Nurturing the Sales Funnel Using Social Media [Infographic]

By Nick Rojas

The sales funnel, whose basic ingredients were first cooked up in 1898 by Elias St. Elmo Lewis, is nothing more than an intricate description of the process from consumer to sale and how to get there. The funnel goes that there are about 4-6 main steps depending where you look that take a customer from their blissful ignorance of your product, to the purchase of it. They are normally as follows:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Consideration
• Intent
• Evaluation
• Purchase

The transition from step-to-step is usually handled in one of two stages along the way; these are marketing and sales. That is; marketing would be generally responsible for bringing the initial awareness of a product to a potential consumer, and sales would seal the deal. This process however has evolved and molded itself to fit the times and modern methods of generating sales. Where once marketing handled only awareness and interest, getting the customer into the store, now with online sales, marketing is responsible all the way through consideration and intent. Evaluation can be shared between marketing and sales and purchase logically remains an aspect of sales.

The heavy transition to marketing as a larger part of the process is a result of the resources available to today’s companies, chief among them being social media. The new fusion of a sales funnel with social media has brought about new strategies and important considerations for any serious business looking to successfully market their product or service.

Take a look at the infographic below and its walk through of the modern day sales funnel. It has a lot of great food for thought and useful insight into the social media attributes associated with each step along the way to earning sales. As these basics continue to morph, it is imperative to stay up to date with the best methods for connecting to your audience and generating revenue through proper marketing.