There are 6 stages of the sales funnel in total, but depending on your sales process, you may only use 5 of them.
The sales funnel stages are:
- Acknowledgment
- Interest
- Assessment
- Purchase commitment
- Buys
- After-sales
Keep in mind that your leads should gradually move list to data from one stage to the next, thanks to the different marketing and sales tools you apply to your business.
The stages of the sales funnel are typically consistent throughout the sales process. Let’s take a closer look at each of them:
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Stage 1: Gaining knowledge
It’s when a lead learns about your product or service for the first time.
They may see one of your ads, read a blog post, inbound marketing good practices and pitfalls or hear about you from a discovery sales representative or friend.
At this stage, they still don’t know much about you and aren’t ready to make a purchase.
Your job is to inform them about your product or service and capture their interest, including through direct sales, challenger sales, or spin selling.
Some marketing activities that can be used at this stage are:
- Advertising: Physical ads, multimedia ads, retargeting ads.
- Social media: Share interesting content, create a presence.
- Content Marketing: Sharing useful resources, webinars.
Make sure your content is informative and useful, rather than just salesy. You want to build trust and credibility with your leads, not discourage them with a hard sell.
We also recommend keeping your content fun and engaging, as this will help you build a relationship with your leads.
An example of this is Slack’s Twitter account; they china numbers share a mix of content, ranging from helpful articles to funny memes:
Stage 2: Interest
Once a lead is aware of your product or service, if you’ve done a good job, they move on to the interest phase.
They might start following you on social media, subscribe to your email list, or download one of your eBooks.
They’re starting to see you as a credible source of information, but they’re not yet ready to make a purchase.
This is what makes this stage so crucial: You have the fish on the hook, but you don’t have it in your hands yet.
It’s important to keep the interest level high at this point so your leads don’t slip away. Keep them engaged with your brand and continue building a relationship.
You can do this using some of these sales tricks:
- Email marketing: Newsletters, lead nurturing emails.
- Social networks: Engagement, contests.
- Content Marketing: Creating useful resources, webinars.
- Events : Webinars, tutorials, etc.
This is where you’ll use your CRM, as it can help you track your leads and their interactions with your brand.
You can also automate some of your email marketing tasks, such as sending lead nurturing or follow-up emails.
And the good news is that LaGrowthMachine is compatible with most CRMs on the market.
You can configure the solution so that when a lead responds to you, it automatically syncs with your CRM or sales lead database and appears with their specific status.
For example, if a lead is looking for information
They’ll need content that helps them understand their problem and possible solutions.
If a lead is evaluating options, they’ll need more details about your products or services to make a fair comparison.
And if you’re about to make a decision, you’ll need a little push to make up your mind.
At this stage, you can start incorporating some sales content into your marketing mix. You can do this by sharing case studies, success stories, or customer testimonials.
This will help show your leads that you are a credible and trustworthy company.
This is the time to test your lead a little and start getting to know them better.
Do they read your emails? Do they click on your links? If so, where do they click? Do they engage with your social media posts?
This will provide you with valuable insight into the type of content they’re interested in and how you can best serve them.
Stage 3: Evaluation
This is when your leads start comparing you to other competitors and basically weighing the pros and cons.
They’ll visit your website, read online reviews, or talk to someone who’s already bought from you.
They’re trying to figure out if you’re right for them and if they’re ready to make a purchase.
You might think the lead is in control at this stage, but that’s not true. You can influence their decision-making process with some well-executed sales techniques.
Some things you can do to help tip the balance in your favor are:
- Free Trials: Offer a free trial of your funnel stages product or service so they can see for themselves how it works.
- Money-back guarantees: Eliminate the risk of buying from you by offering a money-back guarantee.
- Testimonials and social proof: Share customer testimonials, reviews, and social media posts to show that other people are happy with your product or service.
The idea behind this is to give your lead a taste of what it would be like to work with you and eliminate any potential objections they might have.