Recommended (but not necessary) pre-reading: What the fuck is copywriting?
If you’ve been in the online business space you’ve probably heard of funnels. They are not a well understood concept by most people (who are just winging their business relying largely on traffic)… to their own detriment.
EVERY business is essentially a funnel whether the business owner realizes this or not.
A funnel is essentially how a customer goes from “I don’t know you” to making a purchase from you.
Let’s give you a super simple example that you can relate to – a gym. If you’re reading this website, you also lift weights.
If you read LMM but don’t lift weights, you’re one of those self-improvement junkies who never take action i.e. moron (95%+ of you lift given that the most popular articles on the site are the ones on lifting – LMM readers are way ahead of the masses as usual).
A super simple GYM funnel will look like this:
- The first stage (top of the funnel) is the impression count – how many people even hear about your gym and know it exists in the first place?
- The second stage is them calling up the gym and inquiring about your gym – how many of the people who hear about your gym call to inquire about your gym?
- The third stage is them agreeing to show up – how many of the calls lead to appointments to check out the gym?
- The fourth stage is them showing up to ask for a membership – how many of these guys show up to the gym to check it out?
- The fifth stage is them signing up for a membership – how many of them sign up?
- A further step could be how many members purchase personal training but let’s not overthink it and keep the example simple.
Let’s say 10,000 people see your gym on the street.
5% of them call up your number (500 people).
50% of them set up an appointment (250 people).
60% of them show up to the gym (150 people).
10% of them actually make the purchase (15 people)
If you visualize this path together, it will look like a funnel (where the width represents number of people):
Why Funnels? OPTIMIZATION.
If you can measure it, you can optimize it.
Funnels are useful because once you can understand your funnel, you can optimize it.
Let’s take the gym funnel for example.
Without knowing funnel, if you are the gym owner or their copywriter – you can’t actually do much to improve the business. All you can do is make shots in the dark like buying more equipment or putting up more posters hoping that would work.
On the other hand, once you do some measurements and figure out the funnel… you can improve it.
Let’s say you are their copywriter. What can you do to increase sales at the gym?
FYI: Copywriting is the art of crafting messages that can sell or persuade the reader or viewer to take a particular action. Read more about it here.
Well, let’s see:
Stage 1 / Top: impression count – how many people even hear about your gym and know it exists in the first place?
Right now you have 10,000 people who discover you. How do you improve this?
- Put up more posters in key locations
- Start an Instagram account and try making viral reels
- Distribute pamphlets in nearby locations to raise awareness
- Use image of a sexy female lifter to attract attention to your posters/pamphlets
- Encourage members to tell their friends with incentives like free 3 months personal training for both the existing member and the referred member for each referral
Let’s say you do this and now instead of 10,000 people discovering you, 15,000 discover you (50% improvement).
Stage 2: Inquiry call – how many of the people who hear about your gym call to inquire about your gym?
Right now only 5% of people call and inquire about your gym (with physical marketing this will always be an estimate, with online marketing you have hard data especially if you run ads).
How do you improve this?
- Put the phone number on every poster in a very prominent location
- Add phone number to every Instagram post
- Add a WhatsApp chat option
Let’s say doing this improves call rate from 5% to 6% (20% improvement).
Stage 3: Appointments – how many of the calls lead to appointments to check out the gym?
Currently 50% of the people who call to inquire set up an appointment.
How do you improve this?
- You could train your staff to sound more professional.
- You could find out all the reasons why people aren’t interested and fix it.
- For example, if people ask if you have parking and then say they’re not interested because of lacking of parking… get some parking space.
- Tell them about your amenities (like ice baths, sauna, etc.) that they can check out.
Let’s say by doing this your appointment set up rate increases from 50% to 70% (40% improvement).
Stage 4: Show up – how many of these guys show up to the gym to check it out?
Currently 60% of the appointments have someone showing up. The others just don’t come.
How can you improve this?
- Offer a free/cheap demo session
- Offer free BMI and body fat scan for anyone who shows up.
Let’s say by doing this your show up rate increases from 60% to 75% (25% improvement).
Stage 5: Sale $$$ – how many of the people who show up actually pay for a membership?
Right now only 10% of the people who show up become a member.
This is called the conversion rate and is what most business owners focus on. This is because it’s the most obvious part of the selling process and most business owners don’t know much about marketing (most gyms don’t make that much money with a majority of them struggling just to stay in business).
