Business

The difference between Sales Funnels and Landing Pages

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Landing Page vs Funnel

Wait, aren’t sales funnels and landing pages the same? Most people confuse one with the other, but in reality, there are fundamental differences between the two marketing tools. Yes, funnels and landing pages are both essentials in generating leads, however they serve a different purpose in different stages of a customer’s sales experience. If we are to differentiate the two, it would be best to define each of the marketing tools separately.

What is a Landing Page?

A landing page is simply a stand-alone web page created specifically to welcome traffic sent by online advertising campaigns, including social media and email marketing initiatives. Let’s say a customer clicks on an advertising link on Facebook, he will then be redirected to a landing page. This landing page is used to either i) get valuable information from the customer which can be used to market to him in the future or ii) encourage the customer to buy something now. We can explain this better by identifying the different elements of a landing page.

What’s In a Landing Page?

The first element for a product focused page is the “Buy Now” or other similar call-to-action (CTA) buttons. The link should be accessible and visible at first glance in order to make the sale an easy proposition.

A landing page may also have a “for further information” field which is used to record customers’ contact details. In cases where customers have queries, this is a great tool in reaching out to them and assuaging them of any other potential concerns. This is also a chance to extend the sales conversation.

An effective landing page should be the final interface a customer should encounter. As such, you cannot use any links or CTAs that would redirect them away from this page. This also means that upselling any other products or services is no longer possible.

What is a Sales Funnel?

While a landing page is a single web page with only one specific CTA, a sales funnel on the other hand is made up of many web pages that directs (or funnels) a customer towards his final sales decision. Each page in a funnel is an opportunity to sell additional products or services (upselling options). That means a funnel will have multiple CTAs for different purposes. 

There are several processes in a funnel, and we can use a simple weight loss program as a real-life marketing case. Let’s say for this specific program, the ultimate goal of the marketer is for customers to enroll in a weight loss consultation service. However, we have other complementary weight-loss products that we can sell in addition to our consultation services. This can be done by adding other funnels aside from the single landing page used to sign up for the service.

To further illustrate how this is done, we can enumerate the possible steps a customer might take in a funnel. First, customer clicks on the weight-loss program ad found in social media, email, or other web pages. This redirects him to a sales page that, aside from signing-up for the consultation service, it also offers additional weight-loss products that includes a CTA “Buy Now” button. Second, clicking on that CTA button will then direct the customer to a new page offering another set of new products (upselling phase). If the customer decides not to purchase the additional products and clicks “No”, he will be redirected to the opt in page where he entered his information in signing up for the consultation services.

The process of upselling in a funnel is repeated through a series of web pages as long as the customer keeps on clicking the CTA button (and opting to buy the add-on products or services). This continues on until the customer decides to stop purchasing any add-ons and go to the final check-out page.   A customer can choose this option at any stage in the Funnel.

Obviously, the more pages you have in a sales funnel, the more chances you’ll have to extract valuable customer information and complete your sales funnel. Not to mention the more upselling you can make with the more pages available to you. It’s really up to you on how you design your sales funnel. You can make it as simple with a few pages, or as complex with a lot more pages in the funnel. One thing to keep in mind is that the upsells must be relevant to the core thing that you are offering, otherwise people will drop off your funnel quickly. 

Which to use for your business, a Funnel or a Landing Page?

Choosing between a funnel and a landing page largely depends on your type of business or products/services. If your business has a lot of complementary products and services, and you want to offer them in a single campaign, using a funnel would definitely make the best sense. If however, you only want your customer to make a single decision (such as signing up for a seminar or buying a single product), a landing page would give you a best and quicker result. 

Both a funnel and a landing page can deliver the right outcome based on your specific goals and objectives. It is really more on how well you implement the strategy and how you maximize the inherent strengths of each marketing tool.

How To Build Landing Pages or Funnels With ClickFunnels

To effectively build landing pages or sales funnels, you can use a great tool called ClickFunnels. If you want to try ClickFunnels without the commitment, check out their 14-day free trial. This allows you to explore the platform’s functionality and interface, risk-free.

Watch the video below to learn how ClickFunnels is able to outspend companies with hundreds of millions in venture capital and went from $0 to $100,000,000 using growth hacking and sales funnels

 

Take This Short Quiz To Find Out Which Funnel Will Work The Best For YOUR Specific Business…

Still not sure how sales funnels can help your online business?

