The Definitive Guide on How to Create a Sales Funnel

The Definitive Guide on How to Create a Sales Funnel

No matter what you sell, getting prospective customers to buy doesn’t happen in an instant.

Instead, the sales process unfolds in stages (the sales funnel): Warming up cold prospects to the idea of spending their hard-earned cash on your products and priming them for purchases in the future.

Unfortunately, in today’s climate of low trust and fierce competition … that’s no easy task.

In fact, if you’ve ever sold a product or service, you already know how frustrating and painful creating a genuinely valuable offer can be only to have it disappear into the wasteland of failure.

That pain is only intensified if you spend money on marketing and advertising with little to no return on investment (ROI).

The antidote to this pain — and the secret to unlocking success — lies in creating a sales funnel built around five stages. In other words, using a proven template that’s not just easier and faster … but converts like wildfire.

Fair warning: This article is long. Of course, that’s only right with a topic as powerful as sales funnels.

To help guide you, we’ve boiled it all down into a single template and 10 point checklist you can grab right here — think of it as your fast-track cheat sheet to a winning sales funnel …

What is a Sales Funnel?

Answering the question, “What is a sales funnel?” is no easy take (that’s why we wrote an entire article on the subject). By way of offering a simplified definition …

A sales funnel is a marketing strategy designed to turn cold prospects into long-term customers by funneling them through five stages. The “funnel” metaphor means you’ll begin with a large audience of prospective buyers that will eventually pare down to a smaller group of highly-targeted, high-value customers.

“The final goal is not to make a sale, at least not a single sale. Instead the goal is to create returning customers with life-time value.”

Breaking the buyer’s journey down into smaller steps (i.e., stages) allows you to be more precise about how and when you present offers.

For a small business owner, you may start with only one or two products. For a large B2B company, you may have numerous offers fueling lead generation and nurturing new leads through the sales cycle, sales pipeline, or sales team.

Suddenly, everything can feel complex. For the sake of simplicity …

Think about ordering at a McDonald’s. If you order a hamburger, you’re asked if you’d like to add cheese. Order chicken nuggets and you’re asked if you want fries with that. Order a combo meal and you’re given the chance to make it a large or “supersize.” This is a sales funnel.

Then, think about McDonald’s new mobile app and its product-specific loyalty programs, like McCafe Rewards:

free mccafe reward from mcdonald

Every offer is actually a series of offers designed to increase purchase size as well as drive subsequent purchases.

At the biggest of big picture, a sales funnel is usually divided into three parts:

  1. Top of the sales funnel (ToFu): Target audience
  2. Middle of the sales funnel (MoFu): Potential customers
  3. Bottom of the sales funnel (BoFu): New and existing customers
sales funnel illustration

On some level, this funneling occurs even if you don’t have intentional sales funnel stages in place. By taking a templated approach — especially if you’re growing an online business — you’ll dramatically increase the number of customers you end up generating.

The key to an effective sales funnel: Engage with and provide increasing value to your prospects throughout each sales funnel stage.

No matter how simple or complex, the fact is sales funnels work when they’re built according to certain universal principles. Case in point:

  • 87% of consumers choose to do business with vendors who provide valuable content at all stages of the buying process
  • 63% of consumers need to hear a company’s value proposition(s) 3-5 times before they trust these claims
  • Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured prospects

In addition to top, middle, and bottom, sales funnels have traditionally been structured around four sales funnel stages known by the acronym …


Sales Funnel AIDA: Awareness. Interest. Desire. Action

The AIDA model was developed in the late 19th century by advertising and sales pioneer Elias St. Elmo Lewis. And, it has become the backbone of almost every successful advertising and marketing campaign since.

Why is it so successful?

AIDA takes potential customers through the emotional journey of making a purchase — guiding the buying decision from initial attraction to taking action.

sales funnel illustration

1. Awareness

Sometimes referred to as “attention,” the first stage of the sales funnel is where a brand catches the eye of new audience members via marketing content and/or a valuable baseline offer.

2. Interest

Here, the brand will begin to forge a deeper relationship with their prospects, becoming more actively involved in learning about their goals and/or problems. In doing so, you can begin providing preliminary solutions, allowing them to experience “quick wins” — and become more engaged.

3. Desire

Consumers who reach this third sales funnel stage have become convinced that they do, in fact, have a larger problem that needs solving. Moreover, they’re coming around to the idea of making a purchase to solve said problem. At this point, the brand showcases how their premium offering can be of service.

4. Action

The final stage of the sales funnel has prospects deciding to purchase (or not purchase) the brand’s premium product or service. You’ll need to reinforce the value of your offer — as well as the downsides of not making a purchase.

These sales funnel stages describe the general process all of us go through — as well as some general action steps you should take to keep their prospects moving further in the funnel.

Depending on what you’re selling and who your target audience is, you’ll want to tailor each stage of your sales funnel(s) accordingly.

(Yes, you absolutely can have more than one funnel in place at a given time. This will become more clear in a bit.)

AIDA is a great starting point, but there’s a better way …


Sales Funnel Stages Explained: The 5 Stages of Filling Your Sales Pipeline

Though similar in appearance and structure, our approach  — based on the work of Russel Brunson — differs from the common sales funnel AIDA model:

sales funnel illustration

The key difference involves getting prospects actively engaged with you at every stage of the process.

