Sales funnel: Cloud funnels Elite Yearly Plan for Less.
By: Ayomide Olagunju
Tags: Sales Funnels, Salesforce

Creating A Marketing Funnel Is Now As Easy & Inexpensive As Running A Blog.

Create Powerful Sales Funnels, Memberships,

Landing Pages & Email Marketing Campaigns

In Just A Few Clicks

Cloud Funnels Gives You Everything You Need

To Create Your Dream Online Business.

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Things you can do with cloud funnel

Powerful WYSIWYG page builder that churns out highly optimized responsive pages.

Complete membership system to create free or paid memberships.

Insightful sales and leads analytics to help you always keep track of your business.

Install anywhere including shared hosting, VPS, Servers, Google Cloud, etc.

Page cloner lets you duplicate any page or funnel online in one-click

Support for popular payment gateways & carts including Paypal, Stripe, Authorize.net, ClickBank, JVZoo, Warriorplus, etc.

Integration for SMTPs like Sendgrid, Mailgun, SMTP.com, SMTP2Go etc for your email marketing.

Integrations for Live chat, Facebook Messenger, Bots, Supportdesk, Conversion proof etc.

Full GDPR Support — Cookie consent & data disclosure.

Increased protection from ‘funnel-hackers’

Over a dozen readymade funnel templates that you can modify instantly.

Email automation. Send transactional mails, mail sequences and mail your lists.

Create multiple funnels & memberships on one domain or subdomain.

SEO Friendly features. On-page optimization, caching for fast delivery & AMP for high-speed mobile performance.

Has A/B testing & split testing to help you get more sales.

Integration with popular autoresponders like Aweber, Getresponse, MailChimp, MailEngine etc.

Integration with Facebook Pixel, Google Pixel, Google analytics, Heat-maps or any other analytics system.

Zapier integration to send your data to any CRM or software.

Works on Google Appengine to create your funnel on highly reliable Google infrastructure.

Free automatic upgrade for 1-year

Click here to buy this software and improve your sales

What is a Sales Funnel?

Answering the question, “What is a sales funnel?” is no easy take (that’s why we wrote an entire article on the subject). By way of offering a simplified definition …

A sales funnel is a marketing strategy designed to turn cold prospects into long-term customers by funneling them through five stages. The “funnel” metaphor means you’ll begin with a large audience of prospective buyers that will eventually pare down to a smaller group of highly-targeted, high-value customers.

The final goal is not to make a sale, at least not a single sale. Instead the goal is create returning customers with life-time value.

Breaking the buyer’s journey down into smaller steps (i.e., stages) allows you to be more precise about how and when you present offers.

For a small business owner, you may start with only one or two products. For a large B2B company, you may have numerous offers fueling lead generation and nurturing new leads through the sales cycle, sales pipeline, or sales team.

Suddenly, everything can feel complex. For the sake of simplicity …

Think about ordering at a McDonald’s. If you order a hamburger, you’re asked if you’d like to add cheese. Order chicken nuggets and you’re asked if you want fries with that. Order a combo meal and you’re given the chance to make it a large or “supersize.” This is a sales funnel.

Then, think about McDonald’s new mobile app and its product-specific loyalty programs, like McCafe Rewards:

Sales Funnel AIDA: Awareness. Interest. Desire. Action

The AIDA model was developed in the late 19th century by advertising and sales pioneer Elias St. Elmo Lewis. And, it has become the backbone of almost every successful advertising and marketing campaign since.

Why is it so successful?

AIDA takes potential customers through the emotional journey of making a purchase — guiding the buying decision from initial attraction to taking action.

1. Awareness

Sometimes referred to as “attention,” the first stage of the sales funnel is where a brand catches the eye of new audience members via marketing content and/or a valuable baseline offer.

2. Interest

Here, the brand will begin to forge a deeper relationship with their prospects, becoming more actively involved in learning about their goals and/or problems. In doing so, you can begin providing preliminary solutions, allowing them to experience “quick wins” — and become more engaged.

