Sales Funnels: All You Need To Know In 2021 Plus Effective Strategies

Introduction – Sales Funnels: All You Need To Know In 2021 Plus Effective Strategies

Sales funnels are a proven method to help you make more money in your business.

Every sales funnel is designed to help you make sales, and sales funnels can be a valuable tool for generating more revenue for your business.

However, many people are unsure what sales funnels are or how they work. They might ask many questions like:

1. But what is a sales funnel?
2. How do they work?
3. How can they make more money for your business?
4. And, most importantly, how can I get one for my business today?

If you’re one of these people, then this article is perfect for you!

We’ll answer all these questions that we know our readers have about sales funnels and show exactly why they need one in their business right now.

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A Customer’s Buying Journey

To help you understand how Sales Funnels work and how powerful they can be let us examine a typical customer’s buying journey when they decide to make a purchase.

But, what is a buyer’s journey?

What Is a Buyer’s Journey?

A buyer’s journey is the process of how a customer goes from browsing your store to making a purchase. When you understand this process, you can use it to help you optimize your sales and make more money.

Now that we understand what is a buyer’s journey let us now take a look at how a sales funnel works by using an example of a customer making a purchase in a business.

This can be any random customer in any random business but for this example, we will use a couple who decide to have dinner at a restaurant.

Before the couple decides how to spend the evening they might first brainstorm a few ideas like having popcorn and watching a movie at home, going dancing at the club, or having a delicious meal at one of the finest restaurants in town.

They decide, in this example, to go with the idea of having dinner at your fine dining restaurant.

When they walk into your restaurant they will be shown to their table by a waiter or waitress. They will also be given a glass of water and the menu to decide what they would like to eat.

They might decide to go with a Caesar Salad, Grilled Chicken, and Mashed Potatoes for their dinner.

When they place this order your waiter would then ask them if they would like to have a bottle of champagne or wine to complement their order to which they agree.

The order is placed, the meal is prepared, and the couple has a wonderful evening and delicious dinner to boot.

Nearing the end of their evening the waiter or waitress reappears and asks if they would like to have a bit of dessert to which they agree.

They are then served ice cream with a slice of cheesecake, and a slice of carrot cake.

They are delighted.

After they have had their dessert at the of their meal, they decide to pay their bill. Before they can complete paying for their dinner they are asked by the waiter if they would like a bottle of the wine they had with dinner to go.

They agree and get a bottle of wine to enjoy from the comfort of their home.

This is a typical experience a patron would have at a restaurant and this can all be documented in a sales funnel.

As we go through this article we will refer back to this experience to help you learn everything you need to know about Sales Funnels.

What Is A Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel describes the step-by-step process of the buyer’s journey of a customer. It outlines the process they go through to become a customer or client of your business.

A sales funnel is also a framework that illustrates the steps in your sales process from start to finish.

It can also be used to analyze or measure conversion rates at each stage of the sales process and work on ways to increase these conversions where possible.

A sales funnel shows all stages of potential customers’ journey through their “buyer’s decision making” until they convert or abandon during a purchase attempt.

Sales funnels have been around for decades, but only recently have their popularity skyrocketed because of how effective they can be in generating leads and turning those leads into paying customers.

A basic sales funnel typically consists of three stages: the top of the funnel, where visitors come in; the middle stage (the best offer); and the bottom stage (where we try to get them to say yes).

A sales funnel is a linear process that begins with the widest possible audience and gradually narrows down to only those who have expressed interest in buying your product.

Sales funnels are an important part of marketing because they give you the opportunity to optimize your conversions and selling process at each stage of the buyer’s journey.

In the example above, we mentioned there was a buyer’s journey where the couple was going through a sales funnel from start to finish.

Let us quickly and briefly illustrate what we meant.

What Are The Stages Of The Buyer’s Journey And Sales Funnel?

There are four stages in a buyer’s journey with an optional fifth stage that we like to use here at CyberDream Developers.

The four stages are:

1. Awareness: This is where the prospect becomes aware of your business and the potential it has to solve their problems.
2. Interest: This is where the prospect develops an interest in using your business to solve their problem.
3. Decision: This is where they have to make a decision on whether they will use your business or go with the competition
4. Action: This is where the actual conversion takes place! They have learned all they can about the problems and possible solutions, and have decided to choose you over the competition.

This is where the real power of sales funnels comes to light.

