Brandon Boushy

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Funnels: Nurturing The Buyers Journey

A lot of business owners think they have a bad offer, but they are commonly showing the right offer to the wrong person at the wrong stage of the buying journey. You need to create proper funnels to present offers to the right people at the right time.

In this guide, we’ll break down:

What Is a Funnel in Offer Engineering?

A funnel is the path someone takes from discovering your business to becoming a customer. and, hopefully, a repeat customer who recommends you to others.

Funnels help move people through stages like:

  1. Awareness 
  2. Interest
  3. Trust
  4. Purchase

This matters because people buy differently depending on whether they are familiar with your business, the urgency of the issue, and how much they trust you.  In other words:

The same offer performs differently depending on who sees it, when they see it, and how they encounter it.

The Best Funnels Match the Customer Journey

A funnel strategy is the most powerful when it helps the customer go on a journey from unaware of your company, to trusting your company enough to provide it information, to becoming a customer, and eventually advocating for your company. You want customers to make a small commitment first and then build to larger sales to create momentum. This is the real point of funnel strategy.

Funnels help align the right offer with the right audience at the right time. You’ll typically go through at least four stages in a funnel. 

  1. Free value
  2. Low-commitment offer
  3. Core offer
  4. Upsells and retention.

Stage 1: Free Value

The first stage of a funnel should focus on building trust for people who are not yet aware of your business through a:

Stage 2: Low-Commitment Offer

During the second stage, the customer will already be familiar with your business and open to offers like s:

The point of these is to get face time with the customer, build more trust, and get them to buy an introductory product or service. 

Stage 3: Core Offer

The third stage of a funnel is where you offer your core service, which may in include:

Stage 4: Upsells & Retention

Why This Funnel Structure Works

Building funnels using this structure works because you:

Why Great Offers Still Fail

A great offer shown at the wrong time can completely flop. Imagine running social media ads to cold traffic with:

“Book a $99 house cleaning today.”

Most people won’t buy it because:

Now compare that to someone who:

That same $99 offer suddenly feels much more reasonable.

The offer didn’t change.The context did.

Buyer Awareness Changes Everything

One of the most important concepts in funnels is buyer awareness. Everyone goes through a similar process:

  1. Unaware of the problem.
  2. Aware they have a problem.
  3. Looking for solutions.
  4. Have narrowed the list to a few preferred vendors.
  5. Ready to buy.

Your funnel should match the customer’s level of awareness.

Cold Audiences and Warm Audiences Buy Differently

The level of awareness impacts how people make decisions. Audiences are either cold (unaware) or warm (prepared to purchase). Businesses waste money when they show an offer meant for an existing customer or warm traffic to potential new customers that have never interacted with them. 

What Works for Cold Traffic?

People who don’t know you yet don’t trust  you yet. You can reach them through social media ads, YouTube ads, and search engine ads. They’ll respond best to educational content, free offers, and low frictional offers.

You aren’t trying to get immediate sales. You’re trying to build trust by providing:

What Works for Warm Traffic?

Warm audiences already know something about you and are open to more direct offers with higher prices and more complex solutions.. They might be:

These customers are most open to your core offers and high-ticket offers.

Different Traffic Sources Require Different Offers

In addition to how familiar people are with your service, the means of delivery impacts how your funnel needs to operate. There are three main sources of traffic:

Each behaves differently and requires a different approach.

SEO Traffic

SEO traffic is aware of the problem, looking for solutions, and is prepared to make a decision. That means SEO traffic can often support:

For instance, someone searching “Best way to start a business” is much closer to buying than someone scrolling through Instagram.

Social media traffic is interruption-based.

People weren’t actively searching for you, which means offers need to invoke curiosity through strong hooks and provide low friction. That’s why strategies like the following work better on social media:

Email Traffic

Email traffic is ready to buy because the person has already opted in to communications. Use the following strategiesto maximize your email results:

When Should You Use a Lead Magnet?

Lead magnets work best when

A lead magnet is simply providing value for free in exchang for contact information.

Popular types of lead magnets include:

These help you capture leads, build trust, and continue nurturing the relationship.

Should You Use Low-Ticket or High-Ticket First?

You should normally offer low-ticket offers first, then build to the high-ticket offers. The decision ultimately depends on where the traffic comes from and your sales process.

Low-Ticket Offers

Low-ticket offers work well for cold traffic, new brands, and impulse buying. They are designed to:

Some common examples include:

High-Ticket Offers

High-ticket offers require more:

Creating content and case studies helps build authority and relationships before booking sales calls for:

How Upsells Fit Into the Customer Journey

Upsells are one of the most overlooked parts of offer engineering. Most businesses focus on acquiring customers instead of increasing customer value. 

What Is Upselling?

Upsell is providing an additional offer after an initial purchase. This practice is prevalent in restaurants, but can be used in every industry. 

Examples of ways to upsell include:

Why Upsells Work So Well

Once someone buys from you, you have already earned their trust, and they are prepared to spend more. Forbes found that existing customers are 50% more likely to try a new product than new customers and will spend 31% more. 

The Biggest Mistakes Businesses Make With Funnels

The most common mistakes businesses make when creating funnels include:

  1. Selling too aggressively early in the buyer’s journey.
  2. Failing to capture leads.
  3. Using the same offer everywhere
  4. Not creating a clear path for the customer to succeed..
  5. Ignoring upselling.

Final Thoughts

Most businesses think funnels are about software, but they are about:

Delivering the right offer to the right person at the right moment.

That’s why some offers work best:

The offer matters, but so does context. 

Stop trying to sell everyone the same thing. Start engineering buying journeys that actually convert.