Three Flavors of Sales Funnels - Web Extra

The stages that a salesperson needs to go through in order to close a sale vary depending on the product or service that’s being sold and the sales channel it’s being sold through. Below are examples of three real companies and the stages they must negotiate before clinching a sale. By tracking what happens to prospective customers as they make their way through the levels, these companies can see where would-be clients drop out of the process. (The percentages below are there merely to provide points for discussion and in no way represent these companies’ real percentages.)

The Fantasy Draft.  The Fantasy Draft provides services to fantasy baseball leagues and individuals. It offers packages for fantasy baseball fanatics to visit draft spring training facilities in Florida or Arizona and attend Major League spring training games.

 Funnel:  This is an extremely simple funnel for an online business that tries to keep the need for human interaction to a minimum. This funnel can help identify whether the company’s online functions are customer-friendly and at what stage a prospective customer abandons the process. 

Prospect is driven to www.thefantasydraft.com(100%)

Prospect searches date/location availability (40% of original number that visited website)

Prospect reserves specific draft date (1.25%)

Prospect pays for draft package (1%)

These sales funnel numbers tell us:
1) The business needs to change the marketing messaging to improve the makeup of those prospects that are driven to the site to ones who are more apt to want the service.
2) The business needs to redesign its home page to increase the likelihood that the visitor will take the action of searching for a date/location.  

Sasha the Mensch.  Sasha the Mensch is a New York-based advertising recruiter specializing in placing general and interactive art directors and copywriters.