10 Proven Sales Funnel Templates To Scale Your Business in 2024 [Free Download]

Companies often end up wasting resources on leads that aren't genuinely interested or ready to convert. The lack of a streamlined lead nurturing process further worsens the issue, as ideal customers fall through the cracks without receiving the targeted engagement they need to progress through the funnel.

Plus, without a clear understanding of the customer's buying journey, businesses struggle to identify specific pain points or objections, making it tough to tailor their sales strategies properly.

It's a tricky problem, and many find it hard to fix. But here's the key – you need a solid sales funnel. This tool helps weed out the not-so-interested leads and turns promising ones into customers.

This article discusses everything related to sales funnels, including four sales funnel frameworks and a free sales funnel template to help you simplify your customer acquisition process.

What Are Sales Funnel Templates & Why Is It Important?

Sales funnel templates are pre-designed frameworks or structures that guide businesses in systematically leading potential customers through a series of stages, from initial awareness to eventual conversion.

These templates typically include strategies, content, and actions mapped out for each stage of the customer journey, streamlining the process of turning prospects into customers.

A sales funnel looks something like this:

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Of course, this is only a simplified graphic of a sales funnel, but it helps to get the main idea.

Common sense says that you need to reach a certain number of potential customers that find out about you.

• Many will ignore you, but some will take the next step, for example, clicking on your ad.
• A few less will download something or sign up for a call/trial.
• And then an even smaller number of people will take the final step and buy from you.

Even though many might think the job is over here, it’s not.

To increase the value of every customer, you also need to streamline the process of keeping your customer (retention = the king of growth) and turning him or her into an advocate for your brand.

By automating this process, businesses can scale faster and make the most of each customer touchpoint.

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There are many expert opinions about the funnel stages, where it starts, and where it finishes.

4 Key Benefits of a Sales Funnel

Below we discuss the major benefits of a sales funnel.

1. Lead Qualification

To begin with, an effective sales funnel helps you figure out which potential customers are genuinely interested. By guiding people through different stages, it ensures that the ones who are most likely to buy get more attention.

As potential buyers move through the sales funnel, they transition from general leads to more specific categories, such as MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) and SQLs (Sales Qualified Leads).

SQLs are like the gold standard – these are the leads that have not only shown interest but are also deemed by the sales team as highly likely to make a purchase. Now, the sales funnel identifies and nurtures these SQLs, helping sales teams focus their efforts where it matters most.

2. Improved Conversion Rates

Think of conversion rates as turning curious window shoppers into actual buyers. The sales funnel optimizes this process by giving the right information at the right time. By tailoring the experience for each person, more of them make a purchase – it's about increasing the chances of a "yes" by being super helpful.

Without a solid sales funnel, you may overwhelm potential customers with the information they might not need at that moment, pushing potential customers away, which usually means a lost sale.

3. Streamlined Sales Process

Imagine going through a smooth and well-marked path instead of wandering in a maze. That's what a streamlined sales process is like. The sales funnel provides a clear journey from first interest to final purchase. It helps both the seller and the buyer by making sure things happen in a logical order.

4. Effective Resource Allocation

Time is a limited resource, and you can't afford to squander it aimlessly, right? Effective resource allocation is about putting your efforts where they'll give the best results. The sales funnel helps by showing which leads are most likely to turn into customers. So, you focus your time on those promising leads, ensuring you get the most out of your efforts.

The Evolution of the Sales Funnel

The reason why I decided to write this article in the first place is simple.

Because…

If you work in marketing or run your own business, you probably can’t scroll through Facebook & Co for longer than 5 minutes without seeing an offer for a new groundbreaking sales funnel strategy.

However, the whole concept of sales funnels is nothing new, but it evolved overtime on the back of marketing frameworks.

I. AIDA: the Mother of Sales Funnels

The AIDA funnel or framework is pretty well known, even between non-marketers. It describes the cognitive stages your prospect goes through during the buying process.

