If you’ve dabbled in the field of email marketing, or any other type of digital marketing, you’ve probably heard of “marketing funnels” and “sales funnels”. But if you’re like many people entering the marketing field, the chances are that you don’t have any idea what they are or how they work.
This is because the concept of sales funnels has taken off in recent years. It’s not a complicated topic, but it’s one that’s not always easy to find information about.
In this article, we aim to demystify marketing and sales funnels. We go into detail about what they are, why you should use them, and how to get started with them.
What Is a Marketing Funnel?
In simple terms, a marketing funnel can be thought of as the steps involved or taking a prospective customer and turning them into a conversion. It involves everything from making the said customer aware of your brand and product offerings to closing the sale.
Usually, marketing funnels follow quite a standard process.
- A broad net is cast to gather leads. This can be done through social media marketing, search engine marketing, email marketing, or even something as simple as content marketing.
- These leads are nurtured and guided through a set of steps that are designed to lead to a purchase. By encouraging specific actions, you can significantly reduce the number of leads lost here.
- Conversions are made whenever leads take the targeted actions that you want them to.
The idea of a sales funnel is that a percentage of the initial leads are lost during every step of the process. This leads to much fewer conversions than initial leads.