What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel can be described as:
The theoretical journey that customer prospects (leads) follow from a stage of capturing their interest until there is a resulting outflow of doing business in the end.  As can be expected, there will be more initial interest (leads) and fewer actual purchasing clients, hence the funnel shape that is used to describe the different stages.

​The Components of a Typical Sales Funnel. 

​Though sales funnels may differ, a typical sales funnel will have the components listed below. During the discussion of the stages of a sales funnel that will follow, the use of the different components will be illustrated.

​COMPONENTS
1. Lead Magnet;  2. Marketing Strategy;  3. Capture Page; 4. Thank you Page;  5. Autoresponder & follow up;  6. Sales Page;  7. Sale and outflow

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The Seven Stages of a Sales Funnel

The following Seven Stages of a Sales Funnel will explain to you how the different components are applied during the prospect’s journey through the sales funnel.

STAGE 1: RESEARCH AND PLANNING
At first, you will have to do some research yourself and plan what the outcome must be that you want to reach in the process. 

Establish who it is that might have a need for your product or service, in other words, who is the audience that you want to reach with your offer.

What might their pains, struggles and needs be and what is the remedy that you can put in front of them to capture their interest. So, from everybody out there active in the world wide web, you start sifting out your ideal audience (Niche) who might have a need for your product / service.
FUNNEL COMPONENT APPLIED:  Lead Magnet planning and creation.

STAGE 2: AWARENESS (Capturing interest)
Your audience have to be made aware of the fact that they have a need, but also that you can present them with a solution to the need. It is quite possible that they have a real struggle or issue in one or other area, but they are not even fully aware of it themselves. This is your chance to be creative and stress the issue. 

If you are for instance active in the health and wellness industry, you may create body mass index tables and show out the risks zones where obesity starts setting in.  
This is just one example.

Another example may be an online marketer or blogger’s struggle to get visitors to his website. You may then for instance create a blog post on the ratio of web page visitors compared to sales conversions. This will create an awareness of the issue with your prospect and he will then be open to look for ways to get more traffic to his website.
FUNNEL COMPONENT APPLIED:  Marketing Strategy.

STAGE 3: ATTRACTION / INTEREST 
Once your prospects are made aware of their need, they will become alert and start looking for solutions. This is your opportunity to put your lead magnet offer in front of your prospects. If your offer (lead magnet) addresses the issue/s of your prospects and they are of the opinion that it is the “cure” for their “condition”, they will easily be attracted to your offer.

The attraction must be strong enough that it will move them to the next stage, which is engagement. 
FUNNEL COMPONENT APPLIED:  Marketing Strategy & Lead Magnet

STAGE 4: ENGAGEMENT 
Strong attraction will move your prospects to engage in your offer by trading their contact details for your lead magnet on your capture page. 
FUNNEL COMPONENT APPLIED:  Capture page

In return for their details, your capture page will then send your prospect to a “Thank you” page. This is the first level of engagement from your side with your prospect after you received the contact details of the person to your list. Make sure that your thank you page shows appreciation for the interest that the person has taken in your offer. 
This is also where they will download the file with the information of your lead magnet offer that you will be sharing.
FUNNEL COMPONENT APPLIED:  Thank you page

STAGE 5: CONSIDERATION AND EVALUATION
During this stage, the prospect will evaluate your lead magnet and apply it to his situation. This is why the value of your initial lead magnet must be enough to establish trust with the prospect.

It is the ideal time to make 101 contact with the prospect, letting him/her know that you are a real person, caring enough to be in personal contact.

Through a pre-setup  follow up email series you will be able to do the following:
- Drip more relevant and valuable content to the prospect.
- Further establish good relations.
- Build trust
- Show out the why, what and how of your solution product.
- Gradually lead the prospect to your sales offer.
- This is called the warming up process of your prospects.
FUNNEL COMPONENT APPLIED:  Autoresponder & follow up.

STAGE 6: DECISION & ACTION
This is where your prospect decides to take action by actually making use of your sales offer. The prospect gets to a point where his/ her “need” is turned into a “want” and the want is strong enough to make him/her part with money in exchange for your offer. Everything before builds up to this point where a transaction is concluded and the sale is made.
FUNNEL COMPONENT APPLIED: Sales page.

STAGE 7: RESULT / DELIGHT
This stage is actually an after sales stage.

You have the delight of having a sale, but what about your new client?
Keep in mind that the client must also be delighted with the purchase. The better the product experience is for the client, the more likely it is that the client will be open to more related offers from you. If you are therefore successful in making it a great and a valuable experience for your client, the better are your chances to selling more related products to the client.

You may even be successful in creating such a loyal following of clients that they will be prepared to follow you into another venture and cross sell to them in another niche.
FUNNEL COMPONENT APPLIED:  Sale & outflow.

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