3. Desire

Consumers who reach this third sales funnel stage have become convinced that they do, in fact, have a larger problem that needs solving. Moreover, they’re coming around to the idea of making a purchase to solve said problem. At this point, the brand showcases how their premium offering can be of service.

4. Action

The final stage of the sales funnel has prospects deciding to purchase (or not purchase) the brand’s premium product or service. You’ll need to reinforce the value of your offer — as well as the downsides of not making a purchase.

These sales funnel stages describe the general process all of us go through — as well as some general action steps you should take to keep their prospects moving further in the funnel.

Depending on what you’re selling and who your target audience is, you’ll want to tailor each stage of your sales funnel(s) accordingly.

(Yes, you absolutely can have more than one funnel in place at a given time. This will become more clear in a bit.)

AIDA is a great starting point, but there’s a better way …

Sales Funnel Stages Explained: The 5 Stages of Filling Your Sales Pipeline

Though similar in appearance and structure, our approach — based on the work of Russel Brunson — differs from the common sales funnel AIDA model:

The key difference involves getting prospects actively engaged with you at every stage of the process.

Whereas AIDA has the company giving, giving, giving until a prospect converts, Brunson’s funnel has both parties engaged in a process of give-and-take throughout. This version elicits smaller conversions from the target consumer along their path to purchase.

It’s called the value ladder and its steps are a direct reflection of the sales funnel stages:

We might even say that each stage of the sales funnel (bait, frontend, etc.) contains a “mini funnel” within itself. Let’s take a look at how to make this happen.

Pre-Stage: Know Thy Offer(s)

First things first, you’ll want to define everything you’ll be offering your customers as they move through your funnel, from bait to backend.

Before digging into each section, look at your overall sales funnel in its entirety with the end goals in mind.

This pre-stage step is vital to success. If you don’t know what you’re offering your customers at different points they won’t exactly have good reason to keep going.

You also want to determine how you’ll connect each subsequent offer within your funnel. The idea is to use your lower-tiered offers to prepare customers to get full use out of the next product or service.

Think of it like: “Okay, you’ve experienced great success with Product A — now let’s supercharge this success by implementing Product B into the mix.”

(Again, if “Product B” doesn’t build on “Product A,” your customers may not have much reason to move to the next sales funnel stage.)

While your customers will, of course, experience your overall sales funnel in stages, you need to have a clear blueprint in place for how and why they’ll move through it on their way to your most valuable offering.

Stage 1. Traffic

Not all traffic is created equal: Be laser-focused on how your target audience enters your sales funnel.

This preliminary stage is a sort of “controlled awareness,” in that you want to be intentional who you bring into your funnel — in turn allowing you to avoid attracting poor-quality prospects.

This stage of the process, then, involves optimizing the ads, content, and affiliate sources you use to drive traffic to your funnel. Think about:

Where your high-value prospects “hang out” on the web

What social networks and/or content they interact with

What free or lower-cost offers get them to take initial steps with a new brand

Needless to say, if you aren’t sure how to get brand new customers interested in even your lowest-tier offers, there’s no way you’ll be able to get them interested in your big-ticket items or services.

But, by meeting your target audience where they are (and where they’re comfortable engaging with your brand), you can get them to enter your funnel on their terms — and get them on track toward where you want them to be.

Stage 2. Bait

A lead magnet offered either for free or at a very low cost to the prospect.

Some clarification here …

While “Bait” is a stage of the overall sales funnel, each “mini funnel” will require the use of some kind of low-risk offer to hook your prospects and get them to engage further.

At the lower tiers of the value ladder, bait may come in the form of free content, webinars, a course delivered as an email sequence, or product samples. At the higher tiers, break-even offers — meaning, you intentionally won’t make a profit on the sale but will make a profit as they continue through your funnel — can be used to keep the customer engaged and ready to move forward.

If you give something away for free now, you’ll have primed the recipient to make a more valuable purchase at some point in the near future — which is where the real money is to be made. You can even operate at a loss for bait offers, as long as the next stages in your funnel are ready to step in to sell at a profit.

