The Step-by-Step Guide to Marketing Funnels for Coaches [Ep 47]

Welcome to the Thriving therapyneur podcast. The show for ambitious therapists who are ready to unapologetically make more money, scale their impact and build their dream coaching business. I'm Carly Hill, therapist turned coach turned CEO of a seven figure online business. I created the Thriving Therapeutic Podcast because I'm obsessed with helping big hearted therapists outgrow the office and build successful and sustainable online businesses. So if you are wondering how you can continue to make an impact without sacrificing the life you love, welcome Therapreneur. This is exactly the place for you. Think of it like the business school we never had. I am so excited to dive in with you. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Thriving Therapreneur. Today we're going to be talking about funnels. Funnels 101. What are they? Why do they matter? How do we use them in our coaching business? So if you've ever felt confused by the word funnel or you've ever wondered why everyone online seems to be talking about them and like they're the holy grail of marketing, then this episode is for you. And I just have to say, I was you a few years ago. If that is you and you feel confused. Being a therapist by trade, I had no idea what the hell a funnel was. I also didn't know what a CRM was. I was used to EHR systems. Matter of fact, I didn't know anything else about business, to be honest, especially the online business world. It all had to be learned. And it can be learned and you can master it. And that's exactly why I'm here on this podcast, to break it all down to you in simple terms. I understand that nobody teaches us this stuff. So today we're breaking down what a funnel actually is. How it's different than a website, why it's one of the most important tools you can use in your coaching business. The types of funnels that you can use and that I use in my own business, how you can start building one today even if you're not techie. So let's dive in, demystify this, simplify it all and start with the basics. So what is the difference, Carly, between a funnel and a website? Great question. And P.S. i post it on my social media. I'm back at the computer. I'm recording podcast episodes. What do you guys want to hear? And this was a request from you all. So I listen to you guys. I love interacting with you on social media. If you ever have a question, please message it to me. You have an idea for this show. You want me to talk about something that's not already on here? Message me. I listen. I jot them down in my notes section and when I sit down at the computer to record, I pull up those notes and I record episodes based on your request. So the basics. What is the difference between a funnel and a website? So a funnel, simply put, is the step by step journey that someone takes to go from stranger to a paying client. They go from being cold to sold stranger to paying client. It's the step by step journey that they take. Think of it like a guided path. So usually someone starts with something free, like a lead magnet, a webinar, an invitation to your Facebook group, and then walks your audience through a series of value packed steps that ultimately lead to your offer. It's a path. Right? A website I want you to think of more like a brochure. So it's showing people everything and then it's asking them to choose where they want to go. But a funnel is like a tour guide. It's walking them through one clear path with one single goal, getting them closer and closer and closer to that transformation that you are offering them. We want them to buy your offer. Right? So funnels are powerful in the coaching space for multiple reasons. I would say first and foremost, number one, they create clarity. They help your audience know exactly what step to take next. Number two, they build trust at scale. So you can nurture leads through your emails, your videos, your downloads, even while you're sleeping. My funnels work for me 24, 7. When I am out and about, when I'm sleeping, they work 24, 7. You build trust at scale, especially when you're running paid ads. That's a different story. Number three, they convert better. So funnels are designed to lead people to take action, whether it's booking a call, buying a course, joining a group. When we talk about the difference between a funnel on a website, the reason funnels convert better than a website is because usually funnels only have one call to action on each page. You can't click around to a million different places like you can on a website. The funnel is meant to get you to do the action step that we want you to take, which is why we usually only have one call to action. So when I'm auditing my clients funnels and I see they have all of these different call to actions and it's taking them to all these different pages, that's more like a website. We don't want to do that. We want it to just be a funnel. Actually think of the shape of a funnel, like the kitchen funnel in your drawer. The top of the funnel is wider and then it gets narrow and more narrow and more narrow. So that's how a funnel is. It starts wide, but then we only have one call to action that get down to the very narrow part and then boom, it slips through and boom, we get you to buy our offer, whatever that may be. Where the website is, the brochure, they can click around, they're going to get lost, they're going to get distracted, they're never going to make their way through the narrow part of the funnel. Number four is funnels give