Note: A copywriter will do much more than just optimize conversion rates. Although optimizing conversion rates is one of their gateway offers – the first time a client hires them will usually be to improve conversion rates. Once they’re happy with the results the copywriter gets more work from the client. All of that is beyond the scope of this article – I will not be covering lead magnets, differentiation, re-marketing, upsells, AOV optimization, etc. in this article. This is a simple piece on funnels alone.
How do you improve this:
- Call and ask people who did not sign up why they didn’t sign up. Then fix it.
- If it’s because some crucial piece of equipment is missing, buy it. (Personally I would never buy a gym membership to a place that does not have a proper squat rack and a decent seated cable row.)
- If it’s because your gym smells a lot then invest in better hygiene and a room freshener device.
- Call up to people who don’t sign up and offer a discount. (Copywriters/Sales people call this abandoned cart recovery)
- Add all non-conversion to a re-marketing list. Send them discount codes on strategic times like New Year (for their resolutions), after Diwali (when most employees get their annual bonus), etc.
Let’s say by doing this your conversion rate increases from 10% to 15% (50% improvement).
What is the result of optimizing the funnel?
BEFORE
10,000 people learn about your gym.
5% of them call up your number (500 people).
50% of them set up an appointment (250 people).
60% of them show up to the gym (150 people).
10% of them actually make the purchase (15 people).
You make 15 sales.
AFTER
15,000 people learn about your gym.
6% of them call up your number (900 people).
70% of them set up an appointment (630 people).
75% of them show up to the gym (472 people).
15% of them actually make the purchase (70 people).
You made 70 sales.
By understanding the business as a funnel and optimizing each step, you increased your business from 15 sales to 70 sales. 366% increase in your business.
ALL businesses are funnels at some level.
Even this hobby blog is a funnel.
Top = People see my posts on X or find my articles on Google
Stage 2 = Follow me on X
Stage 3 = Read an LMM article (the guys from Google skip step 2)
Stage 4 = Sign up to my email list
Stage 5 = Become a regular reader, see big improvement in life
Stage 6 = Buy an LMM product if convinced of the value (the proof of value is in the free writing)
ALL businesses are funnels.
The importance of learning copywriting
All businesses are always trying to improve their funnels, even the ones who don’t know their own funnels.
The gym owners will have an Instagram page to try to get more people, will ask for feedback from members, ask people who don’t sign up why they didn’t sign up – but they are all taking shots in the dark for the most part.
What is the actual bottleneck? Most don’t know.
Often when a copywriter is hired (or when a business owner learns copywriting) they double or triple their business.
Like in the example above the gym went from 15 sales to 70 sales. It’s just an example but sometimes (although rarely) the difference is just that dramatic.
A few months ago, I helped a friend double his revenue from his online strength coaching business. He wanted me to improve his landing page but after looking at it, it was clear that the problem was not the landing page.
Among many other things:
- I told him to add a newsletter sign up on his main traffic website and socials (instead of directly putting sales links there)
- Helped build a lead magnet.
- Had him create an email sequence about lifting in general and the benefits of his programming (focused on showing the results his clients have received)
- Added a low value ($5) product to be sold before his main expensive coaching program ($997+) so people can see the value of his expertise
The result was that he went from making barely $4k a month to making $8-9k a month.
How much did I charge for this? You can speculate but it was not cheap but needless to say he was really happy and recovered his investment in just a few months.
Needless to say, knowing copywriting pays off.
The good copywriters make in the millions because your job is helping businesses make more money.
No customers = no cash = no business. Businesses want customers and cash.
If you can take a business from $4k a month to $8k, how much can you charge for that? How much will they pay?
Turns out, a lot. And happily. And will contact you again for more services (as the business owner reinvests the money to expand).
Copywriting is one of the most profitable businesses to be in and there’s never been a better time to learn it than now because all businesses are moving online. Nowadays I even buy groceries from an app.
There is much more to copywriting than just funnels (and even regarding funnels, this article is a very basic take on the subject).
We’re working on a course that will be taught by my copywriter Ash. Ash has built and optimized funnels that have made tens of millions in sales.
This isn’t a theory course from a fake guru. Like all LMM products, you get to learn from someone who has practical experience and earns a living doing what they’re teaching. The course will cover not just the skill of copywriting but also show you how to get clients for your copywriting business.
If you don’t wish to learn copywriting, all I can say is… your loss.
Until next time.
Your man,
Harsh Strongman