You’ll also be able to funnel out those who don’t take you up on your bait offer. After all, those who aren’t interested in your low-risk offers likely won’t be looking to purchase your big-ticket items.

Stage 3. Front End Offer

A low-price and low-risk offer that provides value to new customers, allowing them to solve surface-level issues with minimal investment.

Once your prospective customers have taken you up on your bait offer, you’ll want to send them directly to a landing page or squeeze page showcasing your “leveled” premium offer. (You can also — and should — simultaneously follow up with email offers; a practice known as “funnel stacking.”)

Here’s where the stakes get a bit higher for your business …

Those who see this sales-focused content have been pre-qualified (via your bait offer) — meaning they should be interested in the premium product or service you have for them at this point.

That is, if you’re able to keep their attention and effectively communicate the true value of your offer. You can make this happen by optimizing the various elements of your squeeze page …

Squeeze Page Copy

Copy — that is, the words themselves — needs to quickly communicate the value of your offer and prime your audience to take immediate action.

This can be done by adhering to the following checklist as you create your squeeze page copy:

Let your brand personality come through (be a relatable character)

Tailor the message to your audience

Shorten sentences and paragraphs, but provide MORE depth

Write at or below a 6th grade reading level

Use bullet points or numbered lists

Include a subheader or image every 200–300 words

In short: Speak directly to your target audience — and don’t over-complicate your message.

MIG Soap’s 14 Day Challenge shines on all these fronts:

The easier it is for your audience to recognize the value of your offer, the more likely they’ll be to take you up on it.

Squeeze Page Images and Videos

Words are the backbone of your squeeze page. But, content can take a variety of forms:

A backstory video showcasing what your brand is “all about”

A demonstration (or, explainer) video showing your product in action

An interview with a current or past client in which they discuss their positive experiences with your product or service

The approach you go with depends heavily on the value ladder level you’re currently targeting.

For example, if you’re aiming to get a new prospect to commit to a preliminary offer, you’d want to quickly introduce them to your brand, and discuss the “quick wins” they can expect to experience.

Typically, this video content should be short and to-the-point — maximizing the chances that your new prospects will watch it in its entirety. VideoMastery.com’s hero video is a mere two minutes and fifteen seconds:

Its testimonial videos (i.e., mini case studies) — later on the same page — are even shorter. All of them are under one minute:

On the other hand, if you’re aiming to make a final sale on a higher-priced product, you might decide to go the longform route with you video content.

Reason being, those who are on the cusp of making a more costly purchase will want as much info as you can give them — and will be more willing to stick around long enough to be convinced to do so.

Squeeze Page Social Proof

Social proof can — and should — be used to reinforce the claims you’ve made on your squeeze page.

Tailor this content to the value ladder level you’re currently targeting. Basically, this means ensuring the customer commentary you use matches the offer being presented — and is specific to the use case of the audience being targeted.

LadyBoss Labs seeds a variety of social proof types throughout its squeeze page, opening with brief testimonials and logos to show authority …

… and adding direct endorsements along with real social media posts from its customers later on:

Generalized social proof regarding your brand may work to engage new prospects. However, you’ll need to use specific anecdotes from successful customers when looking to make bigger sales further down the funnel.

Squeeze Page Call-to-Action

No matter what you’re offering on a given squeeze page, it needs to be crystal clear what your audience needs to do to receive it.

Don’t beat around the bush here. Make sure your CTA stands out from all other elements of your landing page — allowing interested customers to take the next step as soon as they’re ready.

There’s no mistaking what action LadyBoss wants its website visitors to take …

In some cases, you might even want to include CTAs at the top, bottom, and middle of your page. The last thing you want is for your engaged audience to not engage further with your brand simply because they aren’t sure how to do so.

Stage 4. Middle Offer

A progressively more valuable and intensive solution that helps customers solve a more deep-seated problem — and better prepares them for your highest-price point product or service.

Now we’re getting down to business.

At each stage of the value ladder, as your prospects reach the bottom of your “mini funnel,” you’ll need to provide an irresistible offer that allows them to accomplish a certain task — and prepares them for the next tier of the ladder.