That is because sales funnels are beneficial because they help you understand your sales process, where customers drop off in the sales process, and what can be done at each stage of the buyer’s journey to improve conversions and eventually get your business more sales and customers.

If you double your conversions at the awareness stage then you will have twice as many visitors coming into your sales funnel which, if the conversion rates at all other stages remain the same, will double your conversion rates and revenues without you needing to do anything at all.

By knowing this you will begin to see the power of a sales funnel and how you can grow your business with one today.

Let us now take a deeper look at the buyer’s journey and sales funnel.

We will also use our example above of the couple dining at the fine restaurant for dinner to give you a practical example of how to understand everything in day-to-day terms.

Stage 1. The Awareness Stage

The first stage is Awareness: This means that the customer has become aware of your business and might know about it or have heard about it from one way or another.

During the awareness stage, sales funnels will work to build credibility, trust, and authority for your brand. It will work to attract as many eyes to your website or visitors to your store as possible.

This is also the stage where you would want to make an offer that can be used as a lead magnet in order to collect their email address or phone number so that they can stay updated with your business.

The offers are typically freebies of high value and relevance to your audience called lead magnets.

A lead magnet is anything like e-books, free consultations, infographics, online tutorials, or any other valuable offer that you give to your prospect in return for their email address. Learn more about lead magnets in this guide we wrote:

In the example above with your couple, they became aware of your restaurant when they learned of it through word of mouth when talking with friends, came across an ad you have posted on social media, or even saw a billboard or flyer that was advertising your restaurant.

Stage 2. The Interest Stage

They then reach the second stage; Interest.

In the Interest stage, they have some interest in what your business has to offer. They might be actively looking for companies like yours or just casually browsing the web and stumble across you.

They start thinking more deeply about whether they want to buy anything from your company or not but haven’t decided yet.

At this point, there’s still hope for retaining them as a client which is why we must keep engaging with them through email marketing, social media advertising, etc., instead of just forgetting all about them once they’ve shown initial interest.

Once they’ve reached this stage, sales funnels work best because it’s time to speak directly about how they can solve their problems with a product or service that is offered by your company.

You want them thinking about the benefits of whatever it is that you’re selling instead of other possible solutions so it’s important not to waste any time at all when trying to sell something!

In the example above the couple becomes Interested in dining at your restaurant when they are brainstorming ideas for how to spend the night and realized that having dinner at your restaurant was one way to spend the evening.

It would be the same as solving the problem of what to do.

Stage 3. The Decision Stage

The third stage occurs if a customer reaches this point which we call Consideration or Decision (from the AIDA framework).

This means that they are now considering whether or not they want to buy from your company but still haven’t made up their minds as yet.

In this stage of the sales funnel you want to be very specific about the benefits of your product and pull out all the stops when it comes to sales tactics.

This is where you can use a sales video as an example or have testimonials from other clients who are happy with what they’ve bought.

In the example above, the Decision stage takes place when they decide that they will spend the evening having dinner at your restaurant.

This is where they have chosen your business over the competition.

Stage 4. The Action Stage

The fourth stage, which we call Action: They’re ready for purchase!

It’s time to find their way through checkout so that they can make a successful purchase after negotiating any details such as payment methods, delivery times, etc.

In the above example, the purchase stage takes place when they arrive at the restaurant. It starts when they order their meal and ends when they make the payment for the initial order.

Stage 5. The Reconversion Stage

The fifth stage, which is optional and not conventional, is called Reconversion: They’ve bought!

Now it’s time to make sure that they are happy with their purchase and sales process.

This can be done by sending them a customer satisfaction survey or following up on the quality of your goods in some way.

You can also check with them for ways to improve their buyer’s experience with your business and get reviews for your business and customer service in this step of the sales funnel.

You can also use our “Thank You” email campaign to try to make one final sale at this stage of the buyer’s journey.

In the above example, the reconversion stage takes place when they are prompted to have dessert after they have finished their meal and when they are asked if they would like to take home a bottle of the wine they had for dinner when they decide to pay for their evening’s dinner.

This is the stage where most businesses fail to make a sale and give up the most potential for growth and revenues.

An important point to note is that it is possible, as we do here at CyberDream Developers, to tailor your buyer’s journey and sales funnel in such a way that the Action and Reconversion stage also has sales funnels within them.

