Sales prospecting funnel: definition and example

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La prospecting is an essential step for every company that wants to develop its turnover. The salesperson must carry out prospecting campaigns efficient. For this, theprospecting funnel is a tool that indicates the canvassing steps And of tracking to be carried out. The aim is to achieve determine one profile By prospect interesting And the convert in shopper.

What is the prospecting funnel?

A good prospecting campaign is essential for developing a new customer base. But the company will never be able to benefit from intakes prospecting if the latter is poorly executed. A reflection in funnel is the best way to take an effective approach for reliable results.

What is a sales funnel? a conversion tunnel?

The purpose of prospecting is not to challenge tutti the individuals randomly and try to convince them toadhere to the proposal. The salesperson must succeed in determining the marketing operations Who will be pertinent On the target audience. This work is used to qualify prospects more adapted to the offer who are more likely to hire a long term relationship.

Not all leads turn into patrons. The conversion tunnel Is a prospecting operation which aims to Filter potential leads. Those who commit themselves at the end of these various phases will be the qualified prospects.

What is a sales funnel?

One sales funnel Is a marketing tool. It is a concept that allows us to analyze theefficiency of the sales method as and when steps.

It's about tunnel formed by all the successive steps of the commercial prospecting.

In the image of a kind of pyramid, the process is first wide (prospecting, making contact), then Clarify (exchange, information gathering) before focus on the essentials and lead to a concrete outcome (signature of the contract, sale, conversion into a customer).

Why use a prospecting funnel?

At the end of this process, the objective is to reveal only relevant prospects.

Using a prospecting funnel improves quality commercial prospecting and therefore the chances of having the best sales opportunities.

This tool allows the salesperson to To know its conversion rate. En portraying The results of each prospecting stage, it can assess theefficiency of its sales cycle.

Thanks to these observations, he follows the Typical course of a prospect and can adapt your approach according to needs.

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How do you create a prospecting funnel?

• Define the customer journey

To create a logical and relevant path, the salesperson must understand the position of prospects. He must imagine the stages that they will go through between first contact Until the decisionmaking. The lead goes through a lot ofemotions And ofactivities : discovery, information, doubt etc...

By looking for the sales funnel adequate, the salesperson must be able to responder to all these eventualities. To do this, he can use customer feedback previous ones (surveys, polls, interviews).

• Determine which methods to use

Once the customer process And its objectives defined, the salesperson must determine the optimal ways to achieve it.

He is thinking about softwares And sales methods to be used at key moments in client mapping in order to ensure a tracking qualitative of relationship.

It can be inspired by tools used in the past but also testing new channels of contact.

• Create a sales pipeline

A major action of the salesperson is to determine the Pipeline to be monitored in relation to global goals. Depending on products and services offered by businesses, the strategy will be different. Concretely, it is about structuring the previous step in a real process.

In the future, the use of this tool will provide a great technical and practical service tosales team. The pipeline represents the various prospecting stages, the established forecasts as well as thetask progress.

• Determine the stakeholders

Each actor has its own field of action. For prospecting, several tools are used: web page, blog, LinkedIn, CRM, email.

Each channel Ask the speaker to put different sales techniques in place.

THEBusiness challenge is to attract the maximum number of visitors and to create the maximum number ofopportunities.

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How do you calculate a prospecting funnel?

Calculate performance of the prospecting process is a simple and effective way toassess effectiveness Of her strategy. Without a good process, recruited prospects don't will not match to the company and its offer. To avoid this, there is a simple tool : the conversion ratio.

How do you calculate the lead funnel conversion ratio?

The reckoning And the reflector behind the conversion ratio is actually quite unsophisticated.

It is a reckoning To be carried out at each stage prospecting, that is to say as the prospect progresses in thefunnel.

Here is a instance simple:

At the beginning, the salesperson contacts 100 prospects. Finally, of this number, only 50 respond with interest.

As the exchanges progressed, 25 were finally not convinced and 10 stopped responding. Of the 50, only 15 individuals continue the process. And finally, only 10 close a sale.

Faced with this observation, the reasoning is simple. All you have to do is divide The population present at stage N By the present number of the period N-1.

To use the example again, the conversion rate between the second and the third stage is 15/50 = 0.3, or 30%. And in the same way for the rest, 10/15 = 0.6.

The closer this result is to 1 (100%), the more the estimate is Satisfactory. This means that the majority prospects continued prospecting until the prospecting stage Next.

Calculate your commercial efficiency thanks to the sales funnel

Calculate steadily its conversion rate at each prospecting stage is a way for the salesperson to perfect your strategy.

It is a informant to determine if the prospecting funnel is coming out effective or not.

By analyzing the ratio of converted people (who continued the sales process) compared to the number ofbasic contacted individuals, it is easy to see if the prospects were mostly Convinced or not.

Of course, this data remains Blurred. In fact, the reasons for abandonment of the buying process can be multiples. However, it's still a good way toassess effectiveness Of thenears of the commercial.

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What are the different uses of the conversion funnel?

