What Is A Marketing Funnel?

A marketing funnel is a series of emails.

That’s it!

There’s no magic fairy dust. There’s no secret sauce. It’s just a series of emails.

To be more precise, a marketing funnel is a series of emails that leads a prospect from where they are right now and shows them what their life could look like with your help. So, each email opens a window to a better life and tells an inspiring personal story that demonstrates your expertise, builds trust, reveals your values and makes your prospect want to work with you.

How can one email do all those things? By linking to additional content such as a video or blog.

To create a high performing marketing funnel you must start with a clear picture of where your prospect is right now and where you want to take them.

You then need to identify the steps that they need to take to move from where they are right now to where they want to be. Then show them exactly how to take each step through your value content.

That’s how you help them. That’s how you demonstrate your expertise. That’s how you earn their trust. That’s how you make them want to work with you.

Why Do You Need A Marketing Funnel?

The purpose of a marketing funnel is to create trust with someone that doesn’t know you and demonstrate how you can help them.

So…

How long does it take you to trust someone?

What do you need to hear them say? What do you need them to show you?

Are you a skeptical or naturally trusting person? For this exercise I’d like to ask you to put on your most skeptical hat. Then think back to the start of your journey and ask yourself if your value series would make you trust your business.

Get clear on what you need to hear before you trust someone. Then make sure it’s in your marketing funnel. It can be in your email sequence or it can be in your value content. Just make sure it’s there.

A high performing marketing funnel does the following 4 things:

1. Demonstrates your expertise
2. Builds trust
3. Reveals your values
4. Makes your customer feel good about buying

The simplest and most powerful way to do all 4 things is to tell and inspirational personal story that leads into a how to lesson.

For example, if you want to teach property investors how to source discount properties direct to owner then you could first start by telling a story of how hard it was for you to start your property journey because you couldn’t find the right property. You could tell the story of what you did and why it didn’t work before you discovered the high performing secret that you are going to share with the reader.

What does that do?

It builds trust by telling a personal story. It builds trust by having the honesty and courage to say that you’ve had failures on your journey to success. And it builds trust by saying, these are the things that I’ve tried that have failed. Chances are, these are the same things that your reader or viewer has tried and failed with too.

By showing your reader the struggles that you went through, you reveal your values. The fact that you don’t quit no matter how rough the terrain. The fact that you kept searching for a better way, despite the setbacks and false starts. This is what will attract people to you.

By showing your audience how to use the system that is working for you right now, you demonstrate your expertise and give results in advance.

Let’s face it, nothing is going to make someone want to work with you more than results in advance. If your prospect gets better results in their life or business after reading your blog or watching your video then you have just made them want to work with you.

What Assets Do You Need To Create A Marketing Funnel?

To create a high performing marketing funnel you need the following 4 assets:

1. Upfront value
   1. Blog
   2. Video
   3. Audio
2. Your inspirational personal story or stories
3. Social proof
4. Irresistible offer

Asset #1 - Upfront Value

How long does it take you to trust someone? Especially someone with a too good to be trueoffer. After all, we are all looking for the shortcut to success and there are definitely better ways to achieve the same result but if something sounds too good to be trueit makes us want it and it makes us ask Is that really possible?

You must make outrageous and true claimsif you want to attract the attention of your ideal customer. You must immediately back those claims up with proof if you want to pull your prospect into your video or blog.

So, how long does it take you to trust someone? One video? Or two? Or more?

A marketing funnel does not need to be long and complicated. It just needs to build trust before you make an irresistible offer. The more upfront value you give, the more trust you will create.

Let’s just say that you are going to create between 1 and 4 pieces of value content.

Asset #2 – Your Inspirational Personal Stories

You can tell your personal story to build the need for what you are about to say in each piece of content. Or you could tell a personal story before asking your community to click the link in a email.

How and where you use your personal stories is your choice. Just remember that the more stories you tell, the more you will attract customers that share your values.

How do you tell an inspirational personal story? Here’s a blog post that reveals exactly how to do that: 5 Simple Steps To Tell A Thrilling Tale

Asset #3 – Social Proof

Outrageous claims attract a lot of attention and a lot of skepticism. So you must reveal immediately how you were able to achieve that specific result. If you can show how you’ve helped other people achieve similar results then you will make your prospect say to himself I could achieve that too with their help.

