Ponder over all the online business and everyday hustle and bustle that takes place. Amidst all the competition, you apparently want the prospects to visit your website, give your products or services attention, and then hit on that “Buy Now” or “Subscribe Now” call to action. It’s not only yours’ but every entrepreneur’s dream. They go to extra lengths to generate leads and convert them into potential customers. One of the mechanisms marketing and sales teams work on is to create sales funnels.
Right from their first visit to their final purchase, every prospect moves through various stages and every stage is measured in a sales funnel.
A systematic sales funnel entitles you to generate traffic and leads for your business easily, and foster them based on where they are in their journey. And the end result? You get fervent leads that can become your customers and stay with your business in the longer run.
Unfortunately, as per the stats, 68% of companies pay no heed to their sales funnel, and as a result, they were letting the chances of conversions slip by 79%.
If you are one among the herd who were hitting and missing out on potential customers because of an unsystematic sales funnel, then continue reading this article. We will give you all the insights you need about the sales funnel and the 10 best high-converting sales funnel templates you can use to skyrocket your sales. Also, find SaaS sales and tech sales.
What is a sales funnel?
Your potential customers travel through a step-by-step journey before they become your lasting customer. A sales funnel also referred to as a conversion funnel, is a visual representation of this journey.
The concept of the funnel is not something new in the market and its history dates back to the 19th century. It was first put forward by the then-marketing guru, St Lewis in 1899. He coined the AIDA concept that all marketing teams follow so religiously to date. The term AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action and focuses on four main stages of the sales process.
Awareness – The first and prime stage where your prospects catch wind of your product/service.
Interest – This is the stage where you pique the interest of your prospective customers by listing down your product/service’s unique features.
Desire – This is the stage where your prospective customers express their interest in your product/service and urges them to move forward with their buying decision.
Action – This is the final stage where your prospective customers consider giving your product/service a try.
This top-to-down funnel approach helps you identify where the prospects are in the buying journey, where to focus your efforts, nurture the leads and influence them to make the initial purchase of your product/service.
Though the concept and function of the funnel remains the same for centuries, the model has been expanded to match up with today’s business demands. Also, find what is B2B sales and the cycle stages of it’s.
Let’s explore further to see how the basic structure of the sales funnel works.
The Fundamental Framework of the Sales Funnel
The funnel framework is categorized broadly under three levels; Top of the Funnel(ToFu), Middle of the Funnel (MoFu), and Bottom of the Funnel (BoFu).
Top of the Funnel (ToFu)
It is the initial stage of the buyer’s journey where they visit your product/service page seeking answers to their questions. Possibly, they may be the ones your sales rep has contacted during their cold outreach process or untouched leads visiting your landing page on their own.
These leads neither have any awareness about your product nor do they have the intention to purchase it. They are encountering a problem for which they either need the answers from a trusted source or the product/service as their solution. If you offer to be their trusted source by providing the best solution to their challenges, they feel confident enough to move forward to the next stages.
This can be achieved through winning content marketing activities and that includes posting resourceful blogs, videos, guides, whitepapers, quizzes, or anything that represents you as the thought leaders in your niche. If untouched leads visit your online store, you can include the opt-in form and collect their data. This process is referred to as a lead generation process. Check out the sales pipeline stages guide.
Middle of the Funnel (MoFu)
This is the consideration stage where your prospective customers found answers to their questions and digging deeper into finding the types of solutions available for their problems. This is also the phase where you will involve in all sorts of lead nurturing processes to convert visitors.
At this stage, they may not be planning on purchasing your product/service but evaluating the different options available for them.
By triggering the right questions and helping your prospects to determine that you offer perfect solutions for their problems, you metamorphose them into your Marketing Qualified Leads or Sales Qualified Leads.
This can be achieved by posting extensive guides, comparison content (pro vs cons list), or any content that helps your prospects evaluate their research and make the decision of moving forward on the funnel.
Bottom of the Funnel (BoFu)
This is the final stage where you convert your MQL and SQLs into your customers. They traveled all the way from the Top of the Funnel to the Bottom of the Funnel finding trust and value in the content you shared and are ready to make the final decision of purchasing your product/service.
You can make that final push by inciting confidence in your product/service. This can be achieved by publishing more direct content about your product/service and hard-to-resist offers.
One of the brands that nailed the high-converting sales funnel better to generate more leads and attract customers is Twilio.
Twilio is a communication API that any product development team can easily embed into their software application that would allow their users to communicate with their prospects without leaving the application.
Twilio’s ToFu Content
Communication APIs are their Unique Selling Point and they have impeccably laid out the content in the form of blog posts, customer engagement stories, and social media posts. So the site visitors will get first-hand information on the topic as soon as they drop in a visit to their website. They have also included eye-catchy CTAs all over their content to generate leads.
Twilio’s MoFu Content
Based on the collected data, they run research on their past online activities and create in-depth content for their leads in the form of newsletters, downloadable guides, and tutorials. They keep track of their response and optimize the content to direct answers to their problems. It encourages them to move further on the sales pipeline and reach the Bottom of the Funnel. Find the guide for how the sales qualified leads process works.
Twilio’s BoFu Content
Once the nurtured leads reach the bottom of the funnel and consider signing up for their services, they assist them with their help guides and real use cases on pricing, and implementation.
