What is a sales funnel and how to create it
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 6:29 am
The sales funnel is a tool that allows us to visualize the journey of a visitor to your website from the first moment they visit you until they finally make a purchase or hire your services.
This process is very important as it allows us to know if our digital strategy is working correctly , and if not, it will help us to know which part of the sales process is failing, which will help us to solve it and improve our conversion rate.
Resource_Funnel (1)
Why is the sales funnel important?
Many times companies make sales without knowing very well how they have ended, or in other cases, the opposite situation occurs: they make sales to clients who do not know very well how they have found out about them.
This is because they are not clear about what objectives visitors must overcome to complete their decision-making and purchasing process .
It is true that not all visitors who come to your website will become customers. oman email list But just like a sales team, knowing the information needs of visitors, no matter where they are, will help you structure the process, attract them and nurture them by guiding them along their decision-making journey.
Therefore, we must highlight the importance of being clear about the topics of conversation that we will have with our prospects because the funnel establishes the number of impacts that a contact will receive throughout the entire process.
inbound marketing
How to create a sales funnel
The Buyer persona
The first thing is to know your Buyer Persona or ideal client well , what their information needs, friction points and pain points are . Having identified the ailments, you can find many more points of connection and approach, to be able to communicate in a more efficient and effective way. The objective is that when you approach a future client you have the information to be able to solve their real problem.
If you need help at this point, you can download our ebook:
how to create buyer personas
The conversion phase
This is the stage of the sales funnel where a simple visitor becomes a lead or prospect. These are the users who show interest in your product or service and fill out the forms with their data.
At this stage, the sales funnel becomes narrower and this is where you should increase your efforts, because this is where you define which visitors will be able to continue advancing in your conversion funnel and become customers and which will not.
If you have targeted your marketing and sales campaigns at your buyer persona and your content is focused correctly, you will see positive conversions.
Furthermore, thanks to the information that they have provided us in the download forms and the information that we have received in the interactions with the prospects, we will have very valuable information to make a lateral sale and convert our clients into our best prescribers.
Stages of the sales funnel
In the sales funnel we find different phases that are grouped into 3 main stages:
TOFU - Top of the Funnel
MOFU - Middle of the Funnel
BOFU - Bottom of the Funnel
real conversion funnel
At the widest part of the funnel, known as TOFU , we find the visitors , that is, all those users who land on our website. Here we also find the Leads , those people who, in addition to visiting our website, have shown some kind of interest in a product or service, leaving us their data by filling out a form.
In the second stage ( MOFU ) we identify and classify the leads generated in the first stage. This phase is very important because if we filter the potential clients correctly, it will allow us to focus our sales efforts.
Here we find the MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) and SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) .
In this regard, you may be interested in our article: Lead conversion: Find quality contacts on your website
The difference between an MQL and an SQL lies in their position within the funnel. An SQL is a lead in which the sales department can invest its time because it could be a future client .
And finally, in the third stage lies the narrowest part of the funnel ( BOFU ), where we find the sales opportunity and the closure .
What type of content should you share at each stage of the sales funnel?
1st Stage (TOFU)
This is the stage in which the user is interested in a topic but is not yet really aware of the specific problem . He suspects that what you offer could be a solution, so this is where it all begins.
In this phase, TOFU content should be promoted through blog articles or webinars with the aim of informing and responding to the user's initial needs so that they consider you.
Your main objective here is to get the user's data so that they enter your sales funnel. To get to this point, you must first know how to listen to that person and understand their problem in order to offer them the solution they are looking for. Therefore, once you have solved their problem, you must inform them about your product/service so that the user is interested and wants to know more about you and starts downloading relevant content.
2nd Stage (MOFU)
This stage is the most delicate, as this is when the user is aware of the problem. Therefore, at this point you have to create and offer them MOFU content aimed at solving their problem, in order to keep them in the funnel and reach the 3rd stage.
