Take a look at this landing page of Warby Parker – an eye-wear company.
For customers who need new glasses, it’s often difficult with the ability to physically not try the product online.
Why would you want to shop here then?
But wait, there’s a powerful headline compelling enough to let customers try on glasses before purchasing them.
So, let’s continue shopping.
But, with the overwhelming amount of styles to choose from, how do you know which pair looks best on you?
We are then greeted with a call-to-action option to take a quiz for styles that best suit our face.
Do you get where this is going?
Let’s take a deep dive into sales funnel copywriting.
Table of contents – Sales funnel copywriting
- What is sales funnel copywriting?
- What is a sales funnel?
- What are the sales funnel stages?
- Types of content used in sales funnel copywriting?
- How to write for a sales funnel
- Further measures in sales funnel copywriting
What is sales funnel copywriting?
Sales funnel copywriting is a strategy of guiding your prospects through the customer journey. The goal is to get your readers to make a monetary decision. After all – it’s what every business objective should be – to make profits and retain customers.
By combining sales funnel copywriting into your website copywriting strategy, will give you the power of lead conversion.
It is important to note that:
Businesses must create goals with their audience in mind throughout the sales funnel copywriting process.
What does that mean?
Your copywriting needs to align with the goals of the customer. Not the goals of your business.
Read that statement again.
Because your readers are likely to purchase from you when their needs are met. They don’t care about your needs.
It’s the reality of business and the world we live in.
People naturally look out for themselves and not others.
And when your customers’ goals are aligned – that means your business goals are aligned. Your customers and readers come first.
At the end of the day, your customers are the ones clicking the ‘buy’ button.
What is a sales funnel?
A sales funnel is an outline of the customer journey when making a purchase. Elias St. Elmo Lewis termed the concept in 1898. It is a business strategy in guiding leads from one step to the next in converting them to paying customers. The customer journey often consists of four or five main stages.
Businesses need to understand the effectiveness of their sales funnels to leverage issues or improve customer conversion rates.
You’ll be able to maximize your business’ income potential when keeping your sales funnel in mind.
What are the sales funnel stages?
1. Awareness
The beginning stage which involves the introduction of a solution for a customer. Sometimes customers do not even realize they have a problem till they see your solution. Solutions come in the form of marketing services, products, or ideas.
Examples where awareness can exist:
- Social media posts
- Landing pages
- Calls-to-action
- Articles
- Search results
2. Interest
So, you’ve caught your customer’s attention, now it’s time to keep them engaged. At this point in the process, the customer is researching more about the product and looking at various options. This is where high-quality content and copywriting comes into play. We are no selling the customer just yet, instead, we are informing the customer to propel their interest.
Examples include a customer reading informative articles, subscribing to an email list, following on social media, or performing an inquiry.
3. Decision
You’ve written impressive content
…sparked the customer’s interest
…kept them engaged
…now it’s time to sell them.
The customer is finally convinced that your product or service will benefit them. Now the customer has decided to purchase and is ready to do so.
To facilitate the decision-making process, this is where sales pages come into play. But you need to keep making the offer irresistible so you don’t lose the customer. Techniques like effective CTAs, offering free shipping, providing discount codes, or adding extras are ways to seal the deal.
4. Action
Congratulations, you have successfully converted a lead into a paying customer by having them take action through a purchase!
You need to make sure the transaction and execution of the sale are as smooth as possible.
The last thing you want is a customer changing their mind at check-out due to poor user experience.
5. Retention
Thought it was over?
Not exactly.
Why not continue to keep on generating more revenue for your business?
It’s an opportunity to convert customers into recurring customers, so you don’t have to do the work all over again.
- Build a following base from your email list.
- Grow your social media platforms.
- Offer support to customers.
- Express your appreciation for them being loyal customers.
The goal is to have your customers tell their friends and family about your amazing product.
So that their friends and family tell their friends and family.
And so on.
That way, your money is making money, and your customers and bringing in more customers.
Types of content used in sales funnel copywriting?
There are many types of mediums within the world of copywriting for content to choose from. Below are the main content sources and how to apply them to each sales funnel stage.
