What Is A Sales Funnel?

If you want to drive sales, it’s very simple. You need a sales funnel. More specifically, you need to use the bulletproof sales funnel we’ll share in this blog. 

We’ve driven over $304 million dollars in revenue for our clients with our social media advertising services. You don’t do that by guessing what marketing campaigns are going to work.

You do that by having a sales funnel that works time and time again. Learn how to make a sales funnel and read to the very end because we’ll share the exact same sales funnel marketing we use for our clients to drive revenue.

What Is A Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a marketing term for the series of steps potential customers go through from not knowing about your brand at all to being a loyal customer.

It’s a marketing term used to describe the journey potential customers go through to make a purchase. People call it a funnel because when you build one out visually, it looks like a funnel.

The three steps of the sales funnel marketing include:

1. Top of the funnel
2. Middle of the funnel
3. Bottom of the funnel

These steps vary depending on the sales model of your business or company.

It hurts when a prospect drops out of the sales funnel after all the hard work of sales pitches, demos, and marketing efforts. This is a part of marketing, and it happens to everyone.

But if you have the right sales funnel management, it happens less. Every prospect matters if you’re a small business owner, so your marketing funnel needs to be foolproof.

Top digital marketing agencies like LYFE Marketing can help you with sales and marketing automation to turn missed opportunities into paying customers.

Why Is The Sales Funnel Important?

A sales funnel can help you understand what a customer is thinking, looking for, and doing at each stage of the buying journey. You can use these insights to create relevant marketing efforts at each stage of the sales funnel to turn prospects into sales.

Sales funnel marketing also highlights which social media channels to use and helps you create tailored messaging for each stage to make the most impact.

What Are The Sales Funnel Stages?

Every potential customer moves through the sales funnel stages before deciding to buy. The path may vary for each prospect, but they all weigh their interest, look at the problem they want to solve, and compare options to see if your product or service is the right fit.

There are 4 main sales funnel stages for the most common sales funnel.

Awareness, Consideration, Conversion, Advocacy.

We say most common because, when you Google marketing funnel, sales funnel, or advertising funnel, the results get complicated. They include extra stuff that not every business needs.

We’re sharing the same simple but effective sales funnel that works for our clients.

Stage 1: Awareness Stage

When you’re looking at the sales funnel stages, the widest part at the top is your awareness stage. It is also sometimes referred to as the top of the funnel.

This is considered to be the beginning of your sales process, where people enter your sales funnel, and here the customer journey begins.

People who are top-of-funnel are becoming familiar with your brand for the first time, because prior to this, they’ve never heard of it. These people are what’s called a “cold audience.”

They are in the awareness stage because you are making them aware of your brand, products, and services for the first time.

This stage is the widest part of the funnel for a reason. Here, you want to cast a wide net and then weed out people as you go.

Stage 2: Consideration Stage

Next, we have the middle of the funnel, otherwise known as the consideration stage or the interest stage. People who are in the middle of your funnel mean that they’ve just come from the awareness stage.

They are not new to your brand. They’re familiar with it now, either from seeing it on social media, Google Ads, or other advertisements. Therefore, people in the middle of your funnel are called a warm audience.

This audience is looking to move to the next sales funnel stage based on their interest. They will do competitive research and make sure you are the best solution to the problem they are trying to solve.

The key is to filter out uninterested people early. Only move forward with prospects who know about your offer and show real interest. You don’t want people who are not going to convert taking up space in your funnel.

Stage 3: Conversion Stage

Next, we have the conversion stage, sometimes referred to as your bottom of the funnel or decision stage. It’s the narrowest part because not everybody who enters at the top makes it to the bottom.

Only prospects who are likely to purchase make it to this point in your funnel. They are considered a hot audience; customers are engaged, familiar with your brand. They’ve shown interest and taken a high-intent action.

These are potential leads planning to purchase your product. This means they’ve shared their contact info (email addresses) with you or added your products to their cart. But, they haven’t purchased anything yet.

