If you run an online business, then it is important to make sure you have a strong sales process in place. You have to craft a proper journey for your customers so that you can ensure high conversion rates and increased AOV.
Tthe best way to do so is to craft various types of sales funnels to power up your overall sales process. If you are able to make the right offer at the right time, then more people are likely to convert.
However, the real challenge you will face is planning proper sales funnel journeys that are aligned with your business. You do not want to spend time and money in building funnels that do not deliver results.
So how proceed?
Well, today, you will learn about 7 types of sales funnels that are so well-planned that they work every time for any business that implements them.
If done right, these funnels are enough to scale up your overall business growth with increased sales & revenue.
After reading this article, you will
- Learn the steps involved in these 7 proven types fo sales funnels.
- Ways to implement them, and
- Tips to use them for the best results.
Eventually, these funnels will help you reach your business goals faster, without breaking the bank.
So let’s begin.
What Are Sales Funnels In General?
The concept of a sales funnel is really a strategic approach where you qualify a customer at each stage to the next, eventually leading them to sales and upsells.
However, its specialty is, that you control who enters your sales funnels and what actions you want your prospects to take.
For example, if you are a business coach, then your sales funnel will be designed to attract only business owners that you can help and get involved with. Throughout the funnel journey, you will be convincing the prospect that your service is what they need while disqualifying the people who may not be the right people to work with.
This involves strategically planning steps that will help increase your authority and the confidence of your prospects, and then eventually triggering them to invest in getting your product or service.
7 Types Of Sales Funnels To Boost Your Conversion
Now, as mentioned earlier, you have to plan a few sales funnels that will work to make your overall sales process successful. Obviously, a sales process may vary for different types of businesses. But, certain types of funnels, seven to be specific, can be used by almost any business.
Let us explore these sales funnels that you should consider using in the long run if you want to increase your revenue significantly.
| Proven Sales Funnel Strategies For Any Business |
|---|
| 1. Tripwire Funnel 2. Quiz Funnel 3. Webinar Funnel 4. Membership Funnel 5. Conditional Global Funnels For eCommerce 6. Product Launch Funnel 7. Social Followers Growth Funnel |
Each of them involves very specific steps and tactics. In the next few sections, you will learn how each of them works and how you can implement them the right way.
1. Tripwire Sales Funnel
The Tripwire sales funnel is a strategy where, initially, you offer something of high value at a very low cost. And then, once the prospect has found value in your initial offer, you offer them your core product/service.
– The initial offer is referred to as the ‘tripwire offer.’
The concept of this strategy is, the initial offer is not free, but it’s more value for the money. So, even if you do not make a profit out of it, it will act as a medium to earn your buyers’ trust in your service.
When you make your core offer, later on, many will have the confidence to go for it.
For example, suppose you are a Digital Marketing Consultant.
- Initially, you may offer a Basic Video Course on SEO at a low cost, maybe $50.
- Once people sign up, you send them a couple of more valuable pieces of content via email to nurture them and gain authority.
- After one week, once you believe the prospects have gone through the course, you may reach them with your service as the main offer, maybe at $500-$1000 for live, personalized coaching sessions.
Now, even if I call the initial offer a ‘Basic Course’ it has to be actionable and should provide real value; I am talking about a course that people would normally pay $100-$200 on a course portal. After getting this high-value, low-cost resource from you, people will realize how good you are and find your credible.
And since the low-cost resource will provide real value, later when you make the high-ticket offer, many businesses who are struggling with Digital Marketing will consider taking your service, even if it is a bit expensive.
Your course has to win their trust in you so that you can offer your service in the long run.
The Tripwire Funnel is ideal for selling expensive products, monthly subscriptions, or long-term services.
A Typical Tripwire Funnel Journey
To devise a tripwire funnel, you need to prepare two funnels, one for the tripwire offer and another for the core offer. And you will need to set up a couple of email automation campaigns.
Steps in the funnel for the tripwire offer:
- A landing page with a sales copy for the Tripwire offer that focuses on highlighting the value for money the prospect will get.
- The checkout page to accept the payment.
- A post-purchase upsell to offer the core service.
