When companies make the buying process easy, they’re 62% more likely to generate higher-quality sales.
Without a strong sales funnel in place, this is impossible to achieve.
Companies operating with a broken sales funnel risk missing out on tons of revenue. And that snowballs into missed sales goals, slim margins, and more risk from a weaker bottom line.
Plus, your sales team will have to work even harder to close deals. Without a proper sales funnel, your team must follow up relentlessly, bridging gaps and coaching conversions.
It’s exhausting.
As the saying goes, work smarter, not harder. And a streamlined sales funnel makes that happen.
Imagine having a website where prospects go, learn about your business through niche content, and glide through your sales funnel like one of those lazy rivers, picking up relevant marketing effortlessly along the way.
From prospect to buyer—easier than you thought possible.
We’ll show you how to set up a funnel that does just that in 14 easy steps.
Check it out.
1. Define Your Goal
Before you evaluate your sales funnel, you need to set up clear goals. Otherwise, you can’t track progress. Plus, your message may get mixed up along the way.
While there may be a single, overarching goal (get more customers), there are smaller micro-goals for prospects in their buyer’s journey.
For example, in the B2B space, goals can be:
- Traffic and engagement on blog posts
- Sign-ups for newsletters, webinars, and demos
- White paper and pdf downloads
- Podcast and video views
- Bookings and inquiries
- Engagement on posts (shares, likes, comments)
- Etc.
Goals can be focused on lead generation, customer retention, and brand awareness.
Setting the right goals for campaigns makes it easier to measure how effective your campaigns are. From there, you can quickly test assets in your sales funnel and improve performance.
Simultaneously, this will keep you making adjustments that would otherwise drastically impact your campaigns negatively.
2. Map Out the Ideal Customer Journey
Once you’ve identified your goals, you need to map them to your ideal customer’s journey.
96% of visitors to your website aren’t ready to buy – just yet. Your target market and ideal clients will move through a web-like series of touchpoints before settling on a purchase.
It’s your job to get them the right asset at the right time.
Consider all the interactions a lead has with your brand before purchasing, for example, visiting your website (home page, service page, blog, knowledge base, etc.), reading newsletters and other emails, engaging with social media posts, considering referrals from partners, etc.
This journey is hard to imagine.
That’s why creating a customer journey map is key. This is a touchpoint-based model detailing how qualified leads interact with a brand before committing to a purchase.
Dive deep and really imagine how your prospects navigate the “messy middle,” of your sales process. This nonlinear flow should highlight how buyers fluctuate between two mindsets:
- Exploration mode: Discovering new offerings
- Evaluation mode: Comparing known offerings
Prospects oscillate between the two modes until they feel comfortable with a purchase decision. You need to account for this fluctuation in your customer journey map.
Once you’ve mapped out your customer journey, you need to put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer profile (ICP).
Imagine what brings them to your site and visualize their experience as they move through your sales funnel. Note any potential confusion, frustration, or gaps. Question whether or not the assets you provide would give a reasonable person enough information to move forward.
Be skeptical.
The goal is to create a flow that would move your most hesitant prospect toward being a customer.
3. Refine Your Main Offer
Nailing down your main offer is key to driving more conversions in your sales cycle.
Your main offer should underscore your prospects’ most pressing pain points while showcasing how you’re in the best position to put them at ease.
Without a strong offer, your prospects will be far less likely to move deeper into your sales funnel. While the goals at each stage of the funnel will change, the offer remains the same: working with your business is the best way to alleviate the main pain they face.
For example, if you are in the business transformation space, your offer might be: We help manufacturing companies streamline invoice automation with low-code applications.
Whether they’re signing up for a newsletter, booking a webinar, downloading a PDF, or scheduling a consultation, your prospects are doing so because they value that offer.
That main offer will change slightly depending on where your prospect is in the funnel. But the core value of that message will remain the same.
Without a refined offer (also known as a unique sales proposition or brand positioning), prospects may consume your information and use your assets, but there’s little incentive to engage with your business.
4. Create Landing Pages
Landing pages are designed to get people to act. They take prospects who are in one stage of the buyer’s journey and move them to the next.
