Imagine that one day you saw a banner advertising courses, became interested, and followed the link. After studying the information, you wanted to go to study and left an application. After communication with the manager, you confirmed your decision and paid for the training. Congratulations, you went through a simple sales funnel.
It is clear that not everyone who sees the ad will click on the link, and not every website visitor will leave an application – the funnel narrows towards the end, this is why it is called so.
About the stages of interaction with the client on the way to sale talked about in 1911, but in the form of funnel these stages were first depicted only in 1959. Arthur Peterson in his book “Selling in pharmaceutics, detailing and sales training” placed a picture of a sales funnel in which he marked out 4 stages according to the popular at that time model AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action).
Everyone who sells something has a sales funnel. However inexperienced businessmen have no clear idea of each stage of the funnel, they don’t count the indicators and don’t know how to manage it all in order to improve the results. At the same time, successful companies use the funnel as a tool to improve efficiency.
The main purpose of the sales funnel is to make the sales process in the company more transparent and manageable. It helps to increase revenue, find problematic stages, evaluate the effectiveness of managers and advertising channels, and even make more realistic sales plans.