Sales Funnels for Beginners: How To Build A Sales Funnel & Increase Profits

Summary

This video simplifies the concept of sales funnels for beginners. Sherman from Life Marketing explains how a sales funnel guides customers through a journey from awareness to purchase, emphasizing the importance of having a predictable process to increase sales. He discusses common misconceptions, breaks down different funnel stages (awareness, engagement, conversion, and advocacy), and provides examples of effective funnels. Sherman also offers practical tips for customizing funnels based on business type, pricing, and sales cycle, stressing that a well-structured funnel is crucial for growing and scaling any business.

Takeaways

• 😀 A sales funnel is the journey a customer takes to purchase your products or services, helping businesses turn potential leads into paying customers.
• 📊 Sales funnels consist of several stages: Awareness, Engagement, Conversion, and Advocacy, all of which help guide customers down the funnel.
• 💡 Relying only on word-of-mouth or referrals without a sales funnel creates an unpredictable and risky way to generate consistent sales.
• 📈 The more people in your funnel, the higher the chances of converting leads into customers, as only a small percentage of people at the top will buy.
• 🔑 Engagement through valuable content, such as blogs and videos, builds trust and credibility, increasing the likelihood of conversions.
• 🚀 Conversion happens when engaged users, often influenced by email marketing and retargeting ads, are ready to make a purchase.
• 📧 Email marketing and retargeting ads are crucial to keep customers engaged throughout the funnel and encourage conversions.
• ⚖️ The steps and methods in a sales funnel vary based on business type, product pricing, and the length of the sales cycle.
• 🔨 Building a sales funnel requires mapping it out, creating landing pages, producing content, and driving traffic to these resources.
• 📢 Traffic generation through SEO, social media, and digital ads is essential for bringing enough people into your funnel to increase sales.

Q & A

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel is the journey a customer takes from becoming aware of your product or service to ultimately making a purchase. It typically has stages that help guide customers through the buying process.

Why is a sales funnel important for a business?

A sales funnel is crucial because it provides a predictable system to generate and convert leads into sales. Without a sales funnel, businesses may rely on word-of-mouth or luck, which can be unpredictable and risky for growth.

What are the four basic steps inside a sales funnel?

The four basic steps in a sales funnel are awareness, engagement, conversion, and advocacy. These stages help guide potential customers from first learning about a business to becoming loyal advocates of the brand.

Why is the funnel wide at the top and narrow at the bottom?

The funnel is wide at the top because many people will initially become aware of your business, but only a small percentage will eventually make a purchase. The narrowing reflects the decrease in the number of people as they move through the stages of the funnel.

What methods can be used to increase awareness in a sales funnel?

Awareness can be increased through digital marketing activities such as SEO, content marketing, and digital advertising. These methods help get your business in front of potential customers.

How can engagement be built with potential customers?

Engagement can be built by providing value to potential customers through content creation, such as videos, blogs, webinars, and other forms of helpful information. Engagement helps build trust and credibility.

What is an example of a sales funnel that successfully converted the speaker?

The speaker was converted through a sales funnel by Andrew Argue. It started with a Facebook ad leading to a landing page, followed by free training, an application for a program, and a scheduled call. Although the speaker didn’t initially purchase, persistent retargeting and email marketing led to two purchases after two years.

How does the cost of a product influence the structure of a sales funnel?

Typically, the more expensive a product or service is, the more value needs to be provided in the funnel. This could mean more steps, such as educational content, trust-building, and nurturing leads over time, to justify the purchase.

What tools can be used to map out and create a sales funnel?

Tools like Funalytics can be used to map out the sales funnel steps. For creating landing pages, popular tools include Leadpages, ClickFunnels, and Kartra. These tools help design and manage the funnel process.

What is the role of email marketing in a sales funnel?

Email marketing plays a significant role in the engagement and conversion stages of a sales funnel. It helps keep leads engaged, build trust, and move them down the funnel by providing valuable content and offers.

Outlines

00:00

🔍 Introduction to Sales Funnels

The paragraph introduces the concept of sales funnels and the confusion surrounding their terminology. It mentions that some people use the term 'funnel' to refer to their website or a set of landing pages, while others use it to describe strategies for increasing email opt-ins. The paragraph emphasizes the importance of sales funnels for business growth and introduces the speaker, Sherman, who aims to simplify the concept for beginners. Sherman, from Life Marketing, explains that a sales funnel is the journey a customer takes to purchase products or services, and it's crucial for businesses to have a defined process to increase sales predictably.

