Last updated on February 4th, 2025 at 05:02 am
Today we are going to discuss everything you need to know to get started with sales funnels.
We will explain the Value Ladder sales funnel that we used to grow our company from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue.
We will also provide five lead generation funnels that you can use to grow your email list and a 6-email welcome sequence template designed to convert email subscribers into paying customers.
Finally, we will share our top seven funnel hacks and reveal how you can 2x, 5x, or even 10x your sales funnel profits.
Ready to grow your business faster than you ever thought possible?
Continue reading…
- What is a Sales Funnel?
- The Value Ladder Sales Funnel
- 5 Lead Generation Funnels That You Can Use to Grow Your Email List
- Convert Email Subscribers Into Paying Customers With This Welcome Sequence
- Russell’s Top 7 Funnel Hacks
- How to 2x, 5x, or Even 10x Your Sales Funnel Profits
- Want Russell to Show You How to Build Your First Sales Funnel?
What is a Sales Funnel?
A sales funnel is a system for converting potential customers into leads, leads into customers, and customers into repeat customers.
Here’s what the general sales funnel structure looks like:
- Top of the funnel (ToFu): Potential customers
- Middle of the funnel (MoFu): Leads
- Bottom of the funnel (BoFu): Existing customers
There are several popular sales funnel models out there.
Here’s the one that we used to grow our company to $100M+ in annual revenue…
The Value Ladder Sales Funnel
We believe that the most effective way to sell anything online is the Value Ladder sales funnel.
It was created by our co-founder Russell Brunson who then used it to take ClickFunnels from zero to $10M+ in annual revenue in just one year (it’s at $100M+ now!).
This sales funnel has four stages:
- Bait – You offer the potential customer your lead magnet in exchange for their email address.
- Frontend – You offer the potential customer your least expensive and least valuable product or service.
- Middle – You offer the customer a more expensive and more valuable product or service.
- Backend – You offer the customer your most expensive and most valuable product or service.
Ideally, you also offer a continuity program of some sort, meaning, a subscription product that generates recurring revenue.
We also recommend adding downsells, upsells, and cross sells to these core offers in order to maximize your revenue.
So the main idea here is this:
Instead of driving traffic directly to your website or sales page, you drive it to your lead magnet landing page and convert those visitors into email subscribers.
Then, once you have their email addresses, you pitch your products and services to them via email.
The reason why this sales funnel works so well is that it allows you to:
- Start the relationship with that person by offering free value
- Nurture that relationship by continuing to provide free value via email
- Build trust by providing progressively more paid value at each stage
Here’s how Russell explains it:
5 Lead Generation Funnels That You Can Use to Grow Your Email List
Okay, so now that you understand the general concept of the Value Ladder sales funnel, let’s talk about how to implement it…
What is a Lead Magnet?
A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to the potential customer in exchange for their email address.
It can be anything that they can either download to their device or access online:
- A report
- An eBook
- A video class
- A video course
- An email course
- A webinar
…etc.
What’s important is that:
- Your lead magnet provides an effective solution to a problem that the potential customer is struggling with.
- That problem is either the same one or related to the one that your frontend offer addresses.
Ideally, your lead magnet should not only serve as bait that helps you attract potential customers and convert them into leads but also set the stage for your frontend offer pitch and help you convert those leads into customers.
Keep in mind that people will use the quality of your lead magnet to gauge the quality of your frontend offer. Impress them and they will want to check it out. Disappoint them and you won’t get a second chance!
What is a Lead Generation Funnel?
A lead generation funnel is the first stage of your Value Ladder (the Bait stage).
Here’s how it works:
- You create a lead magnet
- You create a landing page for that lead magnet
- You drive traffic to that landing page
Once the potential customer gives you their email address in exchange for your lead magnet, they enter your sales funnel and become a lead. This is the end of the Bait stage.
From there, you can use email marketing to pitch them your Frontend, Middle, and Backend offers.
Now let’s take a look at our five favorite lead generation funnels…
The Squeeze Page Funnel
The squeeze page funnel looks like this:
Page 1: A squeeze page
Page 2: A thank you page
This is the most straightforward lead generation funnel so we recommend starting here if you are new to funnel building.
ClickFunnels includes a squeeze page funnel template, a visual editor that you can use to customize that template, and an email marketing functionality that allows you to collect potential customers’ email addresses and pitch them your products and services via email.
The Reverse Squeeze Page Funnel
The reverse squeeze page funnel also looks like this:
Page 1: A squeeze page
Page 2: A thank you page
So what’s the difference between the regular squeeze page funnel and the reverse squeeze page funnel, then?
