How many stages of sales funnel should you ideally have

stages of sales funnel

Let me go ahead and make a guess!

You probably clicked this article link because you are eager to learn more about the different sales funnel stages and thereby incrementally increase your revenues. And, you’re right!

If you can understand and leverage the different stages of the sales funnel, you can improve your sales revenue and transactions.

By learning intently about the different stages within the sales funnel, you can learn to stop money leak between the multiple funnel stages. If you draw a physical comparison, this is literally like money slipping between your fingers and lost forever. Ultimately, the multi-stage sales funnel enables you to sit-up and take notice of your customer requirements.

Multi-stage sales funnel improves your revenue

Most customers don’t purchase during their first purchase to the website. This is especially true in the case of B2B industry and other high-value purchases. In these cases, you have customers that take a long time to process the available options and reach the final decision.

According to Mckinsey group, a typical customer journey could be described as given below.

sales funnel stages

You need to have a sales funnel to have a place at your prospects mind at the end of the sales funnel.

A well-tuned and organized sales funnel will bring-forth these advantages.

  • Evolve your sales pitch and marketing offer
  • Create a maximum number of touch points with a prospect
  • Create accurate sales predictions
  • Build a position and identity for your product
  • Organize your complete sales activity

If you don’t have a segmented multi-stage sales funnel, all your marketing activities may end-up being skewed or slanting towards ineffective activities. In this, you could be focusing too much on a particular part of your sales funnel.

For example, you could be focusing on too many search terms to receive a large amount of traffic. At the same time, your landing page should be sufficiently nuanced to create the final purchase or your sales team should be equipped to close the deal. This means that the different parts of your sales funnel should be adequately represented or given adequate information.

Otherwise, you may not be able to close the required number of final sales deals.

Below, we will describe the different phases of the sales funnel and possible ways to influence and convert those opportunities.

Stage 1 – Industry Awareness

At the first stage, your consumers should be made aware of the reason that your particular products are worth their time and money. The products across multiple industry sections could be clamoring for your prospects attention.

At this stage, your prospect should be made aware of the particular features and adequate selling points of the product.

You can introduce case studies and client testimonials at this stage.

Stage 1 Goal

The goal would be to make aware of the particular benefits of your industry. By facilitating specific information, you can set yourself as the main source of relevant industry data and henceforth reinforce the later stages of the funnel.

Stage 2 – Competitive Awareness

Let’s take that your prospect has become aware of your product and currently looking forward to making the best choice.

The present-day consumer has multiple ways of accessing the necessary information.

This is a brief snapshot of the various touch points available at the customer’s finger.

2nd Stage Sales Funnel

By making it easier for your consumers to access and furnish necessary information, you can make it easier to move forward through the sales funnel.

Stage 2 Goal

Stage 2 Goal would be to introduce the unique selling features or USP’s of your concerned product. You can achieve this by providing the necessary customer information through the multiple touch points.

Stage 3 – Evaluation Phase

After purchasing a particular product, your prospect needs to decide about the suitability of the particular product to one’s own business. This is achieved through the evaluation phase of the product.

For a SaaS company, this could be a trial version of the particular software. In the E-commerce space, the prospect may make a minimal product order to evaluate your services. Anyways, the evaluation phase is the basis for a long-standing customer relationship.

Stage 3 Goal

As mentioned, the evaluation phase is intended to convince the prospect of the right product match. It will also ensure long-standing business relationships.

Stage 4 – Deciding Phase

In this stage, the prospect makes the decision to buy the product or to instead choose a competitor. In this stage, the sales representative should be equipped with the answer to all potential customer problems. The pricing system will determine the final price during this phase.

The CRM quote management software can enable and aid business to make favorable purchase decisions. The conclusive quotation software can eliminate efficient pain points in the purchase decision.

Stage 4 Goal:-

For most businesses, this would be the point of the initial transaction. By effectively influencing the consumer decision, you can get more deals closed in less time.

Stage 5 – Retention phase

For most businesses, significant portions of revenue goals are achieved through their repeat purchases and up-sell or cross-sell deals. This can only be achieved through an extended period of time. In this light, the ability to retain a given customer base is critically important.

The CRM software helps you establish an actual customer retention strategy. This usually requires multi-channel customer management that demands greater versatility.

Stage 5 Goal:-

As per Bain & Company, a 5% increase for customer retention can result in a revenue increase of 25%-95%. Perhaps, this makes it the most important among all the different stages of the sales funnel.

Takeaway:-

The five stages of sales funnel is an effective way to attract, convert and manage your customers.  At the same time, an ineffective sales funnel could see your visitors prematurely leaving your business.

Within CRM software, you can effectively manage your customers effectively through the five different stages. Learn more about integrated sales funnel to improve your revenue.

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