes a regular customer.

Why you need a sales funnel, and where it is applied

Funnel analysis helps you figure out what is slowing down the process, quickly make changes and optimize sales. Understanding the essence of the process, knowing what stage the client is currently at, you can make working with him more efficient and, as a result, increase sales and revenue. To do this, you need to take into account the needs and desires of the client along the entire path, be able to offer timely solutions to emerging issues and problems, adapt to the client and understand him. In other words, master the art of selling.

Sales funnel analysis helps to see at what stage the maximum loss of customers occurs. By eliminating weak points, you can expand the funnel so that more potential customers become buyers. It also provides an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of sales channels.

Understanding the essence of the sales funnel is the key to business success. It does not matter where exactly it is used, where sales are made. The main thing is to build a sales funnel in which as many potential buyers as possible become real buyers. It doesn't matter what is sold and to whom. The goal is to increase the number of real buyers and turnover.

Concepts and terms

Summarizing what has been said, we can define a sales funnel as a set of stages that a potential client or buyer goes through - from obtaining information about a product or service to purchasing. Another important concept is conversion. This is the performance of each stage of the sales funnel in relative terms (percentage). Another relative performance indicator, but already placements advertisements, banners, etc. - CPM (Cost Per Thousand). It is measured in rubles per thousand impressions. One of the most well-known conversion boosting tools is A/B testing, comparing shop scenarios to choose the most cost-effective one.

Expanding the target audience by attracting new potential customers is called lead generation, leads are interested customers who have not yet reached the completion of the transaction. A sales script helps to bring them to a deal - a detailed script for communicating with potential client. Example - scripts for incoming or outgoing calls. The texts of the scripts are guided by all account managers.

Stores also use the " average check" - revenue per customer. This is revenue for a certain period / number of transactions for this period.

Practice

The use of such a tool as a sales funnel allows you to unobtrusively attract customers and adapt to their needs. Sales funnel performance is affected by price policy(including sales, bonuses and promotions), the choice of the target audience and methods of product / service promotion, customer loyalty and other factors.

In practice, indicators such as the number of cold contacts, the number of interested people, the number of real buyers may be required. Analysis of the product range allows you to identify "bestsellers". The task is to increase the number of transactions (turnover) and the average check. For example, if during the next reporting period the number of transactions increased, the average check increased, then work is going in the right direction.

Stages of building a sales funnel

Although sales funnels in different businesses differ, they are built according to the same rules. A funnel is compiled for each customer acquisition channel. When building a sales funnel, its stages must correspond to one or more business processes, have clear boundaries, specific actions should be associated with the stages, take into account the non-linearity of the path of customers and possible returns to previous stages.

There are usually seven stages:

· Stage 1. Compilation of the offer. It is important to emphasize its uniqueness in comparison with competitors, benefits and advantages for the client that satisfy his needs.

Stage 2. Collecting cold contacts (potential customers). The more of them, the more deals "at the exit".

· Stage 3. Interest of clients. The ability to generate interest in the offer depends on the conversion of the entire sales funnel.

Stage 4. Work with objections. It is necessary to convince the client of the fidelity of the choice made.

· Stage 5. Selling the product. Completes the deal by selling the item.

· Stage 6. Summing up. Calculation of the sales funnel conversion rate.

· Stage 7. Finding ways to increase conversion.

Define your milestones

The funnel is built "from simple to complex": the working version is gradually improved and improved, unnecessary stages are cut off, the sales funnel is set up, but customers must go through all the stages of the sales funnel in the correct sequence.

Each company has its own stages of the sales funnel and their number is different, in particular, it depends on the segment of the enterprise (B2B, B2C, B2G). Therefore, in a particular case, the structure of the sales funnel may differ from the "standard", contain more stages, and the stages themselves may be different. To build a sales funnel, the most important points of contact with customers are highlighted. Usually these are decision points. Or, according to marketing indicators, all possible stages are formed.

Measure performance

At all stages of the funnel, it needs to be constantly filled. If there is not enough time for this, you can simplify the funnel as much as possible, reduce it to 3-4 stages, for example, the columns can contain the data "entered", "interested", "bought", "acquired".

It is important to constantly measure the effectiveness of the sales funnel and identify weaknesses. This helps to significantly increase the conversion between stages, to understand what needs to be improved.

What to analyze

Except general analysis Sales funnels are recommended to analyze data by segments. For example, you can analyze the sales funnel for each part client base. So, new customers often match their sales funnel stages. Sections are possible by target audience (who buys more often), by channels (where there is more revenue), by goods / services (what is in demand), by employees or by regions.

Improve performance

Analysis of indicators helps to identify bottlenecks in the sales funnel, improve lead generation, improve staff qualifications, and improve products / services.

Do not neglect this valuable tool. If you do not analyze the indicators, do not know how much the profit has increased or the conversion has increased between stages when certain indicators change, then the goals facing the business will not be achieved, or it will require much more money, time and effort. Count and improve the indicators, and the business will grow.

The sales funnel can be presented in the form of a table in MS Excel, making the numbers understandable - they will take the form of visual reports.

