Eye-Opening Sales Funnel Secrets For Beginners

12 min readNov 19, 2021

Why Dan Kennedy Said That The Business That Can Spend The Most To Acquire a Customer Wins!

If you’re struggling to make money online, chances are good that you have a problem with your sales funnels. Here’s the lowdown on how a strong sales funnel can turbo boost your online profits.

You see, when freelancers, solopreneurs, coaches, and consultants struggle with online sales, this is a symptom of a deeper problem. That problem is often a challenge to find and diagnose, but once you’ve found it, it’s pretty simple to fix.

That problem almost always comes down to a problem with your sales funnel design.

If you think about it, you might be making this very common mistake that many online marketers make…

See also:

Marriage Proposal On The First Date?

So, say you’re on your first date with someone who you think might be pretty cool… How likely are you to pop a marriage proposal on that first date? Or, if you were on that first date and received a marriage proposal, how likely is it that there would be a second date?

Chances are, not very.

Here’s the thing… Many people who try to sell stuff online have a first-date marriage proposal mentality about what they sell. And that’s a KEY reason why they don’t sell much.

Just like in the dating process, your prospects require a certain amount of online “romancing” to get them through the stages of awareness, interest, desire, and action.

A sales funnel is a set of web pages and communication channels that guide a person from being a cold-traffic prospect, to being an email subscriber, then to being a buyer, and finally to buying more and more.

A Sales Funnel Is Kinda Like An Iceberg

Marketing expert Dan Kennedy once said, “Ultimately, the business that can spend the most to acquire a customer wins.” A well-constructed sales funnel will allow you to charge each customer more than a simple sales page will.

When you visit a website that’s selling something, you’re only seeing part of the story. That website may be offering a product for, for example, $19.95. If you think about it, it takes a whole lotta sales at $19.95 to make that website generate a million dollars in sales. (50,126 individual sales, to be exact.)

But it’s what happens after you pull out your credit card and buy that $19.95 product that determines whether that website generates a ton of money–or is a flop. You see, the order form might have a little box that gives you another related offer for just $27.95. It goes hand-in-hand with the original $19.95 product, and all you have to do is check the checkbox to add it to your order. It’s so easy that it’s silly not to.

And after you click submit, you might see another page offering you a $197 product that you can add to the order for only $47. Since it’s a product you likely would have purchased anyway, and since the price is pretty amazing, you go ahead and add it. It’s too good to pass up, isn’t it?

Then, the next page you see may offer something amazing that kind of takes your breath away. It’s an all-encompassing, comprehensive product that’s everything you might ever want or need. It’s something that you just must have. If you would have bought them all separately, the individual products might have cost you over a thousand dollars. But in this bundle, they’re only $249! It only makes sense to add this bundle to your order.

So now, your original $19.95 purchase has morphed into $343.90.

And, it only takes 2,908 people spending $343.90 in order to generate a million dollars in sales. And you can spend a fair amount to acquire each of those 2,908 customers and still come out ahead.

It’s kinda like an iceberg, where only 10–20 percent of the ice is visible on top of the water, and the remaining 80–90 percent is hidden underneath.

Your Sales Funnel Starts With Your Value Ladder

That last example is a perfect description of a front-end sales funnel. Sales funnels work equally well for information products, physical products, and services. In fact you can even combine all three types of products into a single sales funnel.

But that sales funnels is only possible because that seller has a well-crafted product value ladder.

Your BEST (And Most Expensive) Product

You start the process of creating your value ladder by figuring out the final destination that you want to take your customers. This represents your very best product that you want your customers to pay you the most money for. It’s important to consider this product carefully, since it is the place where you can provide the most service and value.

This product is on the very top step of the ladder.

But not every one of your customers will be willing or able to pay you for your best product. After all, that’s the marriage proposal. And, for your newest prospects, you haven’t provided enough value yet for them to be willing to shell out for that best product. (You’re still on the first date.)

Think Smaller And Smaller

So, you start thinking in terms of how you can segment your very best, most expensive product into smaller pieces. You identify a higher priced backend product (i.e. $249 — $499), a medium priced middle product (i.e. $99 — $149), and a very low priced tripwire or self-liquidating product (i.e. $7 — $49).