Check out this exclusive FREE 90 minutes training by Russell Brunson on how you can boost your product sales by an extra 540% with his secret funnel strategy. This presentation alone made him $3 million in sales at Grant Cardone 10X Event last year!

In the presentation, he will show you his secret funnel strategy that have made him successful online over the years. If there’s anybody that knows how to optimize online funnels, and get the most sales possible, it’s Russell Brunson!

You will learn cool funnel-boosting strategies, like:

  • How to Instantly Outspend Your Competitors
  • How to Get The Best Sales Person On Planet Earth to Close Sales For You 24/7 Without Ever Complaining, Asking For A Raise, Or Taking A Break!
  • How to Get The Exact Same Customers Who are Currently Going to Your Competitors Funnels to Start Coming to Your Funnel Instead!

This training was super helpful for me, so I wanted to pass it along to you for 100% FREE. I don’t know if Russell will ever take it down, but I’d recommend you watch the entire presentation while it’s still available.

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11 Comments

  1. SURI LOPEZ says:

    this was the best explanation I found, I like the detail because if you didn’t explain about the social media etc, I would keep feel frustated in finding the way how it works this !! 🙂 AWSOME JOB ! and THANK YOU!

    1. You’re welcome!

  2. Awesome my friend! I like your review.

  3. Best explanation thank u

  4. Judith Boersen says:

    Hallo David,
    Thank you for your very detailed expose on this matter. I am in the process of making a proposal to a client. And I want to explain exactly that: the difference between a landingpage and a funnel. Now my clients considers building a funnel on her own… which I am sure she can do to a great extend.

    >> What is the advantage really to using a ready made software like clickfunnels? Am I missing anything essential? What is the essential argument against building it yourself?

    I came up with this list:
    * Fully integrated shoppingcart, no matter how much the customer buys and where the customer stops buying;
    * Fully automated webinars;
    * Video’s is autoplay, without fast forward or repeat, timer, or distractive “watch now”-other video’s;
    * automated pop-up Buy now buttons (or complete text);
    * Customized url (although that is not an issue when you built yourself);
    * Fully automated email reminders to the evergreens, or the Encore video presentation;
    * Ready made pages for 1) Registration 2) Thank you pagen 3) waiting room 4) Live page;
    * Tracking coding ;
    * Pop-up vertraging of the buttons.

    Because this lady seriously considers to built this on her own in WordPress….
    What is the most convincing argument I can offer?

    Thank you for answering !!
    Judith

    1. The biggest one of using ClickFunnels is that one doesn’t have to be tech savvy to use it. If she isn’t tech savvy, she will have a hard time editing it on WordPress herself. Other than that, WordPress is a totally fine option.

  5. Is it recommended or not to allow someone in a funnel to leave ( be redirected as an option to a website to visit for more information).

    1. Hey Kathy. The point of a sales funnel is to get them to take the action you want them to. In most cases it would be to make a purchase. Your funnel should already have all the necessary information for them to make the decision. If they still need more information then aren’t ready to enter that specific funnel in the first place. A better strategy would be to send them to a funnel that is designed to collect their information such as email, phone number, or follow you on social media. So that way you can provide them more information before sending them to your sales funnel.

  6. Hi David,

    I’m a therapist and am doing virtual sessions. I finally set up a website through GoDaddy several months ago but have not gotten a lot of traffic from my website, so I shut it down. I had visits generated from a referral source, but no appointments scheduled. I’m now deciding on whether to start a landing page or a funnel page. I wouldn’t really have anything to upsell on a funnel page, other than possibly offering a bundle for sessions that provides a perk for them such as a discount for prepaid bundle. Or maybe some sort of helpful pdf to download for free, etc. as a lead. Also there is a question of generating traffic to the page. How would I get clients to a landing page vs a funnel?

    Thanks in advance!
    Michelle

    1. Hi Michelle,
      For your purpose then a simple landing page to collect emails is sufficient. You can learn more about email marketing in this article. (click here)
      There are many ways to get traffic to your landing page, ex: social media, google SEO, paid advertising, etc. I would recommend you to read the book Traffic Secrets (click here) for a detailed action plan.

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