For as important as having an effective sales funnel process is, the how-to is often shrouded in mystery.
How do you find your target market? How do you effectively introduce them to your brand? How do you transition people from leads to customers? How do you ascend people up your value ladder?
Those are just a few of the questions that we’re going to answer in this article.
But first, let’s talk about what the sales funnel process actually is…
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What is the Sales Funnel Process?
In official terms, the sales funnel process is a series of steps that you take a potential customer through in order to turn them into a paying customer. It starts with introducing people to your brand, persuading them to enter your ecosystem and become a lead, turning those people into paying customers, and finally ascending them up your value ladder.
But there are a lot of little steps in between.
You’ve got to build trust, establish your expertise, provide real value, and create very compelling messaging.
Here’s what this looks like…
At ClickFunnels, our software and training help our members with every part of the sales funnel — from driving traffic and generating leads to acquiring customers and upselling buyers.
In fact, we serve over 100,000 entrepreneurs around the world, many of which have built 7- or 8-figure businesses from scratch.
So we know a thing or two about the sales funnel process. 🙂
And we’re going to use the above graphic as our guide for walking you through 8 tips for building an effective sales funnel process for your business.
We’ll talk about lead capture, the sales process, and upselling/ascending your customers.
Let’s dive in!
Lead Capture
The first step of your sales funnel process is all about finding your dream customers and persuading those people to enter your ecosystem (i.e. join your email list).
Because once those people are on your email list, you can market to them without paying to reach them.
That’s how you build a sustainable long-term business — with your own audience of subscribers and buyers that you can tap into any time without worrying about a gatekeeper.
Here’s how to do it.
1. Focus On Your Dream Customers
When we talk about who we serve here at ClickFunnels, we prefer the term “dream customers” over “target market” or “ideal market”.
We think that term is more specific about who you really want to serve.
It forces you to answer the question, who do you really want to serve? Who do you imagine as being your best, most perfect customer?
You could also call this your customer avatar.
Whatever you call it, this is the imaginary person who you serve — but they should feel as real as possible to your team.
Start broad by determining their demographic. How old are they? How much money do they make? Are they married? Do they have kids?
Then get specific. What do they worry about when they go to bed at night? What are their ambitions and passions? What is their self-talk like?
The better that you understand your dream customers, the easier it’ll be to find them and market to them in a compelling manner.
So spend a bit of time thinking about this.
Here’s a great video that will help you define your target market more clearly. Don’t move forward until you’ve completely nailed this step in the process.
2. Find Your Tribe
Now that you’ve got a clear idea of who you serve, it’s time to go out and find your dream customers.
Fortunately, the internet makes this super easy.
Every Facebook Group, YouTube Channel, Subreddit, Instagram Influencer, and newsletter has a niche — you’ve just got to find the congregations that serve your niche, the places where your dream customers are all hanging out.
Maybe, for instance, my dream customers are freelance copywriters. I can easily do a Google search for “freelance copywriter Facebook groups” and find lots of lists…
I could do the same thing with…
- Forums
- Instagram Influencers
- Podcasts
- Newsletters
- Blogs
- YouTube Channels
I’d spend a few hours researching and making a list of all of the different congregations related to freelance copywriters.
This is called the Dream 100 process.
Once I have this list, I can then either work my way in or buy my way into each congregation and promote my front-end offer.
Here’s the difference…
- Work Your Way In — This is all about building authentic relationships with key decision-makers and turning those people into fans of your products or services so that they’ll promote them to their audience.
- Buy Your Way In — This is all about paying to get publicity. That includes ads, sponsorships, and paid influencer marketing.
You can learn about the detailed Dream 100 “infiltration” process in Russell’s bestselling book, Traffic Secrets — get a free copy with that link!
But how are you going to draw those people into your ecosystem?
That’s the next tip.
3. Cast Your Net
I don’t want to lose your attention here.
Because this is one of the most important parts of your sales funnel process.
Once you’ve infiltrated your Dream 100 congregations, you need to cast your net and try to catch some dream customers — this is the part where you build your email list and generate leads.
But… how?
Well, you need to offer those people something really exciting in return for their email address. This is called your “bait”, or your lead magnet, or your front-end offer.
Here’s an example of what this looks like…
You’ll also probably see quite a few lead magnets on this page you’re on — maybe on the sidebar, within this blog post, or even as an exit-intent pop-up.
These assets are meant to attract a target market and snag their email address.
That’s the same thing you’ll be doing when you infiltrate your Dream 100 congregations.
You just have to answer the following question: what are you going to offer your dream customers for free that will be irresistible and compelling?
The better your offer, the more leads you’ll generate.
So make it really good.
If you want to learn how to create an awesome lead magnet for your business, check out our detailed lead magnet guide over here.
Sales Process
With the above process, you will have generated some high-quality leads.
You’ll be growing your email list and providing real value for your dream customers all at the same time.
But how do you turn those leads into paying customers?
They’ve downloaded a free resource… but that’s a wingspan away from buying your products. That’s what this part of the sales funnel process is all about.
4. Tell Your Story
Someone has downloaded your free lead magnet.
But that’s still only their first interaction with your brand. They’re still testing out the waters and seeing if they can trust you.
At this point, telling your story — detailing where you came from, how you got started with your business, and why you want to help — is an extremely powerful way to build rapport with your new audience.
How do you do it?
By creating a Soap Opera Sequence.
This is a series of 5-7 emails that are crafted to tell your story and drive people toward becoming customers. These emails should trigger right after someone signs up for your email list.