The combined sum of these products should make up less than half of your best product. After all, you want a reason for someone to upgrade to your very best product, don’t you?

You also identify one or more lead magnets. These are products that you can give away for free (or free plus shipping). These should provide incredible value, but be tightly focused. Especially for cold traffic that doesn’t know you, like you, or trust you, these lead magnets are the “bait” that leads to the first date.

Last, your value ladder should have at least one continuity product. A continuity product is a subscription that your customer will pay you for every month. This can be something like online software tools, coaching services, or a private membership site. But your continuity product is critical, since it provides more income stability than any other part of your value ladder.

Front-End Vs. Back-End Sales Funnels

Once you have your value ladder in place, you can begin to construct your sales funnel. Your sales funnel will start at the lead magnet (or bait), and then walk the customer through each step of the value ladder.

Actually, you’ll create two sales funnels: your front-end sales funnel and your back-end sales funnel.

Your Front-End Sales Funnel

The buying scenario I described to you above is an example of a front-end funnel. It takes a buyer through a series of web pages, one right after another, all at the initial time of purchase. In fact, each consecutive web page that the buyer views adds additional products to the one, single transaction.

The purpose of a front-end funnel is to identify hyperactive buyers. These buyers are sometimes called, “buyers in heat”, because they are purchasing in the heat of the moment. They have a powerful need NOW and, as long as you keep providing additional perceived value, they will keep buying until they hit that price threshold in their subconscious mind.

Your Back-End Sales Funnel

Back-end funnels start at whatever point the initial purchase experience ends. They start with ongoing communication to the customer. This communication typically takes place via email, although SMS text messages, Facebook Messenger messages, Facebook Groups, etc., can all supplement email.

The back-end funnel begins at whatever level on the value ladder that the customer ended up on in the initial transaction. A series of emails and other communications starts up and provides value, warms up the customer, and works to ascend that customer to the next step on the value ladder. Then, after the customer purchases at the next level, a whole new series of emails and communications work to ascend them to the next level. And so on.

Front-End Sales Funnel Stages

Your front-end sales funnel is the sequence of web pages that you present to your prospect during the initial sales transaction. Here are the stages that make up a sales funnel.

Optin Page

Remember that the first step on your value ladder is some kind of lead magnet that you offer for free (or free + shipping)? The whole reason that you offer this initial bait is to begin the relationship with your prospect. And, getting your prospect’s BEST email address is the single-most important outcome of beginning the relationship.

This is important because the majority of the back-end sales funnel takes place via email. And, an Optin page is the place where you collect your prospect’s email address, in exchange for some type of lead magnet.

You get people to your Optin page through a variety of pre-frame mechanisms. These may be items like:

Blog Posts
YouTube Videos
Social Media Posts
Quizzes and Surveys
News Articles (that result from press releases you send out)
Paid Ads

The objective of each of these is to get someone to land on your optin page and request your lead magnet by supplying their email address.

See also: 8 Keys to an Awesome Lead Magnet

Thank You Page

Once people have entered their email address on the Optin page and clicked “submit”, the funnel directs them to a Thank You page. The whole purpose of the Thank You page is to take your prospects’ attention OFF of the free offer, and redirect it to the next step in the sales funnel.

In some cases, this is done by making the Thank You page into a sales page (see below). In other cases, the Thank You page is a segue that pre-frames and pre-sells the sales page. This is useful if the sales page is for an affiliate product that you don’t actually control.

Sales Page

Now that you have a prospect who you’ve qualified as an email subscriber, the next task is to qualify that subscriber as a buyer. In order to do this, your front-end funnel will present a sales page for a no-brainer, must-have, too-good-to-pass-up offer. This is the product from the second step on your value ladder in the $7 to $49 price range.

Here’s the thing… A lot of people are in a freebies-only mindset. They may see your offer for your lead magnet and want to grab it simply because it’s free. But that doesn’t mean that they’re a potential buyer.

You need to give them an opportunity to pull out their credit card and spend money with you. But that opportunity has to have every possible barrier removed. So, you present a once-in-a-lifetime, too-good-to-pass-up offer to them.

