Marketers like to toss the phrase “marketing funnel” around a lot. Basically, it’s just any route that you create that gets your target market from noticing your business to becoming a client. I could go into a long description about the shape of a physical funnel compared to what happens in this metaphorical one, but it’s honestly not that important to what we’re discussing today.
Building a functioning marketing funnel will make marketing in general so much easier for you. Instead of you putting in a bunch of work trying to convert people into clients that you just cold DMed (and constantly getting rejected), you set yourself up so that the right people will find you and travel through your steps at their own pace.
To properly create this funnel, you need to first decide which of your products or services you want to ultimately guide people to. I would suggest picking your big-ticket offer (you know, that one that’s really big and awesome but costs the most so you’re afraid to market it too much—that one).
While it might be tempting to guide people instead to your best seller, it’s likely your best seller because the right people are already finding it. So instead, you can use your best seller as a step in your funnel with the ultimate goal being your big-ticket offer. This would work especially well if they’re similar. If they’re completely unrelated, then keep them entirely separate and instead you can create individual funnels for each.
Now that you’ve decided where you’re going, you can figure out where to start. You’ll want to create a lead magnet. This needs to be well-aligned to your big-ticket offer. Something that seems like a starting point for it for people who need your big-ticket offer, but either aren’t ready to jump right into it or aren’t aware that they need it.
Next, you’ll need to figure out where your target market is. You can’t expect the right people to just find you (you can read more about that here). Instead, you need to find out where you need to go to find them. Is it Instagram, LinkedIn, or a Facebook group? Maybe it’s not on social media at all. Wherever your target market is, that’s where you need to go.
Once you know where they are, you can thoughtfully and gently guide them to your lead magnet. They’ll give you their email in exchange for it, and you can start a sequence (a series of emails). You can use this sequence to eventually introduce them to your best seller. If they buy your best seller, then you can start them on another sequence that leads them to your big-ticket offer.
You do not have to include email marketing in your funnel. You can send people from Instagram into a chat group instead. Or from other people’s groups on Facebook or LinkedIn into your own group. Pick whatever works best for you right now. I do want to remind you that your email list belongs entirely to you, but your social media followers belong to the platform you’re on. But if you can’t do email marketing yet for whatever reason, then do what you can. In the end, marketing is all about figuring out what works for you. And that will look a little different for everyone.
All the best,
Ryanne Zender
Disclaimer: While marketing is based in part on statistics and psychology, it is not an exact science. Every business and market are unique. What may work for one business, will not necessarily work for another. There are no guarantees in marketing, and this post is for informational and educational purposes only and does not replace professional advice. You can check out the full list of disclaimers and disclosures here.
