Sales Funnel Template (How to Make One From Scratch)


If you are trying to run a successful business online, you need to learn how to use sales funnels. Some people create funnel templates for personal use or to sell to others. A good template will cover each stage of the funnel, from the initial landing page to the final checkout page.

To make a sales funnel template, you need to target traffic and send it to a landing page. From there, you can use a series of product pages and content to turn the leads into customers. Your template should also focus on customer retention. Each page in the funnel needs to be geared toward conversion.

The content of each funnel should be unique, so it stands out from the competition. However, there are some tried and true principles you can use as you create a funnel template. This article looks at how to map out your customers’ journey. Keep reading to learn how to make funnel templates for sales and marketing.

Funnel Template – A Quick Overview

A sales funnel template is a pre-made funnel design that shows a person’s journey from prospect to customer.

It is like a well-drawn map with several checkpoints that guide your customer along the path to conversion. They need to learn that your product exists, seek more information, gain interest, and buy it!

For example, your customer’s journey might look something like this:

  1. Your potential customer identifies their need: “I want a laptop.”
  2. They go to Facebook to find inspiration.
  3. They type “latest laptops” in the search bar.
  4. After browsing through different laptops, they settle on one and visit the website.
  5. Finally, they add your laptop to the shopping cart and check out.

Of course, the customer journey is often more complicated, but this illustration shows the basic steps of a sales funnel.

Therefore, your sales funnel tries to ensure your business appears at every step in the customer’s journey.

We can further simplify the definition by looking at each part of the term. The term “funnel template” is made up of 2 words:

Funnel: Represents a sales funnel, which is a customer’s journey from casual visitor to paying customer.

Template: A pre-designed format of a document or file.

Knowing how to create funnel templates is useful if you work in marketing.

Building everything from scratch can be tiring, so you’ll want a good pattern to fall back on. Some people even make a living designing and selling funnel templates!

Sales funnel templates can be used for any type of online business.

You can use them to sell digital products like webinars and ebooks, online services like coaching and professional consultations, or even physical products like shoes and laptops!

You can even sell services you’re delivering online, like programming classes.

What Is a Funnel Template

How to Make a Sales Funnel Template?

There are many ways to make funnel templates. In some cases, you can use a website and create different pages for each step of the funnel.

There are also programs that are specifically designed for funnel-building. Many of these have pre-made templates but allow you to make/customize your own.

You can also check out my article on the best funnel building courses for some worthy suggestions.

Regardless of the format you use, you need to include some tried and true elements into your template.

Whether your business deals with physical products or digital products and services, your customers are likely to go through 7 stages before conversion.

Therefore, using the steps below can grow your online business and elevate it to whatever level you want.

Make sure you only include these steps in your funnel template if it’s relevant to your product/service.

Not every funnel needs every step, but the suggestions below will give you a good base to build from. You can add or remove things as necessary.

1. Create Targeted Traffic

As a general rule in online marketing, you get more sales when you get more traffic.

However, you probably already know that it’s not that easy since it’s possible to have many visitors on your site who never commit to a purchase.

It’s therefore important to have targeted traffic. This refers to a select group of prospects who might be interested in your services or products.

To reach this group, you need to know where to find your potential customers. For instance, if you sell beauty products, you’re likely to find prospective customers on Instagram models’ pages.

On the other hand, if you sell a programming ebook, you’ll probably find your potential customers watching programming tutorials on YouTube.

Once you identify the source of the targeted traffic, you need to give them a good reason to view your page.

For example, in the case of beauty products, you can offer free makeup kits or discounts. You can also offer free ebooks or tutorials for the programmers when they visit your site.

This is often called the lead magnet. It serves as an incentive for potential clients to visit your site.

You can trade this incentive for their contact information (typically an email address), which you will use later on.

Once the prospects land on your site, they are in the sales funnel. They are then elevated to the second step of the funnel.

2. Send the Traffic to a High-Conversion Landing Page

Some people are confused about the difference between sales funnels and landing pages. Do check out my article on landing pages vs sales funnels to understand the differences between the two.

However, landing pages are independent sales pages that can be incorporated into a funnel. Thus, you can redirect your potential customers to a landing page with all your products and offers.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is directing targeted traffic to a generic web page.

If the landing page doesn’t have actionable information, visitors will keep looking but won’t find what they’re looking for.

While there’s nothing wrong with having a website homepage, it’s not focused on a specific topic, and your visitors might drop out of the funnel.

Therefore, you need a landing page to help you convert prospects into paying customers.

A landing page is focused on a singular topic, and its sole goal is to convince your visitors to accept a particular offer. For example, you might ask them to sign up for a free trial, watch a webinar, etc.

Send the Traffic to a High-Conversion Landing Page

A landing page goes straight to the point and often has a single clickable button to sign up, subscribe, or buy a product.

When your potential customers see a page like this, their minds can only think about your offer. At this point, they only have two options: convert or leave your page.

Most landing pages also try to obtain the visitor’s email address if they choose to leave. This is a great lead generation strategy.

3. Craft Your Content and Offers

It’s easy to redirect your targeted traffic to a landing page, but getting these prospects to convert is something else entirely.

When visitors get to your landing page, they’re often asking themselves:

  • Whether your offer is worth their time.
  • Whether they really need your product or service.
  • Whether they should just leave and find a brand they’re familiar with.

