I really hate the terms “marketing funnel” and “sales funnel” - who wants to be pushed through a funnel? Who wants to be categorised as ToFu, MoFu or Bofu? Why are there so many funnel variations, and why are some of them so convoluted?

If you’re not familiar with marketing and sales funnels, they essentially refer to the different stages a customer goes through when interacting with your business. The idea is that you do different things at each stage to move them through the funnel.

As I said above, I dislike the term funnel, so I just refer to it as a process, and I like to keep mine very simple: Attract > Nurture > Convert.

The attract stage is all about raising awareness, getting noticed, and letting potential clients know you exist. It’s about taking them from never having heard of you to being someone they want to connect with, hear more from, or potentially work with in the future.

And you can attract attention in different ways. Someone could see a social media post that inspires them to connect with you or click through to your website or subscribe to your emails. Someone might see a paid ad you’ve put out, or they might find you in a Google search, or someone might have recommended you, so they check out your website.

You can also attract the attention of potential clients if you meet them at a networking event, comment on their posts, or send them a direct message, email, or letter.

The goal at this stage is to get in front of as many of your ideal clients as possible. But once you have their attention, you need to keep it. You need them to stay engaged so you can nurture them.

This is where you start to form connections and build relationships with potential clients (and filter out the wrong type of prospect). There are four key areas to work on here - building trust, establishing your credibility, generating interest in your products and services, and creating desire.

There are lots of ways you can do this - through your website copy, case studies, reviews, blogs, email content, books, webinars, talks or presentations, podcasts, videos, demos, free trials - the list goes on.

The idea is that when your ideal clients are ready to buy, they feel completely confident buying from you.

This is the stage where people start to move from “maybe some day” to “let’s do this!”

Depending on what you sell and the way your business is structured, this might involve them requesting a meeting, booking a discovery call, contacting you, completing an enquiry form, or actually making a purchase.

Then it is down to you to close the sale, deliver on your promise and provide a great customer experience so you retain them as a customer or client and they recommend you to others.

Some people will move through this process very quickly, and some will take a bit longer.

For example, some people have bought my books after seeing a single social media post. I’ve also had people who have been subscribed to my emails or followed me on socials for months, even years, before they’ve bought from me. And of course, not everyone who follows my content becomes a client. That’s ok (I don’t need all of them to become clients).

But if you want the process to work, you have to put effort into each stage.

Having a brilliant product or service counts for nothing if nobody knows it exists.

Attracting loads of attention and building a big following doesn’t do much good if you aren’t then moving those followers to the next stage.

And there’s not much point building trust and credibility with potential customers if you never tell them about the problems you can solve for them or how they can get your help.

So think about what you can do at each stage. How will you get in front of your ideal clients? Once you have attracted their attention, how will you keep that attention and build trust? And how can you move your ideal clients closer to the buying stage?

My 30-minute video outlines a simple strategy for creating ‘attract’, ‘nurture’ and ‘convert’ type content for social media, with ideas for how to approach each type, and examples of content I’ve used on my own social media pages.

I also highlight some common mistakes (and how to avoid them) and share tips for building a “content bank” so you can stay consistent with your social media marketing.

If you’d prefer to read rather than watch, you’ll find the full transcript here.

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