Blog posts
Blog posts are primarily used in the ‘awareness’ and ‘interest’ stages of the sales funnel process. When utilized as informative content like articles with infographics, videos, and explanations – blog posts act as an introduction to visitors. This is why optimized copywriting is crucial in the discoverability of your content to organic customers. It is important to note that blog posts should not solely act as a means to prompt decision buying actions. Rather, blog posts should be informational content for informative purposes in generating awareness and interest in your product.
Social media
Social media posts are versatile and exist at almost every stage of the sales funnel copywriting process. From giveaways, social videos, live streams, paid advertisements, influencer marketing, to content guides. Social media methods in sales funnel copywriting generate awareness, stimulate interest, prompt decision making, and engage a social following.
Social media platforms are also excellent tools to act as lead magnets to generate leads. What is great about social media, is it is free. A majority of your social media followers already have some kind of interest and affiliation in your service. Whether they are curious leads not ready to purchase just yet, past customers, or are advocates for your brand.
Email campaigns
Another great method of the copywriting process primarily in the interest and retention stages. Sales funnel copywriting methods include informational features, reviews or testimonials, next steps, informative videos, to coupon codes.
Paid Digital Advertisements
Though advertisements such as PPC are not organic means of traffic, these marketing channels still require optimization. This involves doing heavy research on niche competition within the SERP, keyphrase analysis, to leverage your ads.
Sales and product pages
Content for eCommerce that defines the description, details, and any relevant key information customers are looking for. Sales funnel copywriting is critical for these types of content in your sales process. Your customer is ready to make a purchase and now land on the sales or product page. It is important to effectively make this transition process as smooth as possible.
Guides
Another content-rich resource, comprehensive enough to serve as a model or way of doing something. If written effectively such as long-form copy or ‘ultimate guides,’ can draw massive amounts of page views and backlinks. More backlinks and page views mean more leads going through your sales funnel in potentially making a purchase.
Infographics
Content-rich information in the form of data, illustrations, or visual attributes that are highly engaging to visitors. These are great techniques in landing clicks and page views due to the immense value infographics provide to readers.
Articles
The culmination of content around a specific topic or story, typically found in digital platforms like online news or magazines.
Lists
Very similar to articles, except organized content in sections in chronological or numerical order. Lists can also be written when showing steps or processes to achieve a goal.
Directories
A catalog of resources of information in some organizational sequence. Examples include business information such as telephone numbers or local shops.
Galleries
Leaning more towards the visual side, galleries engage users to draw attention. If optimized right, galleries are excellent for making your content exciting.
How to write for a sales funnel
You now know the basics of sales funnel copywriting and the various mediums.
Now, let’s create one.
1. Identify and establish the sales funnel copywriting objective
Each sales funnel copy serves a specific objective and every business has different needs.
What is your goal?
Is it to drive more sales or grow a large customer following?
Write down this goal.
Strategize what your business needs, and keep this goal in mind to the very end of the customer journey.
2. Research your customers
Research is the most intensive process of the sales funnel copywriting process. And it is for good reason.
It is important to understand and know your customers on a holistic approach. Things like what they eat for breakfast, what television shows they watch, to what they do for a living.
Some effective research methods to get a deeper insight into your customers are:
- Surveys.
- Case study analysis.
- Interviews.
- Observation.
How does this copy benefit or add value to your customers?
As a copywriter, you will write for a variety of clients with different products and services.
Unless you write for a specific niche.
But, that doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, you still need to write effective sales copy that sells.
You will have clients with amazing services, to clients with not so amazing services. You still need to deliver high-quality work.
During the research, it is critical to understand how the product benefits your readers.
In the end, those benefits are what sell and captures your audience’s attention.
You need to show your readers how these products or services will:
- Improve their lives.
- Solve their problems.
- Make things more efficient for them.
- Bring more happiness to their lifestyle.
- Show how much better this product is than other competitors’ products.
- Or, show them why spending their hard-earned money should be spent to bring value to their lives.
