Hey there. If you're thinking about creating a funnel and you're wondering, well, what the heck is a funnel? Well, let me just say it's not that little plastic thing we used to use back in the day to put oil in our car, and it's not the little gadget we use in the kitchen to pour large amounts of liquid into a small container. An online funnel is more complex than that. And today we're going to talk about how to slam dunk your product funnel here on the Resilient Faith Online Show. Welcome, I'm Arissa Shadwick, host of the Resilient Faith Online Show. I'm an online marketing coach and certified copywriter. In this podcast, you'll find a different perspective to the external and internal challenges we face as online content creators. Join me for some inspiration and practical tips as we create positive change online. To connect with me in my private Facebook group, go to Marissa Shadrick.com forward slash community. Hey, how are you doing today? Yes, we are getting close to the end of the year. And depending on when you're listening to this, you might be getting ready for the holiday season, or maybe you're listening to this in between quarters throughout the year. In any event, this topic is relevant no matter what season you are in. We are going to talk about funnels. Now, as a copywriter, I have to break down funnels in a way that makes sense because for each journey that a customer takes or a prospect, there's a lot of copy that's involved. So I break it down in the simplest form, and I want to share that with you today. Maybe it'll bring some clarity as to what a funnel is. So one of the things we need to think about is when we're thinking about a funnel, obviously, we want to serve people and we want to sell a product, but we need to start with the end in mind. What is ultimately, if we were future casting, what would be the ultimate thing you would want to offer your audience? That would be your high-ticket offer. What would it be? And you need to think about that. Do you want to do some type of coaching that involves one-on-one? Do you want to do something that involves like one-to-many when you're going to create a digital course? You really have to dial in as to what it is that you want to ultimately do. And that involves the resources that you have, the assets that you have, the time that you have available. You have to take that all into account because this is something that you want to do on an ongoing basis. So you want to have the end in mind. Now, once you figure out ultimately where that customer is going to end up, right, in the customer journey, then you figure out the pricing, depending on all of the deliverables and the things you're going to offer. And then you want to back up because not everybody is going to go from cold traffic to your high-ticket offer. There are stages. Funnel is a term that's, well, for one, it's overused, but it's it's used to give you an image of a funnel, which is large on top and small on the bottom. And typically the larger part means there's a lot going in at the top. And as it goes down the funnel, it gets narrower and you get a slow drip. So this is used to illustrate the process, whether it's a product funnel, whether it's a marketing funnel. And that's kind of my point today that there are different types of funnels. Now, some of them overlap, and I think to simplify things, people just talk about one funnel, the sales funnel. But I think in the long run it confuses people because I find that I have to go back and kind of break down the earlier stages of bringing people in cold traffic and then what to do when people are in your warm traffic, and then also what to do to retain them and to lead them to another product that you might have. So let's see if we can simplify this. So instead of combining them all, I want you to think of them as separate funnels because if you think of them separately, then you're going to be able to identify the gaps, the areas that need to be strengthened, or the areas that need to be tweaked a little bit. And it's a little easier to see why something didn't convert, why something is not selling the way it should if we break it down. We're going to look at the traditional definition of a sales funnel, which again is a term that brings to mind that visual large on top, narrow at the bottom, which symbolizes the stages of cold traffic to customers. It's a strategy. No one wants to be sold to, they want to buy on their own terms. So we have a strategy where we can bring many people in easily, low barrier of entry, and as they get to know you and trust is built, those people are going to continue down the funnel and eventually buy from you. Now, there's a copywriting formula that's used a lot with the sales funnel. It's called the ADA, A-I-D-A, and identifies the cognitive stages that lead someone to a purchase. So very quickly, the A stands for awareness. So this is something that you would see on a squeeze page or a sales page. So first you want to bring some type of awareness to them. Then there needs to be interest. That's the I and Ada. The D is desire and the A is action. Now, I don't want to mislead you. The D in desire is not that we are trying to create desire. If there's no desire in what you're offering, then it's going to be really hard to help them take the next step. They have a desire, and this is where market research comes in. And what you're doing is you're aligning your offer to that desire. So that's the traditional sense. It's the copywriting formula for the sales funnel, which is ADA, awareness, interest, desire, action. So this is all from a reader's perspective. So we need to realize that when we're creating any type of funnel, we always have to put ourselves in the reader's position. I'm not going to call them a customer yet because they're not. I'm not even going to call them a lead yet because they're not. They're just the readers online. Cold traffic. Anything that you write or anything that you put out there for someone to want to opt into, whether it's for sale or whether it's free, always have to have the reader's perspective or that avatar's perspective. Have a clear picture of your buyer persona. It's really, really important. So how do you do that? So you answer some questions. First of all, you ask number one, who are your customers? Number two, what is the main goal or what is it that they want? Number three, why is it important? Number four, what is preventing them from getting what they want? And number five, how can you help them? How can you bridge the gap? So once you know that, you can begin to think about your funnel. Of course, you first thought the end in mind. This is what I ultimately would love to do, even if it takes me six months or a year, or maybe I do it next year. This is ultimately how I want my business to run. And you figure out what that is. So I'm going to talk about the before. I'm going to talk about the middle, and I'm going to talk about one of the um, not the last stage, but