Any of these are options for your initial sales page:

A Free + Shipping Offer
A Free Trial
A Tripwire ($7 — $14 massive discount)
A Self-Liquidating Offer ($24 — $49 entry product)
A Straight Sale (One item at full price if that price is low)

Order Bump

Now that you’ve qualified your prospect as a buyer, you want to see if that buyer is a hyperactive buyer. So, you want to immediately give them an opportunity to buy something else. One of the quickest and easiest ways to do this is with an Order Bump.

An Order Bump is a little box right on the order form.

The Order Bump has a short headline and and a couple of lines of text. All the customer has to do is check the checkbox and they add this additional item to their order. This works well where the bump product is closely related to the product on the sales page, and where the bump product is less than $37.

One Time Offer — Upsell

Now, keep in mind that you’re still identifying hyperactive buyers, and you want to continue to present opportunities to buy. Once the buyer clicks “submit” on the initial sales page, you present a page with a one-time-offer to the product on the next step of your value ladder. This is typically your middle-priced product. Since this is a sale in addition to the product on the original sales page, this is called an upsell.

We call these “one-time-offers” because they present an incredible discount or an incredible bundle that’s too good to pass up. It’s important that this is an offer that the customer will actually never see again. Part of the reason is to be fair to the customer. The other reason is to keep yourself in compliance with government regulations.

If the customer purchases the first one-time-offer, then you can present a second one-time-offer for the next product on your value ladder. And, if they purchase the second one-time offer, you can present a third one-time-offer for the next product on the value ladder.

As a rule of thumb most sales funnels can present up to 3 (three) one-time-offer upsells. (Although some very successful funnels have presented 4 or 5!)

One Time Offer — Downsell

Eventually, the customer will reach a point where one of the upsell one-time-offers is too pricey. When that happens, you can present a downsell one-time-offer.

You create a downsell by presenting the offer in a different way that changes the price perception, and makes the price more appealing.

One way to do this is to lower the price by removing some of the bonuses. You don’t provide as much value, and so the price the customer will pay is less.

Another even better way is to provide a payment plan. If the upsell one-time-offer was for $499, then the downsell offer could be three monthly payments of $169.

And, these stages wrap up the front-end sales funnel that the customer experiences at the time of the initial purchase.

Back-End Sales Funnel Stages

The reality is that the majority of your customers will likely NOT be hyperactive buyers.

They may not even be completely aware that they actually have the problem that your product solves. So, you need more time to warm them up and build their awareness of their own need. And, you need to increase how much the prospect knows you, likes you, and trusts you.

So, this is where your back-end sales funnel kicks into gear.

Your back-end funnel is a set email message sequences. These are often called follow-up funnels or action funnels. And, eventually, your regular email newsletter is even a part of your back-end funnel.

Qualify Subscribers As Buyers

The first objective is to qualify your email subscribers as buyers. To do this, you use a special sequence of email messages to promote the very low-priced product on the second step of your value ladder.

Now, you want to give your subscribers a powerful reason to pull out their credit card and spend money with you, so you want to remove any barriers to purchase that you can. So, you want to make this offer an incredible, no-brainer, too-good-to-pass-up offer.

However, this must NOT be the same offer from the sales page in your front-end funnel. It should be slightly less sweet. For instance, if the offer on the sales page in your front-end sales funnel is for $9.95, perhaps the offer for the same product at this stage in the back-end funnel might be for $14.95.

Warm And Ascend

Once you’ve qualified your subscriber as a buyer, your task is twofold.

First, you continue to warm that subscriber by increasing how much they know you, like you, and trust you.

Second, you work to ascend them to the next step on your value ladder.

You have a couple of options for how you accomplish this.

First, you can create a separate email sequence for each level of your value ladder. Once a customer purchases a product on the ladder, you use your autoresponder’s automation to move them to the email sequence for the next product on the ladder.

This is often more precisely targeted and effective, but it is difficult to create and maintain.

Second, once the initial email sequence is complete, you move everyone to your regular email newsletter. As you send out your periodic newsletters, you change up the offers that you present. Each offer won’t apply to everyone who receives the message, but it will apply to some.

And there you have the scoop on sales funnels for beginners. By properly structuring your sales funnel, absolutely every type of business can gain new customers, build customer loyalty, and increase the revenues each customer generates.

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