Whereas AIDA has the company giving, giving, giving until a prospect converts, Brunson’s funnel has both parties engaged in a process of give-and-take throughout. This version elicits smaller conversions from the target consumer along their path to purchase.

It’s called the value ladder and its steps are a direct reflection of the sales funnel stages:

the value ladder of sales funnel

We might even say that each stage of the sales funnel (bait, frontend, etc.) contains a “mini funnel” within itself. Let’s take a look at how to make this happen.

Know Thy OfferPre-Stage: Know Thy Offer(s)

First things first, you’ll want to define everything you’ll be offering your customers as they move through your funnel, from bait to backend.

Before digging into each section, look at your overall sales funnel in its entirety with the end goals in mind.

This pre-stage step is vital to success. If you don’t know what you’re offering your customers at different points they won’t exactly have good reason to keep going.

You also want to determine how you’ll connect each subsequent offer within your funnel. The idea is to use your lower-tiered offers to prepare customers to get full use out of the next product or service.

Think of it like: “Okay, you’ve experienced great success with Product A — now let’s supercharge this success by implementing Product B into the mix.”

(Again, if “Product B” doesn’t build on “Product A,” your customers may not have much reason to move to the next sales funnel stage.)

While your customers will, of course, experience your overall sales funnel in stages, you need to have a clear blueprint in place for how and why they’ll move through it on their way to your most valuable offering.

TrafficStage 1. Traffic

Not all traffic is created equal: Be laser-focused on how your target audience enters your sales funnel.

This preliminary stage is a sort of “controlled awareness,” in that you want to be intentional who you bring into your funnel — in turn allowing you to avoid attracting poor-quality prospects.

This stage of the process, then, involves optimizing the ads, content, and affiliate sources you use to drive traffic to your funnel. Think about:

  • Where your high-value prospects “hang out” on the web
  • What social networks and/or content they interact with
  • What free or lower-cost offers get them to take initial steps with a new brand

Needless to say, if you aren’t sure how to get brand new customers interested in even your lowest-tier offers, there’s no way you’ll be able to get them interested in your big-ticket items or services.

But, by meeting your target audience where they are (and where they’re comfortable engaging with your brand), you can get them to enter your funnel on their terms — and get them on track toward where you want them to be.

BaitStage 2. Bait

A lead magnet offered either for free or at a very low cost to the prospect.

Some clarification here …

While “Bait” is a stage of the overall sales funnel, each “mini funnel” will require the use of some kind of low-risk offer to hook your prospects and get them to engage further.

At the lower tiers of the value ladder, bait may come in the form of free content, webinars, a course delivered as an email sequence, or product samples. At the higher tiers, break-even offers — meaning, you intentionally won’t make a profit on the sale but will make a profit as they continue through your funnel — can be used to keep the customer engaged and ready to move forward.

bait stage of a sales funnel

If you give something away for free now, you’ll have primed the recipient to make a more valuable purchase at some point in the near future — which is where the real money is to be made. You can even operate at a loss for bait offers, as long as the next stages in your funnel are ready to step in to sell at a profit.

You’ll also be able to funnel out those who don’t take you up on your bait offer. After all, those who aren’t interested in your low-risk offers likely won’t be looking to purchase your big-ticket items.

Front End OfferStage 3. Front End Offer

A low-price and low-risk offer that provides value to new customers, allowing them to solve surface-level issues with minimal investment.

Once your prospective customers have taken you up on your bait offer, you’ll want to send them directly to a landing page or squeeze page showcasing your “leveled” premium offer. (You can also — and should — simultaneously follow up with email offers; a practice known as “funnel stacking.”)

Here’s where the stakes get a bit higher for your business …

Those who see this sales-focused content have been pre-qualified (via your bait offer) — meaning they should be interested in the premium product or service you have for them at this point.

That is, if you’re able to keep their attention and effectively communicate the true value of your offer. You can make this happen by optimizing the various elements of your squeeze page …

Squeeze Page Copy

Copy — that is, the words themselves — needs to quickly communicate the value of your offer and prime your audience to take immediate action.

This can be done by adhering to the following checklist as you create your squeeze page copy:

  • Let your brand personality come through (be a relatable character)
  • Tailor the message to your audience
  • Shorten sentences and paragraphs, but provide MORE depth
  • Write at or below a 6th grade reading level
  • Use bullet points or numbered lists
  • Include a subheader or image every 200-300 words

In short: Speak directly to your target audience — and don’t over-complicate your message.

Natalie Hodson’s landing page does a great job of this. 

The easier it is for your audience to recognize the value of your offer, the more likely they’ll be to take you up on it.

Squeeze Page Images and Videos

Words are the backbone of your squeeze page. But, content can take a variety of forms:

  • A backstory video showcasing what your brand is “all about”
  • A demonstration (or, explainer) video showing your product in action
  • An interview with a current or past client in which they discuss their positive experiences with your product or service

The approach you go with depends heavily on the value ladder level you’re currently targeting.

For example, if you’re aiming to get a new prospect to commit to a preliminary offer, you’d want to quickly introduce them to your brand, and discuss the “quick wins” they can expect to experience.