Your bottom-of-funnel marketing materials should be ready to close these people. They just need a final push to convert into customers. Ask yourself what words make people want to buy, and use them to close the deal.

A lot of people stop with these three sales funnel stages. So, make sure you pay attention and include this 4th section in your sales funnel management.

Stage 4: Advocacy Stage

The Advocacy stage is a stage in your sales funnel made for people who have already purchased. They have gone through the sales process once, and we call them retargeting customers.

If you’re a B2C or e-commerce company, retargeting customers may be something you should aim for. This is the sales funnel stages, and here you can turn existing customers into repeat buyers.

If you’re a B2B or service-based company, like us, use this stage to nurture existing clients. It can help keep them as long-term clients and get some referrals.

B2C or B2B businesses want to upsell customers on an add-on product or service. This is where you can nurture your existing customers into purchasing them.

The Advocacy stage helps you work smarter. It maximizes the value of your current customers so you don’t have to look after the whole buyer journey.

How To Create A Sales Funnel For Your Business

Your sales funnel needs prospects to work. Once prospects start moving through the funnel, you can use lead scoring to track their behavior, engagement patterns, and location.

Here’s how to create and optimize a sales funnel for your business in 8 simple steps without spending a dime.

1. Define Your Goal

Before making a sales funnel, you need to be clear on what you want to achieve from it. Is it direct sales? Leads? What is the cost you’re willing to pay? Specify your goals.

2. Make A List Of Customer Problems

Jot down all of the pain points, problems, and/or goals your customers have that your product or service helps with. What solution does your business provide them? You should have a clear picture.

3. Offer Something Of Value

Provide free, valuable content to customers in the Awareness stage. This builds trust in your brand and authority in your industry. If you don’t know what would qualify as valuable to them, refer to your list from the second step.

4. Provide Gated Value

Now, offer more in-depth value for free in exchange for their contact information. This value is often referred to as a lead magnet. Examples of lead magnets include a free eBook, quiz, calculator, or discount code, etc.

5. Qualify Leads

Qualify (and disqualify) leads. The leads must fit your business, and shortlist leads that will likely buy at the bottom of the sales funnel.

6. Start Nurturing Qualified Leads

You need to work on qualified leads for conversion. Give them free value, answering any questions they have, and tackle any objections. This will help with the customer decision.

Give them the CTA (call-to-action) to purchase the product or service to close them.

7. Upsell

After lead-to-customer conversion, upsell them on future purchases. If they have a good customer experience, maintain the client in the Advocacy stage.

8. Track Everything

Track how many people are entering your funnel vs how many people are coming out as customers at the bottom. Apply lead segmentation and adjust your strategies as needed. Make sure your funnel has no holes. The right people must pass through it at a profitable cost.

That’s the basic outline of our bulletproof sales funnel. Now we’re going to show you how to put it into action.

Find The Cracks In Your Sales Funnel Stages

Now that you understand how to build a sales funnel, it’s clear why managing it is important. Even strong prospects can drop off if you don’t guide and nurture them properly. To avoid that, you need a clear view of each step in your sales process and support to move prospects through those steps.

Prospecting and marketing bring prospects into the first stage. Each stage includes several tasks.

For example, a product demo isn’t just one step. It involves scheduling, reminders, the actual demo, and follow-up. No matter how your funnel is set up, you need tools and support to manage each part effectively.

Identify the part where you’re losing prospects. You should ask yourself these questions:

• Where do you lose track of potential prospects?
• What are bottlenecks in your sales process?
• What are the sales words or trigger points that lead to a sale?

These will help you identify the cracks in your sales funnel so you can fix them.

How Sales Funnel Management Can Help Your Business

Sales funnel leaks usually have three main causes, but you can fix them all with sales funnel management.

Don’t Give Up on “No” Too Soon 

In sales, “no” often just means “not right now.”

For example, small business owners often tell social media agencies, “We’re depending on referrals for now.” That’s not a hard rejection. It often means, “We’re not ready to spend yet, but we know we’ll need help soon.”

