The sales funnel might be the most notorious, fundamental, straightforward model detailing the process by which prospects become customers.
The old school sales funnel is typically divided into three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. The funnel gets narrower with each transition to a new stage. Not every prospect makes it from awareness to consideration — the same goes for the shifts from consideration to decision and decision to purchase.
The term "sales funnel software" generally refers to platforms and resources that facilitate that process by helping businesses automate or create assets such as landing pages, follow-up emails, and payment gateways. In short, they provide tools and features to help turn interested prospects into paying customers.
Here are some of the best sales funnel software available and some insight into whether they might be right for your business.
1. HubSpot Growth Platform
- Price: Plans starting at $113/month
The HubSpot Growth Platform’s tools provide some of the most effective ways to construct and maintain a healthy, functional sales process that can deliver the results your business needs. The platform’s robust suite of features includes conventional sales funnel tools like landing page templates, infrastructure for creating and distributing content offers, and email automation.
Beyond that, HubSpot’s Growth Platform has everything you need to accommodate all of your business’s marketing, sales, and service needs — all with an exceptional CRM at its core. It’s an excellent resource for attracting, engaging, delighting, and retaining customers.
The system is tailored towards companies of any size, looking to build and sustain a solid customer base. It’s pricing options reflect that, with options that suit every kind of organization — from small businesses to larger enterprises.
2. PlusThis - HubSpot Integration
- Price: Plans starting at $39/month
PlusThis is a campaign toolkit for marketing automation users. It’s an excellent platform for creating and promoting content and marketing collateral. It includes a robust suite of features that can generate and sustain prospects’ interest in your business.
The software helps set your sales funnel in motion by automating registration and follow-up for webinars, providing tools to create evergreen content offers, and enabling Facebook syncing to show leads relevant ads based on their position in your campaign.
PlusThis is one of the more affordable pieces of sales funnel software on the market. It can be a great resource for smaller businesses looking to make the most of their wealth of insight or content.
3. WishPond
- Price: Plans starting at $49/month
The WishPond platform rests on four main features: landing pages, pop-ups and forms, contests and promos, and marketing automation. Its "contests and promos feature" is particularly unique. It allows you to run sweepstakes, photo contests, and other competitions to promote your brand and land new contacts.
WishPond has options that fit the needs and budgets of businesses that are just starting out, but by no means is the software specific to small businesses. It’s an impressive platform that boasts an equally impressive list of clientele, including Sony, CBS, and Walmart. It’s a good option for businesses of any size looking for a comprehensive suite of funnel-enabling features.
4. Leadpages - HubSpot Integration
- Price: Plans starting at $25/month
Leadpages is a tool that helps small businesses easily construct visually appealing, high-converting landing pages, websites, alert bars, and more. The service’s templates manage to reconcile fun and engagement with sleekness and professionalism. Its interface can easily be operated by anyone on your team — no matter what their experience with web design may be.
The service is one of the most cost-effective sales funnel solutions available. It can be a sound investment for small to midsize businesses, young startups, and entrepreneurs looking to expand their web presence and win new business. If you’re in the market for an affordable, accessible funnel software, Leadpages is a good place to start.
5. ClickFunnels
- Price: Plans starting at $97/month
ClickFunnels is one of the most prominent sales funnel software tools on the market, and for good reason — it’s as easy to operate as any similar resource available. The platform has tools to guide buyers through each step of the sales process — like email and Facebook marketing automation — and an accessible, smooth web page editor.
The platform also features a one-click upsell tool that automatically upsells any shopper that purchases anything from your website. It can be an effective means of increasing potential revenue from your customer base as a whole. It gives buyers who have already demonstrated interest in your product or service more options after they’ve shown they’re inclined to buy from you.
ClickFunnels is a solid option for small businesses and entrepreneurs that need a simple, straightforward system for translating prospects’ interest into hard sales.
6. GetResponse Autofunnel
- Price: Plans starting at $15/month
GetResponse’s Autofunnel tool is an excellent resource for businesses looking for a service that can automate and perform most sales funnel functions on its own. The software boasts impressive features, including resources for purchasing Facebook and Instagram ads, built-in webinar software, and templates for conversion-focused sales pages.
The software is a very solid "plug and play" option. It’s automation capabilities allow users to essentially "fill in the blanks" with their own content and let the software do the legwork. It’s an excellent, cost-effective option for businesses that want to take a more hands-off approach to managing their sales funnel.
7. Kajabi
- Price: Plans starting at $119/month
Kajabi’s general marketing and funnel solutions are great for helping garner interest in your product or service and turning that interest into hard sales and new customers. Its code-free, fully integrated landing pages offer a professional aesthetic with minimal set-up or required web design experience.
It also features a built-in shopping cart, zero transaction fees, and completely customizable checkouts for eCommerce. Kajabi’s platform might not suit small businesses’ and startups’ budgets all that well, but it is still an incredibly effective option for facilitating your sales funnel strategy.
Ultimately, even though there’s a lot of "sales funnel software" on the market, the concept of a sales funnel itself is well on its way to becoming a thing of the past. Nowadays, the best "sales funnel software" doesn’t actually create a funnel. It creates a flywheel.
Funnels are linear. They have start and endpoints. They can turn a prospect into a customer, but once that customer has made their way through the funnel, they get left behind. There’s no conscious effort to serve them beyond landing their business.
The flywheel is constructed with a recognition of the power of word of mouth. It puts the customer first and works to consistently engage and delight them. Customers can rely on a company’s service, marketing, and sales infrastructure to continuously work in their interest. In turn, those customers can drive new business themselves.
Even though the sales funnel's days might be numbered, sales funnel software isn't going anywhere. So, no matter which service you choose to go with, be mindful of how well it can help you serve your customers.
At this point, you shouldn’t be looking to buy "sales funnel software," you should be in the market for "sales flywheel software."And that means putting the customer first.
