The top 5 copywriting funnel frameworks from marketing.

Marketers have used funnel frameworks for decades to divide their audience into smaller pieces to manage and individually address each one for a more significant effect. Instead of trying to guess what each individual needs, they have created a system that outlines the entire buying process. In turn, use copywriting funnel frameworks to ensure the right message reaches the correct person at the precise moment. So let’s check out the most effective funnels!

In this article:

• The Marketing Funnel – AIDA
• Sales Funnel (ToFu, MoFu, BoFu)
• Funnels in practice – social media & email

AIDA – the godfather of modern copywriting funnel frameworks

AIDA is one of the most famous marketing frameworks of all time. It was developed in 1898 by Elias St. Elmo Lewis and, over 100 years later, is still used by marketers. The model boils down the entire customer journey into four steps.

Although variations with extra steps exist, at its core, AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. These are the necessary stages each person must pass to make an educated decision to become a client of your business.

All other funnels in this article follow a similar logic to AIDA but have more tactical details for each scenario.

Awareness

The first stage of every funnel is awareness. Before a person can act, they must be aware that they have a problem and that a solution to it exists. The purpose of each stage is to get people to the next level.

People on this level are just finding out about your business. Thus, it would be best if you tried to make an excellent first impression by being helpful and informative without pushing hard sales.

Interest

If you’ve proved yourself worthy of your prospect’s attention, they will be interested in finding out more about your business.

However, at this stage, you must maintain your goodwill and continue being useful without pressuring them to commit to anything. It’s like taking them out for a coffee on a second date.

Desire

As you build trust and goodwill, you can gradually start informing your prospect about what your product or service can do for them and spark desire. They already recognize you as a trustworthy source of information. It’s time to show them how you can be even more helpful.

How can you make their life easier, faster, or better in any way? Start talking about the benefits of the desired future and appeal to their future hopes or current frustrations. Don’t sell the drill. Sell the hole.

Action

After you’ve grabbed their attention, maintained their interest, and successfully created desire, it is finally time to push the sale and close the deal. Compel the customer to make a purchase or start a trial.

This can be done through promotions, free trials, personal discounts, and any other incentive you can think of that help them take action now. Clever copywriters use scarcity, urgency, uniqueness, exclusivity and many other mental levers to convert clients.

Sales Copywriting Funnel Frameworks (ToFu, MoFu, BoFu)

Sales funnels can come in different shapes and forms and can include as many steps as the creator sees fit. However, when communicating information about your funnel to other marketers, three broad definitions stand out – Top of Funnel, Middle of Funnel, Bottom of Funnel or ToFu MoFu, and BoFu for short.

These three definitions are helpful because they tell us how ready to buy a prospect is. Are they at the top of the funnel and just now becoming aware of their problems and your brand? Have they interacted with you and shown interest in your service in the middle of your funnel? Have they already subscribed for a trial, tested a demo, or purchased at the bottom of your funnel?

ToFu

The top of the funnel is about making prospects aware of their problem and possible solutions. Blog posts, Social Media updates, Podcasts, Pictures, Infographics, Magazines, and Books are all about helping prospects become more aware. This is usually the field of marketing.

MoFu

The middle of the funnel is about converting prospects into leads and harnessing interest, and multiplying it through helpful resources like surveys, quizzes, downloadable lead magnets, free memberships, webinars or events. The crucial element of this stage is to facilitate interest and convert it into a desire for action, which is usually a part of the sales process.

BoFu

At the bottom of the funnel, leads can make an informed decision to buy, subscribe, or sign up for your product or service. Content at this stage of the funnel should be aimed at inspiring action and finalizing the sale.

Applying Funnels in practice – social media & email

Social Media Copywriting Funnel Frameworks

A social media channel should continuously diversify its content to include a mix of informational, engaging, and promotional content. Hence, they come off as caring and helpful rather than just being interested in making the sale.

Following the logic of the AIDA and Sales funnels, most of your content should educate prospects and help them become more aware. In addition, it is crucial to foster the goodwill and interest of your prospects so that they may engage with your posts through clicks, views, comments, and shares. On a tactical level, you can achieve these through social media ads, contests, giveaways, group chats, social media groups, podcasts and videos.

Mix promotional and educational content

Once in a while, you should throw in a promotional post with the aim of selling. However, beware that you are losing goodwill every time you make an ask, because it can make you appear selfish. That’s why you should have a healthy informational and promotional content ratio.

On a tactical level, you can use ads that lead people to sales pages or sign-up forms and use buy-now buttons on Instagram and Facebook for direct promotion.

After completing the purchase, you should reinforce the customer’s decision to work with you further. This is the time for giveaways, partnerships, affiliate programs, and loyalty rewards.

Email Copywriting Funnel Frameworks

Email funnels apply the same logic as above and are often a continuation of social media funnels.

You promote your informational blog post on social media, and inside, it contains a downloadable document (lead magnet), which requires prospects to share their email to receive the content.

Once that happens, you can retarget them with automated email sequences to add value to their life, to remind them you are alive, and eventually to try to convert them into buyers.

Apart from link magnets, you can also use pop-up forms to ask visitors to your website to sign up for your email newsletter. From there, it’s about nurturing your relationship with them, facilitating some goodwill, and eventually converting them into buyers.

Final Thoughts on Copywriting Funnel Frameworks

Marketing and sales funnels are indispensable tools for copywriters to hone their messaging and convert prospects into leads and leads into customers. If you’re interested in getting to the tactical level of copywriting, you can check out our copywriting tactics cheat sheet. Lastly, I hope you’ve enjoyed the read.