Typically, this video content should be short and to-the-point — maximizing the chances that your new prospects will watch it in its entirety. VideoMastery.com’s hero video is a mere two minutes and fifteen seconds:

VideoMastery.com introduction video

Its testimonial videos (i.e., mini case studies) — later on the same page — are even shorter. All of them are under one minute:

testimonial videos on VideoMastery.com

On the other hand, if you’re aiming to make a final sale on a higher-priced product, you might decide to go the longform route with you video content.

long form video content

Reason being, those who are on the cusp of making a more costly purchase will want as much info as you can give them — and will be more willing to stick around long enough to be convinced to do so.

Squeeze Page Social Proof

Social proof can — and should — be used to reinforce the claims you’ve made on your squeeze page.

Tailor this content to the value ladder level you’re currently targeting. Basically, this means ensuring the customer commentary you use matches the offer being presented — and is specific to the use case of the audience being targeted.

LadyBoss Labs seeds a variety of social proof types throughout its squeeze page, opening with brief testimonials and logos to show authority …

ladyboss labs social proof

… and adding direct endorsements along with real social media posts from its customers later on:

ladyboss labs customers social posts

Generalized social proof regarding your brand may work to engage new prospects. However, you’ll need to use specific anecdotes from successful customers when looking to make bigger sales further down the funnel.

Squeeze Page Call-to-Action

No matter what you’re offering on a given squeeze page, it needs to be crystal clear what your audience needs to do to receive it.

Don’t beat around the bush here. Make sure your CTA stands out from all other elements of your landing page — allowing interested customers to take the next step as soon as they’re ready.

There’s no mistaking what action LadyBoss wants its website visitors to take …

add to cart page of ladyboss

In some cases, you might even want to include CTAs at the top, bottom, and middle of your page. The last thing you want is for your engaged audience to not engage further with your brand simply because they aren’t sure how to do so.

Middle OfferStage 4. Middle Offer

A progressively more valuable and intensive solution that helps customers solve a more deep-seated problem — and better prepares them for your highest-price point product or service.

Now we’re getting down to business.

At each stage of the value ladder, as your prospects reach the bottom of your “mini funnel,” you’ll need to provide an irresistible offer that allows them to accomplish a certain task — and prepares them for the next tier of the ladder.

Going back to LadyBoss, its middle offer is an invitation to “Join The CLUB”:

product selection form LadyBoss checkout page

If you’ve thought about middle offers before, the question is …

Upsell or Downsell?

An upsell is an offer that costs more than your front end offer; a downsell costs less. It’s an important part of the sales funnel.

Before or immediately after they confirm their order, provide an upsell offer that will increase the value of their initial order — and enhance their overall experience with your brand.

(And, of course, allow you to increase your revenues, too.)

Typically, upsell offers come in the form of:

  • Sale prices on bulk orders
  • Customized version or a variation of the initial product or service
  • An offer to increase subscription length at a discounted price
  • Supplemental products (cross-sells)

If they don’t end up taking the upsell, consider sending them a lower-risk offer that meets them where they are.

Examples of downsells include:

  • A payment plan for the otherwise expensive upsell
  • A smaller, lesser, cheaper version of the upsell offer
  • A limited and discounted trial period for the upsell offer

In either case, the idea is to take full advantage of the opportunity at hand — while providing the exact value your prospective customers are looking for at the present moment.

Email Marketing

You’ll notice that in nearly all examples getting a visitor’s email address is emphasized.

That’s because email marketing is a critical part of the customer journey: Before, during, and after buying.

We don’t want to get off topic, especially because email is a detailed tactic. That’s why we’ve written extensively about it all on its own:

Middle OfferStage 5. Backend Offer

Your most valuable, intensive, and costly product or service that customers can use on a continual basis to solve an ever-present problem in their lives.

By now, we’ve made it pretty clear that your ultimate goal is to tie each of your “mini funnels” together to create one overarching sales funnel.

The hope is to transform brand new customers into high-value patrons of your company. As we’ve said, the vast majority of your target audience simply won’t be ready to engage with your highest-value offer …

Until they’ve gotten a taste via your lower-tiered products or services.

The thing is, there’s no guarantee that your customers will simply move onto the next value level once they’ve experienced all you have to offer at their current stage. In many cases, your customers are more likely to stick to what they know, rather than risk jumping up to your next tier of service.

(Or, they may churn completely after having received all you have to offer at a certain value level.)

The onus is on you to convince them that they stand to gain a ton of value from the next-highest level of your value ladder.

Note that, at this point of ascension, the customer will be in a sort of limbo — they’ve gotten near-full value from the previous stage of the ladder but aren’t quite ready to enter the next “mini funnel” you have prepped for them.

So, instead of heavy-handedly pushing your more valuable offer, you’ll want to simply keep them engaged with your brand.

Basically, this involves doing whatever you can to continue providing value to them after they’ve purchased a given product or service.

This could mean:

  • Providing personalized content, in their preferred format, that allows them to get the absolute most out of the product or service they’re currently using
  • Delivering high-quality customer service and support — from onboarding to troubleshooting to instructions for “power use” of your offering
  • Gradually touching on the added value provided by your higher-tiered service — specific to the value sought by the individual customer
  • A community (Facebook group) they can live and grow within

It’s simple …

If you can prove that your main concern is on providing value to your customers — even after they’ve already given you their money — they’ll be that much more likely to trust your more costly offering will be worth the price of admission.


How to Create a Sales Funnel: Don’t Start from Scratch

Conducting Market Research

Many of your competitors have likely already built a sales funnel or marketing funnel, generating engagement and sales from the exact type of customer you’re looking to attract with your own funnels.