It was developed by the advertising and sales pioneer Elias St. Elmo Lewis

The stages of the AIDA model are:

• Awareness/Attention: As I mentioned above, before you start building a relationship with your users, you need their attention. Or in other words, they need to be aware that you exist.
• Interest: It is not enough to show someone an ad over and over again, they need to spark their interest.
• Desire: Unfortunately, an interest to learn more about your product and services is not enough. You need to make your website visitors desire your solution.
• Action: Once the desire is big enough, you can poke them slightly to take action. Depending on your offer and sales copy, this step should be just the logical next step and not a big deal for your prospects.

Although the AIDA model is still highly relevant, it is also a broad illustration of a more complex system.

As a result, it leaves many growth opportunities on the table as it doesn’t include the whole user journey.

So someone came up with something better.

II. The AARRR Framework: The Startup’s Favorite

In 2007, the venture capitalist and founder of 500 Startups, Dave McClure introduced a framework that is also called Pirate Metrics (because you sound like a pirate when you try to pronounce the name).

Other than the AIDA model, it doesn’t stop with the purchase and goes the whole way of customer value optimization.

It is mostly used by SaaS companies, but it is also adaptable to regular brick and mortar businesses.

The AARRR framework includes the following steps:

• Acquisition: How do you attract your customers? What channels and to what costs?
• Activation: How do you turn a website visitor or free user into a paid customer?
• Retention: How do you keep your customers as long as possible?
• Revenue: How can you increase your revenue per customer (CLTV)?
• Referral: How can you turn your customers into advocates?

However, as you can see in the graphic above, in a typical growth marketing funnel, you would add awareness on top of the funnel.

Other than the AIDA model, the AARRR framework doesn’t only include the marketing department but the whole company.

Marketing alone will not help you grow your business.

That’s why growth teams are usually a consortium of marketers, engineers, data scientists, and designers.

They can work on all aspects of the company (marketing, sales, product, operations, etc.) with a single focus on growth.

III. The Flywheel: Sales Funnels Re-Imagined

How do they do that?

The Flywheel Model in sales is a concept introduced by HubSpot as an alternative to the traditional sales funnel. The idea is to envision the customer journey as a flywheel, a wheel that rotates effortlessly when momentum is applied.

Here are the key elements of the Flywheel model:

• Attract: The first stage involves attracting potential customers to your business. This includes marketing efforts, content creation, and strategies to draw people in.
• Engage: Once you've attracted potential customers, the next step is to engage with them effectively. This involves providing personalized interactions and addressing their needs to keep them interested.
• Delight: This stage focuses on exceeding customer expectations, providing great service, and creating positive experiences to turn customers into promoters.

The Flywheel model recognizes that the customer journey doesn't end at the point of purchase — it's an ongoing process that involves fostering customer loyalty and turning satisfied customers into advocates.

The emphasis is on creating a positive customer experience at every stage, as happy customers drive business growth.

IV. BANT Framework: Sales Qualification

The BANT model is an old-school sales qualification framework that helps sales teams assess and prioritize leads based on specific criteria. BANT stands for Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing. Here's a brief explanation of each element:

• Budget: Sales teams need to determine if the prospect has a budget aligned with the cost of the product or service.
• Authority: Identify whether the person being engaged in the sales process has the authority to make purchasing decisions. See if you can deal with a decision-maker or someone who can influence the decision-making process.
• Need: Sales teams must assess whether there is a genuine need or requirement for the product or service. If you don’t understand the prospect’s pain points, then you’re missing something.
• Timing: Find out if the potential customer has an immediate need, if they’re considering a purchase soon, or if the decision is part of a longer-term plan.

The BANT model helps sales teams save time by guiding them to focus on leads that are more likely to become customers.

10 Best Ways to Grow Your Business With Sales Funnel Templates

Please keep in mind that funnels can look complicated at first.

Once you understand the main components of each of these funnels, they become much easier to understand.

The blue rectangles below stand for landing pages, and the green squares are emails that you send.

Ok, let’s get started.

One of the most common sales funnel templates is the lead magnet funnel.

A lead magnet is a valuable incentive offered by businesses to potential customers in exchange for their contact information. The primary goal of a lead magnet is to attract and capture leads, initiating a relationship with prospects for future marketing efforts.

Great lead magnet examples are:

• Ebooks
• Checklists
• Worksheets
• Training videos
• Email courses

And many more.