- With the regular squeeze page funnel, you keep the free value behind the opt-in wall.
- With the reverse squeeze page funnel, you provide some free value right there on the squeeze page itself and keep the rest of it behind the opt-in wall.
Typically, the squeeze page in the reverse squeeze page funnel features a free video that the potential customer can watch immediately without having to opt in.
Then you ask for their email address in exchange for a lead magnet that is related to the free video that they just watched.
This approach can work well for video course lead magnets. Display the first video on your squeeze page and keep the rest of the course behind the opt-in wall.
Alternatively, you can use the video on your squeeze page to tell your story. Sharing how you overcame the problem that the potential customer is struggling with can be a great way to get them interested in your lead magnet.
ClickFunnels includes a reverse squeeze page funnel template, a visual editor that you can use to customize that template, and an email marketing functionality that allows you to collect potential customers’ email addresses and pitch them your products and services via email.
The Survey Funnel
The survey funnel is a funnel that allows you to direct different people to different sales funnels from a single starting point.
It looks like this:
Page 1: A survey
Page 2: A squeeze page based on the survey results
Page 3: A thank you page based on the survey results
We recommend this survey structure:
- Self-identifying question (general) – Ask them who they are.
- Self-identifying question (subject-based) – Ask them about the situation they are in.
- Self-declared level of skill – Ask them what is their skill level.
- Self-declared biggest challenge – Ask them what they are struggling with.
- Learn more about their challenges – Ask them what they are struggling with on a personal level.
- Random curiosity-based question – Ask them something that you are curious to learn about them.
The first question is called the “bucket question” because it determines which sales funnel that person will be directed to.
Survey funnels are a great solution for businesses that serve several distinct customer segments and need to tailor their sales messaging to each segment.
ClickFunnels includes a survey funnel template, a visual editor that you can use to customize that template, and an email marketing functionality that allows you to collect potential customers’ email addresses and pitch them your products and services via email.
The Product Launch Funnel
The product launch funnel is designed to help you generate interest in your upcoming launch, build a pre-launch email list, and get your email subscribers excited about your new product. It was created by the entrepreneur Jeff Walker.
Here’s how the product launch funnel looks like:
Page 1: A squeeze page
Page 2: Video #1
Page 3: Video #2
Page 4: Video #3
Page 5: Video #4
Page 6: A product order page
Page 7: An order confirmation page
We recommend structuring the video sequence like this:
- Video #1: Position yourself as an authority, explain how this same opportunity changed your life, and show the potential customer how your product will make their life better. Then bring up objections that the potential customer might have and promise to answer them in the next video.
- Video #2: Answer the most common objections. Provide social proof by sharing case studies of previous customers. Then foreshadow the next video.
- Video #3: Express how excited you are that the potential customer has made it this far. Then take a step back, explain the big picture, and help them visualize what your product can do for them. Then foreshadow the next video.
- Video #4: Make your offer available to the potential customer. This page should have a “Buy” button below the video that will take them to the product order form.
You should space out these videos. Send one every day or every other day.
Don’t make them all available immediately because that would beat the whole purpose of the product launch funnel. You want to build anticipation!
ClickFunnels includes a product launch funnel template, a visual editor that you can use to customize that template, and an email marketing functionality that allows you to collect potential customers’ email addresses and pitch them your products and services via email.
The Webinar Funnel
The webinar funnel is a lead generation funnel where you use a webinar as your lead magnet.
Here’s how it looks like:
Page 1: A webinar registration page
Page 2: A thank you page
Page 3: A webinar page
You can either end the webinar by pitching your product or service or by encouraging the attendees to book a free 30-minute consultation with you.
The former approach works better for low-touch offers that don’t require customization (e.g. membership site subscriptions, SaaS products, info products, etc.).
Meanwhile, the latter works better for high-touch offers where you need to understand the potential customer’s situation to see whether they are a good fit for your business, show them the value that you bring, and close the sale (e.g. one-on-one coaching, business consulting, freelance services, etc.).
This funnel holds a special place in our hearts because Russell used it to get ClickFunnels off the ground during our first year in business.
He would aim to do 5-7 webinars a week and sometimes would end up doing 2-3 webinars in a single day. Pretty crazy but it worked!
And he still swears by it:
“I always tell people that the best business model in the world is to create a webinar selling your product or your service and then do that webinar live every single week for a year at least once a week.”
ClickFunnels includes a webinar funnel template, a visual editor that you can use to customize that template, and an email marketing functionality that allows you to collect potential customers’ email addresses and pitch them your products and services.