We’re not advocating that you simply copy what your competitors are doing. But, you do want to take note of how competing brands are working to nurture their audience toward the “big sale” at the end of their sales funnel.

Which is where sales funnel hacking comes into play.

What Is Sales Funnel Hacking?

Funnel hacking is the process of strategically investigating the sales and marketing process of your competitors, which you can use to model and test within your own sales and marketing processes.”

In other words, you’ll actually participate in the various stages of your competitors’ sales funnels, then reverse-engineer the process in order to determine how to go about creating your own.

How to Funnel Hack Your Competitors

1. List Your Competitors

Your main focus, of course, will be on your direct competition. Make a list of all known companies that sell similar products or services to yours.

You also want to consider looking into your indirect competition, as well. Here, you’ll be considering companies who don’t necessarily sell within your niche, but whose audience overlaps with your own.

In doing so, you’ll be able to gain a better understanding of the sales tactics that get your target audience to take action.

Stay broad as you start out. While you’ll eventually pare down your list to your most-successful competitors, you also want to take note of competing companies whose approach isn’t as effective as it could be — allowing you to avoid making the same mistakes.

2. Engage, Document, and Analyze

More than simply checking out your competitors’ websites, landing pages, marketing platform and other marketing content, you’ll want to take screenshots and create swipe files. As you do so, be sure to categorize these artifacts accordingly.

We advise you to create separate folders for Bait, Frontend, and Backend offers for each competitor you analyze. You also may want to create a folder specifically for documenting ad creatives — which you can further categorize based on the medium the creative is presented on (e.g., Google, Facebook, etc.).

At this point, you don’t necessarily need to engage too far with your various competitors — especially if doing so requires that you spend money on their products or services.

You do want to take as many preliminary steps as you can — such as signing up for mailing lists, requesting additional information, and downloading free content.

Once you’ve amassed a robust collection of artifacts, you’ll then want to start analyzing them from a number of different vantage points.

This involves asking blue-print type questions:

  • What words (copywriting) are they using in their headlines?
  • What colors are they using throughout their content?
  • Are buttons located above the fold or below the fold?
  • Do they use videos and images, or just text?
  • Are they listing benefits or features?
  • Do they include social proof like testimonials?
  • Are there any pop-ups during exit intent?
  • Is the header section of the site fixed?
  • Is there a full sign up form or an opt-in form?
  • Do action steps require more than one touchpoint?
  • Is price mentioned for their products (if so, what are their price points?)
  • How many words are there on the homepage?

The idea is to take note of as many different aspects as possible — and to understand why your competitors decided to take the approach they did.

(It’s actually much more important to focus on the “whys” behind these surface-level questions. Remember, you’re not necessarily going to copy your competition — but you will be implementing their successful approaches in your own way as you create your own funnels.)

As you find the answers to these questions, make sure to document this information within the folders you’ve created.

3. Assess Tracking Strategies

Throughout the above stage of the sales funnel hacking process, you’ve most likely only seen about 20-30% of your competitors’ sales funnels.

That said, we want to know which tools your competitors use and determine whether or not you should be using these same tools as well.

To figure this out, you’ll need to download two add-ons for Google Chrome:

First, check out Ghostery. This extension allows you to see the “invisible” web, detecting trackers, web bugs, pixels and beacons placed on web pages by Facebook, Google, and other platforms that gather information about your internet activity.

ghostery extension

While this app is primarily designed to stay hidden from trackers, you can use it to identify which trackers and programs are being used by competing businesses.

The second is BuiltWith Technology Profiler, which allows you to see the tool stack running on a website — especially the marketing and e-commerce platforms — with the simple click of an icon.

builtwith technology profiler

This will begin to answer traffic and conversion rate questions about your competitors’ strategies, such as:

  • Are they using remarketing (also known as retargeting)?
  • Are they using Google, Facebook, or other platforms?
  • Are they using any conversion rate tracking software?

The list of questions you might ask (and find the answer to) is nearly inexhaustible.

What’s important is that you dig up the information that will matter most to your company as you begin to build your own sales funnels. All of this should go right into the notes you created during the previous step of the sales funnel hacking process.

4. Use Competitive Intelligence Tools

You also want to find out how your competitors are acquiring traffic in the first place. This will tell you which sources to focus on when looking to uncover high-value prospects for your own business.

To unearth these game-changers, enlist the help of the following competitive analysis tools:

AdBeat or WhatRunsWhere

These tools instantly show you the strategies of online advertisers in your industry. You can see anything from how many days they’ve been spending money and running a particular ad to the creative content and landing pages they’re sending paid traffic to.

SEMRush

Focusing on the SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) side of things, SEMRush gathers insight into how your competitors generate traffic.

This includes information related to search positions (and changes), ads, keywords they’re targeting, the copy, video advertisements, backlinks, estimated traffic generated, keyword research — and much, much more.

SimilarWeb

This traffic-focused tool allows you to check out a wide range of activity that’s going on within the websites you’re profiling. With SimilarWeb, you can identify top referring sites, as well as top destination sites as people flow to and from your competitor.

5. Purchase From Your Top Competitors

Once you’ve determined which of your competitors are worth taking a closer look at, your next step will be to actually engage with them as if you were an interested customer.

