The inbound sales funnel is comprised of lifecycle stages that represent a prospect’s progression from visitor to customer. The purpose of the inbound sales funnel is to prescribe appropriate content offers relevant to where a lead is in the sales funnel.

The six lifecycle stages of the inbound sales funnel are as follows: visitor, lead, marketing qualified lead (MQL), sales qualified lead (SQL), opportunity and customer.

The sales funnel is divided in top of the funnel (ToFu), middle of the funnel (MoFu) and bottom of the funnel (BoFu). In the top of the funnel, marketing is fully responsible for developing and nurturing leads. In the middle of the funnel is when a lead moves from MQL to SQL marketing and sales share responsibilities. In the bottomof the funnel, sales takes over nurturing responsibilities.

Expert Tip:

Lifecycle stage is an effective benchmark to use in order to properly segment contacts within your marketing automation platform. Associate a lifecycle stage with al contacts so that they receive the content offers that are most relevant to where they are in the sales funnel and buyer’s journey.

 

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