How you reassure them at this point will determine whether they convert or leave your page.

Therefore, you can speed up their decision-making process by including persuasive content on the landing page. Try to incorporate catchy headings, compelling copy, and a clear call to action (CTA).

Craft Your Content and Offers

Your headings should be catchy and precise. For example, on the landing page above, the heading is made up of only three words: “achieve higher conversion.”

However, these words will grab the interest of anyone who’s having trouble with conversion. They’ll definitely read the associated copy.

High-Quality Copy

You don’t need to write a 4,000-word article to convince your visitor to subscribe to your product.

A short description of what you offer and why it’s better than the competition is enough to convert a visitor into a paying customer.

Call to Action

This is the most important part. You can lead the visitor further into the funnel by offering a free trial or a discount.

If your product works as advertised, they’re likely to become paying customers once they try it.

4. Turn Leads Into Fans

If a prospective customer does not buy immediately, your relationship with them does not end there. In fact, it has only just begun.

You need to convert them into fans of your brand by delivering on the promises you made.

For instance, if they signed up for a free trial of animation software, ensure that it works so well that they can’t imagine anything else.

When your product works as advertised, your leads may spread the word to their friends. A great place to start building loyalty from your leads is the “Thank You” page.

Design the page carefully with the goal of creating positive emotions. This will improve your leads’ perception of your brand. Once your leads become fans, you can convert them into paying customers.

5. Make the Fans Convert

Although it feels great to give free stuff away, your end goal with the sales funnel is to make money. Therefore, you need to convert the highest possible number of leads into paying customers.

However, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Closing sales is an art. The only hassle-free way to do this is by creating a sales page. The page needs the following elements:

1. Your product.

2. Your target customers.

3. Testimonials from satisfied clients.

4. A call to action.

The website below effectively applies these principles.

Make the Fans Convert

6. Reclaim Customers Who Abandon Their Carts

Cart abandonment is one of the biggest problems affecting online businesses. After adding your product to the cart, your prospective customers might have second thoughts.

In other cases, they may get distracted and close the tab before they finalize their purchase.

Since these people were clearly interested in your product, you need to try and reassure them that your business is worthy of their hard-earned cash.

There are two main methods of doing this. You can try retargeting the leads with emails or using paid ads.

How they interact with your emails can tell you what stage of their purchase journey they are in and how you should approach them.

The email collection tool you use should also allow you to see how your leads and fans interact with your emails and sales/landing pages.

The tool should be able to show you when certain subscribers are hopping from one page to another and what they do on those pages.

From that information, you can tell which products or services your leads are interested in and focus on persuading them to buy those specific items.

Therefore, the tool will notify you when a lead leaves your site at the checkout page. You can later send them targeted emails and ads for that product.

7. Get Paid

This is where your efforts in steps 1-6 are rewarded. Once you have persuaded all the leads and prospective customers, they’ll become paying customers.

Once they convert, concentrate on customer retention, especially if you sell multiple products.

Once they purchase one of your products and it works as advertised, they are more likely to trust your brand when they need a second product or service.

How to Make a Sales Funnel Template

Top Funnel Templates for Sales and Marketing

There are countless types of funnel templates, each with unique objectives. Do check out my article on what a sales funnel template is to brush up on your basics.

Here are some of the best ones for sales and marketing campaigns:

1. Product Promotion Templates

This template is ideal for when you want to reach out to new customers and encourage your existing customers to keep buying.

You can start them off with a low-ticket item such as a free trial or a cheap monthly subscription.

Once they have made the small purchase and started using your product, you can then upsell them to a premium subscription. This offer needs to be very persuasive because of the higher price point.

2. Lead Magnet Funnel Templates

These templates are focused on generating leads for your business. They work by baiting the visitor with an offer or free service in exchange for their email address.

Once they submit the address, you send them a thank you email and the promised freebie. Now that you have their contact information, you can use it for targeted ads in the future.

3. Live Demo Templates

This type of funnel template helps you acquire customers and leads by including live demos of your product on your websites.

You just need to record a live demo with the product and add it to a page with other Q&A videos. You can then link this page to the subscription page and offer discounts to anyone who watches it.

4. Webinar Templates

Webinars are an awesome way for sales and marketing professionals to get leads. First, your visitors will provide their contact information to subscribe to the webinar.

Then, you’ll send them an email confirming their participation in the webinar and thanking them. Finally, you can record a webinar and send it to all subscribed leads.

Discuss all the topics you had promised, but end with a CTA informing the leads about your business.

Top Funnel Templates For Sales And Marketing

Create Customer-Centric Funnel Templates for Maximum Impact…

Funnel templates automate your online sales and marketing procedures. Some funnel templates might be more suitable than others, depending on your business.

You can create effective templates by following the steps of the customer journey and providing the information they need at every level.

If you sell subscription-based products, your best bet is to use product promotion templates and lead magnet funnel templates.

On the other hand, if you sell physical products, live demo templates will get you more sales because your customers will see your product at work.

When all is said and done, don’t forget to work on customer retention once customers have converted. A template will help you provide a good customer experience from start to finish.

Shailen Vandeyar

A proud Indian origin Kiwi who loves to do BJJ and play with his pet bunny when not taking a plunge into the vast ocean of funnel design, email marketing, copywriting, conversions, and customer retention.

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