Best Sales Funnel Templates

A sales funnel is a rather simple concept that has a huge value in business, especially in the B2B sector. It is what helps companies streamline the efforts of their sales reps and ensure better conversions. Still, not everyone gets this concept right.

In this article, the experts from LeadsForce will guide you through this matter, help you see the benefits of a solid sales funnel for your business, and also help you craft your own funnel with ease!

What Is a Sales Funnel?

In a nutshell, a sales funnel (also referred to as a conversion funnel) is a visual representation of the journey your prospects make. It spans every stage of the customer journey from the moment they discover your brand or product and get onto your business leads list all the way until they make a purchase.

The term itself was first developed in the late 19th century by St. Elmo Lewis. Elmo Lewis’ customer funnel template followed the so-called AIDA model, which consists of four core stages of the customer journey - Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action.

Here is how each of the phases can be explained in the modern world scenario:

Awareness - The phase when the prospect initially learns about a specific product or service.
Interest - During this stage, a prospect develops an interest in the product or service.
Desire - This is the stage where a prospect decides that they want to purchase the product or service and already demonstrates preferences in terms of brands.
Action - The final stage of every funnel is when a prospect decides to try the product or service, and either makes a purchase or requests a free trial.

Looks pretty simple, right? Indeed, a sales funnel is a very simple concept. The stages described above are what every customer goes through when buying a solution. The problem is that not every prospect gets to the final stage. And, in order to get them there, a brand must have a solid funnel and a good tactic for moving leads down it.

Typical Structure of a B2B Sales Funnel

Apart from consisting of the stages described above, every funnel typically has a three-level structure. This structure involves the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel.

Now, let’s look at each element of this structure separately.

Top of the Funnel

The first part of the funnel structure is its top. Sometimes, it is referred to as TOFU. If you imagine a real funnel, you should see that it is the widest at the top, and this is exactly what the top of the sales funnel is.

At the widest, top part of the funnel you have everyone who has the slightest potential to become your customer in the future. This can include leads to whom you already sent an introduction email or made a presentation of your product or service, as well as those leads that have never interacted with your brand before.

If you look at the stages described in the previous section of this guide, the top of the funnel is built based on the awareness stage. Simply put, leads who are here may not have interest or demand yet. They might only know about the existence of a specific brand, product, or service. And your core task at this stage is to educate them and create interest, thus, moving these leads to the next section of your funnel.

Middle of the Funnel

The middle of your funnel (or MOFU) is a place where it starts getting narrower as leads inside it start demonstrating interest. At this stage, your leads are evaluating your product or service and defining how well it can relate to them.

After going through the middle of the funnel, some prospects will transform into your marketing-qualified leads. These are the leads who have demonstrated engagement in your campaigns but are still hesitant. These leads are not ready for a sales pitch yet, which means that you will have to go the extra mile to convert them.

Another part of prospects might transform into your sales-qualified leads at this stage. These are the leads who demonstrate a proactive desire to make a purchase and should be proceeded for conversion.

Bottom of the Funnel

The final element of your funnel’s structure, the bottom (or BOFU), is its narrowest part. If you’ve taken your leads to this point, chances are that you’ve already done a lot to educate them about a product or service and prove that your brand has the best-fitted solution for them. Thus, at this stage, your prospects transform into qualified leads that have a high potential to convert.

This is a part where a prospect makes a purchasing decision and takes an action. But, this doesn’t mean that your work stops there. At the bottom of the funnel, your team should do its best to develop trust and prove your value to transform leads into paying customers.

It is also important to note that there is one additional stage of the funnel that often remains unspoken. It is the Loyalty stage. The idea is simple - once a lead gets to the bottom of the funnel and makes the first purchase, that’s great, but you also want them to stay with you and make more purchases later. Therefore, even after taking your leads through the entire sales funnel, you still want to continue engaging with them in order to build loyalty and ensure retention.