you data. Data can be confusing because there's so much data that we can track. But data doesn't lie. Numbers don't lie. You can track how well your message is landing and then you can tweak it. All right, quick pause, my friend. Because if you have been thinking about starting a coaching business but you're overwhelmed by where to begin, this is your sign. I'm hosting a free five day challenge. It's called the therapist to coach transformation challenge. And it is designed to help you bridge the gap between therapy and coaching ethically, profitably, and with total alignment. We kick off Monday, June 9, and over the five days, I'm gonna walk you through exactly how to pick a niche and build a coaching offer and start attracting your first clients. Even if you're starting from scratch, even if you're nervous, even if you're wondering if you're expert enough, you just need to show up. I'll guide you from there. Head to the link in the show notes to register for free and I'll see you inside. So there's tons of different funnel stats that you can be tracking. Maybe you've heard of top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel. So. So there's different stats that we can track within each stage of the funnel. Like the top of funnel. This is our attraction stage. So if we think about it like dating, I've recorded a previous episode on marketing and dating because there's a lot of parallels and these analogies just work well. They bypass the subconscious mind. It just makes sense to us when we use analogies. So the top of funnel, the attraction stage. Think of it like dating. It's like getting noticed. Okay, so you're going to put yourself out there in front of this man that you want to attract. So eventually you can move to the middle of the funnel, which is the lead capture stage, and you guys could have an exchange and he could get your phone number. Okay. But in the attraction stage, you're just putting yourself out there. You're just getting noticed. You're just putting yourself out there at the bar or at the gym to get noticed. So we have impressions. Well, how many times is our content seen? We have click through rates. How many times are people actually clicking on our stuff? We have cost per click. If we're running ads, how much you're paying to get each one of those clicks? And then your middle of the funnel, the lead capture stage. So this is in dating where you're actually exchanging something. It's the percentage of people who sign up. What's your landing page conversion rate? What's your lead cost? Again, if you're spending money on ads, okay, what's your email open rate? What's your email click through rate? How many people clicked on the link inside your email? Not only just what's the percentage of people who opened it? And then our bottom of funnel is the conversion. So this is like sealing the deal. Did you get engaged? Did you get married? Did you make it serious? Okay, did they actually buy something? Did they convert? What was your close rate? What was your sales page conversion rate? And then of course we have overall benchmarks. So if you're running ads, you have roas, which is return on ad spend. You have lead to customer rate. So don't get caught up in all of these fancy metrics right now. But I talk about this verbiage so you can familiarize yourself with all of this. So if you didn't know what a funnel was, okay, that's step one. We're talking about that. But let's get down to the nitty gritty of what type of funnels and how do we track the data of these funnels? Because if you have a funnel without tracking the data and knowing that you can build on these funnels and you can have more funnels, then they're really not going to do you that good. Okay, so types of funnels that you can have. And I have every single one of these funnels. Lead magnet funnel, Facebook group funnel, Webinar funnel, VSL funnel, Tripwire funnel, Digital product funnel, book funnel, all of these funnels. So lead magnet funnel, AKA a freebie funnel. A lead magnet is a freebie. It's just a fancy word for a freebie and supposed to call in your leads like a magnet. So you're offering them something for free in exchange for their email PDF checklist. Mini training Facebook group funnel, Send traffic to your group this is where they get nurtured. They learn to trust you, they like you, and you invite them to take the next step. You can collect their email address when they come into the Facebook group. A webinar funnel. Very similar to a VSL funnel, which is a video sales letter funnel. VSLs are shorter. Webinars are typically like 30, 45 minutes. VSLs are like 5 to 10 minutes. Okay. VSLs work better in my opinion these days with people's attention span being shorter. But both still convert. There's different strategies for both tripwire funnels and digital product funnels. So this is where you're selling like a mini course, a low cost product. I'm talking like $7 to $37. And then you have upsells and follow up email sequences where you're upselling other digital products and upselling coaching. Then you can have a book funnel. So this is exactly what it sounds like. You're offering a free or a low cost book. And then you can either choose to ship it to them or it can be digital. And then you can also upsell into your courses or programs. You can have a thank you page. You can have an email nurture sequence. So you don't need to do all of these funnels. You can just start with one that fits your current goal. I would say the easiest funnel to execute is probably the Facebook group funnel and