WTF is a “funnel”? Discovery, education, purchase.

The funnel is a framework you can use to make more money, and it’s really very simple.

• The top of a funnel is very wide. This is where your customers discover the product.

• The middle of the funnel is narrower. This is the customer education process, where they learn about the product.

• The bottom of the funnel is narrowest. This is the ultimate purchase decision.

The sales process, like a funnel, starts wide and gets narrow. You’ll never sell to more people than there are people who know your product exists.

Let’s map a simple example, of a Creator selling a course:

• Discovery: Creator posts on YouTube promoting a course

• Education: Viewers click the link in Description to the course page

• Purchase: Viewers purchase the course

Funnels can get pretty granular - for example, I could add mid-funnel steps like “Viewers click into the Description” or bottom funnel steps like “Customer puts in their credit card”.

Why even pay attention to all these steps? 

Because at each step, you lose people. Remember - a funnel is widest at the top. So in our example, you might see:

• Discovery: Creator posts on YouTube promoting a course - 5,000 views

• Education: Viewers click the link in Description to get to the course page where they learn about the product - 250 visits (5% conversion from views)

• Purchase: Viewers purchase the course - 5 purchases (2% conversion from visits)

Any change to the conversion rate at each step means a change in the most important metric: How much money you make.

Examples:

• Increase Discovery to 10,000 views, and you get 10 purchases at the bottom

• Decrease the conversion from Discovery to Education to 3% and you only get 3 purchases

• Increase conversion from Education to Purchase to 3% and you’ll get 7-8 purchases

Making small adjustments that impact customer behavior at each step in the funnel can make a huge difference in your overall earnings!

So how can you actually apply this to your business?

Think about what you’re selling. We’re all selling something, whether it’s products, brand deals, ad inventory, or services.

Now think about the steps your customer goes through to get to purchase. What are ways you can get more people to move to the next step?

In our course selling example above, a few might include:

• Discovery: Increase views by

  • Optimizing the title and/or thumbnails

  • Collaborating with other Creators

  • Making content that aligns with trends

• Education: Increase traffic to the course page by

  • Putting the link before the “...more” in the description (see image)

  • Calling out in the video that viewers should check out the offer in the Description

  • Showcasing an incentive in the call to action, like a discount (see image)

• Purchase: Increase purchases by

  • Making the buy button visible without needing to scroll

  • Hiring a copywriter to make the product description super compelling

  • Offering a limited-time discount to incentivize immediate purchase

These are just examples - there are tons of ways to improve conversion at every possible step.

If this idea is overwhelming, don’t worry. You don’t need to optimize everything at once. 

Remember - a little improvement at a single step can have a big impact on the end of the funnel. If you’re trying to earn more, start by picking a step where you feel you can easily make an impact and improve that. 

Then, move on from there.

Soon, you’ll be a funnel-optimizing machine!

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