The alarm blares. It’s 4:30 am. Outside? Pitch black. And everyone in the house is still sound asleep. But the incessant sound forces you to wake up. Your eyes dart open to another day. Another dollar. Another fire to put out. Less money and more problems. You wonder when it will end. Maybe never? You desperately want to go back to sleep but you know you can’t. You have to wake up. There’s just no other choice. No other options. But you chose this life. It didn’t choose you.
At this point, you’re used to it all. That’s because you’re an entrepreneur. Hard work is ingrained in you. It’s part of every fiber of your being. You’re not afraid to work hard. Nope. Not whatsoever. But we all know that making more money or growing your business isn’t just about hard work. It’s not just about putting in that sweat equity. Nope. It’s about way more than that. It’s about leverage. And it’s about finding the right tools and the right people to help catapult you to success. Tools like marketing funnels that are designed to capture and convert leads like clockwork.
Why Marketing Funnels Work
Marketing funnels are well-oiled virtual machines. They help you make more money and grow your business fast. Very fast. But most don’t know what they are. They have no idea what marketing funnels are capable of. Nope. They’ve never heard of marketing funnels. So what are they? Marketing funnels offer a predefined path for prospects to take. They move people from cold and unaware of who you are, to hot and ready to buy whatever you’re peddling.
Yes, marketing funnels are that important. They’re the foundation of the world’s most successful businesses. Think about it this way. The world’s biggest businesses are like icebergs. You can only see a small portion of them when you’re above water. But when you dive deep into the sea you can see that iceberg stretching thousands of feet down. It’s colossal. Massive. That’s because what you see at sea level is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Success runs far deeper than that.
What are Marketing Funnels?
Marketing funnels are sometimes called sales funnels. Some even call them business funnels, customer funnels or purchase funnels. All of them refer to the same concept and the same principles. Marketing funnels are designed to help move prospects across numerous stages. Those stages are designed to take them from being completely unaware of who you are, to the highest possible awareness.
Marketing funnels aren’t new; they actually date back quite a while. However, they have recently grown in popularity thanks to one man. He has led the revolution into marketing funnels and has single-handedly rendered websites obsolete. After all, websites are a thing of the past. If you’re trying to grow your business with a website, then you’re approaching things the wrong way. Websites offer too many choices and have too many things going on. Marketing funnels take a different approach; they are laser-focused.
Why Marketing Funnels?
Marketing funnels guide the prospect toward a single intended action. It has one goal in mind. That’s it. And it’s because of that singular focus that marketing funnels can explode a business quite literally overnight. Just take a look at some of the Two Comma Club Award winners. Two Comma Club awards are given to people who’ve made over a million dollars with a single marketing funnel in a given year. But wait, there’s more. Two Comma Club X awards are given to those with a marketing funnel that’s made over $10 million in a given year.
Think about that for a moment. What would a million-dollar marketing funnel do for your business right now? What about a ten-million-dollar funnel? Could it change the course or trajectory of your business? Of course it can. Marketing funnels are that powerful because they work. They tap into the underlying psychology that drives us as human beings. They’re not based on one-off transactions. They’re designed to foster and develop relationships with prospects. To invoke emotions. Solve problems. And convey trust.
1. Lead Magnet Funnel
Every business needs leads. Every last one of them. Not a single business can tell you that they don’t want more leads. After all, leads are at the very heart of a successful company. Without leads, you can’t have sales. And without sales, you can’t increase your revenue or grow your business. That much is pretty clear, right? That’s why a lead magnet funnel is one of the most vital marketing funnels you could ever build. And if you don’t have a marketing funnel designed to capture leads, then every day will feel like a struggle.
So what is a lead magnet? A lead magnet is one type of lead generation funnel. Lead magnets are used to target specific customers based on the problem they’re experiencing. The lead magnet offers a solution to the problem. It allows prospects to solve at least part of the problem. Maybe not the whole problem. And lead magnets are frequently used in the first stage of a marketing funnel. That stage is where a prospect is problem-aware. That means they’re aware of the problem they’re experiencing.
Lead magnet funnels are powerful because they deliver real value. And when you deliver value in the form of a solution to a prospect, you create authority. It also creates reciprocity. Reciprocity is simply the feeling of indebtedness that a person feels to another who gave them value. When you give someone value they will naturally feel indebted to you. That’s just the way human beings work. That’s why a lead magnet funnel should be the first marketing funnel you build for your business.
Squeeze Pages
Lead magnet funnels can take on a few different forms. The first form is called a squeeze page. A squeeze page typically asks for a prospect’s contact details. In exchange, it offers the lead magnet. The lead magnet is sent via email after the prospect provides their information. It’s a direct exchange. And squeeze pages are very simple in nature. They usually have a headline, an image, a small description, and a call-to-action button. The button is usually designed to submit the form with the contact details.
Reverse Squeeze Pages
Another type of funnel you can use for a lead magnet is a reverse squeeze page funnel. Reverse squeeze pages are designed to deliver the value first and then take the contact details. This works best with long-form videos that help establish authority and invoke emotion. It establishes trust and creates reciprocity on the front end. All of that happens long before you ever ask for contact information.
So why use a reverse squeeze page rather than a squeeze page? In some cases, it’s more effective. Although conversions are lower, the conversions that do happen often result in a much higher quality lead. If you sell premium products or services this is an effective way to generate leads. You won’t get as many leads as you would with a typical squeeze page funnel. But you will get much higher quality leads than you would elsewhere.
