Do the words sales funnel and make your entire body cringe as if you just heard someone tell a kid that Santa isn’t real?
I get it, sales funnels aren’t exactly dinner conversation with your significant other but if you learn how to use them, they change your business forever.
As an entrepreneur, you’re tasked with knowing all aspects of your business at some level even if you aren’t an expert in each area. That means content creation, marketing, advertising, accounting and everything in between.
But one area that is vital for entrepreneurs to understand is sales funnels. One successful sales funnel can literally change your business. The problem is that most people overcomplicate the entire process, get frustrated, and miss out on tons of revenue.
But honestly, funnels aren’t as complicated as you might think.
Funnels have been used in some capacity for decades including billboards, infomercials or direct marketing via snail mail. Simply put, sales funnels, online or offline are how companies get people through the buying process.
If you want to scale your business and get more time back in your days, understanding sales funnels is necessary. In this video, I quickly break down why funnels don’t need to be scary and why they are so important to your business.
What is a Sales Funnel?
So … what exactly is a sales funnel?
As Ryan Deiss said in this Entrepreneur.com article, “The sales funnel as a multi-step, multi-modality process that moves prospective browsers into buyers. It’s multi-stepped because lots must occur between the time that a prospect is aware enough to enter your funnel, to the time when they take action and successfully complete a purchase.”
In simple terms, it gets people from browsing to buying. The fact is that most people won’t just naturally convert once they land on your website. You have to give them a reason to do anything. Whether it’s downloading a free e-book or having them buy a product. You have to guide them through the entire process.
To better understand sales funnels and learn how you can use them in your business, here is a commonly used 4-step process to give you more context.
The 4-Step Process of Sales Funnels
Whether you have a blog, podcast, paid ads or any other type of digital media content, the goal is to offer a solution to your potential buyer. A funnel does just that.
In this example, lets assume you have a digital course or online coaching program available. Here’s how to convert website visitors into paying customers using the AIDA model.
Step 1: Awareness
Once people land on your website or click on your ad, you first need to incentivize them to join your email list. This is usually done by presenting a free masterclass (webinar), e-book, checklist or 15-minute consult.
Depending on how you got users to your funnel will determine their likelihood to opt-in. For example, if users found you on Google through SEO, you probably have some authority as your content matched the user’s search intent. But a paid ad to cold traffic on Facebook might be harder to convert.
Step 2: Interest
Once you gained awareness, potential buyers now enter your funnel. Initially, they’re usually welcomed with an email sequence. This is how you can relate to them, share your story, and begin to offer a solution to their problem. The key is to make yourself the “Attractive Character” in this welcome sequence.
Co-founder of Click Funnels, Russell Brunson, said it best … “It’s about the persona you’re sharing with our audience and how you communicate with your list. Most people either don’t bother to create this character or they won’t do it correctly.”
This is vital to have your attractive character be relatable to your target audience.
Finding this useful so far? Do you want to build a sales funnel that makes you money on auto-pilot? Click the button below to grab yourself a FREE copy of my workbook about funnel building, instantly!
Step 3: Decision
At this point in your funnel people have clicked on some links, maybe attended a webinar or received a free course to warm them up. To get people further down in the funnel, it’s about building more trust and offering up testimonials or success stories. People love social proof when making buying decisions!
Step 4: Taking Action
The final step of your funnel is to get the prospective buyer into taking action. You can do this by offering up a limited-time offer, discount prices or bonuses. And the more expensive the offering, the more steps typically need to get them to convert.
Examples of Sales Funnels
Now that you understand how a sales funnel works, here are a few ideas to figure out how your business can get started.
Low to High-End Sales Funnel
A low to high-end funnel is a bit more complicated than a high to low funnel as you need to have more products or services.
Here’s an example of how a low to high-end funnel might work as a consumer:
- Land on a website, opt-in to receive a free ebook
- Offer a chance to buy a discounted $27 video course (known as a one-time offer)
- If I buy, I might get another upsell offer for a higher ticket course or 1:1 coaching
- If I don’t buy, I might get a downsell for something else like a monthly membership site
These funnels are a bit more work as you need more products or service and can get complicated to set up. Instead, keep it simple with a high-end funnel.
High-End Sales Funnel
An option I recommend trying is a high-end funnel for a webinar. Here’s how it would work using Facebook ads and an evergreen webinar:
- User clicks on a Facebook ad to attend an automated webinar in the form of a free masterclass or streaming workshop.
- They get an email reminding them of the webinar and attend a live or automated webinar.
- Once they attend, you would provide value on the topic for 45-60 minutes.
- After you’ve shared your story (using your “Attractive Character”) and solution, you then pitch your online courses or coaching. I usually recommend products from $200 – $3,000.
- Some will buy instantly, some will wait, and some won’t stick around the entire webinar.
How Sales Funnels Can Help You Sell High Ticket Programs
Webinars are one of the easiest ways to help you increase revenue and close higher ticket items. Instead of spending time trying to sell a $9.97 eBook, webinars can help you sell high ticket coaching, consulting, and online courses.
Here are some ways you can use social media to get people into your funnels, attend your webinar, and start growing your revenue.
Using Social Media and Automation to Grow Revenue on Autopilot
Each social media channel gives you different ways to boost credibility with your audience and easily include a link to a webinar signup page.
Here are the best ways to get people signed up:
Instagram is a great way to drive people to your webinar. Make sure that you add your webinar registration link in the bio, use with Instagram swipe-up ads, and stories (if you have 10K+ followers).
Facebook ads are one of the best ways to drive registrants into your funnel and webinar. Try out different tactics and audiences to find the lowers cost per acquisition. Also, if you have a big following you can use Facebook Lives as well.
Youtube
Another great place that I’ve seen convert really well is adding a link to your evergreen webinar in your Youtube video description. Remember, users go to Youtube for long-form content already so it’s a very natural path to get them to join a 60-minute webinar.
You can use a snippet of your webinar on Youtube or similarly high-value content teaching them a related topic to gain awareness and interest.
Here is an example of one of our High Ticket Sales Funnels that leverages paid ads, webinars and sales calls.
Final Thoughts on Sales Funnels
Hopefully, you now have a clearer understanding of sales funnels and how you can use them in your business. The biggest key to creating a sales funnel is to know your audience and what problem you can solve. Then you can reverse engineer a funnel to give them a solution in the form of a webinar that leads to courses or coaching.
Make sure you take advantage of Easy Webinars automated evergreen webinars to convert more people into your funnel, especially with high-ticket offers.
If you are ready to start building a sales funnel that makes you money on auto-pilot, click the button below to grab yourself a FREE copy of my workbook about funnel building, instantly!
