Top 5 Types of Sales Funnel Optimization to Follow in 2024

Previously, “head-on sales”, when the buyer was “persuaded” to buy a product, were the norm. Now it's bad form. And just a non-working tactic. On the Internet, people are overloaded with information and advertising. Therefore, users have become more attentive and selective. Before buying a product, customers carefully study the information about it, compare it with analogues, and postpone the purchase for a long time. Therefore, as business coach Jeffrey Gitomer says, “Great salespeople are relationship builders who provide value and help their customers win”. A well-built marketing funnel helps to establish relationships and bring the customer to the purchase. Let's look at various ways of sales funnel optimization, with which it is easier to achieve your goals.

Why optimize the sales funnel?

The sales funnel is a basic analytical tool of marketers, with the help of which they build communication with potential customers and form their attitude to the product. Although this tool is based on the interactive AIDA model, there is no template suitable for any business.

The funnel is created to solve individual business problems. It should correspond to the marketing processes of a particular company. It is impossible to copy the funnel of one organization to optimize sales in another. Therefore, knowing the general principles of building a funnel, marketers create a unique scheme for attracting customers for a particular case, in accordance with current needs.

At each of the funnel stages (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action), buyers have different needs and attitudes to the product — from complete indifference to the desire to buy immediately. The funnel divides the faceless audience into segments with common interests and behavior. The methods of communication with a client who wants to buy a car or a client who wants to purchase a vehicle (but does not know which one exactly) will differ.

Therefore, there are different sales funnel optimization strategies that allow you to get into the heads of your customers. Understand how they reason, what motivates them to provide content that promotes the user from acquaintance with the product to its purchase. Consider the 5 most popular strategies on how to optimize the sales funnel.

#1. Free E-book Sales Funnel

How to optimize the sales funnel to attract potential customers and get them to share personal contacts? It's very simple: to offer a reward in return. It can be a free e-book on a topic of interest to the client. For example, a guide “How to choose the right shoes”, a review of the “10 best mountain bikes” or a collection of exercises “Healthy back in 5 minutes a day”.

The title and content of such a book should solve the problem that people face. It will become a lead magnet, a desired gift, for which it is not a pity to leave contact details. It is important that such a book motivates people to subscribe immediately.

To create such useful content, you can use several information gathering tactics:

– conduct an interview with an expert and formalize the results of the conversation in a book;

– organize a webinar on your topic (for example, “How to avoid X mistakes in ...”) and use the content to create a book;

– answer the 20 most popular questions on the topic of this business;

– collect a set of blog posts in one book;

– or use other methods.

When the content is collected, edited, and designed into an e-book, you can launch a sales funnel. It is based on:

– A landing page with an offer to download a free e-book. The main traffic goes there. Next to the offer is a data collection form that starts a chain of consecutive pre-sales emails.

– A thank you page where a business thanks customers for sending personal data. There it is also reported that the e-book came with a letter to his/her mail. A thank you page is not only a nice gesture, but also a way to track potential customers.

– A chain of emails to communicate with the clients, warming them up for sales. After the first thank-you letter, a series of messages begins explaining the advantages of the product/service, the price of inaction, the secrets of success and the importance of an e-book.

Thanks to such a system, starting with a free download of an e-book, you will be able to bring the client to the minimum purchase. And then turn it into a regular customer by offering premium products or services.

#2. Self-Liquidating Sales Funnel

To attract as many customers as possible, you need to invest in advertising. Thousands of advertising messages is not a small amount, and there is no certainty that the investment will pay off. Although there is one variant of sales funnel optimization that promises greater guarantees than all other techniques – a self liquidating sales funnel (SLO).

SLO is a way of organizing a funnel, which, through the offer of an inexpensive useful product, encourages customers to buy a basic, more expensive product. SLO is created in such a way that the buyer either partially returns the money (upsale), or receives more value (downsale).

For example, a business owner is a facefitness coach who has his/her own 30–day course on non-injectable rejuvenation and several e-books. The main product is a course on facefitness. All advertising traffic is directed to it. The offer that will involve customers in the sales funnel will sound something like this:

1. “Get a free book “Rejuvenation without injections” as a gift by buying a month-long course on facefitness.”

2. “Get a month of free access to 10 Facial Massage lessons by purchasing a month-long facefitness course.“

Or something like that. The main thing is to include in the offer the right incentive, an additional service that has undeniable value. Which users perceive not as a cheap trick, but as a useful addition to the main product, which should not be abandoned. It must be a very enticing offer, incredibly tempting, and at an obscenely low price. Thus, SLO increases conversions and helps to get a guaranteed return on investment in advertising.