- A thank you page with a summary of the purchase and instructions.
Steps in the funnel for the core offer:
- A landing page with a sales copy focused on your core offer.
An extra discount on the core service can be a good trigger in this funnel. - The checkout page to accept the payment.
- A thank you page with a summary of the purchase and instructions.
Email automation campaigns required:
- Set up two value-added emails to be sent out in the following week for people who purchase the tripwire offer but not the core offer in the first funnel.
- And then set the third email to be sent a few days after the first two emails, with a link to your second funnel to offer your core service.
- Set up a couple of more emails to be sent to people who have visited our second funnel but did not purchase. In these emails, focus on convincing the buyer to take the service and highlight the long-term benefits the business will get.
Summary of the funnel journey:
- Initially, you will bring in traffic to the landing page of the first funnel.
- Upon taking the tripwire product, offer your core service as upsell.
- If the buyer does not take the upsell offer, run email automation campaigns to bring the buyer to your second funnel and convert them.
Here’s a more detailed guide on crafting high-converting Tripwire Sales Funnels.
2. Quiz Funnel
A quiz funnel is when you create a quiz to find out more about your prospects. And then, based on their answers, you make relevant offers.
For example, let’s say you are a fitness trainer and you sell courses based on fitness requirements such as weight loss, weight gain, muscle building, stamina growth, etc. So it would be wise to first find out about the prospect’s age, height, weight, and preferred fitness course he is looking for. And based on that, you can offer a personalized course.
It’s simple. You create a set of questions with a few answers to choose from. And based on those answers, you make the right offer, or in other words, you avoid making the wrong offer to a potential customer.
A Quiz Funnel works best for businesses or individuals who provide various types of services in the same niche.
It is one of the best types of funnels to guide your prospects through the right offers based on their responses.
Planning A Quiz Funnel
When creating a quiz funnel, you will need a landing page with the quiz, and then you may create a sales funnel with dedicated offer pages for each of your services. An email automation campaign is also required.
Let’s assume your quiz qualifies prospects for 3 of your services.
So, the steps you will need are as follows:
- A landing page with a quiz.
- Three sales funnels for each service with dedicated steps
– Landing page focusing on a service
– Checkout page to accept payment
– Upsell to offer added services
– Thank You page with confirmation and further instructions.
Email automation campaigns required:
- You will need 3 different email series of two emails for each of your services. Whoever completed the quiz but did not take your service, you may send two emails in the upcoming week and persuade them to take your service.
Summary of the funnel journey:
- Run targeted Ads to bring traffic to your landing page with the quiz.
- After completing the quiz, take the prospect to the landing page of the funnel, which meets the requirements.
- Upon taking the service, you may offer any added service as upsell after checkout.
- Run email automation campaigns to bring back the ones who do not take your service with persuasive emails.
Here’s a good guide on crafting a Quiz Funnel.
3. Webinar Funnel
Webinars are a great way to directly show off your expertise to the right audience and possibly close a few deals to take your service.
It is one of the best types of sales funnels for selling high-ticket offers.
How it works is, you may invite prospects to join a webinar with you, which should be on a useful topic. In the webinar, you have to make sure you are teaching something valuable to the audience and usable in real-life for their businesses. And in the webinar, you may also pitch your service.
Now, there could be different ways to use webinars.
- You may conduct a free webinar and offer your core service near the end.
- You may run a paid webinar series, which has to be of low cost to register, and then offer your core service at the end of the series.
- Or, you can consider hosting a free webinar, followed by a paid webinar series where you have to pitch your paid webinar during the free event.
Whichever approach you take, the main goal here is to impress your prospects with your expertise on the first webinar so that you can convince them to take your core offer.
The Webinar Funnel is best for online coaches, digital course sellers, marketing coaches, or any long-term professional service providers.
Funnel Steps Of A Webinar Funnel
As mentioned above, you can decide how you want to use webinars.
Let’s assume you want to run a free webinar and then offer your core service. For this, you will need three funnels, one to promote your free webinar, a second funnel to host the webinar and make a core offer, and a third funnel dedicated to the core offer. You will also need email automation.