Remember the rule of one: one prospect, one message, one offer, one action.
It can be tempting to add numerous offers and request numerous actions.
Don’t.
This will confuse prospects. When given numerous options, people tend to feel overwhelmed, and engagement decreases. It’s called “Choice Overload.”
Stick to a single message, offer, and action with the goal of the prospect saying “yes” to that action.
For example, if your goal is to drive webinar sign-ups and you push prospects to a landing page to sign up, the entire goal, messaging, and offer on that page should be centered on signing up for the webinar.
Don’t ask for anything else.
All the elements of the landing page should reflect that goal:
- Use a powerful headline that drives interest and encourages action.
- Showcase the benefits of completing the desired action.
- Feature a clear call to action (CTA) at the top, middle, and bottom of the page.
- Use professional design to convey trust.
- Optimize the page for fast loading speeds.
- Display testimonials and social proof prominently and proudly.
The last one is often overlooked. Despite that, around 90% of people say they trust brands with recommendations, even if they don’t know the person it came from.
As a rule of thumb, you should have landing pages for any significant conversion point on your website (booking consultations, webinars, demos, trials, downloading reports, etc.)
For simpler requests (like a newsletter sign-up), you don’t necessarily need a landing page. Instead, a squeeze page would work best.
5. Use Tactics to Capture Leads from Content
At this point, you know who your prospects are, what your offer is, and what your goals are. You also know where you need prospects to go. Getting them there requires tactics.
Why do you need tactics?
Because even though people are struggling and your business provides the best solution, they overlook the need to act.
Some people need a bit more guidance. And that’s where tactics come into play.
Pop-Up Modals
Pop-ups guide action on the page. They’re little boxes that pop up with a form or button in them. Their goal is to get you to ask: sign up for a newsletter, book a demo, visit a page, etc.
And despite what people may say about pop-up modals, they work. In fact, they generate 75.95% more sign-ups for newsletters than slide-in forms.
It’s all in how you use them and how effective your copy is.
Still, they’re 42% more effective on desktop than mobile. So, you’ll need to rethink how you use them on mobile devices.
Popups work based on predefined triggers. You can set them to trigger due to scroll depth, time on the page, moving away from a page (exit intent), and more.
You don’t want them to be annoying. And you don’t want to have more than one on a page. The last thing someone wants to see is a bombardment of pop-ups and demands when they land on a page.
If they see that, they’ll bounce quickly.
Lead Forms
Lead forms are essential for capturing data. They are forms on landing pages and purchasing pages that prospects fill out to share their relevant information in exchange for value.
Whether they want to book a call, sign up for a webinar, or download an asset, a lead form captures prospect data in exchange for value. This allows you to nurture them throughout your sales cycle.
In-Line Forms
These are simple forms where all information is in a straight line, typically.
You’ll find these forms often embedded into blog posts as simple graphics or bright, scroll-stopping images. And sometimes, they live in footers or on blog pages waiting to capture email addresses.
The goal of an in-line form is to provide a seamless transition from content to action. The request should be minimal, signing up for a newsletter or downloading an asset.
Banners
Banners have been around forever. When they flipped the switch to turn on the internet, there was probably a banner floating around trying to get people to sign up for AOL.
The familiarity with banners has led to a phenomenon called “Banner Blindness.” This is when users selectively ignore the marketing tactics they recognize, particularly banners.
Motivated by discomfort and annoyance towards advertising, about 86% of consumers do not respond to banners.
While those metrics are discouraging, you can increase your success rate by making banners less invasive, blending them into the user’s experience.
The less the banner feels like an ad, the more likely prospects are to engage with it.
Regardless of your tactic, the key to improving conversion rates is to make the information in them relevant to your prospects. Otherwise, you’ll annoy your audience, and they’ll ignore you.
Relevant CTAs
CTAs will drive a majority of the action on your site. Buttons should be prominently displayed with clear copy. And users should know exactly what will happen when they click the button.
For in-line CTAs (simple text CTAs in posts and other assets), it should also be clear to users what will happen when they click the link.
