Marketing funnel vs sales funnel – What’s the difference?

Understanding the roles of marketing and sales funnels is an important piece of the puzzle of driving business growth. Both funnels represent different aspects of the customer journey, and while they serve distinct purposes, aligning them can boost efficiency and sales. Let’s dive into what sets them apart and how they complement each other, and how you can use one or both to drive revenue.

What is a marketing funnel?

A marketing funnel represents the process of guiding potential customers from initial awareness of your brand to becoming interested leads. It focuses on building visibility and nurturing relationships with prospects.

Stages of a marketing funnel:

  1. Awareness: This is where prospects first hear about your brand through ads, blog posts, or social media. The goal here is to create visibility.
  2. Interest: Once aware, potential customers show interest by engaging with your content, such as signing up for a newsletter or following you on social media.
  3. Consideration: At this stage, prospects are evaluating whether your product or service fits their needs. Content such as case studies or product demos helps move them closer to making a decision.
  4. Intent: Prospects are preparing to buy and may engage more directly, such as booking a consultation or requesting pricing details.
  5. Evaluation: At the end of the funnel, prospects are ready to be passed over to the sales team for final conversion.

The ultimate goal of a marketing funnel

  • Raise awareness: Increase brand recognition and visibility.
  • Generate and nurture leads: Attract and engage potential customers through educational and value-driven content.
  • Build trust: Develop a relationship that makes prospects confident in your offerings.
  • Qualify leads: Filter leads to identify those ready for direct sales efforts.

What is an example of a marketing funnel?

Let’s look at an example – say you’re an online course provider. The awareness stage might involve people discovering the course through social media ads or blog posts. In the interest stage, they sign up for a free webinar, where they learn more about the course. During consideration, they receive emails with case studies showing how others have succeeded using the course. By the intent stage, they’ve requested a consultation, and in evaluation, they may receive a discount offer, nudging them to make a purchase.

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel focuses on converting leads that come from the marketing funnel into paying customers. It picks up where the marketing funnel leaves off, involving direct interactions with prospects and guiding them through the buying process.

What is the difference between a sales pipeline and a marketing funnel?

A sales pipeline tracks the stages of individual sales opportunities as they move toward closing. It’s a tool for the sales team to manage and follow up with potential buyers. In contrast, the marketing funnel focuses on guiding larger groups of prospects from awareness to consideration. The pipeline is more focused on immediate actions that sales peopls take with qualified leads, while the marketing funnel deals with the earlier stages of engagement.

Stages of a sales funnel

  1. Lead qualification: Identifying high-quality leads from the pool generated by marketing.
  2. Engagement: Sales reps engage with qualified leads to understand their specific needs and concerns.
  3. Proposal: Presenting tailored solutions to meet the prospect’s needs, such as sending a proposal or quote.
  4. Negotiation: Handling objections and finalizing the details of the deal.
  5. Closing: Securing the deal, resulting in a successful conversion and a new customer.

The ultimate goal of a sales funnel

  • Convert leads into customers: Guide prospects through decision-making to close sales.
  • Address objections: Handle any concerns or roadblocks that might prevent a purchase.
  • Generate revenue: Focus on driving deals to completion and growing sales.
  • Build customer relationships: Develop trust and satisfaction to encourage repeat business.

Is the sales funnel outdated?

Some argue that the traditional sales funnel is outdated because modern customers have access to so much information online, leading them to make decisions faster or outside these traditional stages.

However, the funnel concept still holds value in guiding businesses to structure their sales processes, even if it requires adapting to the new buyer’s journey. Today’s sales funnels are more flexible and account for the fact that customers often move back and forth between stages.

Should you start with a sales funnel or marketing funnel?

For most businesses, it makes sense to start with a marketing funnel because it builds awareness and interest among a broader audience before funneling qualified leads into the sales process. Without generating interest through marketing, your sales team may struggle to find leads to work with.

Once the marketing funnel attracts and nurtures leads, the sales funnel can take over, focusing on personalized interaction and closing the deal. That said, if you already have a strong pool of leads, focusing on refining your sales funnel might be the right approach.

The importance of aligning both funnels

Aligning both funnels ensures a seamless customer experience and maximizes conversion rates. When marketing and sales teams collaborate, leads are better nurtured, and sales reps receive more qualified prospects. This alignment helps you avoid disconnects between departments, improve communication, and track customer progress through both stages more effectively.

An integrated approach also allows you to gather clearer data, fine-tune your strategy, and make informed decisions on where to allocate resources, ultimately driving consistent business growth.

I’ve been riding my whole life, and like to take my horse Lilly out on trail rides behind our house – along with our two goats!

-Emily King, owner