Over the past years, we’ve seen more proclamations of a sales funnel death than celebrations of its birthdays. However, it’s still the most common area of improvement for sales and marketing teams. And rest assured, sales funnels will be here for a while (shaking off copious funerals arranged by haters) to provide valuable guidelines to salespeople on how to do their jobs.
It’s not uncommon for the sales process to be described in orderly, consistent fashion, yet have an actual process look something more like this:
It’s not uncommon for the sales process to be described in orderly, consistent fashion, yet have an actual process look something more like this:
The origins of the sales funnel were developed by the American pioneers of advertisement a century ago. Sales funnels include many different models and come under a variety of names. Customer funnel, sales cycle, purchasing process, and buyers journey are often used interchangeably. Such abundance is due to the application of the term in multiple fields of study as well as the tendency of individuals to “own” specific processes attributed to the sales funnel.
Along with a variety of models, there’s no consensus on what a sales funnel should or should not encompass. Its anything but consistent, from company to company. Marketers see it as a journey a customer takes from awareness to consideration to decision phase about the product or service in question. Same goes for repeat purchase or expansion (loyalty to a brand). Meanwhile, many sales teams perceive it as the specific number of steps performed to turn a prospect into a client.
What you can learn about sales funnels:
- AIDA
- Classic sales funnel
- Forrester’s models
- McKinsey’s Loyalty Loop
- Heinz Marketing’s Bowtie
- Purchase funnel of Marketing Made Simple
- JB Media Group’s sales funnel
- RAIN Group’s buying process
- Bonus
