A sales funnel is a series of actions or events that a user goes through before completing a product or service purchase.

Sales Funnel Blueprint

A well-designed sales funnel helps the company’s sales team guide potential customers through the entire buying journey and also gives valuable data and insights about buyer behaviour.

The sales funnel stages are represented by the acronym AIDA – Awareness, Interest, Decision, Action. In image form, the sales funnel could look like this:

Sales Funnel Steps or Stages

A typical sales funnel has three stages:

1. Top Of The Funnel (or TOFU)
2. Middle Of The Funnel (or MOFU)
3. Bottom Of The Funnel (or BOFU)

This can be represented graphically as follows:

Template Sales Funnel

For any sales funnel to be relevant and successful, the sales process should be aligned with the product and customer journey from Awareness to Action. It should provide insights into the ideal customer persona.

The best sales funnel combines the sales process and customer journey as per the steps below:

1. Create awareness of the brand
2. Develop prospect’s interest in the brand
3. Make an offer to sell
4. Decision by the customer

This relation can be illustrated graphically as follows:

Image source: https://fitsmallbusiness.com/sales-funnel-templates/

Sales Funnel Reports

A sales funnel report is essentially a snapshot of the opportunities to sell that a company has available. The report provides data about the status of the leads or prospects at each stage of the sales funnel and helps the sales team manage its sales efforts effectively.

There are several key benefits of a sales funnel report:

1. Measurability
   1. Knowing where the customer is in the customer journey and how many customers are likely to drop out at each stage allows the company to take steps to hold the customers.
2. Reduces “funnel leakage”
   1. A well-designed funnel ensures that prospective customers are engaged sufficiently at each stage of the customer journey to keep the company or brand in their consideration set.
   2. Thus, it prevents leakage or dropping out of prospective customers from the funnel.
3. Access to data
   1. Integrating a CRM tool into the sales funnel adds valuable insights into the sales funnel and provides data which goes beyond just numbers.

How to interpret a sales funnel report

A sales funnel report gives valuable data and insights into the customer journey. The following metrics are important to correctly interpret a sales funnel report:

1. State of the sales funnel
   1. The sales team should know exactly how many leads are present at the different stages of the funnel.
   2. This helps to maximize its customer engagement and sales.
   3. It also helps the sales team provide sales forecasts to the company to allocate resources effectively.
2. Conversion rates
   1. Conversion rates are the number of leads who move from one stage of the sales funnel to the next.
   2. This helps the sales team identify gaps and weaknesses in the sales funnel and take steps to strengthen them.
   3. It is important to note that conversion rates measure the brand’s performance independently of the volume of opportunities available.
3. Change in conversion rates over time
   1. Conversion rates are not static; they change over time.
   2. It is important to track changes in conversion at regular intervals, ideally every month.
   3. This is required to ensure that the company is using its analysis effectively and is acting in real-time on the opportunities and weaknesses presented by the sales funnel.

A sample sales funnel report could be like this:

Types Of Sales Funnels

Ideally, every company should make its own customized sales funnel to engage and convert the customer base it has identified for its brand. However, certain industries need or rely more on sales funnels than other industries, giving rise to templates that can be adapted for use by companies in those industries. But we must remember that a sales funnel is not a static shape – it must be designed as per the purchase behaviour and journey of the company’s customers.

Let us examine these free-to-download templates, which are especially useful for start-ups and small and medium-sized companies.

1. Product Funnel template

1. This is a funnel designed to help increase revenue
2. The key function of this funnel is the ability to upsell to a customer once they are inside the funnel
3. Visually, the funnel looks like this:

2. SaaS Sales Funnel

1. The SaaS industry is an extremely cluttered and competitive segment
2. The SaaS Sales Funnel presented here helps the brand stand out from the competition
3. It also helps filter qualified and unqualified customers
4. Visually, the funnel looks like this:

Image source: https://www.pipedrive.com/en/blog/sales-funnel-templates

3. Business Consulting Sales Funnel

1. A business consultant typically provides advisory and management guidance to companies and is essentially a B2B segment
2. This business requires a high level of awareness and education to convert a lead
3. The funnel looks like this:

Image source: https://fitsmallbusiness.com/sales-funnel-templates/

4. E-commerce Sales Funnel

1. E-commerce is today the fastest growing and most competitive business segment.
2. It is extremely important for an e-commerce company to have a fully-functional sales funnel to ensure it attracts the right customers for its products.
3. This funnel is relatively simpler as the customer makes their purchase decisions independently and does not need a sales representative to help them move along the funnel.
4. Visually, this is represented as:

Image source: https://fitsmallbusiness.com/sales-funnel-templates/

5. Real Estate Sales Funnel

1. The real estate industry places great importance on personal contacts and relationship building.
2. The industry is complex: the real estate agent must not only track buyers interested in purchasing a property; they also have to track properties likely to be sold.
3. Lead qualification is an important part of the sales funnel.
4. The funnel can be visualized as under:

Image source: https://www.funneltops.com/clickfunnels-real-estate/

Email Sales Funnel Template

Email marketing is becoming increasingly important for companies to increase sales and optimize the leads-to-customers journey at a faster rate. It has been estimated that an email campaign gives an average return of $38 for every $1 spent.

There are two types of email sales funnels that companies can consider:

1. The “Three Email Funnel” template
   1. This has a defined set of mails sent out to prospects
   2. This template covers three important engagement stages:
      1. Remind of the value to be received
      2. Establish authority
      3. Call to action
2. Product-based sales email template
   1. This template has five stages to take the lead all the way to becoming a customer:
      1. Welcome
      2. Create interest
      3. Increase customer confidence
      4. Purchase reminder
      5. Email confirmation of purchase

Both these templates give complete visibility on the key metrics of an email sales campaign:

1. Delivery (bounce) rate
2. Open rate
3. Click-To-Open rate
4. Conversion

Graphically, a typical email sales funnel looks like this:

Image source: https://www.slidegeeks.com/business/product/email-marketing-funnel-ppt-powerpoint-presentation-slides-graphics

It is important for the company to build a dynamic and updated email contacts list to draw out the full benefits of its email sales funnel. It is also useful to use an automated email system to send out specific emails to prospects at each stage of the funnel to ensure the engagement and message are relevant and actionable.

HubSpot Sales Funnel Template

HubSpot is one of the most popular CRM and pipeline management tools available today. It has several unique properties that make it easier to build and manage an effective sales funnel:

1. Customization of stages
   1. This template makes it easy for a company to create its own ideal sales funnel.
   2. This helps the company collect and manage relevant information that can help its sales team close deals faster.
2. Easy to update
   1. The HubSpot sales funnel can be updated instantly with details of new deals or contacts.
   2. Its drag-and-drop functionality helps the sales team move prospects through the funnel without re-entering data at each stage.
3. Remove guesswork
   1. The HubSpot sales funnel template removes the guesswork out of the sales process.
   2. It indicates the action to be taken at each stage to ensure an optimal sales and customer journey.
4. Integration with third-party tools and apps
   1. HubSpot allows seamless integration with third-party marketing and sales automation tools and apps.
   2. This helps the sales and marketing teams to work together to achieve sales goals faster.
5. ROI tracking
   1. HubSpot sales funnels provide tracking and analytics tools which give a clear idea of the actual and expected revenue.
6. Deal tracking
   1. HubSpot helps the sales team keep track of leads, prospects, and customers to keep potential sales deals on track and know what is required to take the lead to the next funnel stage.

 A typical HubSpot sales funnel template will have the following stages:

1. Lead generation
2. Lead nurturing
3. Qualified lead – marketing
4. Sales accepted lead
5. Qualified lead – sales
6. Deal closure or sale completion
7. Post-sale engagement

 A simple graphic visualization of the HubSpot sales funnel looks like this:

Conclusion

Sales funnels are extremely important tools for a company to optimize its customer journey at scale and with minimum wastage.

A properly designed sales funnel maximizes conversations and boosts revenue. It also reduces the risk of losing potential customers.

The templates described above are guides to be used to design and implement a customized, scalable and relevant sales funnel.