The format is not as important as the value it provides. A 3-page pdf can provide massive value that people will be happy to opt-in for.

If you want to see a lead magnet funnel live in action, here it is:

The lead magnet funnel always starts with an attractive offer. Mostly on a conversion-optimized landing page.

Something that looks like this:

It doesn’t have to be that short, but it has to have a…

• Headline that includes a clear value proposition.
• Benefits outlined giving reasons to sign up (ideally in the form of bullet points).
• Call-to-Action that is action-oriented and makes clear what happens next.
• Opt-In form that includes as few fields as possible.

After signing up for the lead magnet, two things happen:

1. You will be redirected to another page
2. You will be added to an email automation

The next page should inform your new subscriber that the lead magnet will arrive in her inbox in a few minutes.

But you should also use this page to upsell/offer your new subscriber something more.

Downloading a free pdf report in exchange for an email address is a pretty low ask and doesn’t require a lot of commitment.

Once your visitor has enough trust to give you to opt-in, you can send them, for example, to a webinar or even offer them a free trial of your product.

However, most of your visitors won’t sign up for a webinar or trial straight away; that’s why you should have an email sequence in place to strengthen the relationship, build trust and sell them the “upsell.”

Whatever that is in your case.

If you have no idea what kind of emails you should send out, you can check out DripScripts.

DripScripts is a database of proven email sequences (drip campaigns) that you can customize and copy-paste into your email marketing tool.

Email #1: Delivery — You thank your new subscriber for downloading your lead magnet.

Email #2: Follow-up — In case they didn’t see your delivery email, you follow up and send it again.

Email #3: Your story — You introduce yourself and describe your background, finishing with the CTA to your upsell content (webinar, training, etc.).

Email #4: Testimonials — Describe what other people say about your upsell content and why they should check it out.

Email #5: Urgency – Remind them that your offer will disappear soon and that they need to check it out now.

Of course, this email sequence is only an example that you should customize for your business.

Try not only to rely on email templates that you find online. The chances are high that too many marketers use them already.

Use these templates as inspiration and create something unique that excites your readers.

Well, and then don’t forget the last page in your funnel, your Thank You or Confirmation page.

This is the page your users land on when they complete your funnel and it is a critical page as it also shows your funnel tracking system that a lead was generated.

Especially, when you run ad campaigns, for example on Facebook, it is critical that you have the FB Pixel properly installed.

Ok, but what if you want to sell them something straight away and make the most money with every lead?

Then you need a proper sales funnel template with an upsell and downsell add-on.

This is how it works:

Once someone signs up for your lead magnet, they will be redirected to another page that tries to sell them a low friction entry-level product/service offer or another content bonus.

We also call it a tripwire product.

The reason why you usually don’t offer a high-ticket offer here is because of the depth of your relationship with the visitor.

You also don’t ask someone if she or he wants to marry you on the first date.

The product you can present here is a low-level/low-commitment offer like a $7-$97 training course, software, or service.

Here is an example of Brian Moran from Samcart, giving away his book The Going Pro Manifesto away for free and upselling them his Going Pro Game Plan for $47 on the same page:

It is not common to combine the lead generation and sales page into one, but you can test what works best for you.

Your primary goal here is not to generate some profit from the campaign, but to cover some of your advertising cost.

Why?

Because it changes the relationship from “I’m a subscriber” to “I’m a customer,” and even if you think that is not a big deal when you only sell them a $7 product.

Psychologically, it makes a big difference.

You heard that expression before:

Acquiring a new customer is 5-25 times more expensive than retaining an existing customer - HBR

Once you have them sold on your upfront offer, you can immediately send them to another offer (your core product) that provides even more value — on the upsell page.

Usually, it is a more expensive offer than the tripwire product.

This is where you make your profit.

To sell your core product, you should have a long-form sales letter or video describing your offer with all benefits and features.

Ideally, you give them a once in lifetime discount that they have to take straight away.

However, even the most significant discount will not be a guarantee for sales.

So when they deny the offer by clicking away, you come right back with a counteroffer — the downsell offer.

The downsell offer can be a lite version of your core product or a completely new offer.

The idea here is simple.

Imagine, you are going to the clothing store to buy a new jacket and the shop assistant shows you a nice one.