Example 1

Let's say 400 thousand ad impressions per month brings 250 thousand rubles. from clients. Increase advertising budget 50% led to a 25% increase in revenue. What will work with a sales funnel give in this case? By improving each stage of each stage of the funnel by a few percent, you can almost double your sales.

Example 2

Or, for example, a manager makes several dozen cold calls a day, a third of which are successful. The right strategy is to increase conversions, not call volume. Doubling it can double sales.

An example of building a sales funnel

A sales funnel is built based on a business process. Her stages from the initial contact to the completion of the transaction and payment may look like this:

• cold call
• Commercial offer
• Presentation
• Conclusion of an agreement
• Invoicing
• Payment

Thus, a set of control points is formed. CRM is usually used to build a sales funnel. Without it, using this tool will be problematic. Business processes are formalized, and the stages with details on the main indicators are transferred to CRM. A common funnel is not enough. We need an analysis of different sections (primary deals, channels, products, employees, etc.). For example, channel analysis by funnel will allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of communications with customers and optimize your budget.

You need to work on each stage, improving the conversion, identify problematic ones (loss of leads), and increase funding for successful solutions.

Chips

Although there are universal rules for writing scripts, scenarios for working with clients, experienced sales managers are able to write effectively working scripts, adding their own “chips” accumulated with accumulated experience to them.

Automatic sales funnel

A table in CRM or in Excel is an automatic sales funnel. It allows you to automatically generate, process and convert leads into customers, it itself calculates the percentage based on the initial data. This customized system selects the interaction scenario for maximum conversion. In CRM, you can independently create an auto funnel and set it up.

CRM and call tracking MANGO

Automatically measures efficiency advertising campaigns for conversions to calls and sales in clear reports. This allows you to improve advertising and redistribute the budget. The advertising analytics systems Google AdWords, Google Analytics, Yandex.Metrika, Yandex.Direct are integrated with this MANGO tool.

Static call tracking is suitable for offline advertising, dynamic call tracking is used in online channels and operates on the numbers displayed by the site, associates calls to these numbers with advertising, tracking each call. Call statistics provide the most accurate data: you can find out which advertising channel, ad, keyword or the banner worked.

To manage calls, there are such tools as a voice greeting and menu, a call distribution algorithm, working hours setting, call recording for quality of service control and many other functions.

Additional tools

Additional tools of the sales funnel include the AIDA model (more on it below), CRM for effective marketing and organization of sales, conversion - an assessment of the effectiveness of each stage of the sales funnel as a percentage.

AIDA Model

It is believed that the possession of such a tool as a sales funnel allows you to significantly increase profits, whether it is online trading or a regular store. This model is applicable in any situation.

The concept of a sales funnel is successfully combined with a trading concept called AIDA - from attention (attention); interest (interest); desire (desire); action.

That is, before the sale, the client goes through four stages of readiness: attracting attention, the emergence of interest, the desire to take advantage of the offer, and the action (visiting a store or website). The result could be a deal.

CRM system

CRM (Customers Relationship Management), a customer relationship management system, makes it possible to automate and control sales processes. CRM-systems simplify the creation of a sales funnel and work with it, help to find and eliminate problem areas that lead to the loss of customers, "expand" them.

At each stage, the conversion of the sales funnel should increase, the number of customers moving to the next stages should increase. To increase your reach, try to widen the top of the funnel. As a rule, this is facilitated by a more accurate choice of the target audience, knowledge of the needs of the buyer.

The sales funnel in CRM allows you to find out the number of current transactions, at what stage they are, to understand the effectiveness of each stage, to find out the volume and amount of sales of each manager and the change in these parameters over time. With its help, you can determine the time to complete a transaction, form sales plans, for example, how many customers need to be attracted to achieve target indicators, what volumes each manager can perform.

This tool will help you build a system of staff motivation, find new sales channels and target audiences, and speed up deals.

Conversion

The funnel is not only a tool to increase profits, but also a means of evaluating and analyzing the performance of employees and the company as a whole. You can find out exactly where customers are being weeded out and take action. To do this, you need to track the change in conversion.

Sales funnel conversion is expressed as a percentage. For example, it is calculated by the formula: 1,000 callers / 10,000 who saw the ad x 100% = 10%. The overall conversion of the funnel will be 0.1%.

When working on the Internet, the sales funnel is usually included in the CRM. This system will allow you to find out at which stages there are the most failures, identify unnecessary processes and evaluate the effectiveness of interaction with customers.

CPM

CPM (Cost Per Thousand) is the ratio of ad placement to the number of potential views. For example, if the cost of a banner is 4,000 rubles per week, and 50,000 people view it, then CPM = 80 rubles per thousand impressions. This metric affects sales conversion.

To build a funnel, you need to focus on your business process. A business process refers to the activities of a commercial unit that are aimed at generating revenue.

These actions should represent certain stages of the movement of the transaction from the initial contact to payment. For example, it might look like this:

• Cold call / application from the blog
• Sending relevant commercial offer
• Return call/meeting/presentation
• Signing the contract and invoicing
• Payment

Thus, by identifying the stages of the business process, you form a set of control points that you will rely on in the future.

