What Is A Marketing Funnel?

Marketing funnel. You’ve heard the term before, right? But what exactly is it? And how does it work? If you’re unclear about marketing funnels, this breakdown will help you understand what it is, how to use it, and the easiest way you can build a marketing funnel for your business fast.

When you zoom out, a marketing funnel is another name for a sales funnel . A sales funnel is somewhat like a website. Except it’s not. Imagine it like this. A website has dozens of options. Menu items. Links. Information. Products. Services. You name it, there are so many choices that it’s overwhelming.

Instead, a marketing funnel (aka a sales funnel) has one direct path forward. Meaning, you only have one choice. This leads to less overwhelm. You don’t have to add things to your cart or decide what link to click or what contact form to fill out. You have one path forward and one path only. That’s it.

Marketing funnels convert way better than websites because they have a sole objective. Meaning, marketing funnels are designed to either generate leads or make sales. And that’s it. At the end of the day, that’s what it takes to grow a business.

What Is A Marketing Funnel?

A marketing funnel (sometimes called a sales funnel or a business funnel) is a collection of pages designed to lead prospects down one specific path. That path is usually designed to generate leads or make sales. There is only one path forward. Either through a button click, a pop-up, or a form.

Marketing funnels involve multiple steps. Sometimes these are called stages. The point is that it’s designed to take a prospect through very distinct steps. These stages were first coined by advertising pioneer , E. St. Elmo Lewis, who authored the Awareness (A), Interest (I), Desire (D), and Action (A) marketing model (AIDA ).

Many have presented modified models since this concept was coined. However, AIDA best describes the stages that a prospect goes through during a purchase process. This leads them from being cold traffic (completely unaware of you) to warm traffic (interest & desire) and through to hot traffic (taking action to purchase from you).

A marketing funnel allows you to convert traffic that you control into traffic that you own. This occurs when a person opts into your list. Now you can communicate with that individual and take them from being a cold traffic visitor to a hot traffic buyer of whatever you’re selling.

When you’re spending money on ads, you control that traffic but you don’t own it. There’s also traffic you don’t control. That can come from videos, social media, and so on. The goal is always to convert traffic you control and don’t control into traffic that you own. If you’re not doing that right now, you’re leaving lots of money on the table.

How Do Funnels Work?

Marketing funnels help to capture traffic to lead them on a customer journey defined by you. The marketing funnel is not just the web pages that are connected together to create the actual marketing funnel (or sales funnel).

The funnel also includes communication in the form of emails, video, audio, and so on, once a prospect has expressed an interest in what you’re selling. This helps you build rapport and establish a relationship with the prospect.

To move a prospect through the AIDA stages, you have to be very intentional about the steps. There is a lot to consider here:

• The type of traffic you drive to grab their awareness (traffic you control + traffic you don't control)
• The freebie you give away to gain their interest (lead magnet)
• The communication you use to generate desire for the thing you're selling
• And everything that occurs up to getting them to take action.

Top Of Funnel —?Awareness & Interest

At the very top of your marketing funnel (or sales funnel) is awareness. This is both the traffic you control and the traffic you don’t control. It could come from YouTube ads (traffic you control) or it could come from YouTube organic videos, blog posts, podcast episodes and so on (traffic you don’t control).

The goal of the top of the funnel is to move people who are aware of you into the marketing funnel. This starts by creating awareness that you even exist. Then, they need to be interested enough to raise their hand so you can capture that lead. That means you need to be visible. Either you’re posting organic content or spending money on ads.

Not everyone who becomes aware of you will be interested in whatever it is that you’re peddling. People may arrive at your marketing funnel but leave without expressing an interest. But the goal of your marketing funnel is to filter the ones do express an interest down into the middle of the funnel.

Middle Of Funnel —? Desire

The middle of your marketing funnel is designed to generate desire for what you’re selling. This happens through a concept called story-selling. You use stories the right way to build rapport with the prospect.

Often, that prospect is where you were before you started your journey toward who you are today.

Much of this is covered in a book called Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson . If you’re interested in a deep dive I would highly suggest reading this book as it goes into depth about these concepts.

Bottom Of Funnel —? Action

At the bottom of your marketing funnel is action. You need to get prospects to take the intended action you want. That could be to sign up for a webinar, purchase a low-ticket product, fill out an application, etc.

There are different types of marketing funnels for different situations. In fact, there are 22 ways you can make money using marketing funnels. These are broken up into different types and objectives. You can see an entire breakdown of this right here .

To move people from the middle of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel requires a follow-up sequence. In that sequence, you build rapport and develop a relationship with the prospect. And you use story selling to create desire.

The Value Ladder

When you flip a marketing funnel sideways you get something called a value ladder. The traditional marketing funnel is focused on giving and giving until you get a sale. However, the value ladder works a bit differently.

In the value ladder, you lead with a high-value, low-risk frontend offer. This is also called bait. The bait allows you to move a prospect from the awareness stage to the interest stage.

The beauty of the value ladder is that it works to ascend customers up by providing more value each rung you go up the ladder. This allows you to generate more revenue each step up the ladder.

In this model, you stack marketing funnels together, with the top rung of each funnel eventually leading to the bottom rung of the next funnel.

Your frontend offer leads to your mid-tier offer, which leads to your backend or high-ticket offers. And all of these lead to some form of continuity offer (subscription).

What Are The Different Types Of Marketing Funnels?