Though this is how a typical sales funnel looks like, the high-converting sales funnel can be created and modified to match up with your business models. If you are unsure where to start and how to create one for your business. We have listed 8 free sales funnel templates below. You can check them out and draw inspiration from them. Check out the finest guide-related sales email and sales follow-up email.
8 sales funnel templates that convert like crazy
1. Squeeze Page Sales Funnel Template
We call this a squeeze page because it squeezes out the contact details of the visitors. You can encourage them to leave their email address or contact numbers through an opt-in form and provide them with something valuable in return.
It can be in the form of downloadable guides, ebooks, video tutorials, incentives, or offers. The major purpose of the squeeze page funnel is to build your mailing list and audience for your product or event.
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Once the visitor runs through your content and shares their contact details, you have their permission to promote your product by directly emailing or calling them.
2. Product Promotion Sales Funnel Template
No matter which industry are you in, promoting your product/services is inevitable. You need a solid sales and marketing strategy that will put your product message out to your target audience and influence their purchase decision. Whether they are your untouched leads or the ones your sales team has already pitched in for your product or services or upselling to your existing customer, these free sales funnel template comes in handy.
All Time Design
You can kick start your promotion with a hard to resist a deal, risk-free trial offers, free sample(s), or One Time Offers that would give the final push that your target customers need to make that decision.
Once they take the initial step of getting to know your product, you qualify them for nurturing.
3. Webinar Sales funnel templates
Webinars are a treasure trove for lead generation. As per the stats, around 73% of B2B marketers leverage the potential of webinars to the fullest to generate ultra-hot leads. If your target audience is willing to go through a one-hour webinar then they possibility for them to become sign up for your product/services
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You can start off by creating a webinar page where the visitors can register their interest by entering their contact details. Once you receive the details, you can send an instant confirmation email to thank them for their interest and a reminder mail a day/hour before the scheduled webinar time.
You can also send out the webinar recordings to all registered users mentioning your product details and attention-grabbing call to action.
4. Video Sales Letter Funnel Template
The results of a survey conducted by Hubspot in 2018 state that 54% of online users prefer watching product videos rather than sitting through the demos and 86% of marketers use videos as one of the most powerful marketing tools.
Marketers who use videos in their campaigns receive 66% more MQLs than any other campaigns.
Thus it’s more important than ever to create a video sales funnel to win over the leads. One way to set up this funnel is with the Video Sales Letters (VSL).
All Time Design
Video Sales Letters(VSL) are nothing but the picturized format of the old-school written sales copy. The purpose is to create hype about your product/service with valuable content.
5. Live Demo Sales Funnel Template
Demos are the lifeline for the sales team and automating the demos equates to bringing in more sales for your business. Building a live demo sales funnel can save your time on setting up and following up the bookings.
The Live Demo Sales involves setting up a recorded video about the features of your product/services and posting them on your website. You can also include the recorded Q&A session and a One Time Offer link at the end of the video to encourage the visitors to subscribe immediately.
You can use your website or social media platforms to increase traffic and user engagement rates.
6. Tripwire Sales Funnel Template
Tripwire sale is where you offer high-value products/services at a significantly lower cost making it tantalizing for the users to make the buying decision. The major purpose of a tripwire is to metamorphose the cold visitors into your buying customers and increase the user base.
The second purpose is to filter out the highly qualified leads who are more likely interested in buying your product/services and initiate the hard sell.
The third goal is to find out the content customers and upsell them with irresistible deals.
You can start building the tripwire sales funnel by driving traffic to your website using SEO strategies, paid ads, and other marketing campaigns. You can also persuade your visitors with limited-time offers, offering a mini version of your core product as a free version or a free product consultation.
7. High ticket Sales Funnel Template
Selling your premium software or offering consulting services can be a backbreaker. The price of the deal can shoo them away or the feature might be a luxury.
A high ticket sales funnel directs the visitors through a step-by-step process that would eventually lead them to buy your premium product/services. It usually consists of key elements such as promotional videos, opt-in forms, sales scripts, email sequences, etc., that highlight your product values and benefits and persuade them to move to the next level of the funnel.
8. The Survey Funnel Sales Template
A survey funnel is an easy-to-implement email marketing strategy preferred by the majority of marketing professionals to collect customer data in the form of short and quick surveys. The collected data is then analyzed and used to provide personalized content for the targeted traffic.
The main purpose of the survey funnel is to intensify visitor engagement and understand who your visitors are and what are their preferences. It helps you to segment your message according to their likes and dislikes.
You could do good research on your target audience and create five to six different buyer personas. Based on the preferences of your user personas, you can set up a survey form with the right questions and pop them up on a landing page. You can include a downloadable e-book, a trial of your product/services, or offer a coupon to coax your visitors to complete the survey.
Wrap up
No matter which industry you are in, it takes grueling effort to get leads and you need to track them in a streamlined journey to convert visitors. Having a systematic sales funnel can take away most of the pain you go through while setting up your sales process and driving conversions.
You can use the above templates to get started with your sales process easier and make a huge impact on your business revenue. Once the sales funnel is set, automating your tasks with the ultimate sales engagement and automation tools can help you reap more revenue without breaking a sweat.
Sloovi Outreach is a sales engagement and automation tool that allows you to have a seamless sales journey and witness your sales soar high.
Sign up for your free trial here!