What is a Sales Funnel? Sales Funnel Stages, TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU Explained

‍What is a Sales Funnel?

The sales funnel represents the visual representation of the sales process and the steps that our customers go through when interacting with us – from first learning about us and our product to finally buying it. 

Implementing a well-thought sales funnel is not just a strategy. It’s an important part of the business growth to help us identify where our customers are in their journey. This way, we can tailor our sales and marketing strategies to guide them toward the purchasing decision and increasing conversions. Even more so, it also allows us to focus on high-quality leads who are more likely to convert to customers, saving time, money, and effort. 

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Sales Funnel Stages

Sales funnels and sales metrics differ from company to company and from industry to industry – we know that. However, in all cases, there are three levels that explain the journey of our potential customers:

1. Top of Funnel (TOFU) – Awareness
2. Middle of Funnel (MOFU) – Interest and Consideration
3. Bottom of Funnel (BOFU) – Intent and Action

Let’s find out what each of these means! 

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What is TOFU?

As the name suggests, the TOFU meaning is all about what is happening at the beginning of the customer journey – the top of funnel stage. In fact, at this sales funnel stage, we will probably see a lot of leads. It makes sense because this is the awareness stage – where people do their research on what they would like to purchase. 

Unfortunately, we should not get too excited about it because they are just beginning to explore their options. At this point, they are still trying to figure out who we are and what our company does. The reality is that most of these might not be qualified leads and will not buy from us. 

However, we can still boost our chances of converting these leads into customers by providing them with information about us, our products, what makes us unique, and how we can solve their problems. Even more so, we can also offer additional information through blog posts, videos, eBooks, and other relevant content. 

Remember! The meaning of TOFU is all about consistent engagement. Because through these resources, we can turn their initial interest into serious consideration, and they will be more likely to choose our product or service when they’re actually ready to buy.

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What is MOFU?

The MOFU meaning is represented by what happens after our leads become aware of our products and consider whether they should purchase our product or not – the Middle of Funnel. So, if our leads have reached this sales funnel stage, they’re not just browsing our website – they know for sure what they need and have understood that our products or services could be valuable to them. 

While in the TOFU stage, we would see a large amount of leads, in MOFU, we will focus only on potential customers. For this reason, we’ll now focus on building trust and credibility that our product is the one for them, so that they’re ready to move to the next sales funnel stage.

In this stage, our leads are seriously looking at your products and their features, your prices, and especially the reviews. But remember that they are also researching our competition and are considering which one aligns with their needs more. So, ensure you have a clear advantage to differentiate yourself and capture their attention.

In this stage of the sales funnel, the MOFU meaning is all about demonstrating why leads should choose you. Besides engaging with your leads, you could also increase your chances by creating comparison guides for your solutions, videos, and even podcasts. 

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What is BOFU?

If our leads have reached this stage, they are officially ready to make a purchase (or not). The BOFU meaning relies on the idea that our leads have reached a conclusion and are now becoming our customers – the Bottom of the Funnel stage. 

If our lead has decided to buy from us – that’s good news! Now, the only thing we can do is to ensure that they are satisfied with our product, our customer service, and the overall user experience. But the sales funnel doesn’t stop here. We should still focus on engaging with our customers to ensure they will return and repurchase our product if that is the case.

But if the prospect decides our product might not be a good fit, it’s not the end of the road. Our lead is not lost forever, and we can try to nurture this relationship through valuable content to ensure we stay on top of their minds. 

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Let’s look at this sales funnel example:

In a B2C e-commerce, the sales funnel would look like this: a potential customer starts as a visitor – whether it’s from Google search results, social media, or ads (TOFU – awareness). 

While browsing our website, they might sign up for the email list, becoming a lead (MOFU – interest).  Now that we have their contact details, we can start interacting with them through multiple channels – encouraging them to come back to browse for multiple products and even special offers (MOFU – consideration). 

Turning a prospect into a customer is only a matter of motivating them with product deals, compelling messages, or coupon codes (TOFU – intent and action).

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Develop a Sales Funnel Strategy with Traction Keys

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Are you ready to take your business to new heights through ongoing collaboration? Our dream team focuses on building incredible sales funnel strategies that can move mountains. Whether you’re looking to launch your business or rebrand your existing company, we provide top-class solutions that will set you apart from your competition.

Contact us today to get a personalized quote for your business needs, and let’s start building the path to your next level of success together!