What is Sales Funnel Software?
Sales funnel software takes the legwork out of nurturing your relationship with your customers and guiding them down the funnel.
It does this by helping you to coordinate and optimize the relationship between your sales and marketing teams and streamline and clarify decisions about who “owns” a particular prospect.
It also gives you a holistic and real-time view of your sales and marketing efforts and gauges how effective they are. It tracks, monitors, and reports on every interaction you have with your customers at each stage of the funnel.
Sales Funnels In Action
Let’s use a random example to illustrate what we mean.
Meet Ray, a twenty-something entrepreneur who’s looking to brush up on his coding skills with a view to applying them to build out his new website. He’s thinking of taking an online course in coding.
A sales funnel for Ray might look a bit like this:
· While chatting with some old friends on Facebook, Ray notices an ad offering coding tips with a call-to-action that says: “Download our ultimate guide to coding for beginners.”
· Ray opens the link and is taken to a landing page. He downloads the guide and clicks “Accept” when asked if he’d like to receive the online course provider’s weekly email newsletter.
· The following morning, Ray finds the newsletter in his inbox. He skims through it and clicks on a link to view a summary of the different coding courses the vendor offers and their prices.
· A limited-time offer for a 30 percent discount on one of the coding courses catches Ray’s eye. He signs up.
· Over the next few weeks, Ray continues to receive weekly newsletters, updates on other special offers, and links to thought leadership blogs posted by the course provider’s CEO.
· Enjoying making use of his newly found coding abilities and keen to sharpen his skills further, Ray signs up for another, slightly more advanced course.
· He uses the voucher he was awarded by the vendor upon successfully completing his first course to claim a 25 percent discount on the price of his second course.
All of Ray’s actions — or what we call his buyer journey — are tracked by the online coding provider’s sales funnel software in real-time. The business owner (or his sales manager or rep) can see at exactly which point Ray takes action and why.
Sales funnel software tracks and reports on where leads are converting and what triggers them to turn from leads into customers. It also gives you insights into why leads “drop off” instead of converting.
So, let’s leave Ray to his coding and move on to consider some of sales funnel software’s other features and functions:
One of the beauties of sales funnel software is that it keeps everything in one place. This means you can collaborate with your other internal stakeholders more effectively — for example, by ensuring a smooth handover of prospects or accounts to new salespeople. You can also make sure that the latest updates regarding a particular customer’s behavior are shared with all affected internal parties.
Finally, remember the AIDA model we introduced in the previous section? Sales and marketing funnel software applies all its capabilities at each of the four stages of the model. If you’d like to understand more about what software does at each stage, have a read through this previous post.
When to Use Sales Funnel Software
Your decision on whether to invest in sales funnel software and which solution is the best fit for you will depend on a host of factors. These include:
· The maturity and size of your business
· The nature and quality of your leads
· The relative complexity of the products and services you sell
If your business is relatively new, opting for a sales funnel software solution might be a sensible option as you can select a package that suits your pocket. And you won’t need to bother with investing time and money in hiring a web developer or signing up for multiple tools.
However, be sure to do your homework and ascertain that the software you select offers the features and functionality you need. For example, if you don’t plan on inviting your leads to attend live-streamed video events, you wouldn’t want to pay for that service. Shop around and find a provider that offers flexible options that align with your requirements.
Also consider any other existing CRM tool(s) you have. If you’re already signed up for and are using other tools, cost could be an issue. Integration might also pose a potential problem. While most sales funnel software can be used with other apps, there could be a negative knock-on effect on the user experience.
It follows that ease of integration with other CRM systems and tools should be high on your vendor evaluation checklist.