So what are funnels? Click funnels. Sales funnels. Online funnels. Marketing funnels. Lots of names, but funnels is what it’s all about. So “Funnels 101” – what are these funnels all about?

What are funnels?

You will have an end goal for your visitors of your web site (I’ll refer to web site just for now). Maybe buying something, signing up to an email list, filling in a form – that sort of thing. That is a conversion. The visitor is converted from browsing to doing something. Taking an action.

You will ask them to “do something” with a call to action – maybe a button, a form, and so on.

A funnel is the set of steps (normally a series of web pages) that leads them to take actions. The web pages will lead them up to your goal (your target conversion), and then probably continue, offering them optional “things”.

Amazon is an easy funnel to understand:

• They visit Amazon website
• They view a product
• They add a product to the cart
• They are offered other things to add to their cart
• They make a purchase

All the other pages, the contact details, their orders and so on, are not part of the funnel – they are not necessary to complete the purchase (Amazon’s target conversion).

But why is it called a funnel? Because more people will be at the top than the bottom. Some may visit and leave. Some will view a product and leave. The numbers always reducing until the bottom of the funnel that contains those people that actually purchase.

You want to keep as many relevant people in the funnel as possible.

The more focused the offer in your funnel to the visitors, the more likely they are to convert. Don’t surprise people, keep them on track, ensuring everything the read, see and do is focused on your target conversion.

So why use funnels?

By keeping track of visitors at each step you can see where you are losing relevant customers and tighten things up. Change the copy (the words, headlines and so on), improve the call to action, review the images and videos. And check you are doing everything to persuade them to continue.

Have you got enough (any?) social proof, testimonials, quotes, and so on? Do you offer a guarantee? Are you stating key benefits, backed up by proven features?

Would you benefit from a free trial?

A common tactic, at the top of the funnel, is to offer a lead magnet. Something you give (usually) for free to reward progress through your funnel. The lead magnet can be anything from a PDF download to a sample.

https://t4s.site provides you with statistics on all the pages of your funnel so you can see where conversion rates are low, and then where you can look to improve those pages to get visitors to continue in your funnel. A good funnel owner will watch these statistics so they know where to improve things.

Want to know more?

I’m about to start the next chapter in my book on all the various types of online funnels – get your free updates as they come out!

In a nutshell…

This is the key take away:

• You want visitors to your web page/site (your funnel landing page) to “do something”, this is the conversion.
• Visitors will be lead, via a series of web pages (your funnel) to your target goal conversion using a combination of lead magnets and persuasive copy and images/videos.
• Check the statistics of your funnel pages to see where conversion is low and make improvements.
• Add additional funnel pages to offer optional extras (up-sells and so on).