WordPress runs 30% or 75 million of the websites on the internet. An impressive feat for a blogging platform now turned website builder.
Of those who have a site, 30% of those people are looking to build their sales funnel on WordPress.
We don’t blame them.
WordPress has tons of functionality and caters to any industry and niche.
But the problem with WordPress is it requires some technical ability level; From setting up your hosting, finding a theme, customizing, and not to mention finding the right plugins.
This article assumes that you have already built your website on WordPress and that you are not in the early stages of setting up your website.
Don’t fret if you are a beginner, though, as this article can help you in other ways; Especially if you want to build a sales funnel.
What Is A Sales Funnel
Before we build our sales funnel using the free plugin, we must understand a sales funnel.
The term sales funnel (a marketing term) helps identify the stage customers are currently buying products.
Often, this comes in a visual representation.
Each stage helps you understand what the customer thinks so you can make better decisions in your business.
Because you know what the customer thinks, you’ll give them better deals, improve your messaging and get your customers to buy more.
The Stages Of A Sales Funnel
Sales funnels have four Stages:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
Stage 1: Awareness
Awareness is the at the beginning, well, because you need people to know you exist.
If customers do not know you exist, then they won’t be able to move forward with the other steps, AKA, they won’t buy from you.
Awareness may come in many forms, including advertising, word of mouth, or social media.
An example of this would be if you had a book that you wanted people to buy, so you ran an advertisement, sent out emails, and wrote a blog post.
Once the potential customer is aware that your product exists, they may move forward to the interest stage.
Stage 2: Interest
At this stage, the potential customer has made an effort to find more information about your product.
They clicked the link and went to your landing page.
Stage 3: Desire
The potential customer has read what you had to say, and they want what you’re selling.
The potential customer is pulling out their credit card and ready to buy whatever it is you’re selling at the desired stage.
Stage 4: Action
The potential customer is now a customer.
They bought your product.
You did a job well done moving the potential customer from the first stage to the last stage.
Not all customers will make it, but that’s okay as you can nurture the customer with emails and social media to get them back into the funnel.
Stage 5: Upsell (Optional)
This stage is optional. But it is a decisive step that can transform your business.
An upsell when you sell different products after the customer purchases.
For example, if they buy your book, you can upsell an audiobook to increase your average order value.
You will want to add an upsell if:
- You want more money
- Have other products to sell
- Think your customers will want to buy more products from you
The sales funnel plugin that we will discuss below can upsell, so you should start thinking of products you can upsell.
Creating A Sales Funnel On WordPress
Now that you know what a sales funnel is, it’s time to add a sales funnel plugin to your site.
We made a full tutorial video on creating a sales funnel in WordPress here:
Before proceeding with this article, we recommend that you make sure that your WordPress site can accept embeds.
Most theme site builders can embed, so you should be okay.
But if you’re unsure, go to WordPress and look at the capabilities of your theme.
The plugin that we will discuss in the rest of this article requires that your theme accepts embeds.
Access The Free WordPress Sales Funnel Plugin
The free plugin that we’re going to use is Cartfuel.
Cartfuel allows users to create payment forms AND upsells
Go to Cartfuel.io and sign up. You don’t need a credit card to get started.
Once you have your account, you will want to connect your Stripe account.
Check out our more detailed article on stripe payments for WordPress.
After you connect your Stripe account, you will want to add a new product sequence.
You can do this by clicking the ‘New Product Sequence’ menu item.
From here, you will start to add your product details.
Give your product a name, price, select the currency, as well as the billing frequency.
You can also toggle on extra features like charging additional fees, adding quantity fields, charge taxes, and more.
Once done, then you will want to select ‘Next Step.’
In the next step, you can further customize your product sequence.
You can select the font type, form style, change the button text, button color, and size.
You can also add custom CSS. We recommend that you reach out to a qualified developer to assist you if you choose to use that feature.
Now that you added the features you want, you will select the next step.
In the third step, you will add your thank you page OR add your upsell page.
If you choose not to use an upsell, then you can enter the URL of your thank you page.
If you want to add an upsell, then enter the URL of your upsell page.
For example: If your upsell page is example.com/audiobook, then you’d put that URL into that input box.
Then you will toggle on the ‘Upsell Product Page’ toggle.
Once you toggle that on, you will new fields to set up your upsell.
As we did in the previous step, you will add a price, a name, and billing frequency. You can also update the button text, button color and add custom CSS.
Once done, click the next step where you can set up emails, which is optional.
Sidenote: Cartfuel has a zapier integration so you can connect Cartfuel to over 3000 apps, including email software.
After you reach the last step, you will want to make sure your product sequence is in test mode and then click Save.
How To Use The WordPress Sales Funnel Plugin
If you followed the above steps, you are ready to place your product sequence on your WordPress site.
Doing so will turn your WordPress site into a sales funnel without any code required.
After you saved your product sequence, you will want to login to your WordPress site.
You will want to find the page where you want your checkout to begin.
If you want your payment form on your landing page selling your book, you want to locate that page.
On that page, you will want to add an HTML/Embed element.
As mentioned before, your theme should have the ability to add HTML/Embeds, and if you’re not sure, you can google your theme’s name and ‘how to embed.’
Now that you added the HTML/Embed element, you will want to go back to Cartfuel.
In Cartfuel, you should see two code snippets. You don’t need to do anything with the code snippets besides copying them.
Copy the first one and then paste the code in the HTML/Embed element on your website.
Then go back to Cartfuel and copy the second code.
Then go back to your WordPress site and paste the second code.
Depending on if you added an upsell or not, you may see a second set of codes.
In that case, you will want to go to your upsell page on your WordPress site.
Then repeat the steps.
Add an HTML/Embed element to that page.
Go to Cartfuel and copy the first code and paste it into your HTML/Embed element on WordPress.
Then go back to Cartfuel and copy the second code and paste that code in the element.
It should look like this when done:
Then save your WordPress site.
Preview the site, and you should see your product sequence on your WordPress site.
Cartfuel is simple and easy.
It works on any theme builder and is the perfect Sales Funnel plugin that requires no code and is FREE!
Best WordPress Themes For Sales Funnel Plugin
If you’re looking for the best WordPress theme for sales funnel plugins, we recommend Elementor PRO.
Elementor is a lightweight theme builder that works well with Cartfuel.