0

How to Create a Profitable Sales Funnel in WordPress (2021)

Hey there peeps!

I am super excited to bring you this new blog post hot off the press.  

If you are:

• A Solopreneur that runs a WordPress website 
• Are looking for ways to put revenue on repeat in your business…
• Want a resource and action plan that features a running checklist on how to create a sales funnel in WordPress…

You’re in luck!

I created this guide to give you some actionable steps and a list of tools that you can take to create a sales funnel in WordPress.

Here’s the thing yall:

Before I made the decision to create sales funnels on my WordPress website I used to spend a ton of time chasing down clients and stressing over trying to figure out where my next sale was coming from. 

Plus…

After spending years of staying stuck with never ending product launches, I knew that something had to change (and fast) because…

#1: Product launches are hella stressful

Its true!  

If you’ve ever ran a product launch I am sure you are nodding your head in agreement with me on this. 

With product launches you have to:

• Plan for the launch
• Run the launch
• Hope that you get a certain amount of sales
• Rinse and repeat the entire process all over again

But here’s a question to ask yourself..

What happens after your product launch is over?

If your like most people more than likely you’ll have to continue wanting more product launches to make more sales.  

I don’t want this for you my friend…

This is why creating a sales funnel to power your business is one of the smartest things that you can do.

 

#2:  I needed a more predictable system in place for generating sales for the biz  

Listen:

There is no greater feeling than waking up, checking your email inbox and seeing that you’ve made a “new sale” (while you were sleeping)…

The beauty of this is that these sales happened via sales funnel that runs behind the scenes on your WordPress website.

#SalesFunnelsFortheWIN!

Plus once you have one working sales funnel in place it will be easier to add more to your site for different products that you have available.

Now:

Before we get into all of the technobabble and discuss tools and resources and automated systems you can use to build a sales funnel in WordPress, Let’s first discuss what a sales funnel is.

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is simply a process that you put in place to turn prospects into customers.

It’s a simple as that.

Here’s an example of what a sales funnel looks like:

 

 

As you can see in a sales funnel there are several stages that you are taking peeps through before they become a customer.

The basic premise of a funnel is taking someone from a complete stranger and hopefully turning them into a raving fan that can’t wait to tell others about your products or services.

Now…

The beauty of the sales funnel is that with the right mix of tools in place you can completely automate the entire thing.  

Now let’s get into the action plan and checklist for creating your sales funnel.

An 8 Step Action Plan for Creating a Sales Funnel in WordPress

---

Step #1:  Create an irresistible free offer

I’ve had to learn this the hard way but the success of your sales funnel starts with creating an irresistible free offer (aka a lead magnet).

In case you’re not aware of what a lead magnet is… its basically a free resource that you give away in exchange for someone’s contact information so that you can follow up with them later.

One thing worth noting is that you want to make sure of is that the free offer that you are giving away has:

• A compelling title that gets people excited to take action
• A great subtitle
• Appealing visual design (that shows people what they are getting) 

Take these two free offers as an example:

The first lead magnet is from yours truly end it basically shows people or gives people a running list of five things that they can do to make their brands irresistible to the audience that they want to attract.

 

Lead magnet number two is from digital marketer who in my opinion is the goat when it comes to crafting amazing free offers for their peeps.

 

The free lead magnet below is for a customer avatar worksheet that helps you understand who you are talking to.

I’ve written a more detailed post on different types of lead magnets that you can use to grow your email this with.  You can click here to read the full post.

Step #2: Create a High Converting Landing Page to Capture Email Addresses with

One of my personal favorite landing page builders for WordPress websites is none other than Thrive Architect.

In a nutshell the Thrive Architect is a plug-in designed to work with only WordPress websites. This plug-in has over 300 templates that you can easily use to create attractive landing pages for your sales funnels.

And here’s the best part:

You don’t need any special tech knowledge or have to hire an expensive designer to make changes to your landing page templates.

With Thrive Architect you can easily apply your brand colors, change up the content, and customize the landing page templates the way that you want. 

Step#3: Create an Irresistible Offer for your Landing Page

If you were planning to give away something tangible like checklists, swipe files, or e-books, I suggest creating a mockup of it to give people a glimpse of what they are getting.

You can use a tool like Canva Pro or use a service like Fiverr to get someone to create a mockup of your free offer for as little as $5.

Here’s a screenshot of a great landing page template from Thrive Architect that I use a lot:

 

Now…

If you are planning to give access to a free training like a webinar or video course then you can just use a webinar focused template in Thrive Architect and add an awesome headline to your landing page to get people excited to opt in to check it out.

Here’s an example of a webinar landing page template in Thrive Architect that you could use:  

 

Step #4: Create a Thank you Page with a Tripwire Offer

In the marketing world a tripwire is a low cost product usually in the $7-$25 range that you can add to a thank you page to convert peeps into customers.