then the freebie funnel, the lead magnet funnel. So all right, I decide I want to do one of those. How do I build this, Carly? What do I actually do? So you have two options. One, you can outsource it. You can hire a virtual assistant designer, some funnel strategists. You can hire them on fiverr or upwork. You can find them in Facebook groups. Maybe you can get some word of mouth recommendations. You can get somebody for like $10 an hour. Hire a specialist if you're doing a full webinar funnel or digital product launch. Because they're going to also need to help you with the backend and the automations and help you with that strategy. So be careful who you're hiring depending on you know how big of a project you're hiring for. Number two is just use templates or DIY tools. So regardless, you're going to need some type of system. Personally I use Go High Level ghl. Everybody white labels their own version of Go High Level. So the one that I specifically use is called CRM Done Better. It's just a white labeled version of Go High Level. There's Convertkit, there's kajabi there's leadpages, there's click funnels. They're all pretty much the same. Of course, some have more features than others. You have to compare the pricing, compare the free trials. It's personal preference to a certain extent. Okay. But regardless, you're going to need some type of funnel building system. And if the tech is holding you back, like you could sketch out the funnel on paper, have somebody build it from your notes. You can give somebody a Word document with all of the copy that needs to go on the funnel and you can be like, here, make it fancy, make it pretty from here. And the reality is you can have funnels without these systems too. Like for example, I funnel people from my Instagram to my Facebook group just by saying on my Instagram, hey, come to my free Facebook group. It's called the Therapist to Coach Accelerator. Inside my group, you're going to get xyz, free trainings and free guides. And then once they're in my Facebook group, I funnel them to my digital products or I funnel them to my Therapist to Coach Accelerator program. So this is a funnel. If we're going by the simple definition of a funnel. Right. If we're going back to the definition of a funnel, what is it? It's the simple step by step journey that takes a stranger to a paying client. It's a guided path. But what I'm referring to here, when I talk about go, high level convertkit, Kajabi, leadpages, click funnels, I'm talking about funnel building systems for like a landing page funnel. Okay, So a lot of those come with templates. I actually offer all of my clients all of my templates for free. So if you're using any version of GoHighLevel, I can quite literally copy and paste all, all of my funnels into your system. You change the colors, you change the pictures, and I did all of the design work for you, which would save you thousands and thousands of dollars. I have spent the last five years creating and perfecting all of these funnels that I use for my own business. And I just copy and paste them, boom, into your business so we can shortcut the process for you. Okay, so start simple. Start with a freebie. Start with a thank you page, have a follow up, an email sequence, a call to action to book a call or check out your offer. If you're just selling like a mini course, you don't need a book call. Or more simple, if you don't have a funnel builder, create that Facebook group. Just funnel people into There collect their emails that way. That's the key. And it's not about perfection. It's just about direction. So your funnel doesn't have to sell just yet. It just has to serve. We just want to build trust. Hey, your initial funnel should just build trust. That's why we start with that Facebook group funnel. Once they're in, we're going to build trust. They're going to get to know us. We're going to nurture them. We start with the freebie funnel, AKA the lead magnet funnel. We're just collecting their email. We're not asking them to buy anything from us. But people are sketch to give their email these days, so we need to make it juicy. Why should they give you their email? Why should they opt in? Okay, but we're not selling anything. We're just giving them a free guide. It's just guiding your audience to the next best step in the client journey. So if you're just getting started, remember, you don't need a perfect funnel. You need a working funnel. You can build it step by step. You can track all of that data, look at your metrics, and then refine it from there. Nobody has a perfect funnel. From the beginning, it's all about testing, reworking, looking at the data. And if you want to shortcut all the tech, all of the messaging, all of the strategy, I have the templates for you, I have the systems, I have the team to support you to help you build your funnels that are actually going to convert into paying clients. So check the show notes or DM me @Carly Hillcoaching on Instagram and we will give you all of the options on working with us for mentorship. You got this, My love is with you and I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to the Thriving Therapy podcast. I hope that this episode has inspired you to reduce burnout, work smarter, and see the freedom potential you have as a therapist. We would love to have you inside the Therapist to Coach Accelerator Facebook group, where we have live trainings and cheat sheets on all things marketing, sales and adding coaching ethically and weekly. I am here cheering you on and I'll see you around.