(Note: While you might balk at the idea of giving money to your competitors, the insight you’ll be able to glean — and subsequently implement into your own sales funnels — will be well worth the price of admission.)

Here’s where you want to get ultra-meticulous in your documentation and analysis.

You don’t necessarily need to go through with a top-tier purchase — but you want to act like you’re going to do so.

That is, once you’ve nearly reached the end of their sales funnel, you’ll want to hop on a sales call with them — all the while taking note of everything they talk about throughout.

Since this is the “big” sale your competitors have been aiming to make from the get-go, you can be sure they’ll leave everything out on the table, so to speak. This, in turn, provides the perfect opportunity for you to uncover any information you may have overlooked throughout your sales funnel hacking process.

(Again, while you don’t necessarily need to make this final purchase, doing so may provide even more information regarding the true value of your competitors’ products or services. This can not only help you further develop your own sales funnel, but also allow you to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors’ offer — and make the necessary improvements to your own offering.)

Ask yourself questions like …

  • What specific value or benefit is being provided by a given offer?
  • What action do you have to take to receive the offer?
  • What strategies do they use to keep you moving forward?
  • How does each subsequent offer relate to the previous and next sales funnel stage?

The answers to these questions will round out your understanding and allow you to clearly see what you should be offering your customers throughout your own sales funnel.


1. Match Domain Name and URL to Your Offer

This is pretty self-explanatory, but still worth mentioning …

The domain name and URL you use for your sales funnel must be representative of your brand and your offer.

A URL like “RobsCompany.com/salesfunnel1” comes off not just as generic, but also as overly-salesy. While your customers are smart enough to know when they’re being sold to, there’s no reason for you to be blatant about it.

It sounds like a small detail, but matching your URL to your offer will add to the customer-facing nature of your brand — and will be one less thing to distract your audience from taking the next step.

We’re disciplined about this at ClickFunnels. Not only for the SEO (search engine optimization) benefits of matching URLs to content, but also for the clarity they bring.

Notice the straightforwardness of our own and a couple of the pages we looked at above …

2. Structure Each Sales Funnel Stage Relationally: WWWH

Speaking of being customer-facing with your sales funnel content, it’s vital that anything your prospective clients see speaks to them on a personal and individual level.

This means using WWWH …

  • Who is your ideal customer,who do they trust, and who should you put on the page to embody that (current customers)?
  • What do they want out of your product or service? What are they trying to escape from or find a solution to?
  • Why do they want it? What are the deeper emotional needs and pains they’re currently experiencing? Why is the cost less than the benefit?
  • How can your images, words, and calls-to-action bring it to life?

Remember: Your customers don’t want to be sold to; they want to receive value.

And they don’t want to put all that much effort into solving their problem either; they want you to make it easy for them.

3. Address the “Catch”

If you’ve done the above, your prospective customers will likely be left saying to themselves:

“Well, this sounds way too good to be true.”

Your goal is to clarify to them that your offer is the real deal. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that your offer will always be on the table.

Maybe you’re offering a time-sensitive sale or a one-time offer. Or, maybe you’re planning on discontinuing a product or service after a certain period of time.

Whatever the case may be, addressing the “catch” to your current offer can instill a sense of urgency — making them more likely to take immediate action.

Since your customers will likely be looking for a “catch” anyway, you might as well give them one that puts the ball in their court. That way, they’ll understand that the only thing standing between them and the offer is … themselves.

4. Add a Guarantee

In furthering the customer-facing and “too good to be true” nature of your sales funnel, you also want to minimize the amount of risk your prospects will have to take when going through with a purchase.

In fact, you can even take this a step further and explain that it’s you who will be taking a risk by doing business with your customers. Known as risk-reversal, the idea is to make your potential customers feel like they have no reason not to take advantage of the offer at hand.

Whether you’re offering money-back guarantees, double-your-money-back guarantees, or any other kind of risk-free assurance, you’ll inherently bring your prospects to trust your brand in two key ways …

First, they simply have nothing (or very little) to lose, and a ton of value to gain. Second, confidence in your ability to follow through with your promise will shine — building trust when it matters most.

5. Recap

If a prospect or customer is close to the point-of-purchase at any level of your value ladder, two things are all but certain:

  • You’ve provided them with some sort of value in your relationship thus far
  • They’ve grown in some way since they’ve first engaged with your brand

As you begin to close in on a sale, it’s imperative that you make these two points clear to your potential customer.

The goal is reinforcement. On some level, the customer knows these things — but may not be consciously thinking about them when you actually make your offer.

But, with a little gentle nudging on your end, they’ll be reminded of how far they’ve come — and how much further they’ll be able to go.

Notice how Secrets of Success order page summarizes all the elements in short-form immediately next to the two-stage order form:

6. Sequence the Right Pages

The key to successfully nurturing consumers through your sales funnel is to get them to take action at every touchpoint.

You even want to go as far as to create touchpoints for your prospects to engage with throughout your sales funnel. This is where techniques such as the two-step tripwire come into play.

2 step tripwire funnel

As the name suggests, a two-step tripwire has consumers taking two steps to complete the overall task at hand. Most often, this two-step process is as follows:

  1. The prospect fills out a contact info form on the first page of your sales funnel (typically in exchange for a freebie offer)
  2. On the second page, the prospect is shown a small-ticket, frontend offer. If they choose to make a purchase, only then will they be asked to provide payment info.

