If I had one recommendation for all online business owners it would be: master your sales funnels. Imagine a funnel with a wide mouth and narrow exit at the bottom. A sales funnel is the path the customer takes from first being introduced to your product to purchasing it. Your social media posts may get tons of likes, but how many of those social media followers are buying your product? If your sales are slow, it’s probably because the types of funnels you are using are not effectively guiding potential customers to the bottom of the funnel.
A properly set-up sales funnel helps build the like, know, trust factor with your audience. It’s important for them to like you, know who you are, and trust you before they purchase from you. By controlling the path that you send potential clients and customers down, you can show your audience relevant content, nurture your relationship with them, and increase your sales!
Different types of funnels have different goals. Efficient funnels can help every business, but some work better for products or various industries. The funnels I’m focusing on today are great specifically for attracting clients and selling your services. So if you’re interested in attracting new clients and selling your services online, read on!
1. Lead Generation Funnel
The goal of lead generation funnel is, well — to generate leads. This is one of the types of funnels that is typically used if you are wanting to build up your email list, grow your audience, or acquire some targeted leads before a launch.
To set up this funnel, you’ll need:
- An enticing lead magnet that solves a problem
- A landing page with an opt-in form
- A thank you page
- An autoresponder or email sequence that delivers the lead magnet
- Facebook ad graphics + copy
- A specific audience to target (who has the problem your lead magnet solves)
Here is the map of what this funnel will look like at its core:
And here is an example of what it looks like in action:
2. Self-Liquidating Offer (SLO)
The self-liquidating offer funnel is one of the types of funnels that you can use to do a few different things. Your main three goals with this funnel are to:
- Generate leads
- Make sales
- Recoup the cost of your ad spend
A self-liquidating offer can be set up in a few different ways, but at some point in the funnel there should be at least one paid offer.
When your funnel is set up and running correctly (this may require some time, as well as trial-and-error), the paid offer(s) will generate enough sales so that the funnel basically “pays for itself.”
The goal is that the revenue you make from this funnel should be more than however much you are spending on ads.
The ultimate purpose of this funnel is not actually to make money, as typically the products or services sold in these funnels aren’t able to be priced highly enough where this is possible (although in some rare cases, this will happen!).
The real goal is to generate visibility and warm leads that have already purchased from you. Since people who have previously purchased from you are the easiest component of your audience to sell to, an SLO funnel can generate this type of lead for you.
Then, at the end of this funnel after they’ve purchased and consumed your first offering(s), you can proceed to sell them on additional, higher-priced offers.
To set up this funnel, you’ll need:
- An enticing lead magnet that solves a problem
- A low-priced tripwire offer (less than $50)
- A landing page with an opt-in form
- A tripwire sales page that also functions as a thank you page for the lead magnet
- An autoresponder or email sequence that delivers the lead magnet
- An autoresponder, email sequence, membership site or some other method of delivering the tripwire content
- (Optional) Upsells to include as part of the funnel
- Facebook ad graphics + copy
- A specific audience to target (who has the problem your lead magnet + tripwire solves)
Here is the map of what this funnel will look like at its core:
And here is an example of what it looks like in action:
3. Organic Content Marketing Funnel
If you don’t want to run Facebook ads, you can actually run a lot of types of funnels with organic marketing. Google SEO and social media are great ways to generate traffic to the top of your funnel.
Personally, I love using Pinterest and SEO to pull traffic into my funnels. Basically, what I will do is write a blog post (just like this one!). And in the blog post, I include several opt-in graphics that encourage people to click. When they click, it opens up an opt-in pop-up or goes to a separate landing page for one of my lead magnets. This is basically just a lead generation funnel! Or I could add a tripwire in there and try to make sales!
I actually don’t use paid Facebook ads a ton, mostly just for launches. Instead, I’ve built up my email list to thousands and thousands of people (and sold a lot of my products and services!) using a simple, free, organic content marketing funnel like this.
I want you to know that it’s totally possible to grow your business, build an email list, and generate sales — all without spending a dime on paid advertising!
