Ultimate Guide To Sales Funnel Copywriting

Words sell.

Not all words — the right words.

But how do you know which words?

Amidst the 171,000 words in the English language, it can take years to develop the instincts needed to choose the right words when copywriting for a sales funnel.

This is why great copywriters charge tens of thousands of dollars for their services.

If you’re trying to learn how to write compelling copy for your own sales funnel or for someone else’s sales funnel, this guide will set you on the path to success.

Or click the link below and skip right to the good stuff…

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What is Sales Funnel Copywriting?

Sales funnel copywriting is all about writing compelling sales copy for the conversion-oriented marketing experiences known as sales funnels.

• Copy: The words on the page
• Sales Funnels: The experience that’s crafted to convert visitors into leads or leads into customers

Keep reading to learn more.

Understanding the Sales Funnel

Before we talk about how to write copy, you need to understand the sales funnel.

When someone asks you to “write copy for their sales funnel”, they’re not talking about the high-level marketing funnel that salespeople use to determine MQLs and SQLs…

… they’re talking about the page-by-page experiences that guide visitors toward a single conversion event.

Traffic goes in the top and customers and/or leads come out the bottom.

Since every sales funnel tries to achieve a single goal, there are different sales funnels for different things — for lead-gen, for sales, for webinars, and for high-ticket offers.

This is what we specialize in creating at ClickFunnels.

We test templates and give our members the highest performers, then we provide the software to customize those sales funnels.

Here’s the wireframe for what we call our Tripwire Funnel — which is great for turning cold traffic directly into paying customers…

That’s just one example.

And so the first thing you need to understand — before you write a single word — is what the sales funnel is trying to accomplish.

Gathering Critical Information

What is the goal of the sales funnel that you’re writing copy for?

Is it trying to generate leads? How so?

Is it trying to sell products? What products? Why is the offer compelling?

Those are the types of questions you need to answer.

More specifically, before you start writing, you should be able to answer all of the following questions…

• Who is the customer avatar?
• What are they afraid of?
• What do they desire?
• How will your offer help them?
• Is there proof?
• Is the offer really worth it?
• Why should they take action right now?

If you can answer those questions, then you’ll be more prepared to write compelling sales funnel copy.

Let’s look at an example and answer these questions for our Traffic Secrets sales funnel — then you can see how we work those answers into our sales copy…

Who is the customer avatar? Entrepreneurs who want to drive a consistent flow of traffic to their sales funnels…

What are they afraid of? Failing to sustain the businesses they’ve built.

What do they desire? To consistently drive high-quality traffic to their sales funnels.

How will our offer help them? By revealing tested and proven secrets for driving a consistent flow of high-quality traffic to any website.

Is there proof? Yes! The book is blowing marketer’s minds all over the globe.

Is the offer really worth it? With all of these bonuses, how could you resist?

Why should that person take action right now? Because we only printed a few thousands copies of the book and it’s selling fast.

Now you can see how answering those questions will help you craft compelling sales copy.

Go to the full page and check out the entire flow for yourself — this will give you a good idea of how we take the visitor on a journey toward conversion.

And take the time needed to answer those questions for your own sales funnel or gather that information from your client.

It’ll be worth the few extra hours of effort.

And if there’s no clear and compelling answer to those questions, then something is wrong — the offer needs tweaking.

The Best Sales Funnel Copy is Clear & Compelling

Most people consider writing to be an art form.

And so there’s a temptation when copywriting to try and be creative and interesting — to do stuff that’s never been done before for the sake of novelty.

If you’re writing a fiction book, fine… go for it.

But when writing sales copy, the only goal is results.

There’s no need to have perfect grammar, or to be extremely creative, or to write an essay that’d get an A+ at a university.

Focus on just two things.

1. Be Clear
2. Be Compelling

When all else fails, just focus on clarity — tell the person what they’re going to get and why it’s awesome, explain why they need it, why they need to take action now, and why the offer is a no-brainer.

If you do that — and if you avoid fluff — then you can’t fail.

Knocking Down the BIG Domino

People come to sales funnels with a lot of objections.

And so before we dive into the how-to advice for writing for every stage of the sales funnel (I’ll show you how to write for ads, landing pages, OTO pages, downsells, VSLs, webinars, and follow-up funnels)…

Let’s take a moment to talk about how you can knock down all the objections a person has with a single stroke.

By knocking down what we call “the big domino”, you can knock down all the other dominoes.

Check out the video to learn about how this works…

Copywriting for Each Stage of the Sales Funnel

Let’s get into it.

Here’s advice (with examples) on how to write clear and compelling copy for every step of a sales funnel.

If you’ve gathered critical information and identified the “big domino” that you need to knock down, then this process should be relatively simple.

Great preparation is the foundation of great copy.

So only move forward with writing once you feel that you completely…

• Understand the offer and why it’s compelling
• Understand the customer avatar and why they need what’s being offered

1. Copywriting for Advertisements

A sales funnel is made up of steps — also known as micro conversions.

The first step is traffic.

You have to get people to click on some sort of advertisement to get them to your sales funnel.

How do you do that?

Now is a good time to point out a philosophical truth of copywriting… 

What you don’t say is just as important as what you do say.

Don’t try to write a full sales page inside of your advertisement. Your only goal at this point is to build curiosity so that people are compelled to click.

Check out this advertisement from Natalie Hodson…

She’s just knocking down the big domino here — the belief that people think they can’t make money with ebooks and online courses.

Then she’s giving them a link to a landing page with more information.

The process here is simple…

• Grab their attention
• Make them curious about what you’re offering

Here’s a great email I received from Bryan Ward that absolutely nails that process…

He doesn’t even tell you what you’re about to get!