This allows you to implement the “foot-in-door” technique, as you’ll be gradually asking the prospect for more information after they commit to providing some surface-level info.

Then, you can hit them with the more valuable offer after they’ve become a bit more invested in your brand.

Even if a prospect decides not to go through with the follow-up purchase, you’ll still have collected their contact info — and can then send them more applicable offers in the future.

7. Order Your Offers Intentionally

It’s vital to know exactly how each of your “mini funnels” connect with one another to create an overarching sales funnel that encompasses all levels of your value ladder.

Within each “mini sales funnel,” this means offering content and freebies that prepare the customer to get the most out of your main offering at that level. Within your overall sales funnel, it means ensuring those who have gone through one “mini funnel” are fully prepared to enter the next.

Basically, you want your customers to feel like they’ve “graduated” to the next step of your value ladder once they’ve reached a certain point with your lower-tiered products.

If a subsequent offer has little to nothing to do with the previous product or service you’ve offered, your audience will likely be rather hesitant to take the next step with your brand.

8. Connect Bundles, Bumps, Upsells, and Downsells

Once a prospect has gotten to the point where you believe they’re ready to make a purchase, you need to be sure the offer you present them is highly-relevant to their specific circumstances.

Of course, the ideal scenario is that your prospects simply take advantage of your main offering as is.

When your “typical” offer isn’t exactly what a customer is looking for … you’ll need to have subsequent offers at the ready to keep them on track toward converting.

If a prospect doesn’t feel ready to purchase your mid- or top-tier service, you’ll want to have a related, yet lower-value service to offer them. It’s important to tailor these downsells to the prospect’s specific needs (as opposed to providing a more generalized downsell to all prospects who decline your main offer).

On the other hand, if a customer does accept your main offer, you also want to provide an upsell that’s relevant to their needs. They’ll be much more likely to accept this subsequent offer if it provides the specific value they’re looking to get from your brand.

9. Include Social Proof

No matter how valuable your products or services are — and no matter what you have to say about this value — you absolutely need to back up your claims with proof from your current customer base.

By sprinkling social proof throughout your sales funnel, you’ll give your prospects the evidence they need to feel confident.

For one thing, the modern consumer places more trust in their peers than the brands they do business with. Providing various types of social proof can allow prospective customers to truly understand what they have to gain by engaging further with your brand.

Social proof can take lots of different forms:

  • Short endorsements
  • Long-form testimonials
  • Written case studies
  • Video testimonials
  • User-generated content
  • Pictures and videos posted to social
  • Logos or “trust seals”
  • Before and after images
  • Numerical reviews and ratings

10. Remember Exit Intent Offers in Your Sales Funnel

As you probably know, most people who click-through to your landing page will end up leaving without taking even the smallest step forward.

While this is to be expected, you shouldn’t just accept it without putting up a fight.

Rather, you’ll want to take action to keep them on your landing page — and, ideally, giving your offer a second thought.

Include exit intent offers on each of your landing pages. This means adding popups, overlays, and other such “extras” to be presented to your site’s visitors once it becomes clear they’re ready to head elsewhere.

Within these overlays, you can include one-time offers for freebies, downsells, or other lower-value offers that your more hesitant prospects may be interested in receiving.

This way, you can make a last-ditch effort to keep these individuals engaged before they navigate away from your site for good.

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152 thoughts on “The Definitive Guide on How to Create a Sales Funnel

  1. Many thanks for this really helpful and in-depth run-through of the sales funnel process. The training that ClickFunnels provides is excellent.

  2. Hi this pedro thank you so much for all the information that I was reading about the funnels for me this is new and I'm very interested on this business on line I wish you can help me to create a business for my self on line please let me know which is the best way to start my business on line I don't have experience at all about this business on line so if you can help me please that would it be great I Appreciated also let me know if I need lots of money to start or how much do I need to start a business my self on line selling products thank so much again

  3. Hey there. I wanna promote clickbank products with Facebook Ads . I set-up my clickbank account and business Facebook Ads . But I stuck on the middle . Can you help me using your click funnels to list my first product on Facebook . please with video thanks

    1. Ameur, I really want to help you out with this but the answer is more than I can help with here. We have a fabulous training call The One Funnel Away challenge onefunnelaway.com/challenge We totally overdeliver during this 30 day mastermind and you get daily training and actionable steps to get your 1st (or next) funnel up and running. I really think this would help you to get direction and move you forward.

  4. Keeping tabs on the sales funnel and using it effectively in your marketing and sales strategy is very necessary. If we will leave our customers in the middle of the sales funnel then you will never be able to turn a prospect into a customer. You have explained the use and implication of the sales funnel quite well.

  5. Hey, I've been looking into building a real estate funnel for a long time. This article was informative, and really helpful. I think I'll try clickfunnels on the trial and see if it fulfills my needs. Thanks for the insights!

  6. Great Article! I've been looking into selling Clickfunnels as an affiliate for a long time. I recently ran into this article https://www.termtechreview.com/post/clickfunnels-3-best-converting-products detailing some of your products that can be sold in addition to just the clickfunnels monthly plan, and some of these have sparked my interest. Do you think that it would be best to use a full on sales funnel type deal to sell some of your lower ticket offers like the dotcom secrets book and then let your email campaigns do the selling for me, or should I use these low ticket offers as a way to bring in email list subscribers of my own through a lead generation funnel? Any advice would be awesome!

