Funnel Basics! What is a Sales Funnel and Why do You Need One?

This is a great question and one that I am really excited to answer. 

I am assuming you are here because you are looking for ways to grow your business and ultimately get more sales and income. You might have tried lots of things already but still haven’t found that one thing that has really made a difference or helped you to scale.  

You have probably heard of marketing or sales funnels and might even know about Click Funnels (an awesome piece of software that makes funnel designing easily accessible to everyone! You can read more about Click Funnels here….) but have no idea what it’s all about and so you are here, to find out more…

Well, welcome. This will be a game-changer. Let’s start by talking about what a sales funnel is anyway. 

What is a Sales Funnel ?

In its simplest form, a sales (or marketing) funnel is the sales process that moves your prospective customers from initial contact with the company right through to making a purchase.  They are fully automated systems that will capture leads, convert those leads into sales and then nurture your relationship with your customers so that they continue to buy from you and become lifelong fans.  

It will include relevant and logical cross-sells, up-sells and sometimes down-sells to make the customer’s journey more meaningful and to give the business the opportunity to encourage repeat purchases, average cart value and lifetime customer value.  

All of this will work towards combating the rising ad costs involved in acquiring new customers. 

The sales funnel process will include driving traffic to the funnel, setting up various opt-in and landing pages, creating mailing lists, sending follow-up and broadcast emails and of course all of the content (written, video and images) used within the funnel. 

So in essence, a sales funnel can be seen as your entire online business. 

Sounds good, hey?  But still not quite sure what I mean ….?

Let me explain even further, using Russel Brunson’s [Owner of Click Funnels] sketch of a sales funnel [taken from his book Dotcom Secrets] which is a simple and effective illustration of how the sales funnel process works. 

[Affiliate Disclaimer: Please note that any links inside this article may be affiliate links to ClickFunnels. That means that if you click on one of the links and sign up, I may be compensated for it. If you do happen to click, thanks! Any money we make keeps this site running and allows us to keep producing high-quality articles, guides and reviews for our subscribers]. 

The cloud above the funnel (labelled Traffic) represents the wide audience of potential customers for your products or services. 

The idea is that you use Bait to attract people into your funnel - this could be a free cheatsheet or eBook, a free product (+ shipping) a discount coupon and so on. It could also be a highly discounted product, it doesn’t have to be free - just tempting enough to get customers in the door. This is usually the lowest-priced item in your value ladder.

Those that sign up for or purchase your bait, will be lead to the next page of the funnel which will show a front end offer. This product or service will represent the next logical step and a percentage of customers will purchase this from you (your bait would have been created with this next solution/purchase in mind). 

Those that purchase will be moved onto the next step of the funnel, which will show the next product or service in your value ladder. This will offer even more value and will also cost more. Not everyone will purchase this, but a percentage will. 

And for those that do, they will again be moved deeper into the funnel to the next product or service which again costs even more and offers more value. 

As you can expect, at each step of the funnel, prospects and customers will drop out. But they can be added to different email lists that continue to nurture them back into the funnel at a later date when they are ready to purchase. 

At this point there will be no advertising costs as you have already acquired these customers / subscribers so your profit levels will explode. This is where the real value of sales funnels lies. 

Example….

The below image shows one example of  how a funnel is laid out.  In this example, the audience is directed directly to a sales page. 

Customers who purchase are then directed to an up-sell page and then onto a final page showing a range of other products they might be interested in. 

For those that decline the upsell - a down-sell offer is shown to try and entice them into something of lower value, but something they are still like to need or want. 

Regardless of where customers drop out of the funnel - they are automatically added to a follow-up sequence.  



[If you want to take a deeper dive into this I’d recommend reading Dotcom Secrets, there is currently a special offer to get this book for free, check out the link here] 

You Already Have A Sales Funnel - What Does yours Look Like?

All businesses have some kind of sales funnel in place whether they realise it or not. This could be as basic as having an online store that customers purchase through. They might also have a sign-up form and occasionally send out emails or newsletters to their customers to promote offers and other products that their customers might be interested in. But that might be it. 

And many businesses might not even do that. They might simply sell through the store and take no further action. 

The complexity, detail and stages of the sales funnel (e.g. sales process) will depend on the business owner and whether the sales funnel has been created intentionally or not.