The only problem is that it’s a designer jacket and is way over your budget of $200.

Let’s say the jacket is $3000.

Even though you like it, you have to say “no”.

Then she shows you another jacket that looks similar but only costs $300.

Would you buy it?

Probably yes, because even if it is also over your budget, it appears like a fantastic deal because you compare the price to the $3000 instead of $200 that you set as your budget.

Some people might think that this approach is too aggressive.

Well, that depends on your company’s brand and industry.

You might want to give it a try before assuming that it doesn’t work for you. 😉

Not every business signs up new clients through an online checkout form.

More expensive consulting services (e.g., $3000+) or products that need to be custom developed for each client, don’t have standard prices.

In these cases, it is not so easy to close a client with a few landing pages.

Well, you can start with a high-ticket sales funnel template.

Before I guide you through the stages of this kind of funnel, we need to point out that your website visitor will be very likely to have different levels of customer awareness.

Eugene Schwartz first introduced the concept of customer awareness stages in his book Breakthrough Advertising from 1966.

He broke down the awareness levels into five phases:

1. Unaware: They never heard of you and don’t know the problem you solve.
2. Problem aware: They experienced the problem but don’t know how to solve it.
3. Solution aware: They know that there is a solution for their problem.
4. Product aware: They know your product/service but don’t know if you are the right choice.
5. Aware: They know your product/service and they know that they want it.

So when you set up your marketing campaign, you have to consider your prospects’ awareness level. As well as when

• writing your copy,
• developing your ad creatives and
• designing your landing pages.

Especially when you sell high-ticket coaching, consulting, or service programs.

Likely, your website visitors are not even fully aware of the problem.

Or they know the problem, but they have no idea about your approach to solve it.

So, in this case, you need to educate your prospect first, before presenting your product.

Ideally, you do this with an educational video.

The sales funnel that Flexxable, a pay-per-lead training platform, uses, is an excellent example.

It goes without saying that you have to test what works best for your business.

Maybe it’s a live webinar or on-demand training video.

Unlike other sales funnel templates; the high-ticket funnel doesn’t end with a checkout page and the direct purchase. Instead, you sell a strategy call after your video presentation.

In some cases, you can even let them apply for a strategy call with you, so you make sure you don’t waste any time with prospects who are not committed.

On the call, you can learn more about their specific business needs and sell them your service or product as the ideal solution.

A webinar sales funnel template is also very often used for high-ticket sales, but requires a bit more set up work.

As you can see in the graphic below:

A live webinar is a good choice if you want to create a community for your product and like talking with your audience. However, sometimes people who sign up don't actually watch the webinar.

Still, live interactions can be more effective in getting people to buy compared to recorded webinars. The key to success here is sending reminder and follow-up emails.

People tend to forget that they registered for a webinar, and some won’t stay until the end. Fortunately, tools like Demio, EverWebinar, and Livestorm, let you set up webinars quickly and connect with your email marketing tools.

However, you still need to create a high-converting webinar landing page.

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Different than a product sales page, on a webinar landing page, you also try to position the presenter as an authority in your field.

If you or your guest host is a household name in your industry, it makes sense to sell the person as much as the content.

However, there is no clear rule.

Try different variations to your landing page and see what works best for your business.

A product launch funnel is usually used for high-ticket offers that are only available for a limited time.

Popularised by Jeff Walker with his Launch Funnel Formula, it became the favorite funnel for many of the top internet marketers over a couple of years.

The core of the sales funnel template for product launches is a training video series that educates the viewer about certain parts of the program and excites them about the final launch date.

Once the product is launched, it is only available for a few days until it is taken down.

You see, Jeff covers 4 topics in his “Launch Masterclass”:

1. How to launch
2. Your launch path
3. Making the sale
4. Your launch blueprint

These training sessions give you a feeling for what you can expect as a customer, but also valuable information that in itself could be a paid product.

But he doesn’t only provide content to his subscribers in this video series.

It is also a great way to build a community around your product before you even offer it for sale.

For example, Jeff Walker makes his students join a private Facebook group in which he shares additional resources.

You might wonder, "Why put in more work?"

We've all seen that fewer people are interacting with posts on Facebook.

