How To Build A High-Converting Lead Funnel For Startups

The key to getting a new venture off the ground is to acquire leads. Leads can turn into customers which in turn supports business growth, which is crucial for a startup’s success.

When it comes to acquiring leads, there are different ways to go about it. One of the most effective is by creating a high quality lead funnel. These are designed to attract prospective customers, tend to them and ultimately, convert them into long-term paying clients.

But if you’re a new startup, where do you even begin to build a funnel like this? Let’s take a look.

What Is A Lead Funnel?

A lead funnel is an organised process that leads possible customers from initially interacting with your business to becoming a paying customer. Essentially, it is a marketing system that grabs interest and encourages these potential leads to take action, whether it be making a purchase or signing up for a company’s service.

These funnels are usually made up of three components, each playing a significant role to achieve the end goal. At the top of the funnel, you have the process of attracting potential customers. Once you have attracted their attention, you move to the middle of the funnel which is educating them about your product or service.

Once they have learnt enough about what you can offer, it will lead into the bottom of the funnel. This is where they will proceed with buying the product or booking your service.

The process is referred to as a funnel because some leads will drop off along the way, and only the most qualified ones will actually convert.

Why Do Startups Need Lead Funnels?

Any business environment is competitive, but more so for startups. New ventures are under more pressure to gain traction and convert clients as quickly as possible. A lead funnel can oversee this entire process and offers more structure. Without it, startups may struggle to get those conversions or waste unnecessary resources on unqualified leads.

Lead funnels can offer the following for startups:

Higher conversion rates: A funnel that is well-optimised is able to take care of strong qualified leads, increasing the likelihood of conversions.

Predictive insights: When you have a lead funnel model that works, you can use these to forecast future sales and predict your revenue from there.

It’s cost-effective: It’s common for startups to overspend their marketing budget on leads that are unlikely to convert. On the other hand, funnels ensure that all marketing efforts are targeted towards the right audience.

Builds brand trust: Prospective customers have the opportunity to learn about your business and what you offer for more credibility. The more that a customer knows about you, the more brand loyalty they will feel.

The Three Stages Of A Lead Funnel

A lead funnel has a very systematic approach with a top, middle and bottom.

Top Of Funnel

The objective at the top of the funnel is to create awareness around your brand to entice potential leads. In this stage, you will showcase what you have to offer and position your startup as an expert in your industry.

Some strategies that you may choose to use here are search engine optimisation (SEO) for optimising website content to attract organic traffic, run Facebook or Google ads to reach your desired audience or social media posts to share your content.

To monitor how this stage is performing, metrics to track are click-through-rates on paid ads and engagement on social media. You can also look at the amount of traffic on your website.

Middle Of Funnel

Once you have acquired solid leads, you can nurture them by tailoring content specifically for them. This could include retargeting ads to re-engage visitors who didn’t convert the first time round, showcasing how your offering addresses their pain points or sending targeted e-mails with useful content.

Here, you will want to monitor e-mail open and click rates for e-mail marketing, landing page conversion rates or lead magnet downloads if you have any.

Bottom Of Funnel

The third and final stage is where your leads are ready to convert. This is where you need to offer strong incentives to encourage your desired action, whether it be a purchase or sign-up.

You can do this by offering time-sensitive discounts or limited offers, free trials and very strong call-to-action (CTA) with something like “book a call now.”

At this stage, you will track conversion rates, sales and revenue as well as any return on investment (ROI) on paid advertising.

How To Build A High-Converting Lead Funnel

Here is a step-by-step guide on how you can build a high-converting lead funnel for your startup.

Create Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Putting together a clear outline of who your ICP is will give you a better understanding of who you are targeting. This can include demographics, pain points your potential customer may be facing and their typical buying behaviour.

Design A Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a “freebie” that can provide value for your customers in exchange for their contact information, which could be an e-mail address to add to your database for e-mail marketing.

The common types of lead magnets are free guides, a checklist or a free trial.

Develop A Landing Page

The landing page is where your customers will go to find out what to do next. It should explain clearly what you are offering, have an easy-to-fill opt-in form and a strong CTA. Additionally, you could add some testimonials or customer reviews as social proof to prove your authenticity.

Accelerate Funnel Creation With involve.me

For startups aiming to rapidly create effective and highly converting lead funnels, platforms like involve.me provide an invaluable advantage. involve.me allows startups to easily build interactive, user-focused funnels by integrating engaging components like quizzes, personalised calculators, surveys, and dynamic lead magnets. With involve.me, startups can either leverage an AI-powered funnel generator or choose from over 300 customisable templates, significantly reducing setup time while ensuring a polished and professional funnel.

Moreover, involve.me funnels adapt dynamically to visitor interactions, employing advanced features such as conditional logic and real-time personalization, enhancing user experience and increasing conversion potential.

Funnels built through involve.me integrate seamlessly into websites, appear as interactive popups, or function independently as dedicated landing pages, providing flexible deployment options tailored specifically for startups.

Drive Traffic To The Funnel

This step requires a combination of organic and paid strategies to maximise the acquiring of strong leads. Here, you can post content on social media, run paid ads, use backlinks as part of your SEO strategy and even bring in influencer partnerships if it’s appropriate for your industry.

Regularly Optimise Your Funnel

To get the most out of your lead funnel, it will require ongoing optimisation. This can include A/B testing to see which headlines or CTAs get the most conversions, using surveys to get feedback from leads on how you could improve your target messaging and looking at your conversion metrics to see what could be improved.