Going back to LadyBoss, its middle offer is an invitation to “Join The CLUB”:

If you’ve thought about middle offers before, the question is …

Upsell or Downsell?

An upsell is an offer that costs more than your front end offer; a downsell costs less. It’s an important part of the sales funnel.

Before or immediately after they confirm their order, provide an upsell offer that will increase the value of their initial order — and enhance their overall experience with your brand.

(And, of course, allow you to increase your revenues, too.)

Typically, upsell offers come in the form of:

Sale prices on bulk orders

Customized version or a variation of the initial product or service

An offer to increase subscription length at a discounted price

Supplemental products (cross-sells)

If they don’t end up taking the upsell, consider sending them a lower-risk offer that meets them where they are.

Examples of downsells include:

A payment plan for the otherwise expensive upsell

A smaller, lesser, cheaper version of the upsell offer

A limited and discounted trial period for the upsell offer

In either case, the idea is to take full advantage of the opportunity at hand — while providing the exact value your prospective customers are looking for at the present moment.

Email Marketing

You’ll notice that in nearly all examples getting a visitor’s email address is emphasized.

That’s because email marketing is a critical part of the customer journey: Before, during, and after buying.

We don’t want to get off topic, especially because email is a detailed tactic. That’s why we’ve written extensively about it all on its own:

Stage 5. Backend Offer

Your most valuable, intensive, and costly product or service that customers can use on a continual basis to solve an ever-present problem in their lives.

By now, we’ve made it pretty clear that your ultimate goal is to tie each of your “mini funnels” together to create one overarching sales funnel.

The hope is to transform brand new customers into high-value patrons of your company. As we’ve said, the vast majority of your target audience simply won’t be ready to engage with your highest-value offer …

Until they’ve gotten a taste via your lower-tiered products or services.

The thing is, there’s no guarantee that your customers will simply move onto the next value level once they’ve experienced all you have to offer at their current stage. In many cases, your customers are more likely to stick to what they know, rather than risk jumping up to your next tier of service.

(Or, they may churn completely after having received all you have to offer at a certain value level.)

The onus is on you to convince them that they stand to gain a ton of value from the next-highest level of your value ladder.

Note that, at this point of ascension, the customer will be in a sort of limbo — they’ve gotten near-full value from the previous stage of the ladder but aren’t quite ready to enter the next “mini funnel” you have prepped for them.

So, instead of heavy-handedly pushing your more valuable offer, you’ll want to simply keep them engaged with your brand.

Basically, this involves doing whatever you can to continue providing value to them after they’ve purchased a given product or service.

This could mean:

Providing personalized content, in their preferred format, that allows them to get the absolute most out of the product or service they’re currently using

Delivering high-quality customer service and support — from onboarding to troubleshooting to instructions for “power use” of your offering

Gradually touching on the added value provided by your higher-tiered service — specific to the value sought by the individual customer

A community (Facebook group) they can live and grow within

It’s simple …

If you can prove that your main concern is on providing value to your customers — even after they’ve already given you their money — they’ll be that much more likely to trust your more costly offering will be worth the price of admission.

How to Create a Sales Funnel: Don’t Start from Scratch

Conducting Market Research

Many of your competitors have likely already built a sales funnel or marketing funnel, generating engagement and sales from the exact type of customer you’re looking to attract with your own funnels.

We’re not advocating that you simply copy what your competitors are doing. But, you do want to take note of how competing brands are working to nurture their audience toward the “big sale” at the end of their sales funnel.

Which is where sales funnel hacking comes into play.

What Is Sales Funnel Hacking?

“Funnel hacking is the process of strategically investigating the sales and marketing process of your competitors, which you can use to model and test within your own sales and marketing processes.”

In other words, you’ll actually participate in the various stages of your competitors’ sales funnels, then reverse-engineer the process in order to determine how to go about creating your own.

How to Funnel Hack Your Competitors

1. List Your Competitors

Your main focus, of course, will be on your direct competition. Make a list of all known companies that sell similar products or services to yours.