Here’s the high-level overview of what’s inside these emails…
- Set The Stage — This is where you introduce yourself, build a bit of rapport, and tell people what they can expect in your upcoming emails. You also want to build some anticipation.
- High Drama → Backstory → Wall — This is where you capture them with a high-drama moment, tell them a bit of backstory, and then reveal the wall you came up against.
- Epiphany → The One Thing — This is where you reveal your big epiphany, how you came to the realization that changed everything.
- Hidden Benefits — This is where you’re going to talk about the benefits of your product that your target market probably isn’t even thinking about… the hidden benefits.
- Urgency CTA — This is where you’ll create urgency or scarcity to push your most stubborn readers over the edge.
To see detailed examples of this, get a free copy of Russell’s bestselling book, DotCom Secrets by clicking here.
Here’s a video that will help you craft your Soap Opera emails…
5. Build Your Funnel
You need to create a Soap Opera Sequence to tell your story, build rapport, and drive people toward buying their first product or service with your business.
But you might be wondering…
Where do I drive them to?
The answer is that you should drive them toward a sales funnel that sells your front-end or mid-tier paid product.
At ClickFunnels, for instance, we have our One Funnel Away product which would fit the bill and costs $100.
It’s up to you which product you want to try and sell to people first.
But we recommend driving people toward the next natural step in your value ladder — whatever step comes right after the bait.
We’ll talk more about this value ladder a bit later.
For now, you need to build your sales funnel — and there are a lot of different types of funnels you could build.
But to start we recommend driving people toward a Tripwire Funnel…
…Video Letter Sales Funnel…
…Or Webinar Sales Funnel…
You can learn more about each of these types of sales funnels (and how to build them) by checking out our guide over here.
You’ll also want to have a free ClickFunnels account to get started.
This will give you the high-converting asset you need to turn your fresh new leads into paying customers.
6. Stay in Touch
Once someone has finished going through a soap opera sequence… what’s next?
Whether they buy or not, you shouldn’t stop emailing them.
After all, just because someone didn’t buy five days after they signed up for your email list certainly doesn’t mean they’ll never buy.
49% of businesses say that most of their leads require “long cycle” nurturing, according to Ascend2
So it’s worth your time to keep emailing people who’ve bought before… and people who’ve never bought.
But… what do you send?
Daily Seinfeld emails — check out the video below!
Basically, Seinfeld emails are just daily emails that catch the recipient’s attention, tell a story, and make an offer relevant to the story that was told.
These can be paid offers or free offers — there should be a healthy mix of both.
Now you might be nervous about emailing every day, but you could use the same strategy and email just a few times a week or even once a week.
The important thing is to stay in contact with your entire list — to continue building authority, and to continue making them offers.
Once you get in the habit, writing these emails should just take 15 minutes or so every morning — you can use the hook-story-offer format to write them…
- Hook — Get the recipient’s attention with a curiosity-inducing subject line.
- Story — Tell a compelling and interesting story.
- Offer — Offer a product or service that’s related to the story you told.
Here’s an example…
Russell Brunson (and many other online marketers) have found that you can make about $1 per subscriber per month… and that number increases when you email more often.
Seinfeld emails are a great way to nurture your leads, build trust, and keep your email list actively buying.
You can learn more about Seinfeld emails in Russell Brunson’s bestselling book, DotCom Secrets ← use that link to get it for free.
Upsell/Ascend
You’re generating leads. You’re turning those leads into customers.
Now it’s all about ascending people up your value ladder.
What do we mean?
Unless you only offer one product or service, your business is likely full of various offers at different price points and value levels. Your goal is to drive people up that value ladder to spend more money with your business and also get more value from your products.
Here’s how to do that.
7. Serve Your Market
You’re in business to make money.
But do you know the best way to make money as a business owner or marketer?
To serve your dream customers with immense value relentlessly.
I once spoke with the founder of REISift, a software company that serves real estate investors and has grown to 7-figures in just a few years, and he told me, “Business is just three things: creating great products, providing excellent support, and serving the customer always.”
He’s right.
And you shouldn’t lose sight of that.
Sometimes, serving your market will mean selling them your products — other times it will mean giving them stuff for free.
Heck, it might even mean sending them a quiz to ask them what they want to buy from you.
Yes. You’re building a business and you need to make money.
But don’t forget that we’re all just people. If you don’t lose sight of serving your target market to the best of your ability, then you’re going to grow far beyond your competitors.
And the people who bought from you once… will buy from you again and again.
8. Ascend Buyers Up the Value Ladder
No one will spend more money with your business than existing customers.
The most successful businesses are always acquiring new customers… yes. But they’re also working hard to retain their existing customers and keep providing new products and services to those same customers.
To ascend people up your own value ladder, you’ll need to understand what your value ladder looks like…
Try to outline what the steps on your value ladder are.
Once you’ve done that, you can segment people on your email list based on where they sit in your value ladder — which will then allow you to send specific emails and offers to those groups of people pushing them toward the next natural step.
You can use Seinfeld Emails and Soap Opera Sequences to ascend your existing customers up the value ladder (those methods are discussed in tips 4 and 6 of this article).
Final Thoughts
So there you have it! 8 tips to create an effective sales funnel process.
If you follow these tips, you’ll be well on your way to turning leads into customers and customers into repeat buyers.
Remember to focus on serving your market and ascending them up your value ladder, and you’ll be successful in no time!
Click below to get our software for free and start building your high-converting sales funnels right away!