A business funnel represents an ideal sales process and the individual stages that a customer goes through.
- It combines the activities of marketing in reaching a customer and business in acquiring a customer.
- It is the basis for a sales plan - pipeline
A business funnel is typical especially for an active business in which you are looking for potential customers. That is, those who could potentially be interested in your products or services. First, you look for and approach potential customers in the market, who you then try to convince using business techniques to become your customers. There are multiple opinions and approaches on how to rank and name individual stages of a customer, we at Aptien use the following 4 tiers within the sales funnel:
Market
- we are looking for customers and interested parties on the market
- we actively address the market with marketing, advertising, PR and other marketing activities
Suspect - spotted customer
- is the targeted customer in the market, the one you think might want your product
- he doesn't know about it yet, you are approaching the suspect with an offer or a marketing campaign
Prospect - an interested party
- is a potential customer who has already shown some interest in the offer
- for example, they visited your website or went to a store
Lead - potential customer
- A lead is a potential customer who is definitely interested in your product
- he has already shown an active interest and you have to convince him to become a customer
Customer
- a customer is someone who bought your product
How to work with a sales funnel
Sales representatives move potential customers in individual stages according to the development of negotiations. At each stage, the probability that the suspect will become a customer increases.
- The merchant enters a potential customer (suspect) that he has looked for
- It moves from phase to phase according to probability and reactions
- It uses ratings and gradually qualifies potential customers
- The success rate of moving from one stage to another is called conversion