Sales Funnel vs. Marketing Funnel

Apart from a sales funnel, there is another similar term used in business - marketing funnel. And there is always a lot of misunderstanding concerning these two concepts. So, what’s the difference between marketing funnel templates and sales funnel templates?

As you already know, a sales funnel is a representation of a customer’s buying journey. So, it is mostly tied up to the sales process. A marketing funnel also represents a journey customers make but that leads not to making a purchase but to getting acquainted with the brand.

Why is there so much confusion? First and foremost, this confusion arises in the B2B sector in particular. The thing is that B2B sales have always been considered a linear process, in which a prospect is first handled by marketers who introduce them to a brand and its solutions. And only then do sales reps step in - when a prospect is already prepared to consider a product or service offered by a specific brand. In this setting, a marketing funnel is the first stage aimed at lead generation and a sales funnel is its continuation aimed at conversion.

But that was before. These days, the business landscape is changing rapidly and the traditional linear B2B sales process is not as effective as it used to be. These days, new leads can fall into a sales funnel already having at least some knowledge about a product or service and the company. This basically erases the line between a sales and a marketing funnel.

In today’s B2B sales, in order to drive more prospects and close more deals, marketing and sales teams should align their efforts. Thus, marketing and sales funnels are now more inseparable than ever.

So, whether you are building a marketing funnel template or a sales funnel template, in reality, they will be closely interlinked and just the alignment might be slightly different.

Why Are Sales Funnels Important?

While most brands already recognize the huge value of lead generation, the importance of a solid sales funnel is still somewhat shady to some. So, let’s stop here for a moment.

According to stats, when you generate leads, you can expect only 10-15% of them to convert into paying customers organically. Basically, a well-defined sales funnel is needed to help your sales team approach leads right depending on where they are in the funnel and, thus, increase conversions. But, there are more benefits too.

After integrating a sales funnel into your operations, your business can gain:

More accurate forecasting. Funnels really focus on prospects’ behaviors at every stage of their journey. Gaining a deep understanding of their actions and behavior will make it easier for you to see what your leads need and, thus, predict sales success more accurately.
Valuable insights for product development. Knowing your prospects’ needs and expectations better, you can get a clear idea of how you can improve your product or service in order to boost conversions.
Lasting relationships with customers. With a well-defined sales funnel, you know exactly what your prospects need at every stage of their journey. Therefore, you can easily cater to their needs and, thus, build more trustful and lasting relationships with them.
Better productivity. Although it might be hard to adopt in the first place, a sales funnel will eventually ensure higher productivity and save your sales team lots of time in the long run. To be more specific, with a sales funnel, your reps will be able to predict which leads have the potential to convert and which don’t and will be able to align their efforts accordingly. As a result, they won’t waste more time on leads that are not going to buy and will become more productive instead.
Increased ROI. Finally, a cherry on top - with the help of a solid sales funnel, your business can significantly improve its ROIs. You only build a funnel once and then continue running all new leads through it and receive better outcomes.

Best Funnel Templates

Looking at all the benefits, chances are that you already want to integrate a solid funnel into your sales operations too. Here, we will share with you a few clear sales funnel templates to help you get started.

Lead Generation Funnel Template

Lead generation is never a simple task. Often, marketers use tricks such as using the best reverse email lookup tools to collect contact info and similar, just to add more leads into their sales pipeline. But, this process can be put on autopilot with the help of a good lead funnel template.

Here is what it looks like stage by stage:

Top of the Funnel - Create a powerful lead magnet by offering your site visitors something free of charge in return for their contact details. Once they opt in, they get to the top of your funnel.
Middle of the funnel - Once you have lots of email addresses of new leads, deliver to them the promised lead magnet with a strong “thank you” email. Now, you have them in the middle of your funnel.
Bottom of the funnel - At the final stage of your lead gen funnel, you need to continue nurturing the acquired leads with effective content and great offers to keep them engaged. And, don’t forget about strong CTA’s to start converting them.