How to build a funnel: using CRM

It is most likely impossible to build a sales funnel without a CRM system. That is, of course, you can put a lot of effort into collecting the necessary information from all available sources, and still do it. But with such energy costs, using this tool on a regular basis will be extremely problematic.

In the end, you will abandon this idea, continue to sell on a whim and lose revenue. Remember, the funnel is the most The best way understand how things really work. Therefore, if you are still serious, then you will have to build it. And not just once, and not even once a month.

So after the formalization of business processes, it is necessary to immediately start “transferring” all stages of the transaction to CRM. As a result, you should get something similar to the figure below, but only with details on the main indicators.

How to build a funnel: understanding the main indicators

With the right settings, CRM will allow you to build and then upload the "picture" of the funnel, which is already a lot. Even with simple visual inspection, you can diagnose certain problems. You will see bottlenecks, disproportionately long stages, perhaps even unnecessary stages, etc.

After the initial "inspection" we analyze the main indicators:

1. input - the number of leads;
2. output results - the number of payments;
3. overall conversion;
4. conversion between stages;
5. length - the number of days spent on ;
6. the length of each step is the number of days spent on intermediate steps.

How to build a funnel: calculate the conversion correctly

The most serious mistake in determining the conversion in the funnel is to consider the percentage of payments from the total number of leads that came in. In fact, conversion is the ratio of the number of positively closed deals to the total number of all closed deals.

The fact is that a transaction can be closed in 2 cases:

• the bill is paid;
• the client stated his firm “no”;

Therefore, it is not enough to build a graph; it is also important to interpret it correctly. To calculate the conversion, use the following formula:

Conversion = Positive closed deals / (positive closed deals + negative closed) * 100%

How to build a funnel: looking at a business from different angles

Building a common funnel is not enough. The company has too many business processes that could be reflected in it in detail. Therefore, proceed to the analysis of different specific sections.

• Primary deals
• Loyal customers
• Channels
• Products
• The target audience
• Employee
• Region

Let's analyze each section separately. It is very important to keep track of the overall sales funnel. How to build specific funnels, however, is even more important.

Primary deals

We build a funnel for new customers. So you can easily understand how the primary sales department works - your "closers". Track milestones and their length to understand problem areas and work with managers on them. This way you can significantly increase your revenue.

Regular customers

This funnel will show you how you work with your current base. Are customers making second, third, fourth purchases? In a good way, this funnel should be “inverted” and resemble a “skirt”, that is, expand towards the bottom.

Channels

Channel analysis by funnel will allow you to track the effectiveness marketing communications with buyers. Identify strong channels and weed out weak ones. Such analytics helps to optimize the budget.

Products

When you see the funnel for each product, you can immediately tell which products are doing well and which ones are not. Such an analysis will make it possible to form such an assortment base that will not “suffer” from poor turnover and illiquidity.

The target audience

Segment buyers by consumer behavior and study their characteristics. This will lead to a clearer understanding of who is the target audience of the business.

Employee

This section is very important, as it is the main one for personnel management. The manager should rely on these data, find out which of the stages for each employee is the most problematic and pointwise way to change the situation.

Region

Follow the regional funnel. This will give a chance to fix losses in time, and not continue the senseless struggle in the territory with poor market conditions.

How to build a funnel: remember the basic principles of work

1. It is important not only to maximize the "throat" of the funnel, due to, but also to expand its "walls". This means that you need to work on each stage, improving the intermediate conversion.

In our article, you found the answer to the question - what is a sales funnel. We also figured out how to correctly calculate the conversion and in what sections to build a funnel. Let's look at common mistakes.

Often extra steps are added - either without much meaning, or duplicating each other. This is due to an attempt to equate the number of defined business processes and the number of funnel stages. But this is wrong: there are usually fewer funnel stages.

Congestion of customers at some stage. The manager is waiting, hoping for the promise of the client, but he does not make a clear decision. You need to focus on the average length of the stage: if somewhere it is longer, it is better to close the deal negatively and not waste time in vain.

Return of the client to the previous stage. Even if something changes for a client, this is not a reason to deploy him back down the funnel. Close this deal and open a new one so as not to confuse the indicators.

Don't get hung up on creating the ideal of your funnel from the start. Start working according to a simplified scheme and gradually refine.

We have given you an algorithm that will help you take control of your business. Follow these tips as you move through the stages described.

Hello! Today you will learn what a sales funnel is, its main stages of building it, and how to use it in your business. A sales funnel is one of the techniques developed specifically to control product sales along with sales forecasting by specialists. By introducing a sales funnel into your business, you can significantly increase the level of profitability and quality of work.

What is a sales funnel and where does it apply

For marketing, this concept can be called conceptual. On the English language There are several notation options:

1. sales pipeline;
2. sales funnel;
3. Purchase Funnel.

Sales funnel name received a special path, passed by the average buyer of services or goods, starting with attracting attention, and ending with the moment of the purchase itself.

