What You Need to Close More Sales in 2023

Most businesses know that the best way to close more deals and move people along their sales process is to have a clear marketing funnel. This nurtures leads from their very first spark of real interest in your product or service until you close the deal. If you have been struggling to monitor growth in your business, it might be time to look for a marketing funnel template.

What should you include in a marketing funnel, and why does it matter?

Learn more about how to get started with a great marketing funnel that seals more sales here!

What is Covered in a Marketing Funnel at Each Stage?

Even before we start talking about free sales funnel templates, it’s important to know what stages of the customer journey are included. Here are the four areas of the AIDA sales funnel where you need to hit the bullseye if you want to close deals.

Awareness: Time to Attract New Leads

The first of the sales funnel stages is awareness. In other words, you can’t close deals with customers who have no idea who you are. Awareness is a time for your sales team to share who you are, what you have to offer, and why it matters to your potential customers. The goal is simply for people to become more aware that you exist.

Interest: Engage Your Customers

Once people know you exist, your marketing funnel templates can move into the interest phase. This is the stage where you make them more aware of the benefits of your product or service, moving them firmly into your sales pipeline.

At the interest stage, you might hook them with free products, buyer’s guides, videos, or email marketing. Make your sales offer appealing because it will make the last two stages of the AIDA sales funnel that much easier!

Decision: Make a Proposal to Your Customers

They have already opted into your free content on your own sales funnel, so now it’s time to present them with a call to action that they can’t refuse. Your sample sales funnel template should give them clear ways they can engage with you by taking them to a product or service landing page.

All they need is a few more nudges from your sales team to convince them that this is the right move for them. To this end, you might offer them some case studies, testimonials, and other social proof that this product or service works the way you promise.

Action: Close the Deal

Last but not least, your sales funnel stages absolutely must include action. This is the stage where your customer completes your sales pipeline and feels confident in their decision to move forward with you. It’s time to tally up what you’ve earned and start again with the sales funnel stages and a new client.

Don’t get complacent just because you’ve closed a deal. A good free sales funnel template should help you remember to keep engaging with them so that you can close future sales as well.

Types of Content to Include in Sales Funnel Templates

Of course, there are tons of ways you can bring people along with a free sales funnel template. Here are a few types of content to include for customers who are in your sales pipeline if you want to focus on your marketing strategy.

Content Marketing and Lead Generation

Potential customers need to have some idea of what you have on offer before your sales reps can push them into your marketing funnels. Often, the first step toward brand awareness is content marketing for lead generation. Content marketing gives a prospective customer something free that makes them far more aware of your brand.

Examples of content marketing could include:

• Blogs with how-to tips or information about your product
• Free or low-cost ebooks
• Infographics
• Quizzes to pinpoint their pain points and identify solutions
• Podcasts
• Email newsletters

Demonstrate the Superiority of Your Product or Service

Once you deliver something for free, it’s time for your sales reps to prove to potential customers that your offering is superior. That doesn’t mean that you need to bash other companies. Instead, it’s all about positioning yourself as a leader in your industry.

The best way to do this is via social proof like reviews and testimonials. People are far more likely to move along the buying journey if they have social recommendations. Consider these statistics: 92 percent of people

 hesitate to purchase without a review and 35 percent are less likely to buy if they have no social proof.

Look for sales funnel examples that share your successes with other customers.

Move into Sales and the Pitch

With people actively engaged in your sales processes, it’s time to actually pitch your product or service to them. This is the part where most marketing campaigns tend to fall apart. At this stage, you might hop on phone calls or you could let an effective sales funnel and landing page do the work for you.

Make a clear call to action that demonstrates how your solution can help them in their customer journey. Prospective customers will appreciate the clarity you provide about what they should do next and how they should interact with you.

A clear call-to-action could include a free trial or even help to decide what package is right for them. They might need just a little more hand-holding to get them across the line from being a lead to being a paying customer.