Sometimes, you’ll want to drop a CTA in your blog as a conclusion. Typically this comes in the form of boilerplate copy. It highlights the main point and how your business can help.
6. Map Content to Funnel Stages
Nearly all B2B buyers (a whopping 94%) see multiple pieces of content before choosing a vendor.
Mapping your content to the stage of the buyer’s journey ensures that the asset, copy, and CTAs align with your prospects’ needs.
These are the stages of awareness, and the types of content found there:
- Awareness Stage: This content attracts visitors and builds brand awareness by resolving pain points using assets like blog posts, social media updates, infographics, and other shareable content.
- Interest Stage: This content consists of webinars, ebooks, whitepapers, and other assets that provide detailed solutions to complex problems.
- Evaluation Stage: This content (case studies, webinars, interactive demos, comparison posts, etc.) helps prospects evaluate whether or not your business can adequately solve their problems.
- Purchase Stage: This content is designed to convert prospects, for example, sales decks, battle cards, call scripts, one-pagers, and other sales enablement content.
- Retention and Advocacy Stage: This content aims to nurture and retain existing customers. It can be guides, templates, checklists, and newsletters with case studies and updates featuring wins.
The most common mistake businesses make with content marketing is that they focus solely on one type of content.
They may have a ton of blogs but no content that’s deeper in the funnel. Or, they share numerous company updates but don’t publish any content designed to help new prospects and existing clients.
You need content at each stage in the funnel to help support your sales funnel.
7. Simplify Forms
Forms are great for collecting information. But, you want to keep them simple. It’s best to think of each space in a lead form as a point of friction that could slow down or stop conversion.
Which information is essential?
This depends on what the request is and where in the buyer’s journey the prospect is.
For a simple signup, a single form requesting an email address will work. For a webinar, you may want to collect a name, email, and role in the company. For a consultation, you may ask for all of that information, plus their budget, level of interest, and commitment.
Be careful with asking for too much information, though.
People are hesitant to give out their telephone numbers. And they may get annoyed with requests for “company name” as it can often be inferred by a business email address.
If you can’t cut out form spaces, consider breaking up the form into two or three steps. This breaks up the work into smaller chunks, reducing anxiety and frustration around the process.
8. Offer Guarantees
Guarantees reduce risk when making purchase decisions. Providing guarantees leads to higher conversion rates by reducing the “click anxiety” or hesitation prospective customers feel before sharing information, signing up, or buying.
About 80% of B2B customers claim that guarantees (namely money-back guarantees) are critical to brand loyalty.
For B2B SaaS enterprises, free trials work well. Stacking an entry-level free version of your services against premium offerings is a tried-and-true approach. When prospects feel they’ve gotten enough out of the free trial offer and are ready for more, they transition into paying customers.
For professional services, things get tricky.
Money-back guarantees are rarely possible. And while 100% satisfaction guarantees are possible, they can be tricky. Still, taking on some risk for the client can improve your conversion rates.
Just be careful of what you promise, as you don’t want to put your business in jeopardy.
You can guarantee scope and pricing in some instances. This can put clients at ease who are worried that actual costs will be much higher than projected ones.
Show that your business will work with customers until the result meets expectations. That way, you can keep trying until you get it right instead of simply refunding purchases altogether.
9. Set Up Tracking
Tracking customer behavior is essential throughout the entire sales funnel. This provides invaluable insights into how customers interact with a website, how they make decisions, and their needs.
Every business benefits from proper tracking and analytics in place. With the right tools and tracking, your business can see an average 223% return on investment (ROI).
Google Analytics and Funnelytics can help you track events and goals on your website. Heat map tracking and click mapping tools like Microsoft Clarity, Mouseflow, and CrazyEgg can help you see how people interact with your assets and content.
These tools remove a lot of the guesswork, allowing you to make data-informed decisions.
10. Qualify Leads
Leads are fun and all, but not every lead is a qualified lead. And once prospects start pouring into your sales funnel, you’re going to need to qualify leads, or you’ll waste a lot of time and resources.