05:01

📈 The Importance of Volume in Sales Funnels

This paragraph discusses the importance of having a sufficient number of people in the sales funnel to increase the likelihood of converting new customers. It highlights that many businesses struggle with sales because they either lack a strong sales funnel or do not have enough potential customers in their funnel. The speaker shares a personal experience where he was converted into a customer through a well-structured sales funnel by a company called Life Accounting. The funnel included steps like a free training, an application process, and a scheduled call, which eventually led to a sale despite an initial hesitation.

10:01

🛠 Steps Inside Sales Funnels

The paragraph outlines the basic steps within any sales funnel: awareness, engagement, conversion, and advocacy. It explains that potential customers must first be made aware of a business, then engage with it to build trust and credibility, before they can be converted into buyers. Advocacy is when satisfied customers promote the business, leading to more word-of-mouth and awareness. The speaker uses the example of Andrew's sales funnel, which utilized email marketing and retargeting ads to move customers down the funnel. The paragraph also touches on the customization of sales funnels based on business type, industry, product pricing, and sales cycle.

15:03

🚀 Building Your Sales Funnel

The final paragraph provides a guide on how to build a sales funnel. It suggests starting by mapping out the customer journey, creating landing pages, producing engaging content, and driving traffic through various marketing channels. The speaker emphasizes that while content creation is challenging, it is crucial for moving customers down the funnel. The paragraph concludes with a summary of the video's key points, reiterating the importance of a sales funnel for predictable business growth and encouraging viewers to like, comment, and subscribe for more content.

Keywords

💡Sales Funnel

A sales funnel represents the journey a customer takes from initial awareness to purchasing a product or service. In the video, it is described as a process that narrows down potential customers, with fewer people converting as they move down the funnel. The term is central to the video's message of creating a predictable way to generate sales.

💡Awareness

Awareness refers to the first step in a sales funnel, where potential customers become aware of a business or product. This is crucial because without awareness, there can be no engagement or sales. In the video, awareness is often achieved through digital marketing techniques like SEO or social media advertising.

💡Engagement

Engagement is the stage in the funnel where potential customers interact with a business, building trust and credibility. It can involve content like videos, blogs, or webinars, which help establish a connection. In the script, engagement is key to moving customers closer to conversion.

💡Conversion

Conversion is the process of turning an engaged audience into paying customers. In the sales funnel, this happens after a customer has interacted with the business and is ready to make a purchase. In the video, this is done through tactics like email marketing and retargeting ads.

💡Advocacy

Advocacy occurs when satisfied customers promote a business through word-of-mouth or referrals, effectively becoming brand advocates. The video explains that this step can generate additional awareness and future sales, turning loyal customers into promoters of the business.

💡Landing Page

A landing page is a standalone web page designed to capture the attention of visitors and encourage them to take a specific action, like signing up for a newsletter. In the video, landing pages are used to funnel visitors towards a conversion point, as illustrated by the speaker's experience with Andrew Argue's funnel.

💡Email Marketing

Email marketing involves sending targeted emails to potential customers to keep them engaged and move them down the sales funnel. In the script, the speaker emphasizes that Andrew Argue used email marketing extensively, sending hundreds of emails to eventually convert the speaker into a paying customer.

💡Retargeting Ads

Retargeting ads are a form of online advertising that targets people who have previously visited a website but did not make a purchase. In the video, retargeting ads are used by Andrew Argue to continuously engage the speaker, ensuring he remains interested in the product until he eventually makes a purchase.

💡Content Creation

Content creation refers to the process of producing valuable information that engages an audience and moves them through the sales funnel. This can include blog posts, videos, and webinars. The speaker notes that content is critical in every sales funnel to provide value and keep customers interested.

💡Call to Action (CTA)

A call to action is a prompt that encourages the audience to take a specific action, such as signing up for a service or buying a product. In the video, CTAs are found on landing pages and within emails, helping to move customers down the sales funnel by guiding them to the next step.

Highlights

The term 'funnel' is often used confusingly in different contexts, but fundamentally, it refers to the journey a customer takes to purchase products or services.

Sales funnels are important because they provide a clear process to increase sales, especially compared to relying solely on word of mouth or referrals.

Without a sales funnel, businesses risk unpredictable sales and growth, operating without a reliable engine to generate sales.

A sales funnel is shaped like a physical funnel: wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, meaning only a small percentage of leads convert to sales.

The more people you have in your sales funnel, the more likely you are to convert them into customers.

There are four basic steps in any sales funnel: awareness, engagement, conversion, and advocacy.