Here’s an example of one of my thank you pages with a tripwire offer:

Tripwire offers are great for quickly turning new subbies into buyers.  Also if you’re paying for ads adding tripwires to your sales funnels will help cover the cost of your ad spend. 

Step #5: Add Scarcity to your Sales Funnel

Have you ever heard of FOMO (aka the fear of missing out)? 

It’s basically a strategy used to give peeps a limited amount of time to act on an offer. 

I use Thrive Ultimatum to add scarcity to sales funnels that I create in WordPress and it works REALLY well.

Here’s a screenshot below of what the plugin looks like after its added to a landing page:

Here again, adding scarcity to your sales funnels (aka the fear of missing out) works wonders for sales funnels and can help boost conversions for product sales. 

 

Step #6:  Connect your Sales Funnel to a Checkout Cart

After you have created landing pages for your sales funnels you will need a way to accept payments.  

There are a ton of checkout carts out there in the webosphere but the two that I recommend checking out are Thrivecart and SendOwl

Thrivecart 

Thrivecart (often confused with Thrive themes) is a powerful shopping cart platform that I am currently using to accept payments for the products and services that I sell in my shop, Mini University and Blazing Branding Academy.

 

And folks…lemme tell you Thrivecart is by far one of the BEST tech investments that I’ve made for my website.  

Two of the features that I love the most that Thrivecart offers are:

• The bump offer/upsell feature – this feature lets you present additional products to customers on your checkout page

How does this help you as a marketer?  Well it basically increases your average order value.  For example if you were selling a $9 product but a customer lands on your checkout page and sees an additional $24 offer and decides to buy them both…

Well my friend instead of just making the $9 sell you will make a $33 sale!

These features are GAME Changers yall! For realz… 

• The integration features – Thrivecart integrates with tons of marketing and automation platforms (like Active Campaign) and does a great job of delivering purchases to new customers and sending follow up sales campaigns to prospective customers.  Yayyy for this!

SendOwl

SendOwl is another fantastic checkout cart that you can use to accept payments from your website.

And here’s the best part:

When someone purchases a product from your sales funnel, SendOwl will send the product to them.

SendOwl has some of the features that Thrivecart has like upsells and integrations with email marketing services…but its not nearly as powerful (in my opinion).

Step #7:  Create Follow-Up Email Automations 

Creating a follow-up sequence is key to converting peeps in your sales funnels that have not taken action.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I use Active Campaign to run all of my automated sales sequences.

Active Campaign has a ton of features that I love…but one of the most powerful features that I love using is the automation maps.

The Automation maps in Active Campaign help you map out your automated email sequences so that you can see how they are connected together.

Here’s an example of one of the active sales funnels that I have working in Active Campaign:

 

Emails that You Will Need to Send in your Sales Funnel

With Active Campaign (or any email automation software) that you are planning to use there are a few types of automated emails that you will need to send out:

#1: Email delivering the free lead magnet that your subbie opted in for.  This email should be short, sweet and to the point and include a link to the free thing that they opted in for.

 

#2: Sales emails related to the product the MAIN product that you are selling in your funnel.  Ideally you want to send 2 – 3 emails with links to the sales page of the main product that you want to sell. 

 

#3:  Final email with a hard pitch that encourages them to purchase the MAIN product that you are selling.  This is an email with the last hoorahhhh to subbies in your sales funnel.  You should use this email as an opportunity to give peeps know that your special offer is expiring…and give them incentives to act fast before it goes away.

Step #8: Test your Sales Funnel

Guys, this is critical. 

You HAVE to test to make sure that your funnel is working correctly.  I recommend using Google Chrome’s incognito window on your pc and going through every step of the funnel.

This means making sure that your landing page is setup correctly, your thank you page is working right, your checkout cart is processing payments correctly and so forth.

The WORST thing to do is to assume that your funnel works.  

You’d be surprised at how many people have contacted me after going through one of my funnels and saying..ummmm “Kim, I tried purchasing this special offer but the links don’t work”.

Or “Hey Kim I saw that you had a special discount on XYZ product, but when I went to the checkout page I got a 404 error”

This is bad for business peeps…

So please…by all means test your funnels yall.

Quick Overview and Rundown of What We’ve Covered

Okay y’all! We’ve covered quite a bit in this blog post. Here’s a quick rundown and action plan of steps that you can take to create a sales funnel in WordPress:

1. Create an irresistible free offer
2. Create a High Converting Landing Page to Capture Email Addresses with
3. Create an irresistible offer to your landing page
4. Create a Thank you Page with a Tripwire Offer
5. Add scarcity to your sales funnel
6. Connect your Sales Funnel to a Checkout Cart
7. Create Follow-Up Email Automations Step 
8. Test your Sales Funnel

Wrapping Things Up

I hope that you enjoyed reading this post and are excited to start creating a sales funnel for your WordPress website.

I know that there is a ton of information out there on the interwebs that make sales funnels complicated so I hope that this post inspires you to get out there and take action with building your sales funnel.

Peace and love yall!

Kim G (YourChicGeek)