The term ‘sales funnel’ has flooded the marketing world and softwares like clickfunnels have made it seem like putting together 3 pages of copy and design are all you need for a customer journey.

But, it’s time to break it down.

A sales funnel is the journey you take a customer on from your first interaction, to inspiring them to invest in your offer.

And usually, it involves following the AIDA framework:

✏️ AWARENESS: This is the stage of discovery. The content and methods you use in this stage is what will attract leads to your business. This can be through both organic methods like blogs, social media, and word-of-mouth or paid strategies like awareness ads.

✏️INTEREST: Now that you’ve attracted them to your brand, it’s time to build upon that initial curiosity. Your potential customer is looking for solutions to their problems and ways to achieve their goals. Through curated content, indoctrination emails, lead magnets, and more – you can answer their questions and build trust.

✏️DESIRE: Your prospect is officially aware of your solution and is interested in considering it as an option. Now is the time to talk about your packages and offers so they know how they can work with you. Your sales pages, webinars, emails, sales calls, and promotional social media posts

✏️ACTION: Your customer is on the cusp of a buying decision. They’re comparing different options to see what is best for their particular situation. Be ready to answer all of their questions and talk about the benefits of your offer with paid ads, video marketing, emails

There’s also a bonus step… To be honest, the framework should be called ‘AIDAR.’

🚀RETENTION: Now that your customer is on board, your job is to keep them happy so they keep coming back when you have new or upgraded offers down the road. Plus, satisfied customers are your best ambassadors. Referrals were and remain one of the best ways to get your word out there.

Now that I’ve broken it down, it’s easy to see that a ‘sales funnel’ isn’t a one-size-fits-all framework.

It’s a strategic sequence of events your customer can experience to dive deeper in your brand and business.

Hate video? Use blog posts to attract new visitors to your site.

Not interested in paid ads? Be a guest on someone’s podcast or create YouTube videos to build you audience.

Need to grow your email list? Create an irresistible freemium and market it on your social.

The options, and potential – are endless.

When you’ve mastered this funnel and found ways to incorporate this into your business strategy – you’ll be unstoppable.

To learn more, you can watch a video I made all about it by clicking here: What is a Sales Funnel?