one of the latter stages after they're in that middle funnel. So the before is what you would call the marketing funnel. You want to create small micro conversions or people will depart. So you want to be able in the marketing funnel, offer something. And now it could be free and it could be paid depending on how much it is. I'm not going to say that's that's the thing that confuses people with funnels because a lot of these can overlap. But I'm just going to break it down and say the before is to offer a freebie, not for something for sale. So you want to create these small microconversions in your marketing funnel. The goal is that they stay with you and continue with those microconversions. So the first stage of the marketing funnel is brand discovery or brand awareness. They suddenly know you are there. The second is market alignment. So they see that you're there, they discover you, they're aware of you, and they see that you offer something that they've been thinking about. There's market alignment. The third is there's message alignment. Something that you're saying about that particular market is resonating with them. So you want to have message alignment. And then mission alignment. That means whatever you are saying is really hitting home. It's becoming personal to them and it aligns to their mission, what they want to achieve, their goals, the outcome that they want. So it has mission alignment. And then finally, the next little microconversion in the marketing funnel is engagement. They either comment or they share or they do something with whatever you're offering, or they click a button, whatever it might be, or it's an offer acceptance. They decide to download a free PDF resource. So you see that there's a lot of things going on when you're doing the marketing. As I said earlier, it's the cognitive stages. This can happen just in a few seconds. But in a marketing funnel, there's brand awareness, there's market alignment, there's message alignment, there's mission alignment, and there's engagement or offer acceptance. So you consider then the social platforms that you want to be on and offer that lead magnet. But all of these microconversions happen before they even click to download your PDF. That's why the copy is so important because you want to have that market alignment, message alignment, mission alignment so that they stay engaged and they don't depart. They don't opt out or click out. That's the marketing funnel. There's a lot right there because think about it. When you have your messaging on your website, you might have a squeeze page that has an engaging headline. You create the email sequences that go with that. Once they opt in, you start nurturing them. There's a lot in there. So to blend everything into one sales funnel to me seems like a lot because we miss some areas and then we wonder why it's not converting. So you've got your marketing funnel, then you've got your email funnel, or some people call it your email campaign, which is the middle section. By the very nature of funnel, you know that the top is wide. That's why the marketing funnel is important because you need a lot of people coming in at the top to be able to communicate to them to get them to click. That's why conversion rates are lower because not you don't get 100% conversion rate. So that would be wonderful, right? If if 100% of what came to the top of the funnel converted, but that's not the case. So we want to continue to grow our email list. So how do we do that? This is where you keep them engaged. And if need be, you segment them if you are offering various free offers or various uh products. It's best to try one free offer and really get it dialed in and finish the process all the way through the different funnels before you add another one because then you're working on too many things at the same time. Focus work is always best. So you keep them engaged with blog posts, newsletters, updates, reports, podcasts, episodes, videos. There's lots of ways to do that. And you don't have to do that a lot. I mean, you can just do it once a week, stay in touch with them. So why is this important? Because you want to maintain retention. You don't want them to all of a sudden opt in and then you're not top of mind anymore. And they forget about you and they go to the next free opt-in. You want to keep them engaged and keep them active in your community. And you can discover a lot about your market when they're on your email list. They're already aware of you and what you do and what you offer. So emails are a great way to convert them to the next thing that you have. And perhaps that would be a webinar or a challenge or a boot camp because they're already aware of what you do. So these people are more like warm leads, the people that are in your email funnel or your email campaign. And again, you need a lot of those emails or leads or opportunities, whatever you want to call it, in order to convert because open rates vary and click-through rates vary, and we want conversion as well. So the more we have, the more we keep that steady flow of filling it up at the top and dripping it down at the bottom. And then the final end thing that we want, well, of course, we want customers, we want conversion. So then we start looking at that sales funnel. And we're thinking long-term goals here. And we also want to think how can we have repeat customers? This is where we start in the beginning of this broadcast, talking about the end in mind. When we get to the point of the sales funnel, hopefully everything has worked together where the lead magnet is just a way to introduce them to something. And the next step is like a no-brainer. It's an enhancement of that lead magnet. So once your email funnel or your campaign gets registranced to your webinar, your challenge, your boot camp, and you do the presentation and you have a successful conversion, then they've entered your sales funnel. It may be a low offer that you've offered or a mid-range offer, but you should always have a high-ticket offer that eventually you're going to lead your customers to, because at this point they're a customer, and you might have a premium offer that you want to offer later on to those customers. Because these are the people that have actually purchased. These are the people that are more dedicated, more serious, are okay investing in themselves, are eager to grow. So the mid-range offer might not be enough. Eventually, they will need maybe a high ticket just because they're growing, they're implementing, and maybe even a premium. So you want to figure out what the sales funnel looks like based on your product funnel. The product funnel is often called the value ladder. So many people start off with a product that's really low, under $100, then they have a mid-range product, anywhere from maybe $500 to $1,000, and they have a higher ticket, which is somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000, and then they have their premium that could be