How to Use the Sales Funnel Approach to Improve Your Business

Your website is not enough. You need a sales funnel.

Here’s what we are going to discuss today:

• The #1 mistake people make when selling online
• The traditional AIDA sales funnel vs. the modern Value Ladder sales funnel
• How to build your first sales funnel in 7 easy steps

Want to grow your business explosively?

Continue reading…

The #1 Mistake People Make When Selling Online

When was the last time you have purchased something from a company immediately after hearing about the said company for the first time?

If you are like most people, that doesn’t happen often, if ever.

Presumably, you first check out the company’s website, read their blog, follow them on social media, subscribe to their email newsletter, see what other people are saying about them…

…and only then, once you have determined that this is a legitimate business run by decent people, you start buying stuff from them.

In other words, you only hand over your hard-earned money once you trust the company to deliver enough value to justify the purchase.

This is the typical way people make purchasing decisions online.

Yet, when you are the one doing the selling, it’s incredibly easy to forget this process, go for the sale immediately, then wonder why no one is buying your product.

That’s why the typical way people sell products online is by driving traffic directly to the sales page.

But this is the digital equivalent of walking up to a stranger and saying “Yo, here’s my product, now buy it!”.

Do you see how there’s a mismatch between the typical purchasing behavior and the typical approach to selling?

Fortunately, there’s a better way to go about it…

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a process that is designed to guide the potential customer towards the sale, one step at a time.

Here’s the birds-eye view of it:

1. Top of the funnel (target audience) – You get the attention of a potential customer.
2. Middle of the funnel (leads) – You convert the potential customer into a lead.
3. Bottom of the funnel (customers) – You convert that lead into a customer and then into a repeat customer.

The Aida Sales Funnel

The traditional sales funnel model was developed by the 19th-century advertising and sales pioneer St. Elmo Lewis.

It’s called AIDA and has four stages:

1. Awareness – You get the attention of the potential customer.
2. Interest – You get them interested in your product.
3. Desire – You make them want your product.
4. Action – You ask them to buy your product.

There’s a reason why this sales funnel has been around for over a century now: 

It works.

The Value Ladder Sales Funnel

That being said, we believe that the AIDA approach is outdated, which is why here at ClickFunnels we swear by the Value Ladder sales funnel model.

It was developed by our co-founder Russell Brunson who then used it to take ClickFunnels from zero to $10M+ in annual revenue in just one year (it’s now at $100M+). Talk about explosive growth!

The Value Ladder sales funnel also has four stages:

1. Bait – You offer the potential customer a lead magnet in exchange for their email address.
2. Frontend – You offer the potential customer your least expensive and least valuable product.
3. Middle – You offer the customer a more expensive and more valuable product.
4. Backend – You offer the customer your most expensive and most valuable product.

Ideally, there’s also a continuity program, meaning a subscription of some sort that generates recurring revenue.

Why is the Value Ladder Sales Funnel So Effective?

Okay, so now you might be wondering, what’s so special about the Value Ladder sales funnel?

The reason it is so effective is that it allows you to:

1. Start the relationship with the potential customer by offering free value
2. Nurture that relationship by continuing to provide free value
3. Build trust by providing progressively more paid value at each stage

With AIDA, you give, give, give, then make a big ask (e.g. “Buy my $257 online course”).

With the Value Ladder, you give (“Here’s a free ebook”), then ask for a small commitment (e.g. “Buy my $7 ebook”), then proceed to ask for a bigger commitment (e.g. “Buy my $97 masterclass”), and then an even bigger one (e.g. “Buy my $257 online course”).

That allows you to gradually build up the trust required to sell your most expensive product.

Here’s how Russell explains it:

How to Build Your First Sales Funnel

The good news is that you don’t need to have the entire product line to create a Value Ladder sales funnel.

You can start with just:

1. The lead magnet
2. The frontend offer

…and then add the middle offer and the backend offer later.

So here’s how you can build your first sales funnel:

Step #1: Create a Super Valuable Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a freebie that you give away in exchange for the potential customer’s email address.

It can be anything that they can either download to their device or access online:

• A report
• An ebook
• A webinar
• A masterclass
• A cheat sheet
• An email course
• A video course
• An app

…etc

What matters is that:

1. Your lead magnet provides a solution to a problem that your potential customers are struggling with
2. That problem is either the same or related to the problem that your frontend offer addresses

Note that your lead magnet is the foundation of your entire sales funnel because it sets the potential customer’s expectations.

Impress them and they will be inclined to check out your frontend offer.

Disappoint them and you won’t get a second chance.

So go the extra mile to make sure that your lead magnet is super valuable.

Step #2: Create a Landing Page for Your Lead Magnet

Just because your lead magnet is free doesn’t mean that you don’t have to sell it aka persuade the potential customer to give you their email address in exchange for it.

This is where your lead magnet landing page comes in. Think about it as your lead magnet sales page.

We recommend you start with a squeeze page which is the most basic of lead generation landing pages.