In the English-speaking version, a sales funnel is defined as a marketing model that illustrates the journey through each stage of a purchase. Starting with the study of the proposal, and ending with the execution of the transaction.

If an entrepreneur or businessman knows what a sales funnel is, they will be able to multiply their profits many times over. It does not matter where exactly the trade is carried out - on the Internet, or on the territory of real trading floors.

A bit of history and features of the modern market

Now the market often develops a situation where the supply of goods is greater than the demand. This makes it increasingly difficult to attract customers directly. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze, correctly apply the sales funnel - then the effect on potential consumers will be more subtle, unobtrusive. Vendors subtly adjust to the needs of their customers.

This concept first appeared in 1898. Elias Lewis, a lawyer from America, became its author.

But only thirty years later it was possible to combine this concept with another, no less well-known. It was called AIDA, consisted of several concepts.

• Attention (attention);
• Interest (interest);
• Desire (desire);
• Action (action).

Since then, one of basic concepts in marketing, it was the sales funnel. Her theory says that there are 4 stages of customer readiness that precede the actual sale.

1. Attention is captured first. For example, using advertising tools;
2. Then there is interest. The user is interested in what the content of the advertising message is;
3. Then everything goes to the desire to take advantage of the offer;
4. Finally, the last action is performed.

The seller must make sure that the attention really becomes an interest!

Features of building a sales funnel

The art of marketing is precisely to build a sales funnel that really works. There are many factors that have a direct impact on performance.

• Organization of pricing, marketing policy;
• The ability to choose the right audience for your project;
• Ways to promote a product.

Consumers need to understand why they should choose this particular product. AIDA is a model that is detailed in the book by Brian Tracy, a leading sales expert and consultant. In his model, each of the stages of the sale is sequentially revealed. It is shown how they are able to complement each other.

But many managers have a narrow understanding of this concept. They believe that this is just a reporting term. And they forget that the funnel can become a successful tool that opens up a lot of opportunities for those who know how to use it.

How to analyze sales funnels

Data must be collected for comparison, otherwise analysis becomes impossible. Information by itself means absolutely nothing. After all, sales funnels are different for different markets, companies, and areas of activity.

What indicators are to be compared?

• Conversion by stages, in different periods by different managers;
• Performance indicators of specific managers;
• different periods.

You can analyze just one manager, studying the results of his work for different time periods.

Why does the leader need it?

A sales funnel can become a truly effective, even beautiful tool for managing sales. What tasks can managers solve with its help?

1. Performance analysis for each of the sales channels;
2. Studying the activities of each individual employee;
3. Control of each individual stage in the work related to sales.

What information can be obtained from sales funnels

Thanks to sales funnels, specialists are constantly available actual information on deals. It maintains availability at any particular moment in time. To work, managers make tables or charts. They show at what stage this or that transaction is, how many of them are in total. Funnels make it easier to analyze for future, only possible profits. Reports can be made general, or with a basis in the form of a specific indicator, a participant in the activity.

Data entry by managers

When employees work in special funnel programs, they fill in data for each specific transaction. Thanks to this, all stages are passed automatically. Be sure to record the sources from which it became generally known about the company. Separately, a list of those who participated in the conclusion of transactions is kept. Finally, attention is paid not only to demand, but also to its satisfaction.

Even the form of the transaction is important for assessing the likelihood of a conclusion. Thanks to this analysis, it is easier for the seller to evaluate his own activities.

Sales funnel rules

The sales funnel is automatically generated in the software based on the information entered. This is a convenient system that saves employees from preparing additional reports. Let's consider the option with "Typical sale". This is a package that is included in the standard version of the program. The form provides for filling in information at once in several stages.

• Presence of primary contact . Contains data relating to any primary customer interactions. With a decrease in the number of calls to the company, it is recommended to review the organization and optimization of the process. It may be worth adjusting the advertising company itself;
• Client Qualification Column . Here they write about what class the clients belong to, what are their interests along with requests. When filling out, they rely only on the internal rules adopted in a particular company. The qualification of the client determines which strategies are applied in direct interaction with him;
• Offer and its formation . The text of a commercial offer or pricing policy definitely deserves attention if the number of customers who drop out immediately after receiving an offer increases;
• Presentation. Is there any need for it at all? Such decisions are made only by the managers themselves;
• Conditions with their agreement . Again, here the decision is up to the manager - whether to make changes to the proposals, or leave everything as it is;
• Preparing for practical implementation obligations . Here we need data on customer orders that have actually been placed. This information can also be taken from the commercial offer itself;
• Transition to Commitment . This column already contains data on transactions that have been completed. Only after the execution of the relevant documents, the transactions are considered officially completed.

Stages are controlled automatically. The program will not proceed to the next stage until the previous one is completed properly. "Sample sale" is not the only option available. Each company has its own rules of work in certain cases.