thousands of dollars. So depending on what it is, they have entered into that funnel. And think about it, it's logical because once they grow, they've implemented everything you've offered, they're ready for the next step. They're thinking, okay, what's next? I've conquered this, I've learned this, I've successfully implemented this. Now what? So in order to serve them well, we need to have those higher-end offers, at least the thought of what it is we're going to offer already in place. We can maybe develop it later, but we need to know what those things are going to be. And then there's always follow-up funnels too. So you can see that there are different types of funnels. If we really want to break it down, it's far more than just a sales funnel. And I think because we try to make it really simple, we've oversimplified it and realized these stages we have to really break it down from when they're a cold audience, from when they're a warm audience, and when they're actually customers, and continue those stages for them so they continue to get service and help and support and see results and conversion and so forth. Because that's really what we're doing. We are serving people. So I think it's important to think about that because I know one of the mistakes that I made when I first started was just creating all these lead magnets, tons of lead magnets, and maybe this one will work. Okay, this one didn't work so well, maybe this one will work. And I create all these lead magnets, and they weren't connecting to the subsequent step. Everything was kind of disjointed. I was just trying to grow my list. And really, you want to again think about their journey, their perspective. It's about them, it's not about us. And we want to see how we can give them that quick win and then lead them to the next step. And we can do that through email campaigns or through that email funnel, leading them to that next step and keeping that engagement and keeping that interest. So creating a lot of different lead magnets, I mean, just think for each lead magnet you have, you need a welcome email series, and then you need to figure out what that ultimately, what that freebie is going to lead to, because you could do some type of order bump or content upgrade of some sort on a thank you page. But then where does that lead? You always need to see the big picture. Where are they going from the lead magnet to the first low entry offer to the mid-range offer to the high ticket offer to the premium offer? And you need to have a clear picture of what that involves and how much of your time is it going to take? Is it going to be a digital product that's do-it-yourself? Is it going to be something where you need to be present? You need to consider all these when you're looking at this. And that will make it seamless and it'll make sense to your prospects and your customers. So I hope that makes sense. I know it sounds like a lot, but really what we need to think about first, we need to think about our market and figure out what exactly they want. Because what can happen is we can create all kinds of things that's not really an interest to them. It's not really nailing what it is that they want. And maybe what they want is something easier and simpler to implement. And you could create that probably in a weekend as opposed to creating something that's huge and has all these components to it and all these steps to it that maybe they don't even want. And then you've wasted all this time. So it's important to do your due diligence and really do some market research and look and see even what your competitors are doing, so you can figure out how you are different and how you can position yourself. Because again, you're going to have some type of squeeze page or landing page describing all this, which is where the copy comes in. And you need to be very clear so it resonates with them because you only have a few seconds to get them to continue to read or check out. So it's really, really important. I want you to just keep in mind that as you're thinking about these funnels, which is really strategy, that's all we've been talking about, is just the strategy. What's the strategy to bring them into my community? What's the strategy once they're in my community? What's the strategy when it comes to the sales journey? You know, what am I going to offer? The products. It really is just strategy. So if you think of it and completely eliminate the word funnel and just think, what is my strategy for this? You'll be on the right track. So one of the things I would love for you to keep in mind is that sales is simply service. We are serving people. And in order to serve them, we need to know what they want, right? We're serving them. So when someone's hungry and we serve them a meal, it's to satisfy their hunger, right? If someone is tired and we offer them a place to stay, we're offering them rest. So we need to figure out what it is that our market needs and serve them well. There's a scripture in Philippians 2.4 from the New Living Translation that says, don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others too. That, my friend, is sales. Sales is service. So whenever you even think of what am I going to sell or what my lead magnet's going to be, figure out what is it that they want? What is it that they need? Go back from the very beginning before you create all kinds of stuff that maybe they don't even they're not even interested in. Figure out who is your customer. You know, what is the main goal? What do they want? Why is it important? What's preventing them from getting what they need? And then fill the gap. Then how can you help? Figure out how you can help. And that is going to help you get further faster than guessing your way through all this and making mistakes and getting discouraged. So I hope that was helpful. And if you want to have a conversation with me, I've got some things that I'm launching in January. I would love for some of you to be a part of it. It's an annual program. It involves copy, it involves mastermind. If you're interested in it, I would love to have a conversation and just give you a strategy call and spend about a half an hour discussing your business and seeing how I can help you out. All you have to do is go to my website and there's a little tab there that says need help, or you can go straight to marissa shatter.com forward slash copywriter and you will land on that page as well. And uh let's schedule a call. Let's see if we can get you set up for January 2022, or if you're listening to this later, let's see if we can set you up for the next quarter so you can hit the ground running. So until next time, thank you so much, and I'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye. Wait, before you go, if you found this podcast helpful, subscribe so you never miss an episode. Every subscription, review, or rating means so much to me. Remember, cultivate resilient faith online to create positive change in the world.