What exactly are the challenges or problems that prompt your customers’ decision making?
The power of conversion lies within the power of your customers’ decision-making process.
And what affects those decisions to convert to paying customers is the desire to fix their problems.
This is where your customers’ emotions and emotional copywriting come into play.
When you present your readers’ problem to the table, what goes off in their minds becomes a sensitive topic. This serves as an opportunity to trigger those emotions out of your reader to prompt action.
Perhaps, you are copywriting for a hearing loss client that sells hearing-aid products.
What are the problems that drive hearing loss customers to buy hearing aids?
- What will hearing aids do for them?
Hearing-aids will allow them to communicate better with people. - Why do they want to commute better?
Because they have issues socializing in social settings. - How will a hearing aid benefit their lifestyle?
To feel confident and erase their worries of poor hearing. - Why do they need hearing aids?
As a grandmother, she can finally hear her granddaughter’s voice. - Where can they buy hearing aids?
Hearing aids are expensive, but this retailer offers them at a low price. - Who will they be able to communicate with, with the use of hearing aids?
Everyone they come in contact with. - When can I buy them? I need them now.
This retails offers free expedited shipping.
See where this is going?
Hearing-aid customers benefit from hearing-aids to live a better quality lifestyle through quality communication.
By touching all bases of the five Ws – who, what, where, when why; provides the ultimate compelling reasons to customers.
What are some objections your customers may have?
You must eradicate every reason why your customer shouldn’t buy from you.
For example, some objections customers present are:
- “I’m satisfied with what I have right now.”
- “It’s too expensive.”
- “I have been doing things without any problem for the last 10 years.”
- “I don’t need this right now.”
- “Another competitor has better services.”
- “I don’t understand what your product does.”
- “I need time to think about it.”
As a copywriter, that’s your job – to sell through powerful and persuasive copy.
See objections as an opportunity to turn things around that make customers hesitant in doing business.
This is why researching is very critical.
You cannot leave any stone unturned in fully understanding your customers’ problems, concerns, needs, and solutions.
Objections serve as compelling reasons why your customers should buy from you.
Check out Warby Parker’s landing page.
The eye-wear company lets customers try on up to 5 frames for free before making a purchase.
This method alone annihilates any questions or concerns customers may have.
FAQ pages also serve as helpful means to clarify customer objections.
Take a look at this FAQ page from Warby Parker, as well.
It answers questions or concerns customers may have such as:
- Am I able to return the product?
- Can I try them on before I buy them?
- What happens if the product does not fit me?
- When will my order arrive?
- Can I speak to a customer service rep?
Concluding the research phase
By the end of your research, you should be able to answer the following questions:
- What are the challenges or problems your customer experiences (pain points)?
- What are the goals and needs of your customer?
- What is the unique selling point of the product or service?
- What is the solution for the customer? And what are the benefits of the solution?
- What are the potential objections?
If you cannot answer these questions thoroughly, it is highly advisable to not move in the sales funnel copywriting process.
Your research serves as a value to why customers should buy from you.
So, master every topic.
Front to back.
Bottom to top.
Set a goal of knowing your client’s product and customer’s better than they do.
3. Determine the method on how you want to generate leads
There are two main methods to lead generation when performing sales funnel copywriting, and they are organic versus paid.
Organic strategies
- Non-paid social media traffic
- Direct traffic
- Search engine optimization
- Outreach
- Referrals
Paid strategies
- Paid social media adverts
- Influencer marketing
- Affiliate marketing
- Search engine adverts
Further measures in sales funnel copywriting
So you have created your sales funnel, but you are still not done, as this is just the beginning.
Just like the retention phase of the sales funnel copywriting process, you still need to:
- Engage with your social following, current, and previous customers.
- Measure data, analytics, and KPIs (key performance indicators). See what is and isn’t working.
- Update your content for optimization purposes on a regular basis.
- Perform A/B testing.
- Stay up to date on trends.
Sales funnel copywriting is like painting a masterpiece.
It is a practice that involves many ingredients for success.
A lengthy process, but once well-optimized, you will soon begin to reap the rewards.