What you should pay attention to when choosing a program for automating sales funnels

There are only a few points worthy of attention in this case:

1. The convenience of the interface that allows you to enter information as quickly as possible;
2. Ability to organize analytics on various data;
3. Collaboration with the knowledge base and data warehouse, the transition between which is carried out with one click;
4. Ability to use extended functionality;
5. The presence of a role-based interface that supports different user groups;
6. Quick start requiring minimum investment in IT infrastructure changes.

How to calculate and increase the main indicators in this program

A sales funnel, when used correctly, will be an ideal tool for analyzing how to individual employees, and by departments in trade, on the official website.

Sales Funnel- a tool that is characterized by clarity with detail. To create a sales funnel, the easiest way is to use the standard version of the tables.excel. It is acceptable to insert an infographic element into the most boring digital reports. Each company uses its own way, sometimes they are quite unusual.

One of the most significant elements in this system is called conversion.

A conversion is a sales performance indicator for a particular tool. You can call it the ratio between potentially possible actions and those that were actually committed.

• Overall business performance;
• The presence of extra links in the sales chain;
• The conversion value, if you combine several indicators at once;
• The need to focus additional efforts on certain groups of buyers;
• Explore the stages at which customer churn peaks.

CPM is another indicator that those who talk about conversions in Internet marketing cannot do without.

CPM - shows how effective the company is. Measured in revenue per thousand impressions.

The implementation of services with goods almost always follows the same pattern. The sales funnel works even if it is used for the most expensive, exclusive items. It's just that the size of the audience decreases in proportion to other areas.

Client Acquisition System. Information about lead generation and leads

Lead generation is a process associated with establishing a constant flow of interested buyers.

The phenomenon of lead generation refers to applied marketing tactics. The purpose of this field of activity is to find potential customers by studying a specific target audience. Here, methods are being developed to attract customers by placing advertisements in search engines, ways to find them using thematic sites.

The name of the leads was given to the people themselves, who, after visiting the site, became interested in purchasing goods, left a request. Or do not mind giving contact details to sellers. They cannot yet be called buyers, they are more likely to simply relate to interested persons. Lead generation is used when working with sites that are not engaged in direct sales.

In this case, special resources are used that collect user contacts and transfer them to providers. Companies try to negotiate in advance how much one lead should cost. Every business needs them, because only specific buyers receive a specific profit.

How to understand at which stage failures occur

There are several problematic situations that are most often encountered in practice:

• When customers contact the company, they receive incorrect information from managers. This means that expectations are being deceived. Or there are problems with receiving messages from clients as such. Including those caused by technical reasons;
• Some managers abuse discounts, which makes the price of the goods too low. Purchases are made, but the company is not making the profit it needs;
• There is an extra area in the work with clients. It is skipped by employees and customers themselves, because it does not affect the results of work in any way. For example, too much time is spent negotiating a delivery contract, although the actual loading has already taken place. Or the client has already decided to buy a car, but he is again offered a test drive;
• There is no correspondence between the real price and the market average. If the price is too high, then buyers are afraid. But sometimes the figure is too low to be beyond doubt.

Problems are associated with the fact that one of the employees lacks the qualifications to complete transactions.

What methods can be used in the work

To get more profit, you can choose several ways to solve problems:

Application of proportional expansion

For example, there were 200 visitors. 4 calls were made, and only one managed to sell the goods. It is enough to increase the number of visitors to 2000. Then there will be 400 calls and 10 sales.

You need to work with traffic at the first level of the funnel. Only in this case the result of work improves.

To solve the problem, they use different methods: affiliate links, and, connection,. The amount of money at the output increases with a proportional expansion of the upper level. If the funnel has a positive conversion.

stretching

If you represent everything graphically, it will look like someone is trying to turn a funnel into a pipe. Efficiency in this case increases at each of the levels. And not just for the top. Let's say the conversion for the site should be not 1%, but 3%. This applies to other levels as well.

Key level

It is this method that is considered the simplest and most accessible for assimilation. But with the right actions, the results will be pleasantly surprising.

The description of the method of work will be as follows. First you need to find the level of the funnel at which the conversion remains the highest. We need to make sure that as many people as possible reach this level.

About local targets and clusters

Business is divided into clusters for those who think in a funnel. Each of the clusters develops its own separate goal. It is different from the goals that global business faces. For example, contextual advertising is created not to sell goods, but to sell clicks to the site. In addressing all these challenges, we expand key level. Efficiency is enhanced by the use of such narrow clusters.

Sales funnel levels and stages

Each funnel has levels. And for each of them developed their own own rules work. By manipulating at all levels, we make the work more efficient.

First level: impressions-clicks

For example, the Internet is used to attract customers. Direct, SEO optimization and contextual advertising - this is what we start working with when the funnel level responsible for generating clicks on the site stands out. The number of clicks is increased by the following actions:

1. Increase CTR;
2. Changing keywords in ads;
3. Rate management.

This way, more clicks move down the funnel.

Second level: click-leads

Here we deal with the elements that turn more visitors into buyers. They make . These include: countdown counters, promotions, guarantees and reviews.

Third level: leads - sales

In this case, it is important to pay attention to the motivation of people who work with the level. Significance is acquired by indicators such as:

1. pay system;
2. Speech modules;
3. Scripts.