To see two examples of this in action you can read the blog posts below where we explain the process in full detail:

1. 1 Powerful Digital Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses and Startups
2. Get More eCommerce Sales With This 1 Powerful Strategy

Why You Need A Sales Funnel In Your Business

The sales funnel is an important tool for any business because it helps to increase sales and revenues by following a systematic approach.

It’s also the best way of getting your customers engaged with your company in order to make more sales.

There are many different ways you can use sales funnels depending on what type of product or service you offer, but all share these same five steps:

1. The funnel grows interested in your product or service
2. They are introduced to what you offer and why they should buy from you
3. Their decision is made about whether to make a purchase (this stage can be broken down further)
4. The action occurs when purchasing takes place
5. Reconversion can take place by making another sale or getting a referred customer even after the sale is completed

By using a sales funnel in your business you will be able to easily focus on each stage of the buyer’s journey and analyze its performance.

This gives you an opportunity to improve your overall sales process and grow your business.

It will allow you to see what is not working and give you an opportunity to improve and optimize each segment of your selling process to get the best results.

How Can A Sales Funnel Grow Your Business?

There are many ways for you to use a sales funnel to grow your business. A sales funnel can help you grow your business by:

1. Helping you to earn more revenues per customer or client
2. Improve your sales process
3. Sell more products to your customers
4. Sell more services to your customers
5. Increase your lead generation abilities
6. Grow your email list
7. Build a relationship with your customers
8. Market to more prospects
9. Earn more revenues and profits
10. Build your brand strength

If you are interested in getting a sales funnel for your business or company, our team can help you set up a sales funnel that can help you to start earning more leads, sales, and profits.

You can find out more by setting up a free consultation with our team.

What Are The Different Types Of Sales Funnels?

Because we have found sales funnels to be so powerful and effective in improving every facet of your business there are several different funnels that we like to use.

We will list our three favorite funnels below and tell you what they are used for.

We will also create supporting guides to help you learn more about these types of funnels and how you can use them in your business.

Funnel 1 – Lead Generation Sales Funnel

This is the type of funnel that we use to increase the number of leads you get from your digital marketing campaigns and website traffic for your business.

The way these funnels work is that we offer something for free to our website visitors that is helpful in solving the problems they have that we solve.

This is called a lead magnet.

After the prospect signs up to our email subscriber list, we then offer them the opportunity to make a purchase of one of our ‘entry-level offers.’

Entry-level offers are low-cost, popular, products or services that our customers or clients will find helpful.

It can be as simple as a chiropractor offering an adjustment or a dentist offering a discounted cleaning appointment.

This funnel gives us the opportunity to get the client or customer integrated into our business and accustomed to doing business with us.

This makes it easier to sell them a product or service later.

Funnel 2 – Sales Funnels To Multiply Your Revenues

This is the most popular funnel that we use at CyberDream Developers.

The way we use this funnel is by taking a look at the Action stage of our buyer’s journey and creating a series of products or services that our customers would find valuable.

We do this by stacking the value ladder as high as possible for our prospect.

This means that we progressively offer more items after each sale that would bring them closer to a solution to their problem.

For example; someone in the market for home security services would first be offered a free consultation with our team to learn more about how we can help them.

In the next step, we would offer more value by giving them the opportunity to have an agent visit their home and assess them for security breaches.

In the next step, we would give our prospect the opportunity to have a home security system installed within the next 48 hours.

In the next step, we would offer them to have the opportunity to have security officers installed on sight while their security system is being installed over the next 48 hours.

As part of our final stage, we would allow them to have their personal security team on-site 24/7 and a dedicated agent from our office that continually monitors their property for any signs of a security breach or potential threat to their safety.

Funnel 3 – The Thank You Sales Funnel

The “Thank You” sales funnel is very similar to our “Thank You” email campaign.

It is where we use a sales funnel to create an optional fifth stage to our buyer’s journey – the reconversion step.

After a customer or client makes a purchase and completes their buyer’s journey we would send them an email expressing our gratitude for choosing to do business with us.

During this email sequence we would seek a referral, a review, a recommendation, and also recommend a complementary product to our customers.

It is the offering of dessert to our couple from the opening example or the opportunity to take home a bottle of the wine they had for dinner.

This is where we earn money, trust, and a deeper bond with our customers that everyone else is leaving on the table.

During this step, we use the power of email marketing and a sales funnel to offer our customer or client the opportunity to get a complimentary product or service that brings them closer to their desired solution.

The Thank You Sales Funnel is the most underused and underappreciated sales funnel in our entire arsenal.

