What Is An Online Sales Funnel?

What is a Funnel and How Do They Work?

When the word funnel is mentioned I usually visualize a car with the hood opened and an oil funnel in the picture. I'm not the only one, I know because a number of people have asked me to explain what a marketing funnel is. The subject gets many confused and a bit discouraged but it need not be so.

A marketing funnel is really very simple and some make it more complicated than it needs to be. Actually, the best and most successful funnels have only 3 steps and are very simple. The more steps that are added leave a better chance that the viewer will not finish the process designed to get them to a certain end result.

The end result, or goal, of the funnel, can be a number of things including a sale, an opt-in, a phone call, a sign-up, or lead. These are called conversions and are the end result of the funnel.

A website is a funnel even if someone doesn't understand just what a marketing funnel is. Someone sets up their site with the intentions of drawing traffic to their site for a specific purpose, let's say to purchase a product. They might see an advertisement ad on another site and click on it to get to the someone's site. The visitor reads some of the website content and clicks to go to the next step or to make a purchase.

That's typical of a sales funnel and sounds really simple, right? There are said to be over 2 billion viewers online and any website owner would love to get as much of that traffic coming to their site as possible.

Through various outreach campaigns on social media sites and forums, articles written, podcast, videos made, or a webinar, the site owner draws traffic into the funnel that travels through the website page and a percentage will click to proceed and the rest will move onto something else.

That is how simple a funnel is and as mentioned, the end result or goal can be to get an email address, get the visitor to click something, or to make a purchase, each is considered a conversion.

There are funnels that have more steps depending on what the design of the funnel is for the visitor but the fewer steps get better results.

How do they work?

Think of yourself as a tour guide leading visitors onto and through your website and leading them where you would like them to go and to do what you would like them to do. The site owner tries to direct them to click here or go there and see a great product that will enrich their lives in one way or another.

So website owners are like tour guides on their own websites and it's best that they understand drawing viewers into a funnel, their website, and being a tour guide leading them to the goal, or point of conversion with every page.

The Components and Tools Needed for a Funnel

The very first thing needed for a funnel is an idea. An idea could be for a video, a blog post, podcast, audiobook, a presentation, a free offer, or a webinar.

Another thing that's needed is a desired goal or end result, whether it be a sign-up, a sale or something else. Then figure out how to get the desired end results starting from the idea.

Figure out what you want your site visitors to do. What's the purpose of the site? Determine what your funnels end result is and then you can design the pathway toward the end result.

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Why True Leaders (and Marketers) "Overcommunicate"

When I was in high school, I earned some extra money doing odd jobs for a solicitor's office. Nothing fancy - mail this, drop of that, fill out this form, sweep that floor. Obviously nothing that required a law degree and not much that required a brain.

The money wasn't bad though.

I learned many leadership lessons from that job.

Unfortunately, most of them were hard lessons - more what not to do, instead of what to do.

Some of the lessons were obvious, like how a little kindness goes a long way.

(And I know just how far a little contempt can go, too.)

One lesson was a lot more subtle. It took me years after leaving that place to piece this one together. In that job I knew what I was supposed to do, but I never knew why.

So when a strange situation popped up and I had to show initiative, I blew it.

I had no clue what a good outcome looked like.

Sure, my job mostly involved cleaning coffee cups and emptying garbage cans. But anything more complicated than that, my only hope was to guess at what my boss wanted.

Fast forward a decade or so:

I worked in a large organisation whose leadership were keen talkers. They'd hold town hall meetings, send all-staff emails, record videos, make announcements... and they'd always say the same things.

Every chance they got, they shared their vision.

What they were doing and why.

It should have felt repetitive. Maybe some people felt annoyed.

But no one was confused about what the organisation did. Or how their role supported it.

When something strange popped up, it was easy to figure out what to do. Whatever would best serve the leadership's vision was the right course of action.

Once of Cialdini's influence principles is Authority.

Tell me - which person embodies Authority better?

Someone who jumps from fad to fad, always chasing the next shiny thing?

Or someone who understands their purpose - and can make you understand it, too?

And the best way to convey your purpose - to have your reader feel it in their squishiest places - is to talk clearly and often. Average leaders rarely communicate. Great ones overcommunicate. With enough repetition, the message becomes unforgettable.

This is one of the reasons why marketers say each ad should have One Big Idea. A full-page ad has many words and they all say the same thing. It overcommunicates the Big Idea until it burns in your prospect's mind.

And it's why I like content marketing. You don't write one ad; you write thousands. You don't focus on One Big Idea once - you do so over and over.

Any schmoe can browse Wikipedia and cobble together an article. But who can overcommunicate? Only an Authority can, because it takes deep knowledge and experience to write this way.

Content marketing is tough when you're an amateur.

And it's so fun and powerful when you know your stuff.

Your prospects will pick up on it. They'll absorb your message and elevate you to an Authority in their mind.

From there, they'll trust you enough to become clients.

What messages do I overcommunicate?

Content marketing works.

Your prospects deserve your best voice, knowledge and persuasion skills.

I'm a professional who understands your business better than anyone.

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