Andrew Argue's sales funnel example demonstrates the use of Facebook ads to create awareness and a focused landing page to avoid distractions.

Engagement is a crucial stage of the sales funnel, where businesses establish trust and credibility through value-driven content.

Conversion happens when engaged users are more likely to buy, making email marketing and retargeting ads essential in the funnel.

Advocacy is when satisfied customers promote your brand, increasing awareness and potential upsell opportunities.

Different sales funnels work for different business types, such as e-commerce, professional services, and brick-and-mortar stores.

The pricing of your products impacts the structure of your funnel, with higher-priced items typically requiring more steps and value creation.

The length of the sales cycle influences the funnel; longer sales cycles require more communication to nurture leads.

To build a sales funnel, start by mapping out each step and using tools like Funnelytics to visualize the process.

Content creation is the hardest part of building a sales funnel but is critical for moving people down the funnel and generating sales.

Transcripts

sales funnels click funnels ad funnels

marketing funnels what is this stuff and

why do you need it the answer can be

quite confusing because people use the

word funnel

in way too many ways some people use the

word funnel to refer to their website or

a set of landing pages some people also

use the word funnel to describe their

strategy

to increase things like their email

opt-ins and many others don't use the

word funnel at all

because they don't have one regardless

of where you currently sit

the marketing industry has completely

complicated the use of the term

funnel and that is why i'm creating this

episode to simplify

sales funnels for beginners

hi my name is sherman with life

marketing a digital marketing agency

that

helps small businesses grow today i'm

going to fully explain

what sales funnels are show you a

specific sales funnel that converted me

and go over all the elements of

different types of sales funnels

and everything you need to know to begin

creating your own

sales funnel by the way if you're new to

our channel please subscribe to our page

so you

don't miss out on future episodes that

can help your business grow

also if this video is valuable to you in

any capacity

please help me out by smashing that

thumbs up button below as a business

owner

i can tell you if you do not get your

sales funnel down to a science

you risk the potential growth of your

business at our agency

we talk to business owners every single

day and in most cases

the people we talk to are interested in

one thing

and one thing only sales but

interestingly enough

most of the people that i talk to don't

even have sales

funnels in other words they do not have

a clearly defined process

to increase sales in their business most

of the time the people

i talk to tell me that they're

increasing their business sales

through things like word of mouth and

referrals

hearing things like this makes me happy

and scared

for the people that i talk to i'm happy

because if your business is growing

through things like word of mouth and

referrals then i already know you have a

great product

that people truly enjoy i mean if people

are advocating for your product

then clearly this means that your

business has a proof of concept

and is a viable business on the other

hand i'm incredibly fearful

for people who rely solely on these type

of things to grow

because without a sales funnel in place

you are essentially

operating your business without any

predictable

engine to generate more sales in your

business in cases like this

you just don't know what's in store for

tomorrow if you have customers or not

or whether or not you will even have

work for your employees

this presents a significant business

risk because without a sales funnel in

place

selling becomes very challenging and

tends to be

lucky at best so let's go ahead and

mitigate this risk

by breaking down sales funnels to its

core and giving you the essentials you

need

in order to get started okay so what are

sales funnels

a sales funnel is simply the journey a

customer takes

in order to purchase your products or

services

the simplest way to understand sales

funnels is to look

at a funnel no not a sales funnel like

an

actual physical funnel a funnel is

traditionally used to channel

liquid-like substances

into small openings typically it's very

wide at the top and

gets narrow at the bottom now if we add

cells

to the front of the word funnel then

this process now refers

to channeling consumers into buying

customers

just replace liquid-like substances with

actual people

with the end goal being them pulling out

their credit card

and buying from you now the higher

people are

in your sales funnel the less likely

they are to buy from you these are

normally people who are simply aware

of your business or interested in a

topic that your business is engaging in

now the lower people are in your funnel

the more likely they are to buy from you

these are people who are specifically

interested in buying your product or

service now fundamentally

a funnel is very wide at the top and

narrow at the bottom

this is true regardless of if you're

selling an ecommerce product

baking a cake or offering a professional

service

this funnel feature is important for you

to know because what this really means

for sales funnels

is that only a small percentage of

people who enter your funnel

will end up actually buying from you i

repeat

only a small percentage of people who

enter your funnel

will actually buy your products or

services

this is why sales funnel or any funnel

for that matter

is wide at the top and narrow at the

bottom therefore

in order to increase your sales not only

do you need to have a sales funnel in

place

but you also need to have enough volume

of people

in your sales funnel in order to start

cranking out sales

the more people you have inside of your

sales funnel

the more likely you are to convert new

