Sales funnels are how businesses map their income and plan strategies to maximise revenues. If you’re looking for ways to enhance your sales funnel to provide more insight into the next steps with clients, look no further than Sales Cloud.
Sales Cloud is the cornerstone of the Salesforce software platform and can help you revolutionise your sales funnel. Sales Cloud offers ways to automate routine business processes and target new clients with ease.
Customise your new Salesforce sales funnel and grow your business with innovative software. Read on to learn more about sales funnels and how Salesforce can help you transform yours into an efficient engine of growth.
What is a sales funnel?
Business textbooks and entrepreneurial pundits are fractured on the specific components of a sales funnel. However, models of sales funnels retain a structure similar to the following:
- Awareness: The group of customers who are, to some extent, aware of your business and what it offers/does.
- Interest: Slightly smaller than the group above, this cohort is the group of people who are (or could be) interested in your business, after their initial interaction with your brand.
- Desire: Smaller still, this is the group of customers who are closer to making purchases and may be weighing various elements of your USP and how it compares to others on the market.
- Action: The smallest group, these are customers who have bought from your business and could buy again. As such, this cohort must remain a priority to ensure consistent revenue and brand reputation.
Segmenting customers into these stages is vital if you’re to build accurate forecasts of revenue and cater to the nuances of selling at each point.
For example, Awareness-stage customers will be content with a brief introduction to your service or goods. Yet, Interest/Desire-stage customers may want to know more about the details of what you do and exactly why it’s the best on the market.
What is the Salesforce sales funnel?
Salesforce outlines the back-end or business-end of the sales process slightly differently than the customer-facing sales funnel, characterising it as a sales pipeline. Salesforce outlines the following steps:
- Lead generation and prospecting: Searching for and generating awareness for your business.
- Qualification: Analysing the viability of potential opportunities before reaching out with a more comprehensive introduction.
- Meeting: An encounter with a client contact discussing their pain points.
- Proposal: An initial pitch, evidencing value in tackling an issue you’re aware of and a solution.
- Post-proposal: A follow-up or negotiation of the initial proposal, addressing concerns or hesitancies.
- Sale: Closing the deal with final logistics and contracts.
The Salesforce sales funnel and pipeline frameworks intersect. The sales pipeline describes actions your sales staff can take to move and map customers along the sales funnel.
How to refine your sales funnel with Salesforce
Sales Cloud is the Salesforce software that helps businesses manage their sales pipeline and funnel. Sales Cloud comes with a suite of features to automate the admin in-between stages and refine your sales strategy to capture more of the market.
Generating and managing leads
The first few stages in the Salesforce sales funnel are about bringing attention to your business and capturing data effectively for later stages. Sales Cloud has three features to help you understand and target your audience more efficiently:
- Marketing Cloud integration helps businesses understand which marketing channels and campaigns are working best, allowing you to hone in on a more receptive audience.
- Territory management allows you to assign dedicated staff members to manage potential clients in a given area, creating a valuable brand offering dedicated support.
- Lead routing connects the right staff member to the right customer and automates data collection to begin tapping into the market awaiting your business.
Identifying opportunities
Once you’ve spread the word about your business, the next step is about using the data you’ve captured to identify customers who are actively looking for solutions.
Einstein AI helps businesses analyse and rank their leads based on their activity and interaction with your business thus far. With a more analytical approach, your staff can target the most likely deal opportunities from your customer base and work towards revenue targets more efficiently.
Managing contacts
When it finally comes time to reach out to contacts, a hard sell can be off-putting. A hard sell may just be inappropriate but it could stray into ‘insensitive or offensive’ territory, depending on your product or service. That’s why Sales Cloud includes data fields for your clients’ social media feeds to give you the option of a lighter touch.
In turn, your sales agents gain ways to open organic conversations during initial client meetings with customers and create genuine relationships.
Negotiate and close deals
Whether your sales team spans a small desk or entire continents, collaboration is important. Sales Cloud’s cloud technology helps your staff work together on projects, whether via remote file-sharing or providing seamless visibility across client interactions.
In particular, the quote-to-cash feature helps staff offer custom discounts, deliver quick turnarounds on bespoke projects and quickly get up to speed during negotiations to tackle client pain points.
Build a sophisticated sales funnel with Salesforce today
Salesforce Sales Cloud is the leading customer relationship management software and the best platform for businesses looking to expand their revenue and refine their sales funnel.
Begin your digital transformation with Sales Cloud today, leverage the features above to create an effective sales pipeline and focused team. Learn more about getting started with Sales Cloud in our implementation guide and grow your business to new heights.
Refine your Salesforce sales funnel with expert advice
makepositive is a Platinum Salesforce Partner with a team of experienced Sales Cloud professionals.
We can help transform your sales funnel with innovative digital tools, AI insights and comprehensive advice on the entire Salesforce software ecosystem.
Get in touch with us at [email protected] and learn where Sales Cloud and other Salesforce solutions can take your business today.
