5 Best Examples of a Sales Funnels To Inspire You

Sales are the basis of success for any business. If you have a powerful product but can’t sell it, you cannot run a profitable business. Today, most companies and big brands have streamlined sales processes that target a specific set of consumers to drive higher conversions and an increased return on their investments. These sales processes are collectively known as the sales funnel, aimed at strategizing a user’s journey from visitors to loyal customers.

Let’s look at why building effective sales funnels is important and some examples to help you understand the process better.

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel maps out a customer’s journey from when they first interact with a brand until the time they make a purchase. It is like a relationship-building machine comprising a series of steps to guide visitors toward a buying decision. A typical sales funnel includes four stages, Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action (AIDA).

The process starts from the ‘Awareness Stage’, where a particular brand first catches the customer’s attention. It may be through a catchy social media post, an email, the consumer stumbling across a well-written article that solves their problem, an influencer’s post, or anything else that makes your brand known to them.

The ‘Interest Stage’ is when your company tries to foster a relationship with the visitor by offering them something useful in return for their contact details. This can be a subscription to a newsletter, a free eBook or webinar, or even a free trial of their product.

Next comes the ‘Decision Stage’ where you prompt your Leads from the previous stage to buy the product by offering freebies, special discounts, or anything else that makes it a steal-worthy deal. At this stage, your leads browse through your products, review and compare them against competitors and make their purchase decision.

Lastly, the ‘Action Stage’ is when the consumer becomes a customer by completing the purchase for the product(s) they have selected. Some businesses also include a Delight Stage’ that focuses on after-sales services to retain the customers and turn them into your brand’s promoters.

Each of these stages demands a different approach and strategy to ensure a high conversion rate for your business. Here’s a typical Sales funnel Flow Chart that you can use as a template to plan your sales strategies.

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A business can have many different types of sales funnels depending upon its target audience and the availability of necessary resources. Common sales funnel types include the content funnel, Sandler Sales funnel, webinar signup funnel, review funnel, Ad funnel, and lead generation funnel.

To better understand how to create a good sales funnel that results in a high conversion rate, we’ve listed the examples of the top brands that made it big through their systemized sales processes.

5 Examples of Sales Funnels to Inspire You

1.      Netflix

Netflix became popular long before the rise of the OTT industry. It understands that not every new user is willing to pay their subscription fee just for a couple of popular shows. That’s why they offer a free 1-month trial for all users so that their customers know what they are signing up for.

Awareness: Despite being popular, Netflix runs several organic and paid campaigns, advertising the popular shows individually and even the platform as a whole.

Interest: When someone signs up for a free trial, Netflix presents them with popular shows based on their location and viewing history. To spark their interest further, the brand offers free trial users its premium services to keep them hooked for the long run. The plan can be downgraded later, but starting with their best version usually converts many leads into paying customers.

Decision: As soon as the trial period ends, it is now up to the users to decide whether they wish to continue their subscription or not. Netflix sends a reminder notification to the subscribers three days before their trial period ends so that users don’t feel that the subscription is being imposed on them. Netflix is confident in its services, a reason why it has millions of active viewers paying for subscriptions each month.

Action: Once the customer decides to continue the service after the free trial ends and make the subscription payment, they become Netflix’s customer. After this, to ensure customer loyalty, Netflix continually tries engaging with their subscribers through emails, suggesting new shows based on their interests.

2.      Zomato

Zomato, too, has an extremely powerful sales funnel that carefully targets society’s different segments based on their food habits and requirements. The app markets itself by allowing consumers to order-in food from local food joints and restaurants, getting it delivered within no time.

Awareness: The social media team at Zomato is proactive, and the brand is often found to be amidst the top trends. Apart from that, Zomato gains a user’s attention through existing customer referrals, restaurant advertisements, and well-targeted Google ad campaigns.

Interest: Zomato catches the visitor’s interest through enticing offers, quick delivery options, discounts, etc. The company also offers a pro membership to users with prioritized delivery, dining out discounts, complimentary dishes, and drinks.