But, there are two parts of Facebook where people are still very active: Facebook Messenger and Facebook groups.

When you connect with your audience on Facebook, it helps show others that people are interested. Plus, you can talk to them in a different way alongside using email during your product launch.

After you launch, you can easily show your ads again to those who showed interest and direct them to your sales page.

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Not every sales funnel template needs to start with online interaction.

If you are a public speaker or at least get invited to speak at industry events from time to time, you can use your audience’s attention to pull them into your sales funnel.

But instead of making them click on an ad, you send them to a ‘secret’ URL that you show on your presentation slides.

Behind the link, you can offer additional bonus material that is a valuable add-on to the things you talked about in your presentation.

For examples a

• worksheet,
• checklist,
• ebook or
• templates.

We also call them lead magnets. 😉

After they opt-in for your lead magnet, you can send them a special offer.

Just for the attendees of the XYZ event.

We constantly receive a lot of offers. Most of them aren't even useful to us, and we don't think they address our needs. As business owners and marketers, we see this reflected in lower click-through rates, conversion rates, and sales.

But there's a solution – a survey funnel. This helps both customers and businesses. Customers get a personalized website experience and brand communication that only presents them with the product or service they truly need.

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Instead of sending people to a sales page that assumes what your website visitors need, you try to engage them with a questionnaire or quiz.

A quiz can be a fun way to provide value to your audience and learn something about them simultaneously. Based on the quiz results, you can then present them with a particular product ideal for their situation.

Tools like Involve.me help you set up a quiz and offer users the best product based on the quiz result, ready to buy.

But even if you only sell one product, a survey funnel can be a great way to customize your communication with your subscribers and give them the feeling that your product is the perfect product for their unique issues.

How you do it?

Instead of asking only for the name and email address on your lead magnet opt-in form, you can request some more insights to precisely tell you what messaging will resonate with them in your email sequences.

A good example is the WildAudience’s ebook opt-in form:

You can use Convertflow to set up multi-step calls-to-action forms and buttons easily on every landing page.

Based on the answers you get from your subscribers, you can assign them different tags in your marketing automation tool and send them personalized emails.

The results:

Happier subscribers + higher engagement rates = More sales.

If you run a SaaS business or membership site, you probably offer multiple plans.

Usually, you would try to get your prospect to sign up for a free trial or ‘free forever’ plan before trying to get them to commit to a larger premium plan.

This sales funnel template aims to help you move your ‘low level’ or free users up the value chain to one of your more expensive plans.

You do this by optimizing the onboarding experience and ensuring that your user understands the full value of your product.

Especially your premium features.

To turn your trial and free users into paying customers, you would create specific landing pages and emails that describe one particular feature and its benefits.

Ideally, you do this over some time through an email sequence.

Ending with a special offer for your premium plan.

One of the most popular sales funnel templates used by influencers and thought leaders is a ‘free book + shipping funnel.’

It is similar to the lead magnet funnel but with a very critical distinction.

Instead of just giving away an ebook in the form of a pdf, you offer a physical book for free as long as your prospect covers the shipping costs.

If you already ask yourself:

How is that profitable?

Then you need to have a look at the full picture of the funnel.

Yes, you would lose money if you would stop right after someone signs up for the free book offer.

However, this is just the start.

As you can imagine, it just makes sense to follow up with an upsell offer and increase; therefore, the average order value per customer.

One advantage of the physical book is also that even your new customer is excited about the original purchase; she needs to wait for some days for the book to arrive.

You can use this as a strong argument to give them access to your digital product right now.

The next sales funnel template is not necessarily a funnel on its own.

The retargeting funnel is a component of a funnel that you should use, no matter which of the funnel strategies described above you pick.

So it’s less about your landing pages, but more about the ads that drive the traffic to your funnel.

Showcased with the dark blue circles below:

Someone who mastered this ad strategy to scale his business to 30M in annual revenue is Sam Ovens.

He uses a form of high-ticket funnel to generate leads and sales for his business accelerator program.

But that is not relevant for the retargeting strategy. You can use this strategy for any kind of products and services.

The more interesting part is that Sam uses very specific ads and copy for different audiences, depending on how far they moved through the sales process.

