Whether you own a storefront, an online business or are building a network marketing team, you’ll want to understand the concept and function of a sales funnel. Understanding how a sales funnel works, will help you plan successful marketing campaigns and attract qualified customers to your products.

Here is the definition of a sales funnel: Picture a funnel – it is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. As you attract people to your store or website, you’ve developed a system for leading your prospects through the sales process. As your customers pass through the “sales funnel,” you are transforming them from random prospects into qualified buyers. 

Here’s why understanding the sales funnel is so important to your business:
1. You can adjust your marketing techniques and campaigns to attract more qualified buyers from your target market.
2. You can begin to fine-tune your products and sales offers to suit the needs, wants and desires of your target market.
3. You can begin fine-tuning your sales presentations so you’re closing more sales.

To see this in action, let’s use the example of MaryAnn who sells personal development books on the Internet.

* MaryAnn creates a blog filled with tips and general how-tos about personal development.

* She installs a sign up form on her blog so readers can opt-in to a monthly personal development newsletter. The readers who are interested in knowing more about personal development begin signing up for her newsletter.

* She starts making special offers on her blog and in her newsletter for inexpensive Special Reports about personal development and the power of affirmations. MaryAnn begins making sales and stays in touch with everyone who purchased a Special Report.

* Mary Ann writes a how-to book about using affirmations to foster healthy self-esteem. She sends out an announcement to all her newsletter subscribers and past customers announcing her new book and that it is available for purchase on her blog.

* Subscribers and readers who are seriously interested in using affirmations to foster healthy self-esteem begin purchasing her book.

* Because of the steady sales of her book, MaryAnn begins selling seats to a class about affirmation writing. Her class sells out within a week.

Can you see how MaryAnn took the “wide” concept of personal development and focused in on those who are interested to writing affirmations? In sales, it is not possible to appeal to everyone. Understanding the sales funnel process will help fine-tune your marketing focus and lead you to those buyers who are willing and able to purchase what you are offering.

The bottom line: Understanding how a sales funnel works will help you plan better marketing campaigns, fine-tune your prospecting efforts, attract more qualified customers to your products and, make more sales.