Continue to Engage for Future Sales

Most marketing agencies know that customer retention is just as important as customer acquisition. In fact, it might be even more important for you to keep a customer than to get a new one. Hubspot’s research indicates that existing customers are 60 to 70 percent more likely to buy whereas a new prospective customer is only 5 to 20 percent likely to buy.

Keep offering them new content, coming up with new products that meet them where they are as they grow and change, and keep issuing calls to action to keep them engaged with your brand.

Benefits of a Visual Marketing Funnel Template

Sometimes, it helps to see sales funnels listed out in visual formats so that you can quickly see how the customer journey is shaping up. Here are some benefits of using visual sales funnels for your internal team and processes.

See the Breakdown in the Sales Funnel Quickly

List out all of the potential paths a customer can take with your brand from the moment they first hear about you until they officially hand over their credit card information. If you have a major gap in your marketing or your ability to close a deal, it will become apparent very quickly.

Pay attention to the AIDA model listed above and make sure you have something for a customer to engage with at each stage of their customer journey. Visual representations of a sales funnel can be extremely helpful to show you how many leads are converting to sales.

Brainstorm New Ideas to Manage the Sales Process

Small businesses likely already know who their ideal customers are, but they might have a hard time connecting with those who have expressed interest. Following a sales funnel template will allow you to see clear ways to connect with customers at a new level. You might find something more effective than cold calls or existing lead magnets.

Instead, you can see where your current customers are most likely to engage with you and when a qualified lead is likely to convert to a sale. With this data in mind, you can see where you could generate more effective content that speeds up the funnel.

Alternatively, you could see what type of content you should include more of to get your qualified leads to convert, regardless of the timetable. For example, you might consider online ads after reviewing your funnel diagram.

Shows Levels of Engagement

It’s also important to make sure your customers are engaged with you at every funnel stage. When you look at the number of people engaged with your content, you might quickly notice that traffic drops off at a certain point. This could be a sign you need to revamp your customer journey or improve content.

The goal here should be for someone to get to know, like, and trust you. Only once you move qualified leads through these stages will they decide to make a purchasing decision. If people drop off quickly, this could be an indicator that you need to back up to these basics.

Where to Find a Marketing Funnel Template

If you are convinced that a marketing funnel template could enable you to do more work on lead generation, here are a few sales funnel templates to consider.

GetResponse

In terms of premium tools for a marketing funnel template, you can’t go wrong with GetResponse. They make it easy for you to manage email marketing with a pre-built sales funnel. With this tool on your side, you can build landing pages quickly using a drag-and-drop functionality. Automating emails from here is easier than ever.

Other functionalities that can help you close more sales with a sales funnel include:

• Opt-in funnels for lead generation
• Lead magnet funnels to grow your email list
• Sales funnels to promote and sell your products
• Webinar funnels for both free and paid events

Better yet, you can try it free for thirty days before deciding whether their marketing funnel is right for your sales process. This is one of the cheapest funnel builders on the market.

For more information on using GetResponse as an autoresponder for affiliate marketing, see our other article here.

Hubspot

If you want something a little more involved at a lower cost, Hubspot offers a free marketing funnel template to keep track of leads and conversions. Hubspot’s CRM software works wonders for keeping tabs on lead nurturing, allowing you to see who has been reached, the stage of their sale, and the amount of profit earned per customer.

Of course, you can see more than just sales funnel stages. You can also see the sales rep in charge of each deal and use the tool to manage contacts.

This sales funnel is customizable, so you can see all of the data you want and need in one convenient location. It’s a little more robust than a sales funnel Excel template and just as effective in managing sales.

Final Thoughts: Using a Marketing Funnel Template

Whether you want to create your own free sales funnel or use one of the templates listed here, it’s important to make sure you have customers moving along your sales pitch. Everyone will be at different stages when it comes to making a purchase decision, but they all move through the AIDA framework.

If you want to make more decision-makers, this framework is essential. Using GetResponse or Hubspot gives you multiple options to get a customer to the next stage of their journey. Think about how you can make the most of your valuable time with some of these helpful tips!

For more information, be sure to check out our guide on how to create a free sales funnel here!