2. Survey Funnel
Surveys are powerful marketing funnels because they rely on the principle of micro-commitments. When a prospect answers a survey question they make a very small micro-commitment. As they continue answering questions they commit further. At the end, they’re asked for contact details to share the survey results with them. The reason why they provide it is not just to discover the results of the survey. They’re following the Law of Consistency. The Law of Consistency states that people stay aligned with their prior actions and beliefs.
Typically, without a sales funnel builder, surveys like this might be difficult to create. They would normally require web development skills and coding. That would include setting up a server, creating the hosting account, and arranging all the code to make it work. You would connect that to a database, an email provider, and so on. Luckily you no longer need to do all of that. You can simply launch a premade survey funnel template and use a drag-and-drop editor to arrange the entire thing. And it requires zero coding skills.
Surveys are followed up with email marketing. Once that person is on your email list you can communicate with them. That’s the beauty of survey funnels. They offer a low-friction method for acquiring a contact. And they allow you to segment your list. If you have a specific question where the answer helps you categorize the prospect into one list or another you can better communicate with them. You can better understand their problem and create an email sequence that talks more directly to them. This is very powerful in email marketing.
3. Application Funnel
An application funnel allows you to accept an application before jumping on a phone call with a prospect. This allows you to weed out those who want to waste your time from those who are qualified to speak to you. When you sell a high-ticket service or a premium product, this type of marketing funnel can propel your business forward. Why? Because it flips the script on prospects. It forces them to self-qualify. And that’s important in terms of selling products and services at the higher end of the market.
Application funnels can also be used to grow coaching services, masterminds, and more. If your business falls into any of these categories then consider setting up an application funnel using one of these premade sales funnel templates. This allows you to get up and running very quickly. If you don’t already have a sales funnel builder then consider using one. This takes all the tech work out of the process. There’s no need for coding or web development. It all happens through a simple user interface.
Application funnels typically have a reverse squeeze page at the front. This helps create a higher-quality lead. That’s because you’re delivering value upfront instead of asking for the contact information first. Once they proceed, they move to the actual application page where they fill out the answers to your questions. Those questions should be designed to help you filter and weed out those who may not fit your ideal customer profile.
4. Tripwire Funnel
Everyone knows what tripwires are. In real life, a tripwire is tripped when an event occurs. The tripwire is usually in the form of an alarm. It activates a security measure. However, in the marketing funnel world, a tripwire is a little bit different. Tripwires are designed to help reduce the perceived risk a customer has when purchasing a product. It also helps to reinforce the Law of Consistency with small micro-commitments. This is very similar to the psychology behind survey funnels.
This type of marketing funnel is actually called a two-step tripwire funnel. That’s because there are two steps. The first step is the tripwire. It’s a low-ticket offer that packs a lot of value. In the first step, they fill out basic details like contact info. Once they move to the next step that information is saved as a lead. Meaning that if they don’t fill out the payment details in step two then you haven’t lost that contact. You can now communicate with them if they abandon the page.
How it Works
Tripwire funnels work great not just because it’s a low-ticket offer. Tripwires typically have things like order form bumps. An order form bump is a little checkbox you can check to add another product to the checkout experience. For example, in a free-plus-shipping funnel where it’s a free book and they just cover the shipping, the order form bump might be the audiobook version. However, the real magic happens once they move to the next step.
Marketing funnels like this one have what are called OTO pages. That stands for one-time offers. Some call these upsells. But when you call them an OTO then something interesting happens. It creates scarcity. Meaning that the customer will never see that offer again. For example, if they have to pay $14.97 for shipping out a free book, $37 might be the audiobook price in the order form bump, and the OTO might be a $97 home study course.
However, you can do multiple OTOs in the same funnel. Plus, if they decline an OTO, you can present a different offer in the form of a down-sell. The down-sell is also an OTO but the offer changes. It could be something less expensive or that solves a different part of the problem they’re experiencing. This allows you to boost your average cart value. And that’s what makes marketing funnels like this so powerful.
5. Webinar Funnel
Years ago, before webinars existed there were teleseminars. You called into a teleseminar. And you listened to a speaker give a presentation. At the end, you were invited to buy the thing they were peddling. Today, teleseminars are a thing of the past. And now webinars are front and center. But what is a webinar and what do you use it for? Webinars are presentations that you give to a group of people all revolving around one important statement.
Webinars are powerful because they help shift a prospect’s false beliefs. Look, we all harbor false beliefs about why something won’t work out for us. We’ve all had experiences in the past. And those experiences have shaped how we look at things. And the webinar is designed to reshape those beliefs that hold us back from buying. It’s done by replacing the stories we tell ourselves about why something won’t work out, with stories of situations where it did work out.
Webinars Break False Beliefs
For example, webinars help break false beliefs about a particular product. Let’s say that you don’t believe SEO works because you’ve had bad experiences with it. A webinar is designed to show how it works (and it really does work by the way). Okay, let’s say you now believe SEO works, maybe you don’t believe it will work for you. Maybe you’re not capable of pulling it off. Well, that’s the next false belief to shatter. Then, maybe you think it works and that it could work for you, but you just don’t have the time or the money to pull it off. Once again, a webinar is designed to shatter that false belief.
While this might seem complicated from the outside looking in, it’s not. There’s a formula for doing this and you can read about it in this book. This is by far one of the most powerful marketing funnels you could build for your business. Not only to make more money. But to really grow your business by leaps and bounds. There’s a formula for creating a Perfect Webinar. It’s not rocket science. It just takes a willingness to try, fail, and then keep trying again and again until you figure it out.