You also want to consider looking into your indirect competition, as well. Here, you’ll be considering companies who don’t necessarily sell within your niche, but whose audience overlaps with your own.

In doing so, you’ll be able to gain a better understanding of the sales tactics that get your target audience to take action.

Stay broad as you start out. While you’ll eventually pare down your list to your most-successful competitors, you also want to take note of competing companies whose approach isn’t as effective as it could be — allowing you to avoid making the same mistakes.

2. Engage, Document, and Analyze

More than simply checking out your competitors’ websites, landing pages, marketing platform and other marketing content, you’ll want to take screenshots and create swipe files. As you do so, be sure to categorize these artifacts accordingly.

We advise you create separate folders for Bait, Frontend, and Backend offers for each competitor you analyze. You also may want to create a folder specifically for documenting ad creatives — which you can further categorize based on the medium the creative is presented on (e.g., Google, Facebook, etc.).

At this point, you don’t necessarily need to engage too far with your various competitors — especially if doing so requires that you spend money on their products or services.

You do want to take as many preliminary steps as you can — such as signing up for mailing lists, requesting additional information, and downloading free content.

Once you’ve amassed a robust collection of artifacts, you’ll then want to start analyzing them from a number of different vantage points.

This involves asking blue-print type questions:

What words (copywriting) are they using in their headlines?

What colors are they using throughout their content?

Are buttons located above the fold or below the fold?

Do they use videos and images, or just text?

Are they listing benefits or features?

Do they include social proof like testimonials?

Are there any pop-ups during exit intent?

Is the header section of the site fixed?

Is there a full sign up form or an opt-in form?

Do action steps require more than one touchpoint?

Is price mentioned for their products (if so, what are their price points?)

How many words are there on the homepage?

The idea is to take note of as many different aspects as possible — and to understand why your competitors decided to take the approach they did.

(It’s actually much more important to focus on the “whys” behind these surface-level questions. Remember, you’re not necessarily going to copy your competition — but you will be implementing their successful approaches in your own way as you create your own funnels.)

As you find the answers to these questions, make sure to document this information within the folders you’ve created.

3. Assess Tracking Strategies

Throughout the above stage of the sales funnel hacking process, you’ve most likely only seen about 20–30% of your competitors’ sales funnels.

That said, we want to know which tools your competitors use and determine whether or not you should be using these same tools as well.

To figure this out, you’ll need to download two add-ons for Google Chrome:

First, check out Ghostery. This extension allows you to see the “invisible” web, detecting trackers, web bugs, pixels and beacons placed on web pages by Facebook, Google, and other platforms that gather information about your internet activity.

While this app is primarily designed to stay hidden from trackers, you can use it to identify which trackers and programs are being used by competing businesses.

The second is BuiltWith Technology Profiler, which allows you to see the tool stack running on a website — especially the marketing and e-commerce platforms — with the simple click of an icon.

This will begin to answer traffic and conversion rate questions about your competitors’ strategies, such as:

Are they using remarketing (also known as retargeting)?

Are they using Google, Facebook, or other platforms?

Are they using any conversion rate tracking software?

The list of questions you might ask (and find the answer to) is nearly inexhaustible.

What’s important is that you dig up the information that will matter most to your company as you begin to build your own sales funnels. All of this should go right into the notes you created during the previous step of the sales funnel hacking process.

4. Use Competitive Intelligence Tools

You also want to find out how your competitors are acquiring traffic in the first place. This will tell you which sources to focus on when looking to uncover high-value prospects for your own business.

To unearth these game-changers, enlist the help of the following competitive analysis tools:

AdBeat or WhatRunsWhere

These tools instantly show you the strategies of online advertisers in your industry. You can see anything from how many days they’ve been spending money and running a particular ad to the creative content and landing pages they’re sending paid traffic to.

SEMRush

Focusing on the SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) side of things, SEMRush gathers insight into how your competitors generate traffic.

This includes information related to search positions (and changes), ads, keywords they’re targeting, the copy, video advertisements, backlinks, estimated traffic generated, keyword research — and much, much more.

Disclaimer: Some of these pictures were from other sites and it has approved.