WTAF is a Funnel?

Tell me if this sounds familiar…

You’re cruising along, running your business, and all of the sudden there’s some new buzzword…and you have zero idea what it means.

Or, you hear a word, and think you know what it means but the way people are talking about it starts to confuse you until you think maybe you have zero idea what they’re talking about.

For me, that’s the word “funnel.”

At the risk of dating myself, I first heard about funnels in 2003. I was a baby strategist in my first strategy job at an ad agency in North Carolina. Time, Inc came in to talk to us about the Purchase Funnel for buying a car. We were the agency for a car brand.

Fast forward over the years, and I’d hear purchase or sales funnel, and thought nothing differently. That is, until about six months ago.

Out of nowhere, it felt like, people started talking about funnels. Funnel this, Funnel that. Courses on Funnels. People who would design your funnel. Hell, there’s at least two platforms with Funnel in the name.

Which led me to think: what the f is the funnel they’re all talking about!?

Well, I’m gonna clear that up. It’s the same damn funnel, but they’re all over here calling it (capital F) Funnel like it’s this whole thing.

A funnel is a process. That’s it. It’s the process you want to deliberately take someone through, to get to the action you want.

Typically when you hear funnel in marketing, it means a sales funnel or the journey you take a customer through to become a client.

• An alternative definition: a funnel system is a marketing strategy where a business is systematically selecting new incoming leads by placing them through targeted systems in hopes of having the best potential of converting

Examples:

FB ad -> Landing page for Opt-in -> Email sequence

Sales page -> Checkout -> Upsell -> Thank you

Opt-in page -> Thank you -> Email Welcome Sequence -> Booking page

All of the above, are funnels. So when someone tells you they have a course in funnels - ask them what the funnels are for? Many times it’s a sales funnel, but it doesn’t have to be. You might have a funnel that leads to a free webinar…and pitch from there. You could have a series of IG posts that leads people to book calls with you - that could be a mini funnel.

So the next time you hear that amazing deal for a funnel - now you know, it’s just a process.