He just tells you the benefits of what you’re about to get… how it’s going to change your life for the better.

And curiosity does the rest of the work. If you want those benefits, then you’ve got to click and find out more.

That’s the process.

It’s simple and wildly effective.

As a bonus tip — even though we’re talking about copywriting — don’t forget that video content is extremely effective at catching people’s attention, especially in advertisements.

2. Copywriting for Landing Pages

After someone clicks on your advertisement, they’ll arrive at your landing page.

This is the primary sales page in any sales funnel… and it’s where most of the copywriting magic happens.

Fortunately, there’s a pretty simple process for crafting compelling copy — we call it “Hook, Story, Offer”.

Here’s how it works…

Now let’s look at an example of this process on a landing page.

This comes from our Expert Secrets sales funnel.

Hook — You hook the person with an irresistible headline that builds curiosity and makes them want to keep reading.

Story — Then you tell a story that relates to the challenges and struggles your target market is going through. You show them that you understand where they’re coming from. You also tell them how you came about some life-changing information.

Offer — Finally, you reveal the solution you discovered (your products or services) and offer it to the visitor for an irresistible deal.

That’s the basics.

Of course, there’s a lot of nuances here. What story should you tell? What objections should you address?

Here’s a checklist to help…

• Hook
  • Do you hook the visitor at the beginning?
  • Is the hook relevant to the offer?
  • Will it be compelling to the target market?
• Story
  • Do you empathize with the visitor’s challenges?
  • Do you explain how you stumbled across life-changing information?
  • Do you explain why/how this information can help the visitor, too?
  • Do you provide proof that it really works?
• Offer
  • Will the offer be irresistible to the target market?
  • Does the offer far outweigh the cost?
  • Do you create urgency or scarcity?
  • Do you use risk reversal?
  • Is the offer a no-brainer?

Make sure you hit every bullet as you’re writing copy for your landing page.

Then move on to the next step.

 3. Copywriting for OTO Pages

To be clear, some sales funnels might not include an OTO page — they might go straight from the landing page to the checkout process or the “Thank You” page.

But OTO pages are very effective for increasing the average order value of a sales funnel.

OTO stands for One Time Offer — it’s an urgency-laden upsell with wicked high-conversion rates.

And this page appears right after someone has entered their shipping and payment information and clicked through on the landing page.

Here’s an example of what it looks like…

The copywriting for these pages is very simple and systematic.

Here’s the gist…

• Headline — This should catch the person’s attention with something like “Wait” or “Real Quick!” and then indicate that you’re making them a “One Time Offer”. This creates urgency and scarcity, which increases the conversion rate.
• Copy — The copy here shouldn’t be super long, just a couple of heavy-hitting paragraphs that describe what the offer is and why it’s awesome.
• CTA — The call to action should say something like “Yes! Add [product] to my order for $XX” to ensure that they know what they’re doing.

The offer itself should be heavily discounted and extremely appealing. If it is, then writing copy for the OTO page will be easy as pie.

4. Copywriting for Downsells

Downsells are another optional step within your sales funnel.

A downsell pops up when someone rejects your OTO and offers an even better deal — sometimes it’ll be a payment plan, a steeper discount, or an added bonus.

Here’s an example from Khris Digital…

The copy for a downsell is also very simple.

It should be short, sweet, and to the point. It should quickly make clear what the additional benefit you’re offering is.

Here’s the gist…

• Headline — Something that catches the person’s attention like “Stop!” or “Okay! But seriously” and then something to point out that you’re making them an even better offer… “I don’t want you to miss out, so here’s my final offer.”
• Reiterate Value — Reiterate the value of what they’ll get by accepting the OTO offer. And then slam dunk that value by making them an even BETTER offer.
• CTA — This should be something like, “Alright! Let’s do it!” or “Yes! I’m in!”

5. Copywriting for Follow-Up Funnels

Okay.

We’ve talked about copywriting for advertisements, landing pages, and OTO pages… what’s next?

Other than the “Thank You” page, which is super easy, there’s only really one thing left.

The follow-up funnel.

A follow-up funnel refers to the emails that get triggered when someone either converts or abandons their cart before converting.

If you’re using a lead-gen sales funnel, then we recommend sending the Soap Opera Sequence to turn those new leads into customers within just 5-7 days.

Check out the video to see how that works…

And if you’re building a sales funnel that turns people into paying customers, then you’ll want to create a follow-up funnel for people who…

• Convert
• Abandon

People who convert can receive a “Thank You” as well as your Soap Opera Sequence if they’re a new customer. You might also consider sending them an upsell in a week or so.

For people who abandon before converting, send them a cart abandonment email that looks something like this…

Simple, yeah?

You’re just reminding them of what they left in their cart and giving them another opportunity to go finish their purchase.

(You can even add an additional discount to further incentivize them)

We also recommend sending a daily email to your entire list — we call these Seinfeld Emails. Here’s an introduction to how they work and how to write them (they only take like 5 minutes each morning)…

6. Copywriting for Webinars

Copywriting for webinars is a very important skill to learn for mastering sales funnels.

But it’s also pretty involved.

And the details go beyond the scope of what we’re talking about here.

So if you want to learn how to write awesome VSLs and/or webinars, click here to get our Perfect Webinar Secrets for just $7.

Final Thoughts

Copywriting is one of the most important skill sets to learn if you want to be successful in the digital world.

If you can write words that get people to take action… there’s no telling how far you’ll climb.

The sky’s the limit.

And this guide has given you a starting place. You should now understand how to create clear and compelling copy for sales funnels.

To continue your education, click the link below.

Want to Become a Ninja Copywriter? 

Get Your FREE Copy of “Copywriting Secrets” Now!