How to create your first online sales funnel

Trying to work out how to create your first online sales funnel?

Keep on reading as I’ll be showing the best type of funnel to make if you are just starting out and showing you the exact steps you need to go through in order to create your own sales funnel.

This page includes affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I may earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you.

What is an online sales funnel?

An online sales funnel is a way of guiding people and turning them from a prospect to a buyer. This is shown in the format of a funnel because people will drop off at each stage.

Why is an online sales funnel beneficial for businesses?

First and foremost, sales funnels help you to make more sales. When you have taken the time to map out a customer journey and create the necessary content to move them from prospect to buyer you’ll make more sales in your business. However, the real beauty in online sales funnels is that most of the process can be automated. This means after you’ve set up your funnel the main focus is on filling the top of the funnel. Then, in most cases, everything else is automated (unless you have a service that requires people booking a call etc).

How to create your first online sales funnel?

The first thing you need to do is work out the structure of your sales funnel. For your first online sales funnel I would highly recommend you go with the following:

TRAFFIC >> LONG-FORM CONTENT (Blog, Podcast, YouTube) >> LEAD MAGENT >> EMAIL SEQUENCE >> SALES PAGE

This is a very common online sales funnel structure, however, if you already have a website and an email service provider it doesn’t require you to invest in anything else.

Now you know the structure of your funnel it is time to start thinking about each stage.

What is the ultimate goal of the funnel?

When you are creating your sales funnel you need to start with the end in mind. What are you ultimately trying to sell?

A funnel should be designed to sell one specific thing. That could be a service, product, course, membership, book etc.

Once you know what you are aiming to sell at the end of your funnel you can start to plan the structure of your funnel.

SALES PAGE

The aim of the sales page is for someone to buy your product or service. Now I can already here someone saying “But what if I don’t have a way for people to buy directly from me?”. If for example, like myself, you talk to potential clients before accepting bookings that your aim of the page would be to have someone book a call in your calendar.

On this page, it is essential that you provide a mechanism for people to be able to buy from you. You’ll also need to include all of the information you believe someone will need in order to make a decision about buying your service or product.

EMAIL SEQUENCE

The purpose of the email sequence is to build your relationship with the email subscriber and lead them to a point that when you have an email leading to the sales page that they click on that link.

There is no fast rule on the length of the email sequence. However, since this is your first online sales funnels lets keep it simple and aim for 3-5 emails.

LEAD MAGNET

The lead magnet is a desirable resource that you create and provide to others in return for their email address. Your lead magnet should directly relate to the service or product you are selling at the end of your funnel (remember always keep the ultimate aim of your funnel in mind). For example, if you are selling a podcast course then your lead magnet could be a checklist for starting a podcast. Ideally, you want to make your lead magnet as enticing as possible. Think about what format your ideal client or customer would prefer.

Some popular lead magnet formats are:

Checklist
Quiz
Audio training
Video training
Report
Workbook
Voucher
Cheatsheet
Template
Script
eBook

LONG FORM CONTENT (Podcast / Blog / YouTube)

In order for people to sign up to your lead magnet, you’ll need to drive traffic to it. Now in some funnels, the focus will be directly on driving people straight to the lead magnet. This is commonly done through advertising. However, since you are creating your first online sales funnels I wanted to show you how to create an organic (aka free) sales funnel.

If you aren’t going to drive people to your lead magnet through adverts then really your best option is to mention your lead magnet is your long-form content (that could be your blog posts, podcast episodes or videos).

Again you’ll need to think carefully about whether the focus of that content will attract someone who would be your ideal client or customer for what you are trying to sell. The best way to create this type of funnel is reverse-engineering the process ie think about what content you could create that would naturally allow you to mention your lead magnet.

Setting up your online sales funnel

At this stage, you should know exactly what you need at each stage. Now it is time to set it up. So you’ll need:

Sales Page – This can be on your existing website
Email Sequence – This is an automated sequence of emails that can be created in your email service provider.
Lead Magnet – You’ll need to create the lead magnet and then work out how to deliver it via email or host it online and the email will have a direct link to where it is hosted.
Long-Form Content – This will be you creating podcast episodes, blog posts or videos.

The sales page, email sequence and lead magnet only need to be set up once. Then going forward your focus will be on creating great long-form content and driving traffic to it.

Not currently creating long-form content and not sure whether your long-form content should be a podcast, blog or YouTube channel? This will help you decide – Blog vs Podcast vs YouTube.

Now it is time to fill your funnel

Now whilst I recommend that you continue to make weekly long-form content and include your relevant lead magnet where possible. You could technically create a few blog posts, videos or podcast episodes and then focus all your energy on getting new people to read, watch or listen.

This is the beauty of setting up a funnel. Once it is done your main objective is to fill the funnel aka bring new people to your long-form content. You have to keep on filling the funnel and then everything else happens automatically.

You can use the tactics mentioned in How to drive traffic to old blog posts to help ensure you are getting new view son the content which includes your lead magnet.

Checking your funnel’s performance

Not all funnels are created equal. You’ll need to monitor your funnel’s performance and see how people are converting. You’ll be able to look at stats such as number of blog page views vs number of people signed up for the lead magnet, click-through rate of your emails and the conversion rate of your sales page.

There you have it! You now know how to create your first online sales funnel.

Now I know that it may seem that there are a lot of choices to be made and a lot of content to create. There is a sales page, an email sequence, a lead magnet… and that is before you even think about creating highly targeted long-form content that will attract your ideal client or customer.

You have two choices! You can sit down, re-read this blog post and do it by yourself or you can have me by your side throughout the whole process.

A content strategy day was created specifically for business owners who are serious about creating strategic content that positions them as an expert in their industry, builds the right audience and results in more clients.

A sales funnel might seem like a lot of work right now, but in the long run, it will be worth it. In a content strategy day, we would work together to decide the right lead magnet(s) for your business, the themes of the long-form content you need to create, the focus of each email in your email sequence and the sections of your sales page.

If that sounds good to you then you can drop me a message here or if you would prefer to discuss your situation on a call then you can book a call here.