That’s how you make your prospect want to work with you before you’ve made an offer.

Asset #4 – Irresistible Offer

If you want to make your prospect feel good about buying… and you want to make them act now… then you’ve got to give them an irresistible offer.

You make your offer irresistible when you do the following 3 things:

1. Give value far in excess of price
2. Make an eye-watering guarantee
3. Have a deadline

Your offer immediately becomes irresistible when you give more value than the price you are charging. To do this your prospect must immediately have a reference of what they expect to pay.

For example, if your prospect believes that a CD costs £10 then your offer becomes irresistible when you are offering 10x CDs for £10!

This is obviously more difficult when you are selling information or a service. In this instance, you’ve got to create the reference point for your prospect. This contrast could be between your consulting fees and your course or workshop investment. Or it could be between other alternatives that they know and accept, such as the price of a degree or MBA.

If you make an eye-watering guarantee you immediately remove the price barrier for your prospect. The more the guarantee terrifies you, the most powerful it will be to make sales.

And… the more you believe in your product and the results that are possible, the easier it is for you to make eye-watering guarantees.

A deadline is a tool that creates urgency. This is how you force your prospect to make a decision today. If you tell them about a great offer with no deadline, the chances are that they will put off making the decision to some day.

When you say, this offer is only available for the next week then you force them to make a decision right now.

If you want to make your deadline more powerful, then tell your prospect that they won’t be able to buy your product for another 6 or 12 months!

But… don’t just use this as a marketing tactic and then sell your product or course 2 months later. Doing so will break your trust with your community. And they won’t believe your deadlines in future campaigns.

Marketing Funnel Examples 

Marketing funnels do not need to be complicated, especially for low priced products.

Here’s an example of a 4-step marketing funnel:

Blog post -> Lead Magnet Opt-in -> Video -> Sales Page

This is perfect for a low priced product (£10 or less)

This is also an elegant way to generate leads. Rather than going out to cold traffic that have never heard of you, why not first send traffic to a blog post (giving upfront value). When they read your blog you pixel them so that you can retarget them on Facebook and other advertising platforms.

How much more likely are you to download a free ebook if you’ve already read a blog post from that company?

Once they have opted-in to your email database you can send them to a video and gives more upfront value. This video also builds the relationship with your prospect because you tell your inspirational personal story.

The final step is to send them to a sales page that makes an irresistible offer that is related to the Lead Magnet that they downloaded and the video that they wanted.

The magic fairy dustin a high performing marketing funnel is: every step must lead your prospect to ONE specific goal.

Let’s return to our example of finding discounted property direct to owner. If you write a blog post about the one way to find property direct to owner that’s working right now then you will attract the attention of property investors.

If your Lead Magnet reveals: how to find discount property direct to owner and trade deals (without buying the house) for a £5,000 fee… then you are giving your prospect another step in their journey to make money from property.

The video can reveal the 5 ways to sell your deals in less than 24 hours. This is another step in the journey that your prospect needs to take to make money from property.

Your product can show them:

1. How to find discount property direct to owner
2. Negotiation secrets to make the owner sell to you
3. How to trade the deal for a £5,000 fee

What’s the difference between the product and what you’ve shown them so far?

The product will show them the how to detail to complete each step. Your product also puts the entire process in one powerful easy to access resource. This makes it easy for them to use.

The higher the price point of what you are selling the more trust you need to build before making your offer

Now It’s Your Turn

I hope you can now see that a marketing funnel is nothing more than a series of emails that leads your prospect from where they are now to where they want to be.

A marketing funnel is a tool that demonstrates your expertise, builds trust and reveals your values in a way that makes your prospect want to work with you before you make an offer.

Please use this to create your own high performing marketing funnel.

If you’ve found this useful then please leave a comment below to let me know.

If this can help someone you know then please share it with them.

Until next time…

Carpe diem

Roland Eva

P.S. if you’d like to learn more about creating high performing marketing funnels to build or grow a training, mentorship or consulting business then you need my new book: How To Start A Training Or Mentorship Business.