Capturing leads and transforming them from casual viewers to loyal customers can be one of the most complex parts of owning and running a small business.
Especially if your business is newer, you may not have the budget to afford big ads or to pay for large marketing campaigns. That’s where lead generation sales funnels come into play!
A sales funnel refers to the buying process that brand’s lead customers through when purchasing products or services. A common way to lead customers through this process is through a lead generation sales funnel.
You offer them a discount, freebie, or something else, in exchange for their contact information. Once you have this information, you send them a set of emails that help them go from stage to stage, eventually purchasing your product or service.
Understanding your sales funnel will help you influence how prospects move through it and whether they convert into loyal customers. It will also provide an understanding into what consumers are thinking and doing at each stage of the funnel to help with future marketing campaigns.
Lead Generation Sale Funnel Stages
There may be variations of this funnel depending on which marketing agency you ask, but they all have the same three types of stages:
Stage 1. TOFU (Top of the Funnel) - Cold leads
Stage 2. MOFU (Middle of the Funnel) - Warm leads
Stage 3. BOFU (Bottom of the Funnel) - Hot leads
Top of the Funnel
The first stage, the top of the funnel, is about awareness.
This is most likely your brand’s first contact with a potential lead. You get the opportunity to “introduce” yourself to a future buyer.
Content during this stage consists of blog posts, videos, social media posts, and any other type of content that is not necessarily produced to make sales.
Middle of the Funnel
Once your audience reaches the middle of the funnel, they begin to engage with your company.
This is a crucial stage as it is the main point where someone decides to either buy from you or go to a competitor.
You can offer them content such as quizzes, whitepapers, and case studies, which are designed to showcase your experience and expertise.
Lastly, there is the bottom of the funnel.
Bottom of the Funnel
By now, you’ve turned a viewer into leads and started to build a strong relationship with them!
They trust your company, but need one final push to go from a viewer into an actual customer.
Optimal BOFU content consists of trials, demos, consultations, and discount offers.
Create a Lead Generation Sales Funnel
Once you’ve determined to make a lead generation sales funnel, it’s time to plan and create it! Here are the step-by-step instructions to do so:
1. Determine Your Offer
The very first step is to determine the offer you’re going to give your audience in exchange for their contact information.
Especially if you are capturing phone numbers, your offer has to be worth it. Something small like a 5% discount code or a free 10-minute phone consultation isn’t going to attract many visitors because it might not be worth the exchange.
If you’re offering a piece of content that can be downloaded, such as a white paper, a checklist, or a guide, you’ll also want to include a few pieces of information or excerpts so your audience can determine if this content will be worth reading.
2. Create Your Offer and Determine Your Lead Magnet
Once you’ve determined your offer, it’s time to determine your lead magnet, content, or type of landing page in exchange for your audience's information.
Your lead magnet won’t always start at the TOFU. Sometimes you may be creating content designed for those who are in the middle, or even towards the end, of the funnel.
Whatever it may be, make sure it’s the appropriate type of content for the level you are attracting. For example, leads in the TOFU won’t need how-to videos or social proof, they will be more interested in videos, blogs, or magazines.
How-to videos would be better suited for BOFU audiences who have already determined they are most likely going to buy from your company and just need that extra push to show them the benefits and features.
3. Create Your Offer and Lead Capture
Now that you’ve determined what you’re going to offer your audience, it’s time to create your offer and determine how you’re going to capture leads.
Here are a few mediums you can use to capture your leads:
Blogs
Landing Pages
Webpages
Phone Conversations
Pop-ups
Opt-in Forms
Ads
Once you have figured out your lead generation sales funnel, it’s time to set up your email drip campaign.
4. Create a Drip Campaign
A drip campaign is a communication strategy that sends, or "drips," a pre-written set of messages to customers via email.
Once your audience signs up to exchange their information for your content, they’ll need a way to get it! Drip campaigns give your audience that piece of content and can help nurture them into later stages of the funnel.
Any major email platform has the ability to create a “campaign” or drip sequence. The actual copy in your email can vary, depending on what stage they are already in, what the offer is, and the information you want to give them, but here is a general example of a drip campaign sequence:
Day 1 - Within less than an hour of giving you their contact information, send them a welcome email thanking them for their support and attach your offer. If your offer is a physical item that will take time to be received, the following timeline might say “weeks” instead of “days.”
Day 3 - Thank them again for using or requesting your offer, and introduce yourself and your company. This email is critical to helping leads decide if they want to continue subscribing to your email list. Make sure to keep it short and to the point.
Day 7 - Send an email containing a customer testimonial about your product or service.
Day 10 - This step is crucial! The average consumer needs to “see” your brand 3 to 5 times before they finally decide to buy from you. If they haven’t already, this is going to be the email that can make or break your relationship. Send an email that goes for the "hard close" with an outstanding copy that convinces and converts.
After Day 10: If your audience did not purchase or download your offer, now is the time to send them an additional freebie or discount. Wait between 2 and 3 days after your Day 10 email, but no longer than that.
We recommend personalizing your emails as much as possible! You can even create drips based on if they downloaded or used your offer by day 3 or 5, and continue on. While we understand that creating hyper-personalized emails may take extra time, marketers have noted a 760% increase in email revenue from personalized and segmented campaigns.
5. Market Your Lead Capture
You’re almost finished creating a lead generation sales funnel! Once your offer is created, your drip campaigns are scheduled, and you’re ready to launch, the only thing left to do is market your lead capture medium.
This can vary depending on what type of lead capture you choose, but they are all advertised roughly the same way. Here are three common ways to market your offer:
PPC Ads -While not the cheapest option, PPC ads can have a great ROI if you know what keywords to target. To learn how to make money with PPC ads, click here.
Email Marketing - If you’re marketing an offer to audience members that are already further down the funnel, an email marketing campaign could be a great way to advertise your lead capture.
Social Media - One of our favorite ways to advertise is social media, but don’t be too pushy! Social media audiences usually don’t want to be blatantly sold to, so the content you create should be relatable and shareable, with an underlying tone of “check out our offer.”
6. Analyze and Adjust
Once your offer has been live for at least 30 days, go back through and check your results to see how your campaign is doing.
You can check for bounce rates, conversion rates, click-through rates, and more, depending on exactly what your offer is and what level of the funnel your audience started at.
If you notice drop-off happening at a certain point, go through and figure out why.
If your click-through rate is lower than expected, take a look at your lead capture and make sure the offer matches the value promised.
Once you’ve determined the areas that need fixing, adjust those sections and relaunch, checking again 30 days later.
Marketing plans are always meant to be adjusted and changed throughout! If you notice that your campaign is performing poorly throughout, your strategy itself may need an adjustment.
Click here to learn more about how to create a killer marketing strategy with step-by-step instructions.
Key Takeaways
In this final stage, the prospects finally choose to buy from you and is now a paying customer. This is traditionally the last lead generation sales funnel stage since the customer has converted. But, a smart business knows that they have to keep ensuring the customer is happy and provide constant support to ensure that they remain loyal!
That’s why we recommend this type of sales funnel to all businesses regardless of their audience or level of the funnel they are currently in. While you won’t be “capturing leads” to an audience who already subscribes to you, a sales funnel can be useful for any type of audience.
Kellyann Doyle is a Content Marketing Writer at Zoek, an SEO, Web Design, and Digital Marketing Agency that assists small and medium-sized businesses with their online footprint. She earned her Bachelor's Degree in 2013 from the University of Houston with a Major in Communications and a Minor in Marketing and has been working in the Digital Marketing world ever since. When not working, you can find Kellyann trying new recipes, enjoying a good nap, or watching Friends for the 500th time.