At all levels of the business, it is necessary to carefully work out the overall system of motivation along with payment. Each employee should have an additional incentive, including top management. It is especially useful to arrange promotions for buyers that expire quickly enough.

Fourth level: repeat sales

ok if there is technical support. It is best to follow not only the moment of making a purchase, but also the first time it is used. Buyers should not have any questions or complaints.

What you need to know to get a stable income

In any field, you need to work hard to. The Internet is no exception. Simple money cannot be found anywhere. Of course, strong physical activity is not always required. But no one canceled simple mental activity.

Many, when launching their projects, expect immediate returns from them. And they throw it away because quick money does not come. The main thing is not to give up, even if the first few months do not give any result.

It is important to choose the right strategies for . Only then will the investment pay off.

Sales funnels for modern business

In any area there is a sales funnel, even if the owner of the enterprise does not realize it himself. He can always manage sales, even if he is not yet familiar with the terms and models. The main thing is to understand the basic parameters. Only in this case it becomes possible to exert at least some influence on the process.

Using direct direct sales is a serious mistake that many entrepreneurs still make.

Why direct selling is the wrong decision

When organizing sales according to this scheme, no more than 3-5 percent of visitors turn into sales and transitions to thematic pages. As a rule, other contacts of visitors are ignored. Because of this, the opportunity to offer the product again is lost, but after a while. For this reason, most of the costs simply disappear, to no avail. And the cost of each client increases significantly.

When using this approach, it is necessary to have personnel with almost universal qualifications. Either such specialists do not exist at all, or they exist, but they are very expensive. And not every business can afford them.

Introduction of two-step funnels

Implementation - effective method against the so-called "head-on" sales. Such steps suggest that the process is divided into only two stages - the generation of visitors, plus their conversion into buyers. Compared to the old methods, this one has a lot of advantages:

1. The presence of a managed process related to sales;
2. At the generation stage, the maximum number of losses is eliminated. And the next step. That allows you to increase revenue several times;
3. Sales staff turnover is decreasing. Required salespeople with lower qualifications. Employees do not seek better jobs;
4. Different staff skills are widely used at each stage. Which leads to increased efficiency. Eliminates the need to hire generalists. Narrow specialists are required, which are much more difficult to replace. The sales process is less dependent on the qualifications of salespeople;
5. Customers require lower cost levels;
6. Contact losses are eliminated.

The effectiveness of the sales funnel in two-level schemes

And here the sales funnel is considered as the path that the client goes through from the first acquaintance with the offer to the moment when he makes a purchase. Important stages are lead generation and lead conversion, which have already been mentioned above. They are what make up the funnel.

Lead generation is called attracting specific, interested customers. To resolve the issue, the company's management uses various channels. Looking for ways to connect with the audience. This is necessary to pull out those who are really interested in the product.

In total, there are two main types of such channels:

• For non-targeted marketing. In this case, it is impossible to calculate exactly how many people got acquainted with the advertising message. And how many actually went to the landing page;
• Channels with direct response.

For each channel, concepts such as “touch point” and “first touch” are used. "First touch" is called acquaintance with the advertising message. "Point of contact" - the name of the place where the first touch occurs. It is from this point that it depends how strong the desire to continue acquaintance with the information will be later.

Important parameters and characteristics of the sales funnel

Each lead generation channel has its own set of indicators. Without their analysis, sales management becomes impossible.

Lead generation channels are characterized by the following distinctive features:

1. Lead quality for each channel. This quality is best tracked through further lead conversion. One channel may generate better than another;
2. Lead cost. To calculate this parameter, we divide the total budget by the number of leads that were generated;
3. Conversion to "first touch" leads;
4. The number of "first touches" over a certain period;
5. channel budget.

Why is it necessary to analyze the characteristics at the stage of lead generation?

• To work out all the "touch points";
• To measure general indicators;
• To competently use only what relates to direct marketing. It is necessary to avoid the use of tools, the result of which is difficult to calculate.

Performance improvements and implications

There are many steps that lead to an increase in lead generation.

1. The use of advertising to potential buyers show their interest as soon as possible;
2. Competent and complete study of proposals in absolutely all respects;
3. Elaboration of each "touch point";
4. Collecting contacts from the maximum number of leads;
5. High-quality study of touch points for the selected target audience;
6. Careful segmentation of the target audience;
7. Increase in the number of channels;
8. Elimination of channels that are not related to direct response.

But it always happens that after a while, there are too many channels for lead generation. They become technically complex. It takes more and more time to work with them. One solution in this case is an outsourcing service for some channels. You can use special affiliate schemes that also make your work easier.

Such solutions can be beneficial in several situations:

• When contact databases are resold;
• Partnership with non-competitors. Contacts of leads are given for small cash rewards;
• Organization of partnership schemes using special technology;
• Setting up advertising campaigns through search engines.

