Marketing & Sales Funnel

Description

The purpose of the Marketing & Sales Funnel is to plan and manage marketing initiatives focused on sales conversion. The funnel is a classic framework used to visualize how effective teams are attracting (the upper, wider part) and converting (the lower, narrower part) prospective consumers. While customers do not follow a predictable linear journey, the funnel continues to be a useful model to plan different elements of a campaign focused on where customer segments are on their path to conversion. Each phase of the Funnel represents where customers have a different need and level of intent. Marketers engage with customers at each phase in a different and relevant way to increase conversion rates over time.

Question

What percentage of the prospects we are we reaching are we converting to customers?

Marketing and Sales Funnel

Steps

  1. Clearly identify the single goal for your marketing and sales program. If you have more than one conversion action or business outcome that you are driving towards, you will need a separate funnel.

  2. Consider the phases. These are marked by a significant change in the level of interest or intent of a customer, and the corresponding change in qualification or value that customer to you as a brand.

  3. Describe the characteristics of customers within each phase. How will you identify them and what do they need to proceed? Review the descriptions to ensure they are different enough to warrant a specific phase.

  4. Describe how you will generally engage with customers at each phase. What types of tactics will you use and what will you offer to motivate customers to proceed? Again, make sure that each phase is different.

  5. Review the first draft of the Marketing & Sales Framework with your team. Validate that each phase is mutually exclusive, measurable, and covers all facets of the path to conversion for your single goal.

Considerations

  • Teams can use the funnel to identify which phase a prospect becomes a ‘Sales Qualified Lead’ for outreach

  • Don’t go overboard with the number of phases - you need to be able to measure all actions and segments

  • Remember to use multiple funnels to measure different marketing campaigns and conversion actions

References

The Purchase Funnel concept is credited to E. St. Elmo Lewis