Email Funnel Template

If you want to find qualified leads and take them to the bottom of your funnel using solely email, your funnel will look a little different. Typically, effective email funnel templates look like this:

Top of the Funnel - To get leads into your funnel you will need to send them an introduction email that will get them acquainted with your brand and products. To do this, you first need to find prospects who match your ICP and collect their email addresses. You can use LeadsForce for this purpose to ensure that you always send introduction emails to the right people and use a valid email address format.
Middle of the funnel - At the middle stage of your email funnel, you need to educate your prospects and prove your value to them through effective email sequences.
Bottom of the funnel - Lastly, to convert your leads via email, you need to make them a valuable offer followed by a strong CTA. It’s important to do this just at the right time when a particular lead is ready for a sales pitch.

SaaS Sales Funnel Template

Another good conversion funnel template, namely for SaaS products, is the one that offers your prospects a personalized pricing plan. It always works great for B2B companies and here is what it can look like:

Top of the Funnel - Create a powerful landing page for your product and drive traffic to it. Include two different CTAs on this page - one leading to your pricing page and one leading to your magnet (to automatically drive hesitating prospects to your lead gen funnel). Leads who go to the pricing page will automatically get to the top of your SaaS sales funnel.
Middle of the funnel - On the pricing page, offer a comparison of several generic plans and offer prospects to get a custom plan tailored to their needs. Those who opt-in will move to the middle of your funnel.
Bottom of the funnel - Lastly, provide leads with a sweet personalized offer that will help them save money and increase their likelihood of converting.

How to Create a Sales Funnel Template

Now that you have a number of pre-made sales and marketing funnel templates in front of your eyes, you may wonder how to create your own custom funnel. Below are a few tips that will help you get on the right track and build a high-converting funnel like a pro.

Identify Your ICP

Whenever you decide to generate leads, plan a new marketing strategy, or build a sales funnel, it is always your ideal customer profile (ICP) that should be at the core. In order to achieve success, you want to make sure that your funnel is built around the right people - those who fit into your ideal customer profile and have the potential to convert. Therefore, the very first step in building your own funnel is to identify your ICP and carefully analyze the needs and behaviors of your prospects. You need to understand what are the best channels to generate them, how to connect with them, how to meet their needs, and so on.

Strive for Better Personalization

Although you will have the same sales funnel for every prospect, it doesn’t mean that all their journeys will be the same too. These days, clients want to have positive experiences with every brand they interact with. And personalization plays a huge role. With the help of personalization, you will be able to build a better rapport with your prospects, establish trust, deliver better experiences, and, thus, move them through your funnel faster and easier.

Focus on Lead Generation

The process of generating leads is crucial for every sales funnel. After all, how can you make your funnel high-converting if you can’t fill it up with lots of leads in the first place? Therefore the next tip for building your funnel is to put more effort into lead generation. Create lead magnets, leverage SEO, run awesome email marketing campaigns, and use all other available resources to generate more leads and invite them to your sales pipeline.

Need help with this? LeadsForce is here to help you acquire lots of qualified leads without hassle. With our tool, you will make your funnel up and running by driving many leads right into it. So, don’t hesitate to give it a try!

Keep Your Leads Engaged

After driving lots of leads into your funnel, the next task you have is to keep them moving down through it. Therefore, you should put enough effort into engaging your customers. For example, you can leverage social media or high-quality educational content to keep your prospects engaged.

Analyze and Improve

Chances are that you won’t be able to create a flawless sales funnel from the first attempt. That’s just fine. In fact, building a high-converting sales funnel is an ongoing process that will require you to make lots of changes along the way. Thus, the last tip we have for you is to analyze and improve your funnel continuously. Track the results and find areas for improvement to achieve even greater results in the long run.

The Bottom Line

Now you should have a better idea of what a sales funnel is, why it matters for B2B brands, and how it is structured. Hopefully, this guide and the funnel templates we shared with you here will help you create a well-defined funnel for your company’s success!