Identifying qualified leads varies from business to business. But, the qualifying process is quite similar.
Your content, assets, and website should take care of a considerable amount of the work. If you’re targeting the right keywords and addressing the search intent of your ideal audience profile, you’re more than half the way there.
The next step is to set up processes that will further qualify leads.
You can use progressive profiling to ask prospects questions throughout their journey to gather relevant information. Consider asking qualifying questions on contact forms to filter out prospects. And run email campaigns to gauge prospects’ level of interest.
11. Nurture Leads
Research shows that nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.
Implementing marketing automation saves you countless hours at this stage. Tactics like personalized emails show investment in each prospect’s experience.
Feature sales enablement content to keep them interested and engaged. You want consistent emails that provide value but don’t overwhelm the prospect with SPAM.
However, avoid selling too early. Nurturing leads is about nurturing a relationship. You want to form a connection, establish trust, and convey expertise.
What you don’t want to do is message them constantly, asking them to buy. No one wants that.
How often should you message prospects? It depends. Best practice for B2B would be to send 2 -3 emails in the first month before scaling up to weekly.
But there needs to be value there:
- Share insightful blog posts and sales enablement content.
- Showcase other wins from similar clients.
- Offer incentives to encourage transition.
- Underscore the outcome.
- Convey a sense of urgency.
People don’t want to feel strong-armed into a purchase. They want to make a confident decision and be excited about the outcome. That’s the power of effective nurturing.
12. Close the Deal
You need to have systems in place to guide prospects toward a sale. From blog posts to white papers to case studies to tools, you need to have the assets in place to guide them to getting on a call or signing up for your service.
There should be a value-add in exchange for any time commitment. For Lead Comet, we use the traffic project tool (see below). You can offer a consultation or a demo.
Either way, you’re asking them to stop their day and talk to you.
You need to add value.
Use testimonials and reviews on high-anxiety sales pages. Third-party proof is great for converting prospects into clients, generating roughly 62% more revenue.
And if you have an email list, you should have an automated sales sequence designed to convert prospects. In these emails, it’s okay to directly ask the customer if they’re interested in buying.
But don’t hound them.
13. Analyze Data + Optimize
Once your systems are in place, you need to analyze the data and optimize your sales funnel. You won’t get it right the first time. And even if your funnel performs well, you should always test variations to ensure your sales funnel performance is optimal.
Testing comes in many forms.
You can A/B test key elements on your home page, core pages, and landing pages. You can test the tactics you use to capture lead details. And you can test the kind of assets you use to build brand awareness and drive conversions.
Testing is a continuous process. Not only are markets and customer expectations continuously changing, but technology and messaging change over time, too. (Once marketers find something that works well, it isn’t long before everyone’s doing it, and that strategy loses impact.)
Luckily, testing is much easier once you have a clearly defined sales funnel in place.
14. Focus on Retention
Remember that a customer’s journey with your brand doesn’t end once they become clients or customers. Engineering a positive post-purchase experience goes a long way toward customer retention.
And retention is critical for business. Just a 5% increase in retention can improve revenue by 25% – 95%.
It starts with the onboarding process, ensuring clients get off to a positive start with your business. And it continues through account management and engagement. Emphasizing successes, challenges, and potential solutions is key to showing clients you have their best interests in mind.
For products, you can do this through comprehensive tutorials, knowledge bases, instructional videos, and FAQs. For services, you can share account summaries and estimated ROIs while going out of your way to ensure clients have a positive experience with your business.
Retention comes from regular communication and feedback loops with clients. After all, no one can read minds.
Don’t be shy when sending out surveys. Asking for customer experience with products or services reveals changes necessary to improve client and user satisfaction. You should also encourage buyers to leave reviews through sites like Trustpilot and strengthen your credibility.
Meanwhile, take care to reward those who become loyal supporters. Exclusive discounts, offers, and perhaps additional perks to their service tier. Incentives like these encourage paying customers to stick around longer and provide extra motivation for newcomers.
Most importantly, ask for testimonials and reviews when you can. These assets can strengthen your sales funnel, driving more prospects to your business.