• Managing the various contact points

With the multiplication of Means of communication, the information flow want to be more and more important. To avoid flooding the prospect with a quantity of calls and data, the prospecting funnel is a way to manage exchanges. The various interactions will allow the salesperson to determine the contents relevant to present to prospects. The aim is to achieve Hit the target At the moment optimum.

• Manage the actions of the sales team

There are numerous actors in commercial prospecting. The aim is tooptimizing the work And the times of each person in order to obtain quick results and Relevant.

In B2B as in B2C, each step must be clear structured in order to make the prospecting process fluid. This tool makes it easy tointervention of each actor according to the conversion funnel.

• Understand the strengths and weaknesses of the marketing strategy

Ce Pyramid system highlights theefficiency of the commercial prospecting of the company. Thanks to the prospecting funnel, the salesperson will be able to calculate and know his conversion rate. That is to say the performance of its sales cycle in relation to the number of prospects contacted.

• Differentiate between the different types of prospects

The objective for the salesperson is to focus their time on qualified prospects and not on any lead.

Thus, the company filter profiles according tofurtherance of the conversion funnel. At first, they are visitors, then leads, then Marketing Qualified Lead, then Sales Qualified Lead before finally being customers.

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What are the steps to create a prospecting funnel?

Creating a relevant prospecting funnel does not require a lot of wherewithal. The most important thing for the salesperson is to take the good decisions. This work of reflector understands Three steps successive.

Top Of Funnel (TOFU)

It's about the first step of the sales cycle. It consists in the moment when prospects discover the company. The salesman is coming back for the First time in contact with leads for sensitize to the offer.

The challenge still remains general. The aim is not yet tolead to a sale But of publicizing the proposal and understand the expectations of the public.

To do this, the salesperson must multiply the contact channels to Capturing attention prospects. It uses contents At the same time incoming (articles, advertising...) and retiring (email, cold call, webinar...).

Middle Of Funnel (MOFU)

After introducing prospects to the offer, the salesperson can already start Filter interesting profiles. The aim is to convert Relevant leads in prospects qualified for sale.

At this stage, individuals Know The proposition And the mark. It is already easier to recognize who is interested and who is not.

Once this work ofidentification In fact, the salesperson must gather and communicate as much as possibleinformation possible. He has to show up disponible and reachable in order to help leads determine their purchase decision.

To do this, the salesperson encourages a close relationship Inspiring the trust And theexpertise of the domain. He may be required to provide swatches or do demonstrations of the product.

Bottom Of Funnel (BOTU)

Once interest has been aroused, theinvolvement follows naturally.

It's about the final stage of the prospecting funnel. In other words, it is at the end of the BOTU that the prospect is converted into a customer for the vending.

Thanks to all the informations gathered on his profile (expectations, desires, needs) during previous exchanges, the salesperson has a Power of persuasion.

The challenge is to convince to take action.

To do this, the salesperson must personalize your approach and adapt your offer to be in line with consumer potential.

The aim is to build loyalty on this purchase but also to prepare the future business relationship. The salesperson may be required to initiate the discussion on theAct of purchase, the terms of the contract Or the payment options possible.

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What are the limits of the conversion funnel - 7 lines

• Not targeting the right audience

Prospecting is a expensive process both in time and in money. If the sales team interacts with targets that are not adapted on offer, theparses depending on the conversion funnel loses all meaning. The business must be Coherent In his marketing approach In order to touch The good audience and get relevant results.

• Don't rely blindly on the conversion ratio

The salesperson does not have to assign all the performance from its prospecting to upshot of the conversion rate. In fact, many other factors may come into play. It may be interesting to compute the contact rate Or the Rate of ascent. This data will provide additional information On theefficiency And theoptimization of the procedure.

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FAQ prospecting funnel:

What are the 3 stages of the conversion funnel?

The conversion funnel models three successive steps ofthe customer journey.

The first is”Attract”. It's about the first interaction Where the salespeople Make contact with prospects and Introduce the company and its offer.

The second is”Consider”. That is, the moment when the leads Get informed and are starting to make decisions. It's the Questioning phase Where the salesperson should answer questions And the convince to take action.

The final stadium is”Convert”. The prospects are here skilled to proceed with the purchase. The salesman succeeded in convert A part of opportunities From the beginning in patrons.

How to write a good prospecting message?

There is no Miracle method Or ofPasse-separtout hook.

The objective of marketing And of the prospecting is to reach individuals compatible with the image and message of the company.

Each nears must be thought and adapted At profile of the prospect.

For the convince, the salesperson must use the informations gathered as the exchanges progressed to determine theargumentation that will prove effective on the target.

What are the steps of the funnel method?

The conversion funnel is represented by a funnel What each customer goes through during the prospecting process. It exists Three steps :

The TOFU, Top of the Funnel, is the first stage. The aim is toentice a large number of prospects by giving value to the proposal. It's still a general positioning.

The MOFU, Middle of the Funnel, filter The interested targets by the offer or not.

And finally, only prospects Converted in patrons Reach the BOFU, Bottom of the Funnel.

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