Welcome to CreativeDemand Copywriting Tips, I’m Anna, a professional copywriter. Today talking about sales funnel essentials: what do you need to create one? To answer that, I’m going to give you four basic components of a sales funnel. 

But before we get into that, here are two important things to remember:

First, this is in the context of digital marketing. Sales funnels can be multi-faceted, multi-stage, and vary by industry. Some include phone calls and in-person meetings. What we’re talking about today is a basic sales funnel used in the digital marketing industry. 

Second, understanding a sales funnel is vital to your copywriting and marketing. You might think that if a person wants something, they just go to the store (or go online) and buy it. That’s a sale — transaction complete. But there’s so much that goes into that one transaction. Why did they choose to buy from that company or brand? Why that specific product? Why now?

A Sales Funnel Is Like the Recipe for a Sale

A sale is like a cake — a lot of ingredients make it turn it the way that it does. Add the wrong amount of something or miss an ingredient, and you’ll have a failed opportunity on your hands. So if you were going to create a sale, a funnel would be like the recipe. 

Therefore, having a basic understanding of the sales “recipe” will help you start baking up some finely crafted transactions. 

So here are the four basic parts of sales funnel:

1. A Lead Magnet. A lead magnet is a free resource that you provide in exchange for someone’s contact information. Generally this means just their name and email address, but in certain cases, it may mean getting more information, like a business name, phone number, and so forth. Examples of lead magnets include ebooks, video series, webinars, reports, white papers, etc. 
2. An Opt-in Page. In order to promote your lead magnet, you need a short opt-in page. This is where a potential lead will learn about your free resource and decide whether they’ll fill out the contact form to receive it. 
3. Follow-Up Emails. After your lead submits the form on the opt-in page, you need to deliver that lead magnet, or access to it, in a follow-up email. Then you may continue to email your lead about a paid product or service they may be interested in. 
4. A Sales Page. Your follow-up emails need to include a link to a sales page, where your leads can learn more about the paid product or service you offer. This is where they’ll find all the information they need to know and be able to purchase if they choose.

These are the essentials in order to move a customer from discovering your brand to sampling what you can provide to deciding if they want to pay for what you’re offering. Depending on your business and products, other steps and processes may be involved (and usually are). But it’s important to know the core structure so that you have a place to start.

Some new leads may buy your product immediately, but often they will want to sample what you offer in a way that is non-committal and low-risk. For this reason, sales funnels are more successful when they provide something free on the front end in exchange for contact information. 

Get Started on Your Sales Funnel with Email Marketing

Emails are a critical part of your sales funnel. They’re the follow-up mechanism that keeps your leads and customers engaged with your brand. If you’re just getting started with email marketing, I recommend downloading The 4 Emails You Need to Start Email Marketing. It includes more information about lead magnets and how to begin connecting with your new leads. (And it’s free!) Thanks for reading!