Here are the three elements that it needs to have:

1. A headline that emphasizes the main benefit of your lead magnet. How will it make the potential customer’s life better?
2. An opt-in form that asks for either the potential customer’s name and email address or just their email address.
3. A call-to-action button that encourages the potential customer to download the lead magnet. It’s best to use benefit-driven copy (e.g. “Get Your Free Video” instead of “Download”).

You can always upgrade your lead magnet landing page to a medium-length or even a long-form landing page later.

Step #3: Create a Frontend Offer

You want there to be a logical progression from downloading the lead magnet to buying your frontend product.

For example:

1. Lead magnet: A video masterclass on how to learn to do one pull-up as an absolute beginner.
2. Frontend product: A video course on how to master the basic calisthenics exercises (pull-ups, push-ups, hanging leg raises, bodyweight squats, etc.).

If your lead magnet has helped someone do their first pull-up, they will probably be open to buying the video course to learn other basic skills. See the progression?

Also, note that the purpose of the frontend offer is not to make you a ton of money, it’s to convert the lead into a paying customer.

Your best bet here is to make it a no-brainer decision by:

1. Creating a super valuable frontend product
2. Pricing that frontend product ridiculously low

Ideally, you want the price to be within the impulse buy range, meaning <$10. We have found that the $7 price point works particularly well.

Step #4: Create a Sales Page for Your Frontend Offer

If you have followed our advice and made your frontend offer a no-brainer, then there’s no need for an elaborate long-form sales page.

That being said, your sales page should include:

1. A benefit-driven headline – Focus on the #1 benefit of your product. How will it make the potential customer’s life better?
2. A benefit-driven subheadline – Reinforce the #1 benefit + describe the offer.
3. Benefit-driven copy – Expand on the #1 benefit + introduce additional benefits + paint a picture of what the potential customer’s life could look like if they purchased your product.
4. Social proof – Provide testimonials from previous customers. Don’t have any yet? Then use your expertise as social proof by mentioning relevant credentials, accomplishments, numbers, etc.
5. Call-to-action button – Make sure that your call-to-action button stands out in the overall color scheme of the page and is so large that it’s impossible to miss.
6. Money-back guarantee – Offer a 30-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. Don’t worry, it’s extremely unlikely that you will get a ton of refunds for a $7 product, but the guarantee reassures potential customers that they can undo this decision if it turns out to be a mistake… And therefore makes them more likely to take the leap!
7. A P.S. section – People often skip to the bottom of the sales page to see the price instead of reading the entire thing. Adding a P.S. section below the call-to-action button allows you to explain your offer even if they didn’t pay attention to anything else. It should summarize the benefits + the offer itself.

Remember, as the copywriters’ joke goes, everyone’s favorite station is WII FM (“What’s In It For Me?”).

So keep the sales page focused on how your product will make the potential customer’s life better.

Step #5: Create a Sales Email Sequence

You can start with a single sales email that introduces the frontend offer and encourages the potential customer to click through to its sales page.

However, we recommend a 6-email follow-up sequence, which you can learn more about in our 5 Day Challenge (info at the end of the article).

Step #6: Set Up Your Sales Funnel

Once you have all the necessary ingredients, it’s time to set up your sales funnel.

Here’s how it should look like:

1. You drive traffic to the lead magnet landing page
2. Once the potential customer downloads the lead magnet, you send them a sales email introducing the frontend offer
3. They click through to its sales page and buy your product

And what if they decide not to buy your product?

Then you:

1. Use the previously mentioned follow-up email sequence
2. Continue providing free value with your emails

Keep in mind that just because they didn’t buy your product now doesn’t mean that they will never buy it.

What you want to do is nurture that relationship so that when they are to invest in a solution to that problem, your product would be the first thing that comes to their minds.

As for the technical side of all this, ClickFunnels makes it super easy to set it all up, there’s no need to know how to code, design pages, etc.

We have a free 14-day trial so you can check out our software without any risk. 

Claim 14 Days Of ClickFunnels For FREE!

Step #7: Start Driving Traffic to the Lead Magnet Landing Page

Once everything is set up, it’s time to start driving traffic to the lead magnet landing page.

We recommend that you do that with Facebook ads because paid traffic is the quickest way to test your funnel to see if it converts.

Just make sure that you begin with a small daily ad budget and only start increasing it once you know that your sales funnel is profitable.

Then you can start optimizing your funnel to maximize those profits:

Use the “Hook, Story, Offer” Framework Throughout the Entire Funnel!

We also recommend you to use the “Hook, Story, Offer” framework:

1. Hook – Grab the person’s attention
2. Story – Tell them an interesting story
3. Offer – Transition from the story to the sales pitch

This framework applies to every stage of the funnel meaning that these three elements should be present in everything from your ads to your landing page to your sales emails and sales page.

Here’s how Russell explains it:

Want Russell to Walk You Through it?

Let’s keep it real:

Building a sales funnel from scratch can seem like a daunting task.

That’s why we created our 5 Day Challenge where Russell walks you through it step-by-step.

You will learn how to:

• Generate unlimited leads
• Create your first lead magnet
• Build your first sales funnel
• Create a simple 6-email follow-up sequence
• And launch your funnel!

…in just five days.

So don’t hesitate.

Join our 5 Day Challenge today. It’s completely free!