It may seem obvious, but often a business forgets the fact that the only way to make money is to get customers to buy. And the best way to get customers to buy is to have an effective sales funnel.

A sales funnel is a set of steps where you guide a prospect through a series of communications that result in them buying from you.

But what happens after that first sale is made? Existing customers are the people who are most likely to buy from you again.

How does a sales funnel work?

At the top of the funnel, you offer something free in exchange for getting a potential customer’s contact information. This could be a report, checklist, video, or ebook. He then begins marketing, following up with emails and other communications to try and make a sale.

Throughout your sales funnel process, you should have multiple offers that complement each other. For example, before you buy a car, you take it for a free test drive. If you like the car and buy it, the seller will not hand you the keys and then disappear. Extended auto warranties, upgrades like upholstery and wheel options are offered to you.

After a couple of months, the seller will contact you to see if you’re happy with your new car and tell you about a discount or ongoing sale. And the sales process goes on and on.

How many levels are there in the sales funnel process?

As you can see in the example above, there can be many different levels in a sales funnel. A one-level funnel is where after a customer buys from you, you move on to the next prospect.

But this is a critical error.

It costs 6 to 7 times more to get a new customer than to keep an existing one. It makes sense to market to someone who has already bought one of your products, instead of trying to convince new people to buy your services. An existing customer already knows you and your business. If they’ve gotten great value for money from you once, they’ll be more prepared to spend money with you again, rather than someone who’s never heard of you.

There is no “ideal number” of sales funnel levels. Every business, product, and service is different. Just make sure you continually provide your prospects and customers with opportunities to improve their lives or solve their problems with future purchases from you.