When both the marketing team and the sales team in companies work with a clear and common goal, these companies can achieve increasing growth in their sales and, as a result, an increase in their annual revenues. Therefore, every employee in the marketing department should understand the importance of marketing funnel in achieving more sales, and every employee in the sales department should work on improving the company's sales funnel. This would enable them to drive revenue growth by pushing more potential customers through each stage, thus preserving the impact of marketing efforts on increasing the customer base. In this article, we will explain the differences between the marketing funnel and the sales funnel with detailed examples.
What is a Marketing Funnel?
The marketing funnel, also known as the customer funnel or conversion funnel, is a model that we follow to track the customer’s journey from awareness of the product or the service to the purchase process.
The following funnel shape illustrates the wide part (the top of the funnel), which is the awareness stage of your project and your product; and the narrow part (the bottom of the funnel), which indicates that the targeted audience starts to decrease as we move towards the purchase. Therefore, great efforts should be exerted in the early stages to maintain your potential customers and convert them into real customers capable of payment and purchase of the product or service.
What are the stages of a marketing funnel?
The stages of the marketing funnel vary from one model to another, as each company uses the most suitable model according to its needs. This is simply because customer journeys differ from one company to another, as services may be B2B or B2C.
One of the most used models is AIDA, which consists of four stages: Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action.
The activities in each stage are as follows:
1- Awareness Stage: This stage begins with the beneficiary or consumer visiting your website, social media accounts, sponsored and paid advertisements, in addition to events and conferences you organize for your company to gain exposure.
2- Interest Stage: This is the step where the potential beneficiary or consumer shows interest in your product or services with the aim of solving a problem they face or meeting a need. They begin to search extensively for your brand in newsletters and e-books, to attend seminars and workshops, and to visit your booth at exhibitions and conferences to ask more questions and inquire about your products, services, and means of help.
3- Desire Stage: After knowing the solutions you offer to their pain points, the beneficiary or consumer becomes a potential customer. The most common action taken in this stage is the pricing process to make a decision.
4- Action Stage: This is the most important stage in the marketing funnel. Potential customers become real customers after the purchase process. Even those who did not make a purchase are still potential customers. Through retargeting, you can convert them into real customers. In other words, the action stage is a successful stage by all means.
Importance of a marketing funnel
The importance of the marketing funnel can be summarized in three main points:
1- Improving the customer journey.
2- Developing the marketing strategy for the product or service.
3- Increasing the conversion rate.
Click here to download the marketing funnel model.
What is a Sales Funnel?
The sales funnel or sales path is the funnel we follow to track the purchasing journey, which starts after marketing and ends with a new stage called loyalty or customer retention.
What are the stages of a sales funnel?
The sales funnel consists of five main stages:
1- Awareness Stage: After the success of the efforts exerted for marketing in establishing a clear image of your brand, customers enter the sales funnel with awareness and knowledge about the company. But they do not know how you can meet their needs.
2- Interest or Consideration Stage: In this stage, potential customers start searching more extensively for your brand.
3- Decision Stage: The decision stage in the sales funnel differs from the desire or intention stage in the marketing funnel. In the sales funnel, the potential customer is closer to making a decision.
4- Action or Implementation Stage: The purchasing process takes place in this stage.
5- Loyalty Stage: This stage focuses on customers who have already made a purchase by providing after-sales services. The sales team in this stage should care about customer satisfaction so that they continue to make purchases or recommend the brand to others.
Importance of a sales funnel
The importance of the sales funnel can be summarized in five key points:
1- Understanding customer buying behavior.
2- Identifying weaknesses in the customer journey.
3- Managing customer relationships and the initial purchase. A sales funnel helps companies manage ongoing customer relationships and enhance them. It provides a roadmap for after-sales engagement, customer support, and opportunities for selling additional products or services.
4- Prediction and Planning: The organized nature of the sales funnel facilitates the prediction of future sales and revenues. Through analyzing data history and conversion rates at each stage, companies can make accurate predictions about future performance and can plan accordingly.
5- Continuous Improvement and Development.
Click here to download the sales funnel model.
So, what is the difference between a marketing funnel and a sales funnel?
Simply put, the main difference between the two is the ultimate goal of each funnel or path. If you plan on using the marketing path, your goal becomes creating a broad network and attracting potential customers to your brand. However, the goal of the sales funnel is to convert potential customers into real customers.