Instead of moving on, set up an automated email follow-up that addresses this exact concern. Share helpful content that eases their worries and builds confidence over time.

A well-crafted email series can turn hesitation into a sale. Yes, it takes effort to build, but once it’s in place, it keeps working for you.

Follow-up Fails

Are you following up on leads enough? Most aren’t. Let’s look at some stats:

• 80% of sales need at least 5 follow-ups
• 44% of sales reps don’t follow up after one email
• 46% of prospects need 3-5 touchpoints before becoming qualified

This shows many give up too soon, unsure whether to call new leads or keep chasing old ones. Persistence feels like a waste, but the data says it works.

You can fix it using marketing automation. It keeps all prospects engaged with regular, friendly messages at every stage of the funnel. This frees you to focus your personal efforts on the hottest leads, while automation handles the rest.

Too Slow

Leads are 9 times more likely to convert if you follow up within five minutes. If you wait 30 minutes or more, they are 21 times less likely to buy.

You might think contacting a lead that fast is impossible. But sales funnel automation can help.

Automated responses reach prospects immediately, even at 3 am on a Saturday. As leads move through the funnel, automation can send personalized emails timed for each stage.

Deliver The Right Message At The Right Stage Of The Sales Funnel

Let’s look at both organic and paid campaigns that you can run to fuel or nurture each part of the sales funnel.

Awareness Stage

The biggest thing to remember is that this is a cold audience, people who’ve never heard of your brand before. Business owners spend about $300 a month on ads for the first few months.

They’re targeting their ideal customer, but the ads are like BUY NOW, DISCOUNT, LIMITED TIME! And when they don’t get any revenue from that, they say, “I spent $300 and didn’t get any sales? Social media ads suck!”

The problem here is simple! You’re running conversion-stage ads to an awareness-stage audience.

The people seeing those ads for the first time are, at best, scrolling on.

Even if you’re following best practices and speaking to your audience’s needs, you haven’t earned their trust yet. Don’t expect a sale right away. Focus on building a relationship first.

In the awareness stage, don’t look for sales! Look for positive responses like likes, comments, views, and follows. MAYBE some website traffic to lay that first foundation of trust. Any marketing efforts in this stage should reflect those goals.

Marketing Strategies To Fuel The Awareness Stage

Posting On Social Media

You should post regularly on the platform your audience uses most. This builds brand awareness. We add hashtags, location tags, and keywords to further boost visibility.

If you post on Facebook or Instagram, we suggest running an engagement campaign to boost it for more likes, video views, and messages.

Influencer Marketing

You can give your social profiles a boost by using an influencer marketing strategy. When influencers share your brand, their followers (who trust them) are more likely to notice and engage with your brand.

Sales Campaign

If your product is low-cost and easy to buy on impulse, test a sales campaign with a cold audience. If it doesn’t convert, switch to an ad funnel that builds brand awareness and offers value before asking for a sale.

Promoting A Blog

Provide value to a cold audience by sending traffic to helpful content, not sales pitches. Use blog posts, landing pages, or social media that teach your audience how to solve a problem or fix a pain point.

Use a traffic campaign to send people to your landing page or blog. Simply adjust the conversion location at the ad set level, setting it to Website. You should also change the performance goal to maximize landing page views.

This setup helps Facebook show your ad to people who are more likely to wait for your page to load, not just click and bounce.

So you’re sending people to a content piece like a blog post. On that page, you can add a pop-up or sidebar with a lead magnet to collect contact info just in case they’re ready to engage.

But that shouldn’t be the main goal. This isn’t a squeeze page. At this stage, your only goal is to provide value, boost brand recall, and build trust.

Search Engine Optimization

If you can’t afford ads, a free but slow way to promote your blog is SEO (Search Engine Optimization). You can optimize your blog for keywords so they rank high in search results for them.

For instance, if you own a plumbing company, you can post a blog around the keywords “how to fix a kitchen sink leak”.

