A sales funnel is a systematic approach to the customer journey.
It takes people through four stages to turn them from browsers into buyers.
Sales funnels are very intentional.
And when you use them the right way, you can grow your business fast.
They also help you make money in the long term by building relationships with prospects first.
Most people don’t understand that only about 2% of people buy when they first come in contact with you.
Meaning that they don’t buy on the spot.
Entrepreneurs who have websites may not realize the difference between a website and a sales funnel.
The two are actually quit different.
So if you’re not taking people through a sales funnel, you’re throwing precious ad dollars out the window.
However, everyone talks about sales funnels differently.
There are so many articles about the number of sales funnel stages and a lot of them are different.
But the original “OG” model comes from a guy named, E. St. Elmo Lewis.
Lewis created the AIDA marketing model.
AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action.
Those are the four stages of a funnel.
Yes, there can also be engagement, reaction, etc. etc.
But AIDA is the original (and IMO the best) approach.
Traffic comes into your funnel at the top.
That’s where they become aware that you even exist.
But for them to show interest, they usually opt into your list.
That means you need a lead magnet “bait” somewhere.
And that lead magnet should create curiosity and be very valuable.
When you give away free value like this you’re more likely to get people to opt in and you’re more likely to quickly gain their trust or “desire” to purchase from you.
Desire actually happens when you engage the prospect by sending them emails.
In the emails, you use stories to sell.
This concept is aptly called story-selling.
That’s how you turn desire into action.
Action is obviously when they purchase.
You don’t need to complicate this.
All you need is some software to build out these funnels.
Most sales funnel software has premade templates + drag-and-drop editors.
So it’s easy.
That’s it in a nutshell.