The type of marketing funnel you use depends on your objective. Is your objective to generate a lead? Is it to make a sale? Is it to get a prospect to fill out an application? Make a presentation? Ascend customers to get them to spend more on your higher ticket items?

The beauty is this. Picking one objective does not mean you're pigeonholed into only that objective. Even if your objective is to generate leads, you can use a concept called funnel stacking to send offers to your other funnels designed to get prospects to make a purchase.

I. Marketing Funnels For Lead Generation

There are seven marketing funnels designed to generate leads:

1 —?Squeeze Page Funnels

Squeeze page marketing funnels are designed to create a lot of curiosity. So much so that it compels a prospect to give you their information. In short, it hooks and reels them in like a fish.

2 —?Reverse Squeeze Page Funnels

Reverse page marketing funnels work the opposite way. Instead of a promise to reveal something on the next page, the value is provided on the initial page. This leads to a much higher quality lead. This is based on a concept called reciprocity .

3 —?Lead Magnet Funnels

Lead magnets are designed to create a freebie that tackles one of the problems the prospect is facing. The lead magnet can be anything. It can be a cheatsheet, a checklist, a video, an ebook, a free trial, and so on.

4 — Bridge Page Funnels

Bridge page marketing funnels are ideal for affiliates who don't control the pages they send their traffic to. This allows you to build your email list while you run traffic to affiliate offers.

5 —?Survey Funnels

A survey funnel is a very non-invasive marketing funnel that allows you to segment your audience while delivering value based on who that prospect is. This is great for communications and sending the right offers to the right people.

6 —?Application Funnels

Application marketing funnels allow you to sell high-ticket products and services by creating enough interest to compel a prospect to fill out an application proving why they are a good fit for the thing you're selling.

7 —?Ask Campaign Funnels

Ask campaigns are marketing funnels designed to generate a lead by asking questions and gaining feedback on a topic before you create an offer. This helps you build the offer by knowing exactly what questions people have and problems they struggle with.

I. Marketing Funnels For Making Sales

There are five marketing funnels designed to generate sales.

1 —?Two-Step Tripwire

The two-step tripwire allows you to market a low-ticket frontend offer. The customer fills out the first step, which is their contact information. The second step is their billing. Even if they don't complete the purchase, you can follow up with the prospect after they complete the first step.

2 —?Video Sales Letter

Video sales letters is a marketing funnel with a video designed to sell something. Also called a VSL, these use professional copywriting frameworks like the Problem-Agitation-Solution (PAS) framework to sell.

3 —?Sales Letter

A sales letter is a marketing funnel that provides a long-form letter and uses the PAS framework, social proof, and other psychological levers to build trust and get a prospect to buy. Sales letters can be very long. Depending on the target audience, traditional sales letters may or may not convert better.

4 —?Membership

Membership funnels allow you to build continuity (subscription) income in your business. This gets people to sign up to a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual subscription where they receive fresh content regularly. This could also be a membership to a software as a service (SaaS) platform.

5 —?Daily Deal

The daily deal was popularized by sites like Groupon and Living Social. You can build a daily deal marketing funnel inside of many marketing funnel builders such as ClickFunnels .

III. Marketing Funnels For Events

There are four types of marketing funnels you can build for events.

1 —?Invisible Funnel

Invisible marketing funnels work kind of like reverse squeeze pages. You give a lot of value for free upfront. Except, with an invisible funnel, you collect credit card information but only promise to charge them if they feel like it was worth the value they received.

2 —?Product Launch

Product launch funnels are designed to deliver value over several days and to build up hype over a launch. This usually involves dripping value over a three-day period, then announcing the launch on the fourth day. The cart is usually open for a limited time, creating both scarcity and urgency.

3 —?Live Webinar

Live webinars are designed to sell mid-ticket offers. This usually ranges from about $1k to $3k. Live webinars are designed to break false beliefs a prospect has about three things: the vehicle (thing you're selling), internal beliefs (what they're capable of), and external beliefs (time/money, etc.).

4 —?Automated Webinar Funnel

Automated webinars are live webinars put on autopilot. They can run hourly, daily, weekly or on any other schedule you set.

IV. Other Types Of Marketing Funnels

There are six other types of marketing funnels that you can build.

1 —?Hero Funnels

Hero funnels are a great way to take traffic you don't control and convert it into traffic you own. You can do this by creating a "link in bio" marketing funnel that you link from your social media platforms. This way, you can take awareness and convert it into interest, then begin to market to that person.

2 —?Home Page Funnels

Although traditional websites are dead , home page funnels are designed to look like websites but they are actually marketing funnels. They have one distinct path, even if they have multiple buttons, sections, and text.

3 —?Cancellation Funnels

Cancellations marketing funnels are designed to gather information about why an individual is canceling or returning a product or service you offer.

4 — Storefront Funnels

Storefront funnels are marketing funnels designed to allow visitors to window-shop but each of the items leads into a funnel. Each funnel can have upsells and down-sells and even order bumps. This allows you to maximize revenue. You can even link to funnels from your Shopify store .

5 —?Summit Funnels

Summits allow you to provide value to your audience and create authority. You simply gather experts in your niche and they agree to be interviewed during this summit. You offer the summit for free when watching live and create an upsell for purchasing the recordings.

6 — Live Demo Funnels

This is a great way to demonstrate your products and services live for your audience. It's also a great way to help answer questions in real time. You simply provide a live show on a regular basis with a reminder of where to purchase the product or service you're selling.

Thanks For Reading

Thanks for reading this post about marketing funnels! I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know your experience with marketing funnels in the comment down below.

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