About staffing requirements

It is important to involve the so-called "line personnel". He must perform “first touches” in each lead generation channel. Unless, of course, they do not use outsourcing services for this work. The position of the head of the lead generation department will be relevant in situations where there are really a lot of channels. Such a leader must manage not only channels, but also a set of parameters specific to them. He also trains employees, monitors the implementation of instructions in the instructions.

It is important to have clear instructions with regulations for each of the employees. It is necessary to record all the rules in the sales book. In the same book, sales scripts and the main processes associated with them should be described. Increasing the number of leads is the main thing that needs to be directed to staff motivation at the very beginning. The staff itself provides a report every day, week and month. The leader himself indicates the parameters that interest him most.

It is best to use the usual Excel program here. Lead conversion is already called the process in which the generated leads become buyers. This is the process in which the sales funnel begins to narrow. For its organization, you can attract qualified personnel, or use automation tools.

In companies that are in our consulting, we constantly count the numbers. Or rather, not even so.

Practice shows that quite often people's behavior diverges from expectations, which means that only numbers will help to see the true picture of “Everything is good”, “Everything is bad” or “You can live”.

Just for counting numbers among a variety of tools, building a sales funnel helps us.

In this article, we will analyze what stages of the sales funnel should be, by what criteria to determine them, and what this will give you in the end.

what is a sales funnel

The term sales funnel has been around for at least 100 years. It was invented and introduced into use by Elias St. Elmo Lewis (a very difficult name). He deduced the path by which each customer comes to purchase:

1. Acquaintance;
2. Interest;
3. A wish;
4. Action.

That is, this is the classic principle of trading and the buyer's decision to buy. Such a thinking funnel or, in a marketing term, a “consumer funnel”.

As you can see, in these stages there is a very big similarity with the correct compilation of advertising. Therefore, it is often called the “marketing funnel”.

We are still interested in how the sales funnel works in reality, and why is everyone talking about it so much?

Sales funnel - this is the path that the client goes from the first contact with the product / service to the conclusion of the transaction, that is, the purchase. And all this is divided into stages.

In the literature, and on the Internet, I have come across different schemes of the sales funnel. Among them were the classic 4 stages, and very long ones, consisting of more than 12.

I will give you general guidelines on how to make a sales funnel, and give you examples. After studying the article, you yourself will understand what the correct structure of the sales funnel in your company should be, what stages to include and in what sequence. Go.

WE ARE ALREADY MORE THAN 29,000 people.
TURN ON

I do not want and I will not

We constantly encounter riots on the ship among the salesmen when we announce that funnel work is now required.

And this is normal, because with her everything hidden immediately becomes apparent. Do any of you simply want to show the skeletons in your closet?

Now I’m talking more about cases when a sales funnel is implemented in a wholesale or retail. With the introduction of a funnel on the Internet, there is almost no such rebellion. There, and so everything is easily tracked, and most often without the participation of sellers. Offline is different.

Employees count everything manually (entered, bought, passed, etc.). For this, they will hate us and you, although part of the process can now be easily automated.

But all this negativity comes from a misunderstanding of what a sales funnel is for. From a misunderstanding that in business it is necessary not only to count sales, profit, marginality, but also indicators from the stages of the sales funnel.

After all, in this way you can see the weaknesses in your company and understand what needs to be emphasized at this time. And, as a rule, sales managers do not need an analysis of the sales funnel, they are “not up to it”.

Important. Now a small part of the theory will begin, during the reading of which, it will seem to you that this is not for you. But don't leave. Read to the end. This was not done by accident. First the basics, then the examples.

Classics of the genre

If you ask me about the universal sales stages in marketing (bypassing), then you can depict them as levels, namely in the form of 8 classic sequential levels:

1. Learn about the offer. Your first contact with a client;
2. Choice definition. Persuading the customer to choose your product;
3. Purchasing intention. Formation of the task to buy;
4. Make a deal. Registration of the transaction;
5. Intention to pay. Everything is clear here;
6. Receipt of the product. Including evaluation of the success of your purchase;
7. Making a repeat purchase. Provided that everything was pleasant;
8. Making purchases on an ongoing basis. Provided that everything is VERY pleasant.

Looks difficult, right? I agree. When studying this methodology (5 years ago), I myself puzzled over how all this “nonsense” can be implemented in ordinary business. Therefore, in simple terms, using the example of a b2b business:

1. Making cold calls (learning about the offer);
2. (definition with choice);
3. Dispatch (intent to purchase);
4. Signing the contract and issuing an invoice (closing a deal);
5. Payment (intention to pay);
6. Shipment of goods (receipt of the product);
7. Repeat purchase;
8. Making purchases on an ongoing basis.

Or here is another example, for a more typical situation, the sales stages of a retail store:

1. The client saw the advertisement (learning about the offer);
2. I went to the store (definition with a choice);
3. Tried on a thing (intention to purchase);
4. Decided to purchase it (deal);
5. Paid for it (intention to pay);
6. Received/began to use (receipt of the product);
7. Returned for another purchase (re-purchase);
8. Became a regular customer (shopping on an ongoing basis).