Sales Funnels Versus Traditional Websites

Sales funnels have always been around, but more and more companies are realising their value (compared to traditional websites) in their ability to automate and scale the entire sales process. A sales funnel is kind of like your own in-store personal assistant, but equipped to do a much better job of converting sales (when set up correctly).

If you are only using a website, you are relying on your potential customer staying on the website and not getting distracted and disappearing as quickly as they landed. You might have a pop up asking them to opt-in to your email list but aside from that, you are leaving them to their own devices, not helping them through your sales process and just hoping that they make a purchase.

Bounce rates tend to be high and if you’re not using a facebook pixel (What’s a Facebook Pixel?! Read more about that here...) you have lost that person completely and have no way of communicating with them in the future. 

The sales funnel on the other hand (which is also made up of web pages), is designed with the customer journey in mind and is an automated system that takes your customer by the hand and leads them through a sales process to get them to make a purchase.  

It prevents the customer from getting distracted by taking them from one page to the next, in a logical and intentional order.  The sales pages and copy will work to convince the customer that they need the ‘thing’ you are selling and will even overcome any likely objections that your customer is likely to be thinking. 

And more than this, it will guide your prospects up the value ladder of your products or services (from your lowest selling item through to your highest selling item - all through a series of automated email sequences and follow-up emails) 

An Example of a Sales Funnel 

The sales funnel is usually made up of different pages, or stages, to lead the customer from their initial interest through to purchase. 

There are HEAPS of different funnel templates and they can be as simple or complex as you like. You really are unlimited with what you can create and this will ultimately come down to what your end goal is. 

For the purpose of this beginners guide, we will stick to simplicity and look at a very basic model just to illustrate how a funnel could work for your business.  This type of funnel will have 3 pages - A Lead Page, Sales Page and Upsell Page. 

1. Lead Page (Opt-in). This will be the first page in the funnel,  where the business offers something for free in exchange for a prospects email address (lead magnet). The purpose behind this page is to collect email addresses and identify those that are likely to buy, from the wider audience that you are targeting.
2. Sales Page. Once the prospect has subscribed, they will then be taken to a sales page that promotes a product or service that is related to the lead magnet they have just signed up for. This page will typically include a sales video or sales script, testimonials, product or service information and the offer - making a compelling case for the buyer to purchase. This page helps to identify the hot buyers and generate some sales to pay for the cost of the advertising. 
3. Upsell Page. Just before the payment completes, the buyer is shown another ‘special offer’ which will also be related to the first purchase and must also be something they are likely to need. It needs to be both logical and irresistible so that they buyer will buy on impulse, having already made the decision to get the credit card out (which is the hardest part!). This page identifies the ‘hyper-buyers' whom you want to create a strong relationship with (via email marketing) so that you can continue to serve them in the future. 

This is a basic funnel format that you could use for the sales and marketing of your own business. Funnels can be more complex than this and if customers decline the upsell, they can be shown a downsell option which is another product or service that they are likely to need, but for a much lower investment. 

There are unlimited options, with the ultimate result being that you will convert more of your leads and prospects into paying customers than you would from simply relying on a website. 


Now that you have come to the end of this post (well done for getting this far, by the way!), you hopefully understand the basics of a sales funnel and how it can help, or rather change your business. And if you’re keen to get started -  you probably want to know HOW you can get a sales funnel set up ASAP?

In anticipation we have written the next post to help out and show you how You can create your very own sales funnel, relatively easily and quickly - and without having to hire expensive freelancers or marketing agencies. 

Want to know more? Read here.….

Want to know what you should do next?  

This....

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**Warning: this s not for the faint hearted, this is ONLY for the dedicated entrepreneur that wants (and is ready!) to transform their business and lives in the next 30 days!

Affiliate Disclaimer: I hope you enjoyed this ClickFunnels Guide. Please note that any links inside this article may be affiliate links to ClickFunnels. That means that if you click on one of the links and sign up, I may be compensated for it. If you do happen to click, thanks! Any money we make keeps this site running and allows us to keep producing high-quality articles, guides and reviews for our subscribers. I am an independent ClickFunnels Affiliate, not an employee. The opinions expressed here are my own and are not official statements of ClickFunnels or its parent company, Etison LLC.

Have a great day!  😃

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