This way, when someone searches for that on Google, your website appears first. If they get the answer from your site, the buyer journey begins.

You’ll know this person needs your services. You’re building trust by providing free value that they need. In case they don’t fix it themselves, or need a plumber later, they’ll likely call you over competitors.

Go to Google Keyword Planner to find relevant keywords with high search volumes. It’s a free tool that helps find keywords that your audience searches.

SEO is time-consuming. It can take months, sometimes over a year, to rank a new website. Keyword optimization isn’t the only factor Google considers when ranking pages in search results.

Consideration Stage

This stage aims to prompt deeper, high-intent actions. It should also rule out those unlikely to convert later. Remember, you don’t want to waste labor, time, or money on leads or prospects who aren’t going to return a profit later.

Marketing Strategies To Fuel The Consideration Stage

Lead Generation: Facebook Ads & Google Ads

If your business needs to talk to leads before they can become customers, then lead generation is a good next step. If that’s the case, there are several Facebook ad campaigns you can perform:

In case you have a landing page for collecting leads, use the Sales campaign to send people there. You can track how many Facebook users completed your lead form.

If you don’t have a landing page (or if you find people aren’t responding well to that campaign), you can use Facebook’s Lead campaign. In this campaign, people can fill out your lead form on Facebook without leaving the site.

The leads’ contact info is stored in your Facebook Ads Manager for you to download manually or by CRM Automation.

You can also run a Google Ads campaign to send traffic to your landing page. The biggest difference is that with Facebook ads, you target people by interests, behavior, or demographics. You pay per impression.

A Google Ad, or PPC (pay-per-click) ad, targets people based on what they search on Google. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Your ads should promote a free, valuable lead magnet that users can get in exchange for their contact information.

App Promotion Campaign 

If your business allows it, use the App Promotion campaign. It is for apps that let users create a free account. Again, we’re not asking for a sale just yet. The middle of the funnel is all about getting them plugged into your brand a little deeper.

ManyChat Automations

You can create a free ManyChat account to automate replies to comments and messages on social media. This keeps your audience engaged and builds trust.

If your business doesn’t require a meeting before someone buys, you can use the same lead generation campaigns for a different goal.

For example, you can use these lead generation campaigns to get their contact info. Just offer a different type of lead magnet, like a discount code or early access to a new product.

Once you have their contact details, you can follow up through email and run retargeting ads.

Qualifying Leads

If you’re capturing leads in this stage, make sure you’re qualifying and disqualifying them. This lead management makes sure only qualified leads reach the bottom of your funnel.

Qualifying means you set reasonable expectations for the lead. You tell them what they’ll get from you. You’re not overpromising and underdelivering.

Disqualifying means you’re also ruling out if they don’t fit to be your customer or client. This is as important as a qualification, but small businesses often resist it. Sometimes it means turning away interested leads.

We know that’s hard to do because you want to accept any and all prospective customers, but here’s why it’s important.

Leads are usually disqualified for three reasons:

• They lack a budget
• They are in the wrong location
• Want something outside of what you offer

If a lead can’t afford your service, is outside your service area, or won’t be satisfied with your work, they’re not a good fit. Don’t waste time following up on them and focus on leads that match your ideal customer profile.

Disqualifying Leads

So, how do you qualify and disqualify leads? In every piece of content you put out, and especially in your lead form.

Ask clear questions early in the process. If the answers show they’re not a fit, remove them from your sales funnel. You can still offer a lead magnet that might interest them in the future.

For example, if you run a home repair business, ask, “Do you own your home?” If they say, “No, I rent,” you know not to pursue the lead.

If your lead magnet is a free spring maintenance checklist for homeowners, renters shouldn’t be filling out your form. Use qualifying questions to attract the right people and filter out the rest.

In the middle of the funnel, your goal is to identify who’s taken the right steps and is ready for a sales pitch.

Think of it like dating: You don’t propose on the first date. You build a connection first. This stage is where that connection happens. You’re moving from stranger to trusted brand, so the next step feels natural.

