You’re in the right place.
Not just because we’re going to talk about the basics of sales funnels, but because that’s what you want to learn about.
Sales funnels are by far the most powerful method for generating more traffic, more leads, and more sales — that’s why we build sales funnels for a living!
According to Salesforce, for instance, 68% of companies have not identified or attempted to measure a sales funnel, and the same survey showed that 79% of marketing leads are never converted into sales.
That’s probably not a coincidence.
Understanding sales funnels means understanding your customers, it means understanding how they interact with your brand, and it means being able to systematically guide people from visiting your website to buying your products or services.
And this guide is going to give you a no-nonsense rundown of the 9 most important concepts related to sales funnels.
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1. A.I.D.A.
A.I.D.A. is a popular sales funnel acronym that stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action.
It provides an idealized high-level overview of the steps that every person takes on their way to learning about and buying from a new brand.
First comes awareness. This is where your target market learns that your brand exists. They stumble across your website, they hear about your company from a friend, or they see an ad on Facebook.
The next step, interest,is exactly what it sounds like — the person becomes interested in your brand and its products or services. That is, they want to learn more. They’re not ready to buy yet… but they’re doing research.
During the person’s research — whether it’s thorough or minimal — they will make a decision, not just about whether to buy or not, but also about whether they trust your brand, whether they need your products or services, and whether the price is worth it. This is arguably the most important step of the entire sales funnel process and, fortunately, the one that you can have the most influence over by crafting a compelling sales funnel.
And finally, the person will take action (or not). That means buying, signing up, or opting in.
Of course, this sales funnel format is idealized — most people aren’t going to travel cleanly and directly from awareness to action… they’re going to take a lot of detours.
According to Pam Moore, for instance, it takes an average of 5-7 impressions before people will even remember your brand (awareness). And a whopping 80% of sales are made during the follow-up process — from the 5th to 12th contact (somewhere in the realm of decision/action).
Despite its imprecision, this is still a critical concept for understanding sales funnels — it illustrates how people make the journey from visitor to a buyer.
2. Target Market
Target market refers to the people that a given business aims to serve.
At ClickFunnels, for instance, we serve entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses and change the world — we do that by helping them build high-converting sales funnels.
Who do you serve?
And why is that such an important question?
It’s an important question because you don’t serve everyone — your products/services, no matter how far-reaching, will only appeal to a certain group of people (this is even true for big brands like Apple, Microsoft, and Disney).
And obviously, you don’t want to spend your marketing and advertising budget reaching the wrong people.
That’s why it’s important to identify your target market — really, this is the first step in creating a sales funnel… knowing who you’re going to target.
You can use the above graphic to outline your customer avatar (just another term for “target market”).
Also, try to answer some of the following questions…
- What does your target market want?
- What are they afraid of?
- What challenges are they facing?
- What obstacles will keep them from working with you?
- How can you help them?
The better that you understand your target market, the easier it’ll be to craft a sales funnel that’s compelling to the right people.
3. Value Ladder
A value ladder is a more specific version of the sales funnel — it illustrates how your specific business is going to take people from one step to the next.
Here’s what it looks like…
On each step, we’re going to place an “offer” — something that’s intended to drive your target market to take action. Each offer will ascend in value and price until we reach the pinnacle of how you can serve your target market.
Meanwhile, maybe you have some sort of continuity program (bottom arrows and dollar signs) that are generating a consistent monthly income for your business.
Here’s what a value ladder could look like for a dentist…
And here’s what one of our value ladders looked like for our DotCom Secrets sales funnel…
The first step on the value ladder is the bait — the high-value cheap or free thing that draws people in. Then each step increases in value and price, steadily drawing people deeper and deeper into your ecosystem.
One business can have different value ladders for different offers — or new businesses might just start by having one value ladder.
Either way, the value ladder is a useful tool for outlining how you’ll draw new customers into your ecosystem and keep them buying long after their first conversion.
4. The Dream 100
At ClickFunnels, we’re obsessed with a process we call The Dream 100.
The Dream 100 is a strategy for finding your target market online and driving them to your sales funnel (i.e. generating traffic). Here’s the gist…
- Make a list of 100 places (influencers, newsletters, blogs, YouTube channels, podcasts, etc.) where your dream customers already hang out online (hence “the dream 100”).
- Promote your sales funnel in those places by either paying to play or working your way in.
As simplistic as those two steps seem, The Dream 100 is extremely powerful.
In fact, it’s the exact process that Russell Brunson used (and uses) to build his businesses (ClickFunnels included).
Check out the video above to learn more about The Dream 100 — or get yourself a free copy of Russell Brunson’s bestselling book, Traffic Secrets.
5. Lead Magnets
You may have heard the term “lead magnet” before being dropped amongst your marketing friends.
A lead magnet is some sort of bribe to get your target market’s contact information (name, email address, phone number, etc.).
