To just grasp how to tell between a sales funnel and a marketing funnel, let’s first define what each tactic entails.
And so, to begin with: what is a marketing funnel?
Just in case you don’t know the purpose of this tactic, we have to let you know that this usually brings visitors to your company’s website or corporate blog and then converts them into leads.
But what are leads?
Leads are considered potential consumers of your products or services.
For this transformation from visitor to lead to occur, Marketing needs to take charge of getting visitors to exchange contact details with your company.
For this, rich downloadable materials and so on are used.
In addition, the Inbound Marketing strategy – attraction marketing – is also essential to boost the results of your marketing funnel. This is because it allows you to divide the content and your target audience into Top, Middle and Bottom of the Funnel content and leads .
Basically, the Top of the Funnel focuses on the discovery phase of the consumer’s problem, which is nurtured until the Middle of the Funnel, with the aim of making the consumer understand what the best options are for resolving it.
Finally, the marketing funnel would try to convert this buyer to the last stage of the funnel, that is, the Bottom, considered the purchase decision stage.
Knowing the components of the customer’s purchasing journey is just as crucial as comprehending what a marketing funnel is.
This is because it is divided into 4 stages:
1. Problem recognition: the consumer knows that he or she is probably experiencing a problem, but is unable to recognize it;
2. Learning: he or she discovers that there is a problem to be solved and begins research in search of a solution;
3. Recognition/Evaluation: once the customer has mastered the subject, he or she will begin to evaluate the best alternatives as a solution;
4. Purchase decision: based on all the research and analysis, the consumer can decide which product or service to purchase to meet his or her needs.
It is important to highlight that many people do not go through the marketing funnel, as they fall straight into the purchase decision stage, but you need to consider all realities if you really want to be successful, boost your sales and results in general.
And what is a sales funnel?
After understanding what a marketing funnel is, it’s time to discover what a sales funnel is.
After all, you are here precisely to discover the differences between a sales funnel and a marketing funnel, right?
Jokes aside, the sales funnel must be structured by any type of company, so that you can find out which stage of purchase your customer is at .
This is because, in case you haven’t noticed, any consumer goes through stages until completing the purchase of a product or service.
In order for you to be able to help the customer discover what the sales funnel is and what stage they are at, you need to work in a more consultative manner.
In other words, the salesperson must build closer ties with this person in order to guide them towards completing a sale.
What is the distinction between a marketing funnel and a sales funnel?
Well, now that you know what a sales funnel and a marketing funnel are, let’s really understand the difference between those two strategies.
First off, we feel it’s really clear that the two aren’t the same thing and play pretty different roles.
While the marketing funnel aims to monitor the customer’s entire purchasing journey, in order to understand which strategies to adopt so that they complete the purchase, the sales funnel already understands that the consumer is ready to buy your product or service.
In both cases, the work must be continuous and complementary so that all the client’s needs are met.
After all, both the marketing and sales departments have the same objective: to sell your merchandise to a qualified customer, that is, one who understands the profile of your business and vice versa.
Marketing funnel and sales funnel: how to relate them?
After realizing the differences between a sales funnel and a marketing funnel, you can immediately ask what the relationship between these two strategies is.
Clearly enough, in the topic above you can see how the two strategies may complement each other despite difference in their objectives.
This happens because the pipeline – the name given to the funnel – works on all the opportunities that the marketing department created so that the sales team can convert them into customers.
More clearly, marketing is responsible for attracting and converting consumers, which is in the pure interest of the sales team.
And how does marketing do this?
Simple: by nurturing these leads through useful and relevant content for their qualification.
Soon after, the Sales sector comes into action to close deals, so the work is directly linked and complementary.
Therefore, as soon as you want to create the marketing funnel and sales funnel, remember to always set goals for both teams, automating monitoring as much as possible so that more and more sales happen.