Creating sales funnels
Morning all.
Hope you’re well.
Today’s post is about sales funnels which I think are a key part of copywriting.
This is not only in the work you do but also in how you brand yourself.
For anyone who isn’t aware, a sales funnel is essentially a method of finding a wide range of people and leading them on a journey which leads to a sale.
A quick diagram of a sales funnel.
For example, a YouTuber will get millions of views at the top of the funnel, but have 100-200 people on a paid product at the bottom.
Each moment in their journey is guiding you towards the bottom, where the real money is made.
The middle part is where copywriters come in.
Guiding people on this journey and keeping attention is the craft.
It’s also unfortunately where a lot of the snake oil salesmen come in, but it is where skilled marketers and copywriters can make all the difference.
I read Dotcom Secrets by Russell Brunson recently, and I highly recommend it if you haven’t.
It’s got me thinking about sales funnels in everything — shops, websites, literally any place that I make a payment, or any action that I’m guided into.
Sales funnels that I create
I write articles for a company called CurrencyTransfer.
They’re all entry-level articles on finance.
But they are all designed to fit Google search terms, and therefore, bring in a wide amount of traffic:
I use the term ‘wide’ here deliberately. A lot of people entering the top of the funnel will never care about your product.
However, if you get 100,000 clicks per month, it’s almost guaranteed that at least some people will.
Once they’ve seen the article, they will likely read through it or at least skim to the end.
How the article acts as a funnel
Here is an article I wrote titled ‘Why is Scandinavia expensive?’.
https://www.currencytransfer.com/blog/expert-analysis/why-is-scandinavia-expensive
I wrote this article based on SEO research, and also my own intuition that people would be either curious about Scandinavia being notoriously expensive for economic reasons, or they are looking to travel there, and are worried about the costs.
The CTA at the bottom gives them directions for each currency of Scandinavia and assures them that they’ll get an account manager, so they don’t need to worry.
After this, CurrencyTransfer has landed a new client.
But even if there isn’t a hard sell, you can still bring them into a funnel.
For example, I wrote this article titled ‘Will there be one world currency?’
https://www.currencytransfer.com/blog/expert-analysis/will-there-be-one-world-currency
Here is the conclusion.
Note I lead them back to more articles, as well as the forex news section, which they might prefer, but not to direct signup. Give them somewhere to go that isn’t just entering their bank details.
People start to get annoyed if you’re trying to sell too much.
Plus if it’s all part of a content strategy, you can also rely on CTAs to lead them into the product in other areas of the site.
Sales funnels are everywhere, especially online, and good ones you won’t even notice.
The minute you feel like you’re being sold to, you generally want to back out.
This is where a copywriter will do their work.
My own sales funnels
I’ve demonstrated exactly how I pitch in these two posts:
1.
2.
They demonstrate how I use a sales funnel when I pitch, to not only make my services more attractive, but to also keep people around if they change their mind.
Feel free to check them out and use them as a basis for your own sales funnel.
As always, please consider subscribing to Writing for Money, and let me know in the comments how you think about your own sales funnels.