And what content can you offer them? For example:
eBooks, Guides and White Papers
Infographics
Success stories or testimonials
3rd Stage (BOFU)
In the last stage, the user is ready to complete the transaction . Therefore, in this phase we should promote BOFU content in which we can talk about both the brand and its products. The tools you can use in this phase are:
Promotions and offers
This process is very important as it allows us to know if our digital strategy is working correctly , and if not, it will help us to know which part of the sales process is failing, which will help us to solve it and improve our conversion rate.
Resource_Funnel (1)
Why is the sales funnel important?
Many times companies make sales without knowing very well how they have ended, or in other cases, the opposite situation occurs: they make sales to clients who do not know very well how they have found out about them.
This is because they are not clear about what objectives visitors must overcome to complete their decision-making and purchasing process .
It is true that not all visitors who come to your website will become customers. oman email list But just like a sales team, knowing the information needs of visitors, no matter where they are, will help you structure the process, attract them and nurture them by guiding them along their decision-making journey.
Therefore, we must highlight the importance of being clear about the topics of conversation that we will have with our prospects because the funnel establishes the number of impacts that a contact will receive throughout the entire process.
inbound marketing
How to create a sales funnel
The Buyer persona
The first thing is to know your Buyer Persona or ideal client well , what their information needs, friction points and pain points are . Having identified the ailments, you can find many more points of connection and approach, to be able to communicate in a more efficient and effective way. The objective is that when you approach a future client you have the information to be able to solve their real problem.
If you need help at this point, you can download our ebook:
how to create buyer personas
The conversion phase
This is the stage of the sales funnel where a simple visitor becomes a lead or prospect. These are the users who show interest in your product or service and fill out the forms with their data.
At this stage, the sales funnel becomes narrower and this is where you should increase your efforts, because this is where you define which visitors will be able to continue advancing in your conversion funnel and become customers and which will not.
If you have targeted your marketing and sales campaigns at your buyer persona and your content is focused correctly, you will see positive conversions.
Furthermore, thanks to the information that they have provided us in the download forms and the information that we have received in the interactions with the prospects, we will have very valuable information to make a lateral sale and convert our clients into our best prescribers.
Stages of the sales funnel
In the sales funnel we find different phases that are grouped into 3 main stages:
TOFU - Top of the Funnel
MOFU - Middle of the Funnel
BOFU - Bottom of the Funnel
real conversion funnel
At the widest part of the funnel, known as TOFU , we find the visitors , that is, all those users who land on our website. Here we also find the Leads , those people who, in addition to visiting our website, have shown some kind of interest in a product or service, leaving us their data by filling out a form.
In the second stage ( MOFU ) we identify and classify the leads generated in the first stage. This phase is very important because if we filter the potential clients correctly, it will allow us to focus our sales efforts.
Here we find the MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) and SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) .
In this regard, you may be interested in our article: Lead conversion: Find quality contacts on your website
The difference between an MQL and an SQL lies in their position within the funnel. An SQL is a lead in which the sales department can invest its time because it could be a future client .
And finally, in the third stage lies the narrowest part of the funnel ( BOFU ), where we find the sales opportunity and the closure .
What type of content should you share at each stage of the sales funnel?
1st Stage (TOFU)
This is the stage in which the user is interested in a topic but is not yet really aware of the specific problem . He suspects that what you offer could be a solution, so this is where it all begins.
In this phase, TOFU content should be promoted through blog articles or webinars with the aim of informing and responding to the user's initial needs so that they consider you.
Your main objective here is to get the user's data so that they enter your sales funnel. To get to this point, you must first know how to listen to that person and understand their problem in order to offer them the solution they are looking for. Therefore, once you have solved their problem, you must inform them about your product/service so that the user is interested and wants to know more about you and starts downloading relevant content.
2nd Stage (MOFU)
This stage is the most delicate, as this is when the user is aware of the problem. Therefore, at this point you have to create and offer them MOFU content aimed at solving their problem, in order to keep them in the funnel and reach the 3rd stage.
And what content can you offer them? For example:
eBooks, Guides and White Papers
Infographics
Success stories or testimonials
3rd Stage (BOFU)
In the last stage, the user is ready to complete the transaction . Therefore, in this phase we should promote BOFU content in which we can talk about both the brand and its products. The tools you can use in this phase are:
Promotions and offers