Turn Leads Into Profits With This Innovative New Way of Thinking About Sales Funnels

We usually think about marketing funnels as something singular. A marketing funnel for your business.

But in a recent blog post from Smart Passive Income, the authors offer up a brand new way of thinking about funnels.

Instead of just creating one funnel, you can improve your conversion rates and bring in more leads by creating different funnels, each of them optimized for people in a different area within the buyer's journey.

All leads aren't created equal.

Within “leads” as a broader group, you'll find you have different subsections. Each of these segments may respond to different messaging and different marketing strategies.

This means that to really maximize your conversion rate, you're looking at creating more than one funnel.

The Smart Passive Income article breaks down the three major groups of leads: “the oblivious,” “the afflicted,” and “the informed.”

These, respectively, are: people who don't know about your product, your content, or the problem you're solving; people who know they have a problem, but aren't sure how to solve it; and those who are already aware of your brand.

Each of these groups of people can produce leads, but engaging them means reaching out in different ways.

A message that seals the deal with an informed person, compelling them to make a purchase or otherwise act on a CTA, isn't the same as a message that will resonate with someone “oblivious,” who didn't even know they had a problem until you pointed it out to them.

3 Different Types Of Leads

If all leads are not created equal, how are they different?

THE OBLIVIOUS

The leads who are “Oblivious,” or within the Oblivious stage of their journey, in most cases aren’t even aware of you yet.

Here is what you need to know about The Oblivious:

• They don’t even know they have a pain or problem yet, so you need to introduce them to it and make them aware of it
• They are not ready to buy and don’t know who you are, so don’t pitch them anything yet
• They will give you very little attention, so don’t ask for too much of a commitment when it comes to your lead magnet
• They are looking for more of a quick win rather than a solution

THE AFFLICTED

The leads who are “Afflicted,” or within the Afflicted stage of their journey, are aware of the problem or pain they are experiencing and have begun looking into solutions.

Here is what you need to know about The Afflicted:

• They know they have some pain and are looking for info on how to solve it
• Not ready to buy just yet and want a reliable and trustworthy solution
• They’ll give you more time and attention if you have what they are looking for
• They’ll find you through searching and even opting into something like a video series or guide

THE INFORMED

The leads who are “Informed,” or within the Informed stage of their journey, are ready to buy.

Here is what you need to know about The Informed:

• They are well aware of their pain and really want a solution
• By this time, they know, like, and trust you as a viable solution (if you’ve done it right)
• They will spend more of their time engaging with you
• If you can’t show them you understand their true needs, the more likely they will be to object to your offer
• These are the people buying on your webinars, from your video sales letters, engaging actively in your communities, replying and asking for help to your emails

3 Lead Types = 3 Funnels

Okay, so if there are three different types of leads, that means you need three different types of funnels. One for each lead type that speaks to them the right way based on where they are at in their journey. The end goal is to have each of the three funnels stacked on top of each other flowing from one stage to the next.

[image source: Smart Passive Income]

As you have each piece of the journey built, leads can enter at any stage based on where they are and you can lead them from one stage to the next.

You can read more about how to build powerful sales funnels over at Smart Passive Income.