We all hate being sold to. Most of us don’t wake up on any given day waiting to be in the pipeline of any business.

But we have needs or wants. We want to fulfill those. We have problems; we need solutions.

As such, we embark on multiple journeys depending on what we need, want, or the problems we want to solve.

For businesses, it’s all about showing up at the right time with the best answers, solutions, products, or services that can satiate customers.

IDC, the analyst firm, believes that:

“The buyer journey is nothing more than a series of questions that must be answered.”

The only to answer all those questions buyers have (even without them asking you) is with funnels — the whole system which includes a bait, the nurturing email sequences, and the collective marketing automation you’ll deploy.

Most funnels don’t work well, and there are a host of reasons why they don’t, apart from fundamental issues such as lack of demand, a business in a hyper-competitive market without a USP, etc.

Some sales funnels, however, work like monster machines.

Some funnels listed here are straightforward with just a single bait and a lifetime’s equivalent of nurturing that’s triggered once you sign up. Others are more complex. Some companies use the freemium model allowing you to do use products before purchasing; others use multiple lead magnets such as webinars, cheat sheets, eBooks, collection of information, and others.

Either way, here are some of them and why we think they work so well:

WPEngine

Simple Sales Funnels

Go back and check to see if your existing host has any sort of a funnel that’s working for them? Chances are that there aren’t any.

Traditionally, web hosting providers depended on affiliates, word of mouth, and paid advertising to get sales.
WPEngine, however, ticks off all the right boxes with digital marketing. While WPEngine specializes in WordPress specialist hosting, they have a popular blog (about WordPress hosting), they launch webinars regularly (another give away), and they provide discounts from time to time.

I personally don’t like discounts and I wouldn’t recommend that, but it’s working for WPEngine anyway.

A large base of affiliates also drives a huge amount of traffic to WPEngine’s funnels. From that point on, email marketing kicks in.

LogoJoy

 

Simple Sales Funnels

Logojoy uses artificial intelligence to help you get your logo designed (they also have add-ons like business cards, Social media packages, and exclusive consulting deals with senior designers for your branding needs).

Like all modern-day businesses, Logojoy has a fantastic blog that dwells on tips for entrepreneurs on design, branding, and others.

The mouth of the funnel is truly a tempting one: Logojoy lets you start experimenting with trying to create a logo for your brand. You’ll have to part with your email address or sign up using Google and you step right into their funnel.

Ceros

Simple Sales Funnels

Ceros is an interactive content creation software that helps you build responsive, interactive, and high-impact media (web-based or not) for your content marketing needs. While it’s slightly on the expensive site, the cutting-edge designs made possible with Ceros can seriously take your design and content several notches higher, bringing you close to big companies with big budgets.

While their blog (along with other marketing methods) helps bring in the traffic, Ceros has a lot going for it, when it comes to sales funnels. A dedicated case studies page, resources sections, samples of other businesses using Ceros, and more.

Of course, their main funnel starts with the “Get a Demo” call to action. From the point someone signs up for the demo, Ceros works out various ways to get your attention to the amazing content you can start developing using Ceros.

Sleeknote

Simple Sales Funnels

For a brand that helps you develop opt-in forms, slide-in forms, lead capture forms and pop-ups, it’s particularly important that they practice what they preach, right?

Sleeknote actually practices what it preaches. Upfront and center, you have a call to action for a demo (or to watch a video — which plays on a Wistia, by the way). Scroll a little and you’ll see more examples, case studies, and visual representations of their product.

Plus, there is other “Schedule a Demo” calls to action midway down the home page.

Their main funnel starts with a “free trial”, however, and they allow you to use the product on your website to see how Sleeknote helps you grow your leads or subscriber base for email marketing.

Zapier

Simple Sales Funnels

Zapier takes several steps back from being aggressive when it comes to marketing.

They don’t use as many pop-ups or funnels as the average business does. Zapier doesn’t have to.

Instead, they depend on their outstanding blog, an ever-growing base of apps (and every app points back to Zapier or mentions Zapier to its own base of users) to bring in the traffic, trust, awareness, and all that jazz.

Plus, Zapier gets a lot of goodwill from the very base of apps it helps connect.

Zapier uses a freemium model to grow its user base. Most of the apps are free for you to create Zaps with, and as long as that’s all you need, Zapier is free for you to use.

If and when you need to use premium apps or when you have way too many zaps than your free account allows for, you’d then have to upgrade.

Meanwhile, all that Zapier does is simple stuff, really. It sends out weekly emails (RSS feeds triggered when new blog posts are published).

Drip

Simple Sales Funnels

Drip was a standalone app, u il it was purchased by leadpages. Now, this fantastic email marketing automation tool gets a heavy traffic windfall thanks to its own marketing efforts along with the existing user base leadpages already enjoys.

Drip has a functioning blog, a network of affiliates, a close association with leadpages users, social communities, and more.

Drip also uses the assets that Leadpages users enjoy — such as ConvertedU, LeadPages blog, Drip Blog, and more to start the funnel.

After, Drip does a lot of what it promises to do for every business. Fantastic and yet simple email marketing automation.

FlyWheel

Simple Sales Funnels

There’s truly no WordPress hosting company like Flywheel — the company comes across as fresh, supportive, and has one of the most affordable WordPress specialist hosting plans in the world.

As if that wasn’t enough, it’s targeted for agencies that want to use, manage, or host WordPress for other businesses (but then, anyone can grab a tiny plan and get premium WordPress hosting).

Flywheel’s funnels start with one of the many goodies they give away — free migrations; an entire selection of WordPress and Design related goodies; Flywheel Local — a free local WordPress build tool; a demo scheduling option, and many others.

Conclusion

Have funnels. But don’t Push

Did you see what’s common with all these examples? All companies with successful funnels count on Inbound marketing. They have something valuable such as information, tools, free access to use products, etc., and they don’t push their products on your face.

You take a call only when you are ready to buy — now, that’s a mark of a truly successful sales funnel.

What do you think?

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