customers

many of the people i talk to that are

not seeing sales either

a do not have a strong sales funnel to

begin with

or b do not have enough people in their

sales funnel

to start converting customers so now

that you know what sales funnels are

let me show you a sales funnel that

converted me

so a few years ago my wife and my

partners co-founded a sister company to

life marketing

called life accounting which is a full

service accounting firm

for small businesses ironically as we

were just getting started

i ran into several facebook ads by a man

named

andrew argue in his ads he talked about

how to

offer the most valuable accounting

services

so i click the ad and then i arrive to

his landing page

now as you can see in the landing page

there is no menu

and it appears to be a standalone page

there is only one call to action which

is to sign up

for his free training he does this

because i assume

he does not want my attention to get

diverted to something else

which may result in the failure of

moving me down

his sales funnel obviously i see what's

going on here but ultimately i don't

care

because i truly only want the value

he's exclaiming in his facebook ads so i

enter my information into his form

and it immediately redirects me to his

free training as you can see the free

training is step

one of three in his process of

converting me

into a buying customer in other words he

assumes that people who watch his full

training

will be more likely to want his program

step two of his funnel is for me

to enter in my information to apply for

his program

obviously using words like apply implies

that there is some level of scarcity in

the program

which is a great tactic to motivate

people to move them further

down his sales funnel and finally step

three of his funnel was for me to

schedule an appointment

as soon as i completed the form i was

immediately redirected to schedule a

call

now he can put his best sales rep on the

phone to close me as a customer

on that phone call he told me that his

programs start at about

five thousand dollars and up and at that

time i'm kind of thinking like okay

this is a little bit more than i'm

expecting to spend so

i simply tell them thank you for your

time and decide to hold off

at that specific time but of course he

did not stop there

because at this point he knows i'm at

the bottom of his sales funnel and ever

since that appointment

i've received hundreds if not thousands

of

valuable emails and countless

retargeting ads

to motivate me to purchase his programs

and to be honest

after two years of endless emails phone

calls

social media interactions we eventually

bought two

of his educational programs which turned

out to be

extremely valuable and well worth it as

you can see

a well thought out sales funnel works

and when you can

automate it in this manner you

essentially develop a

predictable sales engine that can grow

your business

so now that you know what sales funnels

are

let's talk about the steps inside of

sales funnels

there are a few basic steps inside of

any

sales funnel number one awareness number

two

engagement number three conversion and

number four

advocacy in short people must first be

aware

of your business to even consider buying

from your business at any point

in their life if they are aware of your

business then you're in trouble

you can increase your awareness through

things like digital marketing activities

like seo content marketing digital

advertising and so on

in the example i just provided andrew

uses facebook ads to increase his

awareness and his sales funnel now

secondly

aware people must engage with your

business

engagement is necessary in order to

establish a true connection

with the people who are now aware of

your business engagement builds

trust credibility and positive emotional

triggers

that ultimately influence people to buy

from your business

you can increase your engagement through

adding value

to your audience which is most commonly

done through content creation like

videos

blogs or anything that helps your

audience

this value exchange moves them down your

funnel and the example i

provided andrew uses video and webinars

to engage people in his sales funnel

next is conversion you can start

selling to people who are deeply engaged

with your business

and chances are you will have a better

chance at converting

this group of people than complete

strangers which is why this

funnel works so well in the first place

engaged users

have higher conversion rates than

unaware

unengaged audience you can convert your

engaged audiences through email

marketing

retargeting ads and through your website

in the example i provided andrew heavily

used email marketing

and retargeting ads to bring me down

this funnel and lastly you have advocacy

which is when your products and services

delight your customers

and they become advocates of your brand

ultimately resulting in more word of

mouth

and awareness of your business in

addition your brand advocates will be

more likely to convert

on upsell opportunities that exist in

your company the simple fact that i am

referencing andrew

without any ties to his business at this

point shows you

that advocacy really works now there are

different

types of sales funnels so let's go ahead

and discuss

what may work best for your business the

steps i just gave you are consistent for

just about

any sales funnel but the specific

quantities

and methods you use will ultimately

depend on your

unique business type for example andrew

has probably sent me over 500 emails

inside of his sales funnel but does this

mean that you

need to send 500 emails to people inside

of your funnel

probably not the funnel methods you

deploy

will depend on your unique business type

or industry

price of your products and your sales

cycle let's start with your business

type now

there are many business types but to

keep this episode

very simple i categorize the type of

sales funnels into the following

e-commerce products professional

services and brick-and-mortars for

