Every sales cycle can and should be automated and made more efficient with funnels. Sales funnels guide your audience through the decision making and learning process that leads to them becoming customers. Knowing what funnel to choose and perfect is crucial for getting more customers.
What’s a sales funnel?
A sales funnel is the journey from website visitor to loyal customer. It includes every step between not knowing that your business exists and ceaselessly promoting it through word of mouth.
A well thought out sales funnel will help you build trust, connections, and conversations with your customers, which will ultimately result in more sales.
Sales funnels are as varied as your customers. Some people purchase instantly, some take weeks or even months to decide. Some customers need many “touches”: sales calls, emails, video webinars, and blog articles in order for them to trust and understand your business.
Developing a sales funnel for your business can be overwhelming because a sales funnel essentially is your whole business. When starting to look into implementing a sales funnel or changing your existing one, it’s a good idea to pick one type of funnel that will tackle a single challenge.
To identify funnel types, we need to identify challenges. What are the most common challenges businesses face today?
The following funnel types are sales-generating templates designed to help you create clear pathways towards creating paying customers.
1. Lead generation funnel
Goal: Get more leads from your ads
Superpower: More leads for the same budget
The purpose of this funnel is clear and simple: get leads. This can mean growing your email list, building up an audience for a new product or an event.
There are countless ways to get leads. We can split them into two categories: organic and paid.
Organic channels include all the free ways to get leads like website traffic, word of mouth, and social media. We’ll cover those more in-depth as we explore more funnel types further down this list.
Paid channels are anything you pay for to get some eyeballs on what you’re selling. Practically speaking, this includes mostly ads.
To construct this funnel, you’ll need:
☑ An offer that’s almost too good to be true
This can be a free template download, a time-restricted discount, or a free trial. If it fits your business model, lead generation calculators (like What's your BMI?, How bad is your credit score? or How much would it cost to install solar panels on your roof?) and product quizzes (What glasses fit your face-shape?, Make your own Italian shirt or The perfect sneaker) are a great lead magnet.
☑ A way to deliver your offer to your audience
Like an ad, a blog article, or a social media post. You have a website, emeding your lead magnet in a high visibility spot - like all the way up with a big, bright button - will help ypu convert traffic into free leads.
☑ A landing page that shows off your offer
Including videos, testimonials, and timers is the way to go. Whatever you include, make sure it underlines your message instead of distracting from it - keep it relevant.
☑ A set of emails you send to follow up on people who don’t claim the offer
Some people will make a purchase instantly, but most need more: more information, more touchpoints to gain more confidence in their purchase decision. If you want to get real fancy, you can let your leads adjust their email frequency - this way people can opt out of daily emails instead of unsubscribing completely.