In fact, it’s the one every business should ensure they use.

The reason is simple: it is easier to sell to someone who has already bought from you and someone who has just made a purchase is more likely to keep buying than someone who has not yet made a purchase.

By keeping this psychological fact in mind we will be offering our customer or client the opportunity to get one final product or service to move them away from the pain of the problem they are experiencing and closer to the pleasure of a solution.

How To Implement A Sales Funnel In Your Business Today

Setting up a sales funnel in your business can be a difficult and time-consuming task.

It’s not as simple as buying a subscription for a popular sales funnel software like ClickFunnels or Cartflows and plugging a demo funnel into your business.

Instead, you need to do a detailed analysis of your business, your product or service offering, your selling process, your customer’s or client’s buying journey, your business goals, your market… we’ll pump the brakes here.

It isn’t an impossible task though.

After all, there are many businesses using funnels successfully to get more customers, clients, revenues, and profits.

There are two methods that you can take to set up a sales funnel for your business.

We will discuss both of them below.

The Easy Way To Set Up A Sales Funnel In Your Business: Hire A Professional

The easy way to set up a sales funnel in your business is by hiring a professional.

If you decide to go the easy way by hiring a professional to handle all the heavy lifting involved in setting up sales for your business then you can quickly get started working with our team.

All you need to do is set up a free consultation with our team and tell us a little more about your business before the meeting by filling out the consultation request form.

That will allow us to prepare for your consultation by doing enough research into your business’s pain points before we get on a call. We will use the information you’ve provided to prepare a preliminary plan to set your business on the path to online success.

Get your free consultation with our team here.

The Hard Way To Set Up A Sales Funnel In Your Business: Do It Yourself

In this section, we are going to give you a very short and simple method to create a sales funnel for your business.

The sales funnel software that we recommend you use in this article will be Cartflows but you can also use ClickFunnels and any other sales funnel software you like.

This will not be a detailed guide by any stretch of the imagination. Our goal here will be to allow you to make some more money for your business using a sales funnel.

Let’s get started!

Step 1 – Analyze Your Value Offering

Your value offering is the set of products or services that you offer to your customers or clients. It should be a wide range of products or services that give varying levels of help to your customers.

For this example, we will take the position of a veterinarian that runs a local Pet Health Center. To make things simple we will narrow our audience to dog owners and only carry three services:

1. Dog grooming – $200
2. Dog immunization – $1,500
3. Dog health checkup – Free

It is important to remember that the objective of our sales funnel is to make more money for our Pet Health Center

Step 2 – Create A Value Stack

When we create a value stack it will be a series of product or service offerings that move our customers from a simple service to a more complex or pricey solution.

The value stack should start out cheap or free (to get as many people into our funnel as possible) then grow progressively more expensive.

For our Pet Health Center example, the progression of our services would be Dog Health Checkup –> Dog Grooming –> Dog Immunization.

The objective is to use a free health checkup to get more dog owners into our business.

Then after a health checkup is complete we would upsell them on some other product or service.

If the dog is healthy we would recommend a Dog Grooming service to get their hair and nails trimmed, shampooed, and brushed to a smooth, glowing coat.

If the dog needs a bit of treatment after the health checkup then we would upsell our client on a dog immunization service. After the immunization service is agreed on we would offer them the chance to get their dog groomed at 25% off the regular price.

This might not seem like much on the outside but if you think about it there is a massive upside! Just by giving away

Just by giving away something for free, you will be able to get more customers in through the door which is the same as getting more customers at the top of your sales funnel.

As a matter of fact, what that will do for your business is that it will give your business a boost to the number of customers that you have visiting your pet health center.

Because you have more customers you will also have the opportunity to sell even more of your products i.e your dog grooming services and dog immunization services.

Having more people in your sales funnel and in your business to sell to will result in an increase in sales, revenues, and profits.

The main takeaway message here is that by offering something for free or at a very low cost at the very top of your sales funnel you will be giving yourself the opportunity to massively multiply the revenues that you earn from your business.

Think about it, if you increase your conversion rate at three stages of your sales funnel by 100% then you will be doubling the number of people at each stage. In the end, you will have increased your new customers by 600%.

That’s a 6x increase in revenue!

Step 3 – Place This All In A Sales Funnel

In the next step of setting up this sales funnel you will need to put all of this information into a sales funnel.

By doing this it will be automated if you have a website. If you have a physical business with no website like our Pet Health Center in this example, you can simply use it as a guide on how to serve your customers better.