#3. Automated Webinar Funnel

Another method to optimize the sales funnel is to hold free online events. Free webinars are a working way to turn cold traffic into customers. This time, the information that the expert wants to share with the audience becomes a magnet for attraction. As a rule, it contains an introductory part to the main product of the business and a list of answers to common questions. Webinars partially help solve pressing problems by pushing customers to buy a product that will completely solve the issues.

Creating a sales funnel based on a webinar includes the following elements:

• landing page with information about the webinar and an offer to join it;

• thank you page for webinar registering;

• an email confirming registration, a reminder of the date and time of the event (you can also attach a bonus or gift to the letter);

• reminder about the event on the eve and on the day of it;

• a letter with a link to the webinar;

• conducting an online event with an offer to purchase a product;

• a post-ordinary email with an offer to purchase a product (if the client participated in the event) or join the next event (if the client missed the event).

In an abbreviated form, the funnel will look like this: advertising - registration page for the webinar - thank you page - page with the broadcast of the webinar - a chain of letters after the event.

By sharing a small part of the knowledge (1-10% of the information about the product/service) that the user can immediately use in practice, you will prepare him/her for the purchase. The webinar program should be organized so that the participant has no doubts whether it is necessary to buy the proposed product.

To optimize the sales funnel, it is also necessary to think over the tactics of working with customers who have not bought the product. Everyone who doesn't buy has a reason. Depending on it, we can find an approach or offer something alternative. For example, a 24-hour discount on the basic or premium tariff, a 7-day free trial, or other bonuses.

#4. Free Consultation Funnel

Who likes to work for free? I think there are no such people. And if a free consultation is a guarantee of payment for your more expensive services? Sounds more interesting? That's why there is a way to optimize the sales funnel, using the method of “luring” customers. It still works and is used by specialists from the service sector.

The topic of a free consultation should be tailored to a paid product or service and have value for the client. For example, if you are selling an online accounting course, it's a good idea to offer free tax preparation assistance for the year. Or build a consultation in the question-answer format on the topic of tracking cash flows.

In favor of your time, consultations can be organized short, but with maximum focus on the client's wishes. So that they would be impressed by the level of expertise and personalization, this prompted them to purchase a paid product.

The funnel of free consultation should be built in this order:

1. Offer clients to solve their problem during a 15-minute conversation. Preferably in such a form to avoid the hackneyed word “consultation". Replace it with a more pleasant-sounding “assessment", “express audit", “strategic session", “free session", etc. A term that carries more value for the audience than the official “consultation".

2. Plan a conversation. Determine the purpose of the consultation and think over the steps to solve the client's problem. Think about what result the consumer will come to. Explain what benefits the interlocutor will receive from the purchase or further cooperation with you.

3. Think through the stages of the sales funnel before and after the consultation. This includes paid traffic to the site with consultations, emails for previously collected subscribers, as well as email chains for customers who are silent after a free consultation or have ordered a service. 

It remains to track the sales funnel effectiveness. Measure conversion rate and revenue. Collect feedback to improve the offer of free consultation. Improve the funnel to represent more value and earn more money.

#5. Quiz Sales Funnel

If you offer different kinds of services in the same niche, there is a sales funnel optimization method that will allow you to get to know customers better. To do this, you need to think through a list of questions that reveal more information about consumers. Then, based on the answers, make relevant suggestions for them.

For example, a business owner is a fitness trainer who creates online courses for different types of workouts, simultaneously helping people lose weight. It is important for him/her to collect information about gender, height, weight, age, physical fitness and training goals. Based on the survey results, they can offer an individual course: weight gain, muscle building, weight loss, and so on.

To properly optimize the sales funnel, you need to take into account all the stages:

– Create a landing page with a quiz where all traffic will go;

– Prepare pages for each service: a landing page, an order registration and payment page, a thank you page with further instructions;

– Prepare a chain of letters for each service, dividing them into groups: for those who ordered the service, and for those who passed the quiz, but left the page. 

If everything is set up correctly, the client will go through the following journey: come to the quiz page – after it is completed, go to the product/service page – go to the order form – after placing an order, get to the thank you page – receive an email with instructions by email.

Funnel quiz makes offers more personalized, relevant and conversion.

Conclusion

The 5 ways of sales funnel optimization described in the article are applicable in practice and have proven their effectiveness. Nevertheless, it is necessary to select the right types of sales funnels for the target audience and conduct automatic testing, building the client's path from cold traffic to conversion. It is difficult to say 100% what will “shoot” in your case. A number of experiments are needed to understand which strategy works best. Having optimized communication with the client through the funnel, you will not notice how it will work and bring sales.