Steps in the funnel to register attendees in the webinar:
- A landing page with the registration form for the webinar; the copy should be focused on the benefits of joining the webinar.
- Thank you page with a confirmation message.
Steps in the funnel to host the webinar:
- A landing page where you will host the webinar
- A sales page focused on your service along with an embedded checkout form to take your service right away
- The thank you page to confirm the purchase of service.
Steps in the funnel for the core offer:
- A landing page focused on your core offer
**Try giving a good discount here to trigger more sales. - Checkout page to accept payment
- Thank you page to confirm the purchase
Email automation campaigns required:
- Whoever registers, send them an email with a link to your webinar hosting page.
- For all attendees who do not take your service, you may send two emails in the upcoming week and persuade them to take your service. Include a link to your core offer funnel to take the service. The landing page copy may work as a final push towards a sale.
Summary of the funnel journey:
- Promote the free webinar on social media or via Ads and get prospects registered.
- In the webinar, deliver the best content and deliver a pitch to your service in a smart way.
- Take them to your offer sales page immediately after the webinar.
- For the ones who do not take your service, run email automation campaigns to bring them back with persuasive emails.
Here’s a step-by-step to create a simple webinar funnel.
4. Membership Funnel
This is a basic funnel journey to sell memberships, seemingly to take buyers from a lower membership plan to a higher one.
For example, let’s say you own a website that has a collection of resources for video editing, and you have two membership plans – the Basic membership, which includes vector images, stock videos, and After Effects 2D animations, and the Elite membership plan that includes everything such as royalty-free audio, 3D motion animation, presentation slides, and many more.
Now, you would obviously want most people to go for the Elite plan as that earns you more money. In this case, you may offer the Elite plan at a discount as the post-purchase upsell offer when one purchases the Basic plan.
This is one of the typical types of funnels to sell paid membership of resources, collection, or content. It is mostly used by course creators.
Funnel Journey To Selling Memberships
All you need is two funnels, one where you offer the Elite plan as an upsell offer to the Basic plan, and another where you create a dedicated sales page for the Elite plan. And then, you can link them to your plan CTAs on your website landing page.
Steps in the funnel for the Basic plan:
- A Landing Page focusing on the features included in the Basic Plan
- Checkout page to accept payment
- The Elite Plan is an upsell offer after checkout at a discount
- A Thank You Page to summarize the purchase.
Steps in the funnel for the Elite plan:
- Sales page to highlight the advantages of going for the Elite Plan
- Checkout page to accept the payment
- A Thank You Page to summarize the purchase.
Once you have these ready, link them to the respective CTA’s on the website landing page or the pricing page.
Email automation campaigns required:
- For anyone who doesn’t go for the Elite Plan in the first funnel, run an email campaign to send them three emails in the following month, highlighting the discount and the benefits. Include a link to your Elite Plan funnel.
Summary of the funnel journey:
- Drive traffic to your website landing page.
- If someone chooses the Basic plan, he will enter the first funnel and get a chance to take the Elite plan instead at a discount.
- Whoever doesn’t take the Elite plan, bring them to the second funnel via persuasive email campaigns.
5. Conditional Funnels For eCommerce
Normally, you are probably used to setting up sales funnels for individual products in your WooCommerce store, assigning specific order bumps, and upsell offers to selected products.
But now, you will be able to use a new type of funnel approach where you can set up offers for a group of products based on conditions.
For example,
- you can offer a 10% discount for any purchases above $500,
- you may assign an upsell offer for all products that are in a certain category, or
- maybe you can make upsell offers with a higher quantity of any products in the store, etc.
The concept here is to set up a funnel based on conditions to define a group of products. If these conditions are met, a buyer will enter the funnel when trying to complete the purchase. In the funnel, you can offer discounts on the cart total or make relevant dynamic upsell offers after checkout.
The scope of planning such funnels is huge. The most logical conditions would be,
- Dynamic Upsell For A Single Category
Set a funnel for a single category so that anyone who wants to purchase a product from that category, he/she will enter the funnel. Offer the highest sold product in that category as the upsell offer at a discount.