Decision: Once a user has added their favored products to the cart or even checked out nearby restaurant menus, Zomato starts sending out push notifications and messages prompting the user to place their order. These notifications and messages are crafted in a way that sparks users’ interests, prompting them to complete the purchase without sounding too pushy. Even if you have just installed the app on your phone, Zomato continually tries interacting with you, prompting a positive sales response.

Action: Most Zomato users place the final order as soon as they’ve shortlisted their preferred food. Due to its diversified offering and a bit pushy yet innovative sales strategy, Zomato has higher than average conversion rates in the food business.

3.      MailChimp

MailChimp is a popular freemium email marketing tool with a unique marketing strategy that doesn’t focus on how a user can get the maximum ROI through their product. Instead, they use a clever approach using aspirational marketing tactics to make you dream big.

Awareness: MailChimp became extremely popular through referral or word-of-mouth marketing. Apart from that, they target the audience through blogs, organic search traffic, and direct emails. Every email sent out through the platform comprises the words “powered by MailChimp” right at the bottom, thus helping spread the word further.

Interest: The platform catches users’ interest through its freemium plans. The aim is to get new users to enjoy certain services for free or upgrade to the standard and premium versions based on their needs.

Decision and Action: The users can easily decide on their preferred plans based on the business’s requirements. With millions of users, MailChimp has the desired social proof to persuade marketers into using their premium services.

4.      Basecamp

Basecamp helps companies manage all their projects and communications in one place, assisting remote teams in executing their work efficiently. They offer the perfect example of designing a B2B sales funnel.

Awareness: Basecamp creates content around managing work and teams remotely, targeting the common pain points and how it can help solve them. They offer a lot of educational content guides, newsletters, and case studies.

Interest: Basecamp offers 30-day free trial signup with clear and simple pricing information. To put customers at ease further, they don’t require you to enter your payment details in the trial period. They also share practical guides to teach prospects better team and workflow management while working remotely.

Decision: Basecamp projects itself as the best project management solution provider through its extensive case studies and testimonials. This urges new users to make an informed decision backed by social proof.

Action: The free trial option allows Basecamp users to experience the value their tool provides so that when it’s time to pay, they happily do so. They also build trust with their value-packed newsletters and educational content, further motivating prospects to complete their purchase.

5.      Groupon

Groupon hosts a collection of coupons and deals, helping shoppers save money on purchases in their local area. They target prospects through referral programs, interest-based search, user rewards, remarketing, and email campaigns.

Awareness: Users first get to interact with Groupon either through a recommendation by a friend or when they are intentionally searching for some deals and discounts in the local market.

Interest and Decision: Groupon creates interest directly through their core product, i.e., steal-worthy deals and coupons. Apart from this, users signing up for their email program also get personalized deals and coupons based on their interests. The app makes decision-making relatively easy since the user has already been looking for a coupon.

Action: Once a user has selected their preferred coupons, Groupon sends them all the required information to make the final purchase. Groupon also has a loyalty program, rewarding users with Groupon bucks based on what they spend. This tailored content and rewards also help boost customer loyalty and retention.

Sales Cycle Vs Sales Funnels

Many new marketers get confused between the sales cycle and sales funnel, but the two are slightly different. The sales cycle is typically the process of selling to a single customer. It includes lead identification, generating contact, analyzing their needs, sharing your proposal, closing the deal, and following up with after-sales services.

A sales funnel is a broader set of guidelines and processes the entire sales team follows to attract viable leads and convert them into customers. It can comprise multiple different sales cycles. The four stages in a sales funnel are Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action.

Conclusion

A proficient sales funnel is the result of inspiration from lots of success stories, combined with extensive research, experimentation, and A/B testing. No sales funnel is perfect, and you might need to make necessary changes depending on your changing goals and the target audience. A good sales funnel allows you to create long-lasting relationships with your consumers, both those who are already your customers and even those who still haven’t converted. Targeting the right customers helps you save time and resources while increasing your ROI and conversion rates. We hope that these examples inspire you to formulate a sales funnel that helps boost your business’s sales process and increase the number of conversions.