Conversion Stage & The Advocacy Stage

These sales funnel stages consist of a hot audience who has already taken a high-intent action with your brand. So this is where you start closing and/or upselling them with ads.

Marketing Strategies To Fuel the Conversion & Advocacy Stages

Sales Campaigns: Facebook, Google Search & Display

Top Google ads agencies use the Sales campaign from Facebook or a Search or Display campaign on Google.

No matter which platform you choose, track how many people saw your ad, clicked to your site, or visited your store, and made a purchase. That’s your sales funnel data, and it tells you what’s working.

Retargeting Your Warm Audience

You may wonder: how will you find those people online if they didn’t complete your lead form? Don’t worry! Every action your audience has taken up to this point can be retargeted.

In Ads Manager on Facebook and Instagram, you can create a custom audience. You can use it to retarget: likes, followers, video viewers, post engagers, website visitors, customers, and leads.

Make sure your Meta Pixel is set up on your website from the start. For Google Ads, you’ll need to install their tracking tag. And you’re all set.

Exclude Converted Customers

Some people in your retargeting audience will already be your clients or recent purchasers. To avoid wasting ad spend, create a separate exclusion list for them.

Upsell in the Advocacy Stage

You can create a separate campaign just for your existing customers. We use this to upsell them in the Advocacy stage with exclusive ads.

Bottom-of-Funnel Messaging

Your bottom-of-funnel ads should be clear and direct. You’ve already educated, provided value, and built trust. Now it’s time to:

• Ask for the sale
• Offer an upsell
• Encourage referrals

This is what sales funnel marketing looks like and how you do effective sales funnel management.

You’ve drawn in the right people from the start, and your content has shown them why your product is the best choice. So when they buy, they buy from you.

Here is an example of sales funnel management for a better understanding:

Sales Funnel Example

A small landscaping business, GreenEdge, wants to grow beyond referrals. Here is how LYFE Marketing will handle its sales funnel:

• Awareness: Run a Facebook video ad showing a messy yard being transformed to reach potential clients in their city.
• Interest: Follow up with viewers who watched 50% of the video and offer a free lawn health check as a lead magnet. Many book it.
• Consideration: The sales team points out problem areas during the check. They explain how regular service helps and leave behind a pricing sheet and a link to customer reviews.
• Intent: A few days later, leads get an email with before-and-after photos of similar yards and a limited-time 15% discount for first-time customers.
• Conversion: 1 in 3 signs up for the monthly service. In 30 days, they can double their monthly clients without chasing leads manually.

What Is A Sales Funnel Marketing FAQs

What is a sales funnel in marketing?

The sales funnel in marketing is the journey potential customers go through on the way to purchase. Sales funnel marketing has different steps, including: top, middle, and bottom of the funnel. These steps vary with the sales model of our company.

What are the 5 stages of a sales funnel?

The 5 stages of a sales funnel are as follows:

• Stage 1: Awareness
• Stage 2: Interest
• Stage 3: Evaluation
• Stage 4: Engagement
• Stage 5: Action

Do sales funnels really work?

Yes, sales funnels really work! A well-managed sales funnel can help your business understand how leads react at each stage and how they convert. This helps you attract and retain high-quality customers.

What is meant by sales funnel?

A sales funnel is the process prospects go through to become your customer. Potential buyers get one step closer to purchasing with each step of the sales funnel.

How do you create a sales funnel?

You can create a sales funnel by defining a clear goal and your ideal customer. Give them free value (a blog), then offer a lead magnet like a discount in exchange for their contact information. Follow up with emails or retargeting ads to build trust. When they’re ready, use a clear call to action to lead them to buy.

What is the difference between a sales pipeline and a sales funnel?

A sales pipeline outlines the steps to convert a lead into a customer. A sales funnel shows the total number of prospects and their progress through each stage. The pipeline focuses on specific deals, and the funnel shows the entire sales process.