This is one of his top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) ads:

The ad sends the user to a landing page that shows a free training video describing the 9 unconventional truths about business.

After watching the video, she will be sent to a quiz/application form.

And finally to a call booking page.

You see that he follows up with a suitable advertisement for each stage of the sales funnel template.  

If your prospect goes through the funnel from A-Z without hesitation, she will never see the second or third ad.

But if they broke up the process, they will be pulled back in.

I’m sure, as a consumer, you have experienced this many times when you saw the products that you just looked at in an online store within a Facebook ad a few minutes later.

Well, now you can use the same strategy for your own business.

What is the right sales funnel template for you?

At the end of the day, there is no right or wrong funnel or framework to grow your business.

The question is only: “Is it ROI positive?”

If you never build a funnel before, it can feel a bit overwhelming,

But don’t worry.

Once you set it up and drive traffic to it, you will likely get the same outcome than experience funnel builders.

It will not work!

What???

Yes, you read this right. Your funnel will likely produce any or low results.

There are way too many variables to get right to expect perfection from the start.

Instead, you need to have a process to optimize it, run A/B tests, and make regular small improvements.

If that is too much work for you, you have two choices:

1. Don’t even get started
2. Use a design and tech service

You probably can guess where this is going, of course; I recommend choosing option number two. 😊

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How Do You Create Your Own Sales Funnel Template?

Creating your own sales funnel template involves several key steps. Here's a guide to help you build a customized sales funnel for your business:

• Define your goals: Start with your goals. Whether it's lead generation, product sales, or brand awareness, knowing your goals will guide the entire funnel creation process. For example, say “I’ll increase monthly lead generation by 20% through targeted marketing campaigns and optimized lead capture forms within the next quarter.”
  
  
• Understand who your target market is: Go beyond demographics and try to empathize with your audience's pain points and desires, creating a sales funnel that not only addresses their surface-level needs but resonates on a deeper, emotional level.
  
  
• Create interesting offers: Develop content for each stage of the funnel. This can include blog posts, videos, ebooks, or any other content that educates, entertains, or solves problems for your audience.
  
  
• Build landing pages: Design dedicated landing pages for each stage of the funnel. Remember, your landing pages should have a clear call-to-action (CTA) and be optimized for conversions.
  
  
• Implement lead magnets: Offer lead magnets to capture contact information. This could be a free ebook, webinar, checklist, or any other resource that incentivizes visitors to provide their details. Make sure you don’t ask for too much — keep it light and ask only for the essentials to maintain a user-friendly experience.
  
  
• Set up email sequences: Create email sequences for each stage of the funnel. Use automation to send personalized and timely messages based on user interactions.
  
  
• Implement tracking and analytics: Set up tracking tools like Google Analytics or other analytics platforms to monitor the performance of your funnel. Track key metrics such as conversion rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates.
  
  
• Monitor and iterate: Regularly (at least weekly) review the performance of your funnel and make data-driven adjustments. Identify areas for improvement and fine-tune your funnel accordingly.

A sales funnel template is not the full story

Even though it sounds like a lottery win when you find a funnel that works for you and generates leads and sales on autopilot, there is a bit more to it.

In 2019, Gartner described the new buying journey of B2B buyers.

They point out that, in practice, the sales process can often not be visualized in such a streamlined way as we did it above. Instead, it is much more chaotic.

There are usually multiple mental and company-political obstacles that prevent B2B buyers from making quick buying decisions.

If you are in the B2B space, the omnichannel approach becomes much more important in upcoming years.

That means that every touchpoint with your brand needs to be on point and help your prospect make a qualified buying decision.

That means your…

• Company web design
• Advertising
• Content marketing
• Email copy
• Sales meetings

All need to be aligned with your brand message and move your prospect closer to the purchase.

Final Thoughts on Sales Funnel Template

We discussed some of the best sales funnel templates to scale your business. But having a template isn't enough on its own. What you need to do is put that plan into action quickly and make it better as you go along. No plan will work if you don't actually use it.

So pick one of these proven strategies and start growing your business. If you are already stressed out with all the design and tech work flying your way, book a call with Growmodo and see how we can help you get this done for you.

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