Sometimes we need to quickly make a sales funnel to test an idea or model. Or we just have a limited budget. In this tutorial, I will show you how to create sales funnel for free with Mailchimp. (it’s not a referral link, I just want to share value here).

What is a sales funnel?

The sales funnel in this case is a chain of touches with a user:

1. A page with a lead magnet

A lead magnet is some free, but a useful thing that can be downloaded in exchange for an Email. An example of my page:

2. Welcome letter with the lead magnet

With the help of the Email Automation service, you can make an autoresponder, in which we will send a file to a person.

3. Automate the Email sequence

After the first letter, you usually want to send a sequence of letters with some kind of offer, to do an upsell or just educate people. Email service providers help to easily make an automated chain of letters that will be sent on a specific schedule and in accordance with the actions of the user.

Create a list where you will collect contacts

Making a sales funnel is simple and free only with the help of Mailchimp (at least I haven’t seen any other solution yet). That’s because Mailchimp has a free plan up to 2000 subscribers:

In order to create a list, just go to the Lists page and click a Create List button, then everything is intuitive.

Create a page (landing page) for free

The second step is to create the page I showed above. To do this, go to this page here:

After clicking the “ Create Campaign ” button, select the Landing Page :

Choose the template we need (you can edit it for yourself and create your own design):

The form will automatically add contacts to your selected list. After the contacts are added, you need to send the first letter, about it in the next step.

Pay attention to the URL of your page, it’s a little bit long and MailChimp-branded. You can link your own domain in the premium plan. But according to the test results, such a URL almost does not reduce conversions rate, people doesn’t pay attention.

Popup on the site

Very often, leads can be collected from a blog. To do this, add a form or popup to the page. This can be done in the Lists -> tab of your list -> Signup Forms.

Then you just need to copy the generated code and paste it onto the page. The design of the pop-ups in Mailchimp is very pleasant and there are many layout options.

Autoresponder setup

To create an automatic letter, we need to return to the campaigns page, create another campaign, but choose not the Landing Page, as in the previous step, but Email, and then select Automated -> Welcome New Subscribers:

Next, select your list and get inside your funnel:

Pay attention to Trigger. By default, the email will be sent 24 hours after the user has subscribed. You need to change this to Immediatly by clicking on the Change triggerbutton:

Chain of letters

By clicking the “Add Email ” button you add another email to the thread. Send time can be configured using the same trigger.

Bottom line

Mailchimp allows you to make a sales funnel up to 2,000 subscribers for free. This is an ideal option for start-up entrepreneurs with a limited budget.

For more complex solutions, I would advise using Leadpages .