Email address is usually your biggest priority… but the contact information you try to get will be determined by your brand, what you’re offering, and who you’re trying to attract (maybe your process requires sales calls, for instance).
Okay…
But what about this bribe we mentioned?
Your bribe or lead magnet is the thing you’re going to offer people in order to get their contact information — this could be a free downloadable resource, a mini-course, a free consultation, or something else.
This is super common in the online world.
Here’s an example…
And another…
And another…
They’re common because they’re effective.
Here are the steps…
- Figure out what your target market wants most right now
- Create a free resource to help them with that
- Add this to the beginning of your sales funnel
Once you’ve used a lead magnet to generate high-quality leads, you can follow up with those people and offer additional products and services.
6. Upsells & Downsells
Now to be clear, there seem to be two different ways of thinking about the sales funnel.
The first is as we described in A.I.D.A. — it’s the high-level journey that people take from learning about your business to buying from your business.
That sales funnel is useful ideologically, but not practically.
The second — and how we prefer to think about sales funnels at ClickFunnels — is much more practical. It’s simply a series of pages that are crafted to guide people toward taking one very specific action (opting in, registering, buying, etc).
And there are different sales funnels for different things — depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.
Our Tripwire Sales Funnel, for instance, is built to turn cold traffic into paying customers.
With that distinction in mind, we can now discuss some practical concepts for increasing the conversion rate of these page-by-page sales funnels.
Two concepts, in particular…
- Upsells
- Downsells
Upsells are pages within sales funnels that attempt to sell the visitor something in addition to what they came here for — this usually pops up after they’ve already entered their shipping and payment information. Here’s an example of what it looks like…
These are extremely effective for increasing the average order value on a sales funnel.
Downsells happen after an upsell and are intended to give naysayers one more chance to opt-in to the upsell (but usually at a greater discount).
Here’s an example from the same sales funnel…
Downsells allow you to capture additional conversions from people who initially said “no” to your upsell — it’s like you’re negotiating effectively… but without any of the uncomfortable eye contact.
7. Follow-Up Funnels
Earlier we mentioned that 80% of sales — industry-wide — occur during the follow-up process.
This means that you’re missing out on a lot of revenue if you don’t have a clear-cut and systematic process of following up with your leads.
Indeed, follow-up is a critical part of any sales funnel.
So… how do you follow up effectively?
The answer — as always — is to create a system… or what we like to call a follow-up funnel.
Follow-up funnels are very simple. They consist of certain emails getting triggered after people take certain actions (purchasing, abandoning their cart, opting in, etc).
In fact, here are 4 follow-up funnels that every business should have in place…
- For New Leads — This follow-up funnels is for introducing new leads to your brand and, over 5-7 days, trying to convince them to make their first purchase. We recommend using the Soap Opera Sequence, which you can learn more about in Russell Brunson’s book, DotCom Secrets.
- For New Customers — New customers should be welcomed into your tribe and upsold toward new products/services after a few weeks. That’s what this sequence is for.
- For Abandonment — When people abandon their cart without buying, send a few emails trying to get them to finish their purchase. You’ll be surprised at how many people do.
- Ongoing — We also recommend getting in the habit of sending daily or weekly emails consistently so that your brand stays top-of-mind and so that people keep buying.
You can build an email list and create follow-up funnels using ClickFunnels!
8. Order Bumps
Similar to upsells and downsells, order bumps are another super practical tactic for increasing the average value of each order.
But rather than having their own dedicated page, order bumps are placed right on the final checkout page.
Here’s what that looks like…
Of course, the order bump offer should be complementary to whatever it is that the person is already purchasing — and it should only take a single click to add it to their order.
Order bumps are great because they’re effective and easy to add to any sales funnel.
9. Hook, Story, Offer
So far we’ve spent a lot of time talking about different strategies and tactics related to sales funnels — how to increase average order value, how to drive traffic, how to create a follow-up process.
But the effectiveness of all of these strategies hinges on something we haven’t discussed…
The words that you use.
For marketing, the words you use — or the copy — determines everything. It determines whether people trust you or not and whether they buy or not.
So how do you write compelling copy even if you’re not a professional copywriter?
We’re firm believers in the “Hook, Story, Offer” format. Here’s how it works (with an example)…
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.
Offer — Finally, you reveal the solution you discovered (your products or services) and offer it to the visitor for an irresistible deal.
It really is that simple.
But if you want to learn more about copywriting, then get yourself a free copy of Jim Edwards book, Copywriting Secrets — it’s awesome and you’ll be writing killer copy in no time.
Final Thoughts
Sales funnels are the best way to generate leads and make sales.
Which means they’re also the best way to grow your business.
And now you’ve learned the most important concepts about sales funnels to be able to start building your own — which you can do for free with ClickFunnels!
You’ve learned about A.I.D.A., the value ladder, upsells and downsells, order bumps, and tons more.
So pull out some paper and a pen and start outlining what your sales funnel is going to look like.
As we’re fond of saying here at ClickFunnels, you’re only one funnel away…