If you have a WordPress website you can follow this video that we will post below to learn more about how to set up your own sales funnel online.

Step 4 – Capture Leads At The Top Of Your Sales Funnel

The next thing that you should do is that you should focus on capturing leads at the top of your sales funnel.

When you give something away for free you should ensure that you capture your prospect’s email address as well.

If you have a website you can ask for their email address in exchange for the free item or low-cost product or service that will get them into the business.

As we have explained before this is called a lead magnet and it is used in a process called lead generation. 

After you have captured your prospect’s email address you will use the power of email marketing to nurture them into becoming customers or clients.

The idea is that not everyone who enters the top of your sales funnel will make it to the bottom and become a customer immediately.

However, everyone who enters the top of your sales funnels by joining your email subscribers list will be a prospect that you will have the opportunity to build a relationship with and eventually convert to a customer.

You can do this by using the best email marketing strategies to convert your prospects to customers available.

If you think this is a lot of work or is too difficult do not worry.

We have provided a list of resources below to help you get more customers leads and clients for your business using email marketing.

They are completely free and all you need to do is click one of the links below to access the information

1. 16 Powerful Email Marketing Lead Generation Strategies
2. 16 eCommerce Lead Magnets And Marketing Strategy For Explosive Growth
3. 11 Email Marketing Best Practices 2021: How To Write Engaging Emails For Your Business
4. 12 Powerful Email Marketing Strategies Your Small Business Need To Succeed In 2021
5. 22 Powerful Email Marketing Benefits To Grow Your Business

Step 5 – Get More Traffic To Your Sales Funnel

The final step of this process is to multiply or increase the amount of traffic you have entering the top of your sales funnel.

By this stage, you would have already reached a point where you have your sales funnel installed in your business or website and it is generating more revenues for your business.

You know it is working and bringing results for your business.

The only thing that we need to do at this stage is to get more traffic at the top of your sales funnel to scale it and multiply your results.

There are two ways to get this done.

If you have a website the way to do it will vary and if you are using only a physical store it will also be different.

If you have a website there are many ways to get more traffic to your sales funnel. We will provide a list of free resources below that you can use to generate more traffic to your website.

We will also show you ways to convert this traffic to leads.

You can find those resources below:

1. 32 Powerful Website Traffic Generation Techniques You Need To Try
2. Lead Generation Complete Guide: From Basic To 5 Powerful Strategies
3. 16 Powerful Email Marketing Lead Generation Strategies
4. 3 Effective Sign-up Drip Campaigns for Effective Email Marketing Conversions
5. 12 Powerful Email Marketing Strategies Your Small Business Need To Succeed In 2021

If you have a physical location then you will need to focus on ways to get more customers into your business.

One way to do this using our sales funnel is to have more people learn about your low-cost or free entry-level offer.

The way this works is that they will see your entry-level offer that is free or low-cost but provides massive value and be more interested in your business.

In order to have more people learn about your free offer or entry-level offer you only need to do effective online marketing.

We will provide a list of resources below that you can use to get more traffic to your physical location including using Google My Business and Google Ads.

The resources are completely free.

1. How To Get Clients With Google My Business In 10 Easy Steps
2. How To Set Up Google My Business In 7 Easy Steps
3. 16 Awesome Ways To Do Digital Marketing For Local Businesses
4. Search Engine Marketing: All You Need To Know In 2021 And A Powerful Strategy
5. 10 Amazing Ways to Grow Your Business Online with Google Ads

However, we recommend that you get a website even if your sales funnel will be part of your physical location.

The reason is that with a website you will have the ability to capture email leads that can be converted to customers with a bit of nurturing over the next few months

You will also have a lot more digital marketing media channels open to you for use in attracting more customers, leads, and clients to your website and business.

There you have it!

A simple 5 step sales funnel to help you get more leads, customers, and sales into your business.

Conclusion – Sales Funnels: All You Need To Know In 2021 Plus Effective Strategies

In this blog post, we have discussed the topic of sales funnels and how they can grow your business.

We have also learned what sales funnels are and the advantages of having a sales funnel in your business.

If you would like to have a sales funnel set up in your business then feel free to set up a free consultation with our team.

We would be happy to help you install a sales funnel that will explode your business’s growth sales revenues and profit 

If you have any questions regarding this article leave a comment below and we would be happy to assist by answering all your questions and resolving your concerns.