A (sales or marketing) funnel is the step-by-step journey a visitor travels through, from first discovering a business to eventually becoming a paying customer. It's called a funnel because the numbers naturally narrow at each stage — plenty of people enter at the top, but only a smaller fraction make it all the way through to a purchase.
The Typical Stages
- Awareness — a potential customer first discovers a brand exists
- Interest — they start actively researching and comparing options
- Decision — they weigh up a small set of specific choices
- Action — they make the actual purchase
- Retention — post-purchase efforts aimed at earning repeat business
Where WordPress Fits In
- Landing pages — built with Elementor or a similar tool, focused purely on conversion
- Lead magnets — free downloads offered in exchange for an email address
- Email sequences — nurturing leads automatically over time
- Checkout flows — built through WooCommerce or a similar dedicated tool
Why Thinking in Funnel Terms Helps
Mapping out a funnel makes it far easier to spot exactly where visitors are dropping off, and to work out what's genuinely stopping them from moving to the next stage — a far more focused way to improve conversions than making scattered, untargeted changes across an entire site.
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