    Cheers

  7. How do you get incontack with a company to find out if a order went threw when mounth went buy and there is no phone number is available

  8. Thanks you very, we reoresent the Agape Restoration Community Society in Burundi under the Agape Restoration Society , (robert@agape-restoration-society.org) , we need the support : products and services from Sales Funnels : 3 Million to 10 Million for to building for the vulnerables the multi apartments and the orphanage – school.

    Gakozi Martin Valentin/ARCS

    1. Thank you for commenting, we feel the best way to learn how ClickFunnels can help you grow your business is by scheduling a free demo call. You can book this or someone on your team can by following this link: https://demos.clickfunnels.com/schedule3. This software works for all niches and all businesses. We look forward to supporting you!

  9. Hey Aaron,

    You have covered everything about sale funnel in such a way that even a beginner can understand the sales funnel concepts.

    I've learned some new strategies in this article like "ToFu MoFu BoFu" concept.

    Thanks again for sharing this amazing guide on the sales funnel.

    Keep up the good work.

    TWEETED this amazing guide. 👍

    Regards,
    Sumit Sao

    1. Anita! Thank you so much for the feedback. Really happy you were able to understand creating sales funnels. That's a win!

  10. Thanks, Aaron for sharing this great piece of content. I live in Melbourne, Australia, and marketing manager of EMUCoupon.com. I also start my small business some months ago I really like sales funnels. I think it really helps to improve your sales.

  11. I am well impressed with the information provided in your article. I would like to start using the service offered. I would like to have some assistance to guide me. Thanks

    Charles

    1. Charles, The best program for anyone who is just starting out and needs step by step guidance is the One Funnel Away Challenge. This program completely overdelivers with daily training, group coaching and a private community to get help in. The challenge walks you thru daily tasks and by the end of the 5 weeks you will be launching your first funnel for your business.
      The link for that is https://onefunnelaway.com/challenge-b. Hope to see you there!!

  12. I like how well structured and easy to understand this article is. As always, Clickfunnels is one of the best resources when it comes to digital marketing and of course—funnels. The way you were able to break down significant points without discussing them in such a way that only well seasoned funnel experts can understand is inspiring since it makes the content easier to read and understand as well. It looks like many upcoming sales funnel users and creators will find this very helpful.

  13. Hi Aaron,

    This guide is amazing that provides good strategies to make sales. I don't know "ToFu MoFu BoFu" concept before reading this.

    I appreciate your work to providing awesome beginner friendly guide.

    Keep Writing Keep Sharing…

    Regards
    KUNDAN SINGH

  14. Clickfunnels is the best, infact, I saw a few articles boasting about Kartra and others, I must say nothing works better than Clickfunnels.

  15. Awesome Article. informative article and indeed helpful.

    Investing in funnel builder is a long term proven strategy to convert your one time visitor as a customer.

    Keep coming up with such an awesome Content.

  16. Me parece muy interesante toda la información aunque todavía no he terminado de leerlo todo, pero ahora tengo otra perspectiva sobre el sistema de ventas que se aplica en Internet, existen tantas formas que son completamente distintas al comercio tradicional.

    1. Gracias por pasar tiempo en nuestro blog y compartir sus pensamientos. El marketing digital puede ser diferente al comercio tradicional. Tenemos miembros en nuestra comunidad de todo el mundo que pueden ayudarlo con esa transición. El mejor programa educativo que tenemos para emprendedores que desean comenzar en línea es The One Funnel Away Challenge, un producto fabuloso que lo guiará a través de pasos prácticos diarios para crear y lanzar su propio embudo en 30 días. Incluye apoyo, comunidad y motivación para seguir avanzando. https://onefunnelaway.com/challenge-b

  17. Hey ,

    Fantastic article! I really enjoyed this article,Really like this article.

    I hope that you will produce more useful contents in future. I follow your blog regularly.

    Thanks so much for the help. ? Happy Blogging 🙂

  18. I would only like to add, that creating a scarcity of a particular product helps in better funnel conversion.

    The visitor, if feels that the deal or product will finish soon, there will be better call to action.

  19. Wow Manner… That was a great read.

    Time well spent

    I leaned a lot about funnel and how to set them up.
    it's not JUST to do a sales page… and cross your fingers 🙂 Work and research is a huge part of getting it right. This page is a fantastic recipe

    Thanks Funnel People !

    Have a great one

    Netz

  20. One thing is for sure, exit intent has doubled the conversions of our various sites.
    Clickfunnels I must say is better than Groovefunnels.

    1. Thank You! Clickfunnels is the best funnel app you can use and we are constantly updating and adding new features. Congratulations on your increased conversions!

  21. Hey Aaron,

    The sales funnel is very crucial to take the business to the next level. I'm also using it to get affiliate sales. Thanks for publishing this insane guide.

    Thanks & Regards
    Ayush Mishra

  22. Hey Friends these so much amazing clickfunnels it's the best way to grow up our business and change our lives . Thank you thank

  23. A good article teaches. A great article makes you say " Ahhhaa, that's how they do it, I can now see how I've b÷n funneled." This was a great article. Thank you. The best thing I learned is that this isn't as easy as I thought. That's invaluable.

