What is a sales Funnel

A sales funnel, also called funnel of purchase, is the visual representation of the customer's journey, describing the sales process from awareness to action.

The funnel, sometimes called marketing funnel, illustrates the idea that every sale starts with a large number of potential customers and ends with a much smaller number of people making a purchase.

The purchase funnel, or purchasing funnel, is a consumer focused marketing model which illustrates the theoretical customer journey towards the purchase of a product or service. Wikipedia

How sales Funnel Works 

The stages of sales funnel vary from company to company, but they are generally divided into four sections.

Awareness: This step includes the largest number of potential customers. It is at this point that customers have identified a problem, started to find a solution and become aware of an organization through inbound marketing, a mailing campaign, social selling or other avenues.

Interest: At this stage, the number of prospects begins to decrease, but the possibility of a sales conversion increases. This is usually the time when the client engages with the organization, asks for more information and asks questions.

Decision: Once the client is aware of the organization, looking for answers to their questions, it is time to make a decision. This stage of the process may include sales offers and additional research on the different options presented by the organization.

Action: All the steps mentioned above go to the final step: the action. At this point, the customer has decided to buy the product

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There are plenty of tools that are available online that help you do just that, such as ClickFunnels, Kartra, SamCart, Thrivecart, Teachable, Cartflows, SendOwl, and Podia.

In the following article, we are going to be talking about the eight best-known sales funnels tools that are used by businesses to grow and scale their brand.

The  Best Sales Funnel Softwares

1. ClickFunnels

This is probably a name you are already familiar with. ClickFunnels is one of the leading sales funnel tools available online today. 

ClickFunnels was created back in 2014, and it has since turned into a $100 million business with 65,000 active members as of 2018.

But what does ClickFunnels offer really?

At its core, ClickFunnels is an online tool that allows you to build landing pages and squeeze pages and create webinars, membership sites, and just about any type of sales funnel out there.

ClickFunnels also allows you to create your own affiliate program with Backpack and replace your email service with Actionetics MD and its Etison Suite package.

The following are a few of the features that are offered by ClickFunnels:

• Create and design your own funnel with ClickFunnels Page Editor.

• Pypeline is a high-touch CRM system.

• With Actionetics, you can create “Smart Lists” and send messages to your audience.

• Backpack is another all-in-one affiliate software that allows you to add an affiliate program to any sales funnel.

• Choose any one of the pre-developed membership site templates with Wasabi.

The best part about using ClickFunnels is that it offers all of these tools in a single unified package. Furthermore, ClickFunnels’ platform provides business owners with an easy and affordable way of creating sales funnels regardless of one’s industry or niche.

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Pricing Options: 

ClickFunnels is available in the following packages:

• Free Trial: 14-day free trial available

• Startup: $97/month

• Enterprise: $297/month

2. Kartra

Kartra is a relatively new addition in sales funnel tools, but it has had quite an impressive start.

While ClickFunnels is likely to attract larger and more established businesses, platforms such as Kartra appeal to startups and small businesses that are looking for a decent alternative to ClickFunnels.

As compared to ClickFunnels, the learning curve with Kartra isn’t that steep, enabling anyone with a decent background in marketing to create an effective marketing funnel.

Kartra allows users to create a “sequence,” which is a string of events that can execute a marketing funnel plan on autopilot.

Thanks to the folks at Kartra creating a sequence is incredibly easy even for beginners. All you have to do is follow the instructions and set a course of action for your funnel.

The following are a few of the features that are offered by Kartra:

• Design automated marketing funnels and comprehensive campaigns with the drag-and-drop campaign sequence builder.

• Create and send personalized emails based on recipients' behaviors.

• Split test every page for the best ROI.

• Deliver content to your paid and free members with the Membership Portal management system.

• The built-in Affiliate Management System allows you to manage multiple affiliates selling your products or service.

• Its ability to let you create multi-dimensional funnels allows you to market with limitations.

• Add 1-click upsells, down-sells, cross-sells to checkouts.

• EZ Installments allows you to provide your customers with monthly flexibility with an annual plan.

• Use video marketing with behavioral tagging.

Another major selling point of Kartra is that it offers loads of features such as setting up a membership portal, automated campaigns, drip campaigns, broadcasts, and autoresponders.

Additionally, users get access to helpdesk and a new scheduling feature. Overall, Kartra offers some pretty impressive tools, which is probably why internet marketing guruFrank Kern has also endorsed the platform.

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Pricing Options:

Kartra is available in the following packages:

• Starter: $1 for 14 days, then $69/month

• Silver: $1 for 14 days, then $139/month

• Gold: $1 for 14 days, then $299/month

• Diamond: $1 for 14 days, then $699/month

3. SamCart

Similar to ClickFunnels, SamCart is another crowd favorite when it comes to creating sales funnels and online marketing campaigns.

The idea behind SamCart is to provide marketers with a simple solution for selling products online by creating an effective shopping cart that can integrate with the most popular email service providers.

The following are a few of the features that are offered by SamCart:

• Users are also allowed to customize each page to make it more in sync with their website.

• Choose from one of the 18 pre-designed templates for the checkout page.

• Also allows you to add pop-ups to the checkout page.

• Adding upsells are optional in SamCart and can be done with one click.

• Users can also create split tests, add coupons.

• Ability to add trust seals to a page for better conversions.

• Integrate other features to make their sales funnel more effective.

• The Sandbox mode allows users to test what they have created before it goes live.

• Its Zapier integration with more than 700 marketing apps.

• Powerful affiliate management system lets you control others marketing your products for you.

What makes SamCart a great option for e-commerce businesses is that the entire process takes less than 30 minutes.

Considered as one of the most powerful platforms for creating engaging conversion optimization checkout pages it can add some real value to your sales funnel.

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Pricing Options

SamCart is available in the following packages:

• Pro: $99/month

• Premium: $199/month