Since the upsell product is from the same category as what the buyer was purchasing, it has a higher chance of conversion due to relevancy.
- Quantity-Based Offer
Create a funnel so that whichever product the buyer wants to purchase, will enter the funnel. And after going through checkout, offer him to buy more of the same product at a discount. Let’s say five instead of one.
- Offer On A Target Amount Spent
Craft a funnel where the buyer will enter the funnel if he has more than a target cart total. You can then offer a dedicated discount on the cart total and later make upsell offers with the highest-sold product in-store.
These types of sales funnels are very effective because the offers are relevant to what the buyer is purchasing. Plus, an attractive discount is always loved by buyers.
Any eCommerce website can benefit from using similar conditional funnels.
Steps to creating a conditional eCommerce funnel:
- Set up conditions based on which you want to make specific offers and design a checkout page to accept the initial payment. Offer a discount on the cart total if you want to.
- Choose dynamic upsell offers to make the offers relevant.
- View a thank you page to give the order summary.
Now, creating such funnels can be quite challenging on most eCommerce sites. But if you use WooCommerce, then you may use WPFunnels and its Global Funnels addon to set it up easily.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to set up conditional funnels for WooCommerce.
6. Product Launch Funnel
A product launch funnel is a journey where you create excitement among potential buyers before you launch a new product or a new major feature.
The idea is you create a series of sneak peek videos to show why your new product is the next big thing. And then you make a special early bird offer to potential buyers.
For example, let’s say you are launching a new A/B Testing software. You can promote an optin page so that people can register to get informed of the release and claim an early bird discount. Once someone signs up, he will get a series of emails to showcase how the software will turn out to be. And then, in the last email, you send them a special discount code, which people won’t get later on, i.e., an early bird offer.
Planning A Product Launch Funnel:
For this, you will need an optin funnel to collect leads, a funnel to make the special offer, and a few landing pages to highlight the special features of the software. And you will need to use email automation to send these landing pages during the campaign.
Steps in the funnel for collecting leads:
- Landing page to announce the upcoming release of a great product while highlighting what can be done with it. Include an optin form to collect leads of people who want the early bird offer when the product is launched.
- A Thank You page
Pages Involved In The Product Sneak Peek Series
- Create 3-5 landing pages, where, on each, highlight an important feature of the software. The copy should focus on why this is important, along with use case examples. And Include a video to show how it may turn out to be.
**You can add a CTA to mark the calendar with the launch date.
Steps in the funnel for the Early Bird Offer:
- A landing page with exciting copy regarding the launch. Highlight the special offer the early bird users can get.
**It’s best to keep it limited, maybe to 50 or 100 potential buyers who are interested in getting a huge discount to purchase early. - Checkout page to accept payment.
- Thank you page to inform what’s next.
Email automation campaigns required:
- For people who register, set up an email automation campaign to send emails with links to your sneak peek landing pages. (If you have 3 sneak peeks, then you will send 3 emails.)
- On the launch day, email these prospects the launch news. Include a link to your Early Bird Offer funnel landing page.
- For people who do not purchase the product, send him a series of three emails in the next couple of weeks to collect the discount before it expires.
Summary of the funnel journey:
- Promote your Early bird registration and upcoming launch via Ads, social media, and existing email list to collect potential leads.
- Send these leads to sneak peeks of your product to create excitement about what’s in store.
- Finally, make a good offer on the product as an Early Bird campaign to these prospects to get instant sales right on the launch.
This product launch funnel is one of the best types of sales funnels for driving huge sales right after the launch.
Even when your product is ready, it’s best to plan a Product Launch Funnel to create hype over your potential buyers prior to the release. Basically, once your product is ready, make a 2-week to 1-month plan to run a successful product launch funnel campaign. This will help to get instant traction on the launch date and result in landing a few early sales real quick.
Here’s a quick guide on implementing a product launch funnel.
7. Social Followers Growth Funnel
Some businesses can be more successful via social media. And the social followers’ growth funnel is a brilliant way to increase your social presence. It’s one of the unique types of sales funnels as it makes your social media presence stronger.