Evaluation of each stage

A simple and logical question arises, how to calculate the sales funnel? How to calculate each stage? In percentages, pieces, or like in that advertisement: “How much to hang in grams?”.

Let's analyze the assessment of each stage using the example of the b2b sector, where the primary contact begins with the Internet funnel, and then goes to the sales department.

№	Stage	Way	Index
1	Learn about the offer	in Yandex	Number of transitions in pieces
2	Definition with choice	abandoned	Number of applications in pieces
3	Purchasing Intention	Sending	Number of sent CPs in pieces
4	Make a deal	Negotiation and signing of the contract	Number of issued invoices or sent contracts in pieces
5	Intention to pay	Payment for goods	Number of invoices sent
6	Receipt of the product	Shipment of goods	Number of shipments in pieces
7	Making a repeat purchase	Repeat purchases	Number of repeated shipments in pieces
8	Making purchases on a regular basis	Regular purchases (from 3 purchases and more)	Number of shipments in pieces

The period of time for which you determine these indicators is most often measured either “Per day”, or “Month”, or “Per quarter”.

For example, we measure “Applications” every day, but we already measure “Repeated Purchases” once a month.

HOW TO MAKE A SALES FUNNEL

Well, you have survived the most boring, but important part of this article. Now let's sum up, consider what you can do with this miracle, and how to create a sales funnel for yourself.

Now you probably have a logical question, but what does the sales funnel look like in the end? So, if everything is filled out, calculated and drawn, then the visualization of the sales funnel will be as follows:

Sales funnel

It turns out that at each stage the number of actions is less and less, that is, the funnel principle is applied, hence the concept.

People get lost, leave, change their mind at every stage when moving towards a purchase (top-down). And already here it is clear what are the weakest points in your company. Well, now, let's move on to the main thing - how to make a sales funnel step by step.

Step 1. Define your milestones

The funnel above is built on the example of those stages that we considered earlier.

In your case, the structure of the sales funnel may be different, the stages may be different or there may be more of them. It all depends on the number of touches with a potential client and how loyal he is to your product/service.

It is not difficult to identify them. Just think about which ones are the most important to you.

Usually these are the ones on which customers make their decisions - to buy or not. Or if you need a maximum program, then write out all the possible stages at which customers are lost. For this you need to know.

Step 2. Measure indicators

This is where the most difficult part of the work begins. Not alignment, but systemic filling of all stages of the funnel.

The key word is systemic (read constant). Indeed, in practice, it is at this moment that failures most often occur, since the owner is not up to it, and managers and marketers do not want to process, believing that they already see everything perfectly (there are exceptions).

In such a case, if you and your colleagues are “filoning”, then you can implement the most primitive funnel of 2-4 stages.

Compiling and filling out this will not be difficult. Here is an offline simulation example:

Sales funnel example

Step 3. Improve and increase

Of course, it’s all good that you have numbers on hand, but it’s easy not to look at them ?! You need to work with them, namely to improve and increase.

This is the whole point of the sales funnel - to show weaknesses. Consider an example for each of these actions.

Example 1. Enlarge

And now the magic. Imagine a situation where you have 360,750 impressions of your contextual advertising per month.

At the exit, after going through all the stages, customers bring 280,303 rubles. Now let's imagine that we just went and increased advertising costs by 60%. Thus, we increased the number of impressions, which as a result gave us 354,545 rubles. And this is 26% more than the previous figure.

Working with the sales funnel

Please note that by increasing each stage of the funnel by the nth percentage, you can not only increase sales, but explode them.

And this does not always require such a large increase in the form of 60%, somewhere it will be enough from 1% to make 1.2%, and your sales will grow by one and a half to two times.

And here's another scary picture for you, what another sales funnel on the site might look like:

Website sales funnel

Example 2. Improve

Imagine that your employee makes 30 cold calls every day. Of these, only 10 are successful, and it reaches the decision maker.

Everyone else gets stuck at the "Secretary's Pass" stage. And this means that the conversion from a call to a connection with a decision maker is 33% (1o out of 30). In this case, the right strategy is not to increase the number of calls, but rather to improve the conversion rate.

So that out of 30 calls we pass secretaries 66% (20 out of 30). This kind of improvement will give us a doubling of sales.

Another example from this process. Managers issue 100 invoices per month total amount 1 million rubles (with an average check of 10,000 rubles), of which only 50% is paid.

So we take and do everything possible to increase the number of payments to 60%. And most likely, for this not so much needs to be done. And in the end, we will get 100,000 rubles more, simply by increasing one stage by 10%.

Briefly about the main

So, summing up, I will say that the main advice of this article is not that you need to know what the stages of the sales funnel are. It's not even that you need to paint it individually for your business.

The main thing is that many companies neglect this tool in vain, when it can give much more than it seems at first glance.

Otherwise, it turns out that there is no difference: you invest in new advertisement or not, invest time in training managers or not.

Understand that everything was done in vain if you do not analyze the indicators and do not know how much the profit increased after that or how much the conversion increased from stage to stage. Business is numbers that you need to constantly work with, and not just profit with marginality.