example

here's an example of an e-commerce sales

funnel

used by boom by cindy joseph that

resulted in over forty thousand dollars

in sales for context

they sell beauty products and they use

facebook and pinterest ads

to create awareness which drove traffic

to one of their blog posts

the blog post engaged them by providing

beauty tips

and eventually the post linked to their

store

and product pages now because their

products are relatively

inexpensive they can move people down

their funnel

without requiring email opt-ins to view

specific content and without sending 500

emails

however this does not mean that email is

not

needed in your sales funnel email is

still very effective

and even they still try to encourage

people to join their email list

through discounts promotions and other

tactics though to be honest

i doubt they send emails in the same

frequency or manner

as andrew did in the example i provided

ultimately the type of business you have

will influence how you customize the

specific steps to move people

down your funnel now let's talk about

how pricing comes into play here

when it comes to pricing typically the

more inexpensive your products are

the less steps you need in order to

motivate people

to buy your product as a rule of thumb

the more your

product or service costs the more value

you are going to have to create

in order to motivate people to buy from

you now value can come in high quality

or quantity but ultimately it's up to

you

to determine the appropriate ways to

create

value to motivate purchases in addition

your sales cycle and the time it takes

people to buy your products or services

is also very important if it takes a

long time for people to buy your product

then you will likely need to

add that time lapse into your sales

funnel and plan to communicate with your

leads

during that time period for example i

have a client that i work with that

sells

trucks to landscape contractors he has

trucks that cost

tens of thousands of dollars and as a

result he knows that it's going to take

a ton of time

to convert any of his leads into

customers

so over the last two or three years

we've ran google ads

social ads and other organic digital

marketing activities to

increase the leads he receives once he

receives a lead from us

his team speaks to them but they already

know that the deal won't close

on the first call so he continues to

send several

emails over the years to stay in front

of them and the best part of it is

it's all automated anyway when you craft

your sales funnel

start with thinking about your customers

journey think about what makes them

interested in your products or services

and

what obstacles deter them from buying

from you

as well as the time it's going to take

for them to overcome

these buying resistances when you craft

your sales funnel with this in mind

you increase your odds of success in my

opinion

it's more psychology than anything you

really need to understand what's going

on

in your customer's mind at every stage

of your funnel

when understood and implemented

successfully

then you will have a predictable system

to increase

your sales okay wow we've covered a lot

so far

if you're still with me i hope you're

enjoying the ride here

if this stuff is helping you at all

please help me by giving me a thumbs up

below

and also if you have any questions on

what i've said so far

drop them in the comments below and

someone from our team will get back to

you as soon as possible

now let me give you what you need in

order to start

building your sales funnel in order to

build your sales funnel

you need to start by mapping all this

stuff out i personally like to use a

free website called

funalytics this helps me map out every

single step

in my sales funnel you can also use good

old-fashioned

pen and paper the second thing you need

to do is to start creating landing pages

now there are a ton of landing page

tools out there

but the most common ones are leadpages

click funnels and kartra at this present

time

our agency currently use leadpages for

most of our clients

now the third thing you need to do is to

start creating content this includes

content on your blog

landing pages and email campaigns now to

be honest this is the hardest part

but it's the most important because

without great content

you will be unsuccessful at moving

people down your funnel

finally you need traffic to make all of

this work use seo

social media email marketing and digital

advertising

to get in front of the right people as

i've said earlier

most people fail at increasing their

sales

simply because they do not have enough

people inside of their sales funnel

build a healthy amount of people in your

pipeline and tweak your sales funnel as

time

goes on to have the best chance at

increasing your sales

now that you know what to do let's go

ahead and summarize this video

so you can get right to work in today's

episode we defined

what is a sales funnel a sales funnel is

simply the journey

a customer takes in order to purchase

your products and services we then went

on to define

the steps that every sales funnel should

take every sales funnel

must have a process to make people aware

interested

and engaged and ultimately convert

people into sales

if you fail at any one of these things

then your sales funnel will not

work then we discuss how to customize

your sales funnel your

sales funnel should ultimately be

customized by your customer needs

business type price point and sales

cycle

and finally if you don't take away

anything you need to know why a sales

funnel is important

your sales funnel is important because

without it you do not have a predictable

way

to grow and scale your business all

right that's it for today's episode

if this video helped you in any way

shape or form i do accept tips

all you have to do is hit the like

button for me below and i'd greatly

appreciate it oh

and be sure to subscribe to our channel

so you don't miss out

on any future content that can help your

business grow

i'll talk to you soon

[Music]