In this funnel, you give away something valuable to your target audience. And in return, you request them to follow you on social media with hopes of getting more valuable resources.
For example, let’s say you are a motivational speaker with a strong Facebook & Instagram profile. You may conduct a free giveaway of a small book you wrote. And once someone signs up to take the book, you ask them to follow you to get more valuable content and resources in the future.
This allows you to grow your followers to whom you may later market your services.
It works best for individuals that promote themselves for consultation or events. For example, motivational speakers, musicians, photographers, etc.
The Funnel Journey Of A Social Followers’ Growth Funnel
This strategy involves a two-step funnel to sign up for the free giveaway and then a page to collect the reward from while offering to follow your social accounts. You will also need email automation campaigns to send them the free giveaway and to request them to follow you on social media.
For this, you need to follow the steps below:
- Create a landing page to promote the free giveaway. Include an optin form to claim the reward.
- Prepare a page where the prospect can collect the giveaway, either by downloading or simply viewing it there. Also, promote the benefits of following you on social media on this page.
- Set up email automation to send the link to the reward page.
- Set up another email automation campaign of 3 email sequences to request the prospects to follow you on social media.
Summary of the funnel journey:
- Promote the free giveaway and collect leads.
- Follow up with a link to a page to collect the reward from and persuade them to follow you on social media.
- Send email sequences afterward to further request them to follow you on social media.
There could be several other types of sales funnels. These 7 have proven to bring high results whenever used properly. So you can choose to use them to grow your business as well.
Bonus Tips To Improve Your Sales Funnel Performance
Here are some handpicked tips that are proven for several types of sales funnels.
- Make exclusive discounts on Upsell products.
Discounts play a big part in converting buyers to post-purchase upsells. Make sure to offer a discount that the prospect who be able to get anywhere else on your website.
- Create personalized & persuasive copy for your Upsell.
On the upsell page, make sure to make the copy as personalized as possible. The prospect should feel this is a special offer just for him. For example, “Just for you, 50% off today!”
- Use the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) strategy.
Always make sure to run offers for limited times or in limited numbers. And reflect the lack of time or the chance of missing this offer in your sales copy.
- Offer coupons now and then if you are running an eCommerce shop.
Coupon codes work like a charm for eCommerce products. Try to find creative ways to offer coupons to drive more sales. For example, a discount coupon for a target purchase amount can help to increase order values.
How To Create A Sales Funnel Without Any Complications Or High Expenses?
The 7 funnels explained in this guide are truly worth investing in. However, it is important to have the right tools at hand to execute them. You will find tons of tools out there that promise you the best funnel-building experience. However, here’s what we believe you should go for:
- Use software that requires minimum studying of documentation.
- Try to get a funnel builder that gives you a visual journey representation.
- Consider using a tool that makes it easy to design the funnel pages.
- Look for a solution that has all the elements required, such as forms, checkout, A/B testing, funnel offers, email automation etc.
- Choose a tool that will allow you to get a higher ROI.
Considering all these requirements, your best investment would be to go for the following combination:
- Use a WordPress site to have more control and less expense.
- Get WPFunnels for a visual funnel-building experience with forms, native page builder integration, custom checkouts, post-purchase offers, and pre-built templates.
- Consider using Mail Mint to collect leads, segment them, and set up the email automation workflows for your funnels
- Use WooCommerce to host your products to be sold in your funnels.
This combination will ensure you have all the features required to craft high-converting sales funnels without spending a fortune. Trust me, you will be spending less than $70 a month while earning hundreds or even thousands.
Final Thoughts
As you saw, these 7 types of funnels are designed to ensure you get results from targeted audiences through an automated process. Now, you may claim that some of them cannot be implemented as per your business model.
That’s fine.
At least implement the ones that align with your business and you will still make more money than what you are making now.
Yes, you do have to put some effort into preparing compelling content, and it’s best you take the time to prepare the best possible content that will help you run sales funnels for a very long time.
So go ahead and plan different types of sales funnels on your own to boost your sales process and grow your business.
And to craft your funnels with high efficiency at affordable cost, WPFunenls and Mail Mint now!
