A Sales Funnel is the journey that a customer goes through from discovering the company or product to the moment of purchase. Understanding this marketing concept has many benefits, such as knowing which channels, strategies, and other activities are best for achieving better results and optimizing each stage of the funnel. This helps the company send the right message at the right time.

The Sales Funnel may vary depending on the kind of business, but in general there are four main stages:

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1. Awareness: It is the stage where people become aware of your service, product or solution. The first contact can happen through a web search, advertisements, social media posts, events or even face-to-face recommendations.
2. Interest: After becoming aware, the prospect evaluates what they discovered and searches for more information to make sure that what you offer will be the best solution for what they need. This is the stage where their interest should increase.
3. Decision: At this point, the prospect has enough information about the company and what they provide. It’s time to look for deeper information, such as pricing and packaging options. It is important to make sure to offer support in this stage to help them make a decision – webinars and sales calls are helpful options. 
4. Conversion: This is the moment when the prospect decides whether to make the purchase or not. Worst case scenario, if they decide not to close the deal, you can create nurturing campaigns to help them remember you for future needs.

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First of all, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s not possible to convert everyone that is in the first stage of the funnel. Nonetheless, well built sales funnels are capable of turning many prospects into buyers, so the conversion rate is increased.

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Here are some steps to help you create an optimized sales funnel:

1. Gather data and identify your target audience;
2. Analyze how your customers usually behave;
3. Capture people’s attention to bring them to your funnel – a good tip is to invest in some strategies such as building a good SEO;
4. Build a landing page;
5. Communicate with your audience and invest in strategies such as email marketing; and
6. Keep track of your customers’ journey and measure the success of your sales funnel.

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The main difference between Sales Funnel and Sales Pipeline is that while the former represents the number of customers and conversion rates across the stages, the latter focuses on such stages and the actions of the sellers to achieve higher results.