To set up this funnel, you’ll need:
- An epic, actionable blog post
- An enticing lead magnet that solves a problem + relates to the blog post content
- A landing page or pop-up with an opt-in form
- A thank you page
- An autoresponder or email sequence that delivers the lead magnet
- Knowledge of how to promote your content via social media or SEO
Here is the map of what this funnel will look like at its core:
And here is an example of what it looks like in action:
Related: How to Promote Your Blog on Social Media
4. Welcome, Nurture, + Sales Sequence
I’m not sure what other people call this, but it’s one of the types of funnels I’m including in this post because it’s something that’s worked really, really well for me. Specifically, it’s helped me attract and convert a LOT of clients.
It’s actually been so successful that I ended up even creating an offer where I help people create their own welcome, nurture, sales sequences.
The way that this funnel works is that, once someone joins my list (usually after either the organic content marketing or lead generation types of funnels we touched on earlier in this post), I send them through an email sequence that welcomes them, nurtures them, and then sells them on my services.
I use this email sequence to really build the like, know, and trust factor. I also share about what kinds of services I provide, give testimonials, and send them some of my best content.
The key is that I only initiate this funnel when I’m sure that they’re potential clients. Some of you might be building an entire list of potential clients only, so that’s easy — send it to everyone! But if you’re like me and you also have a separate side of your business that’s more geared towards students and selling infoproducts, you might want to segment your list.
How I do it is with two different methods:
- Anyone that signs up for certain lead magnets that are specific to potential clients (like my “all the things I can help you with” lead magnet) gets put into this funnel.
- In my regular welcome email that gets sent to everyone, I ask people to let me know where they are at in their business. I have one answer that indicates they might be interested in working with me. So if they answer with that one, I put them in this funnel as well.
To set up this funnel, you’ll need:
- An email service provider, like ConvertKit or ActiveCampaign
- An email sequence that welcomes, nurtures, and sells
Here is the map of what this funnel will look like at its core:
And here is an example of what it looks like in action:
5. Discovery Call Funnel
This is another of the types of funnels that’s really great for converting clients!
It’s similar to the lead generation funnel and the organic content marketing funnel, in that you can use opt-ins or content as the top of your funnel. But the goal, instead of being to generate leads which you will then convert into clients, is to basically convert them into clients right then and there by getting them to sign up for a discovery call immediately.
You can send people straight to your discovery call booking form (I recommend the Acuity appointment scheduler). Or you can send them to your sales page, which should have buttons/links directing people to sign up for a discovery call as that page’s call to action.
To set up this funnel, you’ll need:
- A discovery call appointment scheduler, such as Acuity
- (Optional) Sales page for your services
- High-traffic blog posts and/or Facebook ad graphics + copy
Here is the map of what this funnel will look like at its core:
And here is an example of what it looks like in action:
6. Automated Webinar Funnel
This is specifically one of the types of funnels that is perfect for selling high-end products or services. Traditionally, it’s hard to sell something that’s more than $500 without including something like a discovery call or a webinar.
Your audience needs facetime with you (even if it’s automated) in order to build that like, know, trust factor. And that is even more important the higher the dollar amount of the offer.
An automated webinar funnel can be difficult to set up. I highly recommend doing some live webinars first, before attempting to automate the funnel. This will help you figure out what works and what doesn’t with your audience so you can perfect your webinar before you set it in stone and automate it. You can see that this funnel is longer, which makes sense for a more expensive product.
To set up this funnel, you’ll need:
- Webinar content and slides
- A recording of your webinar
- Automated webinar software, like EverWebinar
- A call-to-action at the end of your webinar (a link to either your sales page or your discovery call scheduler)
Here is the map of what this funnel will look like at its core:
And here is an example of what it looks like in action:
Even if you had no prior knowledge of sales funnels, you now have six fantastic types of funnels you can use to attract clients and sell services online.
You can even use some of these funnels together. For example, you could use the Organic Content Marketing or Lead Gen funnel and then follow it up with the Welcome, Nurture, Sales sequence to get a lead AND a sale.
Once you understand the basic structure of the funnels, they are a powerful tool for growing your business. They can even be automated! If you know me you know I LOVE automation.
Funnels are also infinitely customizable and segmentable to suit your business needs. It’s not a question of if your business needs sales funnels, but when are you going to set them up?