  24. Dear Funnel People
    This is properly the best article on setting up a funnel – But dont just set it up – Do the research and trim it.
    This gave me the help I needed to get into action. Thx people

    have a great one.

    Mr. Formula 1

  25. SAlesFunnels has been made with the plan to make it simpler for you to sell items and services on the web. And the entirety of that while expanding conversion rates and expanding income and benefit. And all of that while maximizing conversion rates and increasing revenue and profit.

  26. Your program sounds very interesting.
    I look forward to going through all your materials as I learn more about your system.

  27. Im looking forward to building my first funnel and I dont believe that I have ever been more excited about any project before! I quit my job just this month because I have realized the power that good sales funnels online have! I started investing last year and have been intrigued all along by the Funnels that I noticed from research companies as well as people (that I did purchase from) used and, I knew I was wasting my time at work for someone else and the time to go back into business for myself like never before is right now! its funny how the only way I knew to describe a sales funnel to people (or at least the first thing that pops in my head when I am explaining what Im about to do) is "Clickfunnels"! So I decided that I would use the name I knew before I ever looked em up!
    Thank you in advance for creating this unparalleled tool to becoming financially free in this day and age!

  28. Hi Aaron,

    Very well defined of the complete process to make a successful sales funnel. I like the way and the exact points with proper images that make any one of us understand how to market it.

    Indeed a great post, I highly appreciate your hard work.

  29. In any sales funnels or process I've either made myself or consulted on for a client – 1 click order bumps have by far been the easiest order cart value increaser ever. On average from the tests I've done so far, around 50% of all people ordering a lower ticket offer will also take you on the order bump. My digital book package costs $9, and the order bump is $27, and I have 80% of people taking the upsell!

    Order bumps, high ticket upsells, you name it are ALL essential for any business to increase their ROI and profits.

    Great article and very in depth, which is needed now a days!

    1. Thanks for the awesome feedback. Sounds like you have a great understanding already and you're well on your way.

  30. Good Morning I’m an author wanting to learn more about generating leads to my site or email through content engagements. Any suggestions

      1. I like how all-around organized and straightforward this article is. As usual, Clickfunnels is perhaps the best asset with regards to advanced showcasing and obviously—pipes.

        The manner in which you had the option to separate huge focuses without examining them so that main very much prepared pipe specialists can comprehend is moving since it makes the substance simpler to peruse and comprehend also.

        It seems as though numerous forthcoming deals channel clients and makers will see this as exceptionally accommodating.

        Thank You!

  31. This is an amazing piece of content guys. Wonderful.
    Creating a funnel from Day 1 is the sureshot roadmap to blogging success.

    Clickfunnels is the best.

  32. Hey Aaron Orendorff, great job.

    I'm trying to find some viable ways to create a sales funnel to sell my ebooks, but I didn't get any proper guides like you provided.

    There are multiple platforms that offer many of the features that most people are looking for. But my point is that with a strong platform, I can sell my ebooks by creating the first sales channel.

    Is there an option to use the "click funnels" in the trial version?

    Thanks!

    1. Thanks for the positive comments! We love when we're able to move entrepreneurs forward toward their goals

  33. Whoa !

    That's my first read about sales funnel I can't express in words how amazing write this blog post I am super excited to apply this funnel strategy in my own blog.

    Thank you so much

    Keep Writing This Type of Content for beginners like me

    1. Really awesome that we were able to move you forward toward your goals. Thanks for letting us know.

  34. Hey very informative, thank you very much. Well written and laid out, for me any way…

    55 it was just searching around trying to find something realistic and the whole funnel process is very similar to the pyramid marketing just upside down lol for optics I imagine. But flags were going up when I was watching one presentation from the “digital business program“ and I’m sure it’s the same concept with all of them so it’s very difficult to try and find something that is Not bells and BS:)

    Glad I found your article 👌✌️

    1. Johny, you might want to join our awesome #funnelhacker community at facebook.com/groups/clickfunnels

  35. There is no doubt that sales funnels are very important for affiliate marketing but since I started using click funnels, I have noticed an increase in my sales.

        1. We have really great information here about building your online business. Happy we were able to help you

  36. I am trying to add a link to my button but it still says “warning, button action not set” how do I fix this????

    1. Zexxy, this would be very frustrating. Please contact our support team at help.clickfunnels.com so they can help you with this quickly.

    1. Thanks for the feedback. We have a lot of really useful information here to help you as your business grows

  37. Great post – the key takeaway for me is structuring your funnel to increase the lifetime value of the customer and not just focusing on the initial sale.

  38. That’s much harder to do and much more time consuming then using social platforms, but I agree with you, that this method brings greater returns in the long run. And yes, a good SEO, partnership with influencers and other bloggers plus a good subscriptions campaign are what truly gives a edge. Thanks for your article

    1. Happy you agree! Thanks for taking time to spend with us here on the Blog. We update regularly adding new content

      1. Sales funnel is a gift for affiliate marketers. With the help of funnel sales increases like crazy. But i also think funnel is something that beginners should avoid.

        What's your thought about it?

  39. hey , Awesome
    This is a very useful article and covered everything about the sales funnel. I don't have much experience in this area and trying to learn. Thanks for this amazing article.

  40. Clickfunnels team Thank you very much because you have helped me a lot. I am still a newbie in the concept of sales funnel. And using clickfunnels has made this task easier.

    I am not doing any spam. I say from the heart

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