Convert Email Subscribers Into Paying Customers With This Welcome Sequence
We don’t recommend hitting the potential customer with a sales pitch the moment you get their email address. You haven’t built enough trust yet!
Send them this six-email welcome sequence instead:
- Email #1: Who Are You? Introduce yourself to the new subscriber.
- Email #2: Where Did You Come From? Share your origin story. How did you come to do what you do now?
- Email #3: What Do You Do? Explain in more detail what it is that you do.
- Email #4: How Did You Gain This Expertise? Explain what makes you qualified to do what you do. Share relevant experience, credentials, and accomplishments.
- Email #5: Who Do You Do This For? Explain who are your dream customers + share a case study on how you helped such a person get the results that they wanted.
- Email #6: How Can You Do It For Me? Pitch your frontend offer and provide a link to its sales page.
End emails #1-5 with a question and encourage the new subscriber to hit the reply button and let you know what they think. Make sure to respond to every single email that you get. This will make your email subscribers feel appreciated!
As for email #6, end it with a pitch for your frontend offer and a call-to-action button that leads to its sales page.
Alternatively, you can also end it by providing a quick overview of your entire Value Ladder, with a bullet point list of offers accompanied by short descriptions and links to their sales pages.
You can use ClickFunnels email marketing functionality to set all this up!
Russell’s Top 7 Funnel Hacks
Here are Russell’s top seven funnel hacks that can help you increase your conversion rates, revenue, and profits:
- Add more curiosity to your headlines – You want to provide just enough information to pique the potential customer’s curiosity so that they would feel compelled to check out your lead magnet. But don’t give everything away in your headline – if you provide too much information, they’ll think that they already have it all figured out and move on without giving you their email address.
- Have a lead magnet – We hope that you already understand the importance of offering a freebie in exchange for the potential customer’s email address. But you’d be surprised how many businesses out there are missing this essential ingredient of a successful sales funnel.
- Structure your sales page copy for maximum conversions – Your sales page copy should start with an appeal to emotion, followed by an appeal to logic, followed by an appeal to fear (implement the principle of scarcity). All three elements need to be present, in that order, for maximum conversions.
- Add an order form bump – A bump offer is an offer that you present to the potential customer after they have put in their credit card information but before they have finalized the purchase. It should need no explanation and be priced within the impulse buy range. For example, if you are selling a book, you can add an audiobook bump offer.
- Keep the buying loop open to identify hyperactive buyers – The best time to present a potential customer with an offer is when they are already in the process of buying. So when someone decides to buy your product, you want to keep offering them upsells until they finalize the purchase. Don’t end the buying loop yourself, let them end it instead.
- Create an offer wall to ascend buyers up your Value Ladder – Sometimes people just want to keep shopping so they start browsing the Internet for something else to buy. Why lose that traffic when you could direct it to your other offers instead? An offer wall is a page that presents a catalog of your various offers so that the customer could continue exploring your product line.
- Add a webinar to your thank you page – When a potential customer subscribes to your email list to get your lead magnet, use the thank you page to invite them to a free webinar. Then pitch them your product or service at the end of that webinar.
Check out this video where Russell goes through these hacks one by one and provides examples for each of them:
You can easily do all this with ClickFunnels!
How to 2x, 5x, or Even 10x Your Sales Funnel Profits
A/B testing, also known as split testing, is the primary conversion rate optimization method that online marketers use to optimize web pages.
Here’s how it works:
- You create two variants of the same page: variant A and variant B. There should be only one difference between them (e.g. the headline). That’s the element that you are testing.
- You split your traffic into two and send half of it to variant A and the other half to variant B.
- You let the experiment run until it reaches statistical significance, evaluate the results, and keep the winning variant.
We recommend using A/B testing to optimize all pages in your sales funnel. This can help you 2x, 5x, or even 10x your sales funnel profits!
Here’s a video from a few years ago in which Russell explains this process. And yes, it still works in 2023!
ClickFunnels has an A/B testing functionality that makes it easy to optimize your sales funnel for conversions!
Want Russell to Show You How to Build Your First Sales Funnel?
Let’s keep it real:
Building a sales funnel from scratch can seem like a daunting task.
That’s why we created our 5-Day Lead Challenge where Russell walks you through it step-by-step.
You will learn how to:
- Generate unlimited leads
- Create your first lead magnet
- Build your first sales funnel
- Create a six-email welcome sequence
- And launch your funnel
…in just five days!
So don’t hesitate.