(Ep 3 of 5) Funnels Aren’t Dead — But Yours Might Be

If you’ve ever felt stuck or overwhelmed trying to set up a sales funnel, this episode is for you. We’re breaking it all down step-by-step—no tech headaches required.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
 ✅ What a sales funnel actually is (for the newbies, we’re keeping it simple)
 ✅ The core elements of a sales funnel tied to top, middle, and bottom of funnel strategy
 ✅ Common places course creators get stuck (and how to avoid them)
 ✅ Why your funnel doesn’t need to be perfect to start enrolling students
 ✅ A smarter way to map and build your funnel without overthinking every step

Plus, I’ll introduce you to the Sales Funnel Architect Assistant inside Digital Course Assistant—designed to help you organize your funnel and build out aligned assets faster.

🎁 Want to build a sales funnel that feels simple and aligned?
Learn more about Digital Course Assistant at digitalcourseassistant.com

I’m giving away a FREE year of the Digital Course Assistant membership to one lucky course creator.

It only takes a second to enter, and the giveaway ends July 31, so don’t miss out.

📌 DigitalCourseAssistant.com/win/

If you loved this episode, I’ve got something fun for you. Right now, I’m giving away a FREE year of the Digital Course Assistant membership to one lucky course creator! That means 12 months of custom-built AI tools to help you launch faster, market better, and stress less — totally free.Head to digitalcourseassistant.com/win to enter now. Earn extra entries by sharing!

Transcript

 Welcome to the Digital Course Assistant podcast, the show for course creators who wanna launch faster, market better, and stress less. I'm your host, Julie Ball, and each episode I'm sharing tools, tactics, and AI powered shortcuts to help you grow a smarter, simpler course business. This is season one, and our focus is smarter marketing for course creators.  Confession time. I've built more funnels than I can count, and I've broken a few too. Some were just bloated with far too many emails and others had five different offers and zero conversions, but the ones that worked, they were simple, clear, and focused on guiding the right person to the right next step.

Sales funnels aren't dead, but overly complicated, disconnected tech stacked funnels. Yeah, those are a problem. In today's episode, we are talking about how to build a funnel that actually works without needing a marketing degree or hiring an agency.

Before we go deeper, let's first break down what a sales funnel actually is, especially if you're newer to online business. A sales funnel is simply the journey someone takes from finding you to buying from you. Think of it like this. At the top of the funnel, this is where people first discover you.

Maybe through your podcast, Instagram, a League magnet, or Google search. There's so many places they can find you. They become aware that you exist and that you might be able to help them. And then there's the middle of the funnel. This is where you build a relationship. They join your email list, consume your content, and start to trust you.

You're helping them solve small problems with quick wins and showing them what's possible. And then there's the bottom of the funnel. This is where you make the offer, you present your course as the next step for them to get a bigger transformation.

I know you guys love examples, so let me give you an example of a sales funnel.

I'm gonna be using the same industry examples as I used in episodes one and two. So if you haven't listened to those, go back and listen. But the example I'm gonna use right now for a sales funnel is watercolor painting. So if you teach watercolor painting, your funnel might look like this.

The top of the funnel could be a blog post or an Instagram reel on how to choose your first watercolor palette. Then the middle of the funnel would be when they download your lead magnet. Maybe it's five easy watercolor exercises for beginners, and then they start to receive your helpful nurturing emails.

Then at the bottom of the funnel, you invite them to join your beginner watercolor course to take their skills to the next level. So a sales funnel isn't about tricking people into buying. It's about guiding your ideal students through a clear, supportive path so they can decide if your course is the right fit for them.

When you think of your funnel as serving your audience, it feels a lot less scary and a lot more aligned with how you want to show up in your business.

So what's the real problem with most funnels? I see? I think most course creators try to do too much. Maybe it's too many emails, too many offers. It's too many decisions for the customer, and when your funnel is confusing, your audience bounces.

So where do most course creators get stuck when building their sales funnel? Usually it's in one or all of these areas. I'm gonna walk through them. First the tech. You start setting up your funnel. Then suddenly you're deep in tutorials about landing pages and email automations and checkout pages, wondering if you need Zapier or if you just need a nap. You might have a beautiful freebie ready, but you get overwhelmed trying to connect your form to your email platform, so it just sits in your Google Drive collecting digital dust.

Raise your hand if you've ever done this. Kind of feels like analysis paralysis.

Another area that many course creators get stuck on is the copy. You know you need a lead magnet page. A thank you page, a welcome sequence and sales emails, but you get stuck staring at the blinking cursor, the blank page. I do not do well with a blank page, if I'm being honest. Maybe you overthink every word trying to make your emails sound perfect and then just end up never sending them.

Finally, another place that course creators get stuck is the order of operations. You might build a great lead magnet, but forget to set up a welcome sequence to nurture new subscribers, so it's crickets after they download it, or you write your sales emails, but realize you don't have a landing page ready for people to actually buy your course.

Or maybe you decide to create a webinar, but get lost figuring out how it connects to your emails and your sales page, so you pause again.

Real talk. I've been there. I have wasted time creating things that I've never launched. I know what it feels like. It's so easy to get caught up in a loop of researching, tweaking , second guessing instead of moving forward. But the good news is it doesn't have to be that complicated.

When you break down your funnel into clear steps and focus on progress over perfection, you can get your funnel working even if it's messy at first.

So next, let's paint a clear picture of the core elements your funnel actually needs, so you know exactly what to build and in what order. And remember, your sales funnel is simply the journey someone takes from discovering you to enrolling in your course.

Let's walk through a sales funnel, top to bottom.

Okay. At the top, your goal is to attract your ideal students and capture their attention. So I'm gonna frame this top with two things. First, content second, a lead magnet. So first, the content. This might be your podcast or you being interviewed on someone else's podcast. Maybe it's your Instagram, a YouTube video, or a blog post.

It's the free value content that helps your audience find you. And then the lead magnet is your hand raise moment where they say, yes. Yes, please. I wanna learn more. They enter their email in exchange for your freebie, and think of this as opening the door to your world. So that was the top of the funnel.

Then you move to the middle of the funnel where you nurture and build trust. Here, your goal is to deepen the relationship.

Again, I'm gonna frame it with two components here. A welcome sequence and value driven content. So with the welcome sequence, after they grab your lead magnet, you want to send a few automated emails to introduce yourself, share your story, and give them some more quick wins related to your course topic. And secondly, share more value driven content. So they already have your lead magnet. Now you can continue to show up with value through your emails, sharing tips, stories, and encouragement that align with what you teach. And this is where your audience starts to think, wow, if their free content is this helpful, imagine what their course could do for me.

So that brings us to the bottom of the funnel. At the bottom, it's time to invite your audience to take the next step. So I'm gonna frame this one with three components, a sales page, a sales email, and a checkout page.

Your sales page needs to be a clear on-brand aligned page explaining who your course is for, and most importantly, what transformation it offers, Then how to enroll. Your sales emails will be a series of emails during your launch or your evergreen sales window that guides your subscribers to your course.

It addresses objections and it encourages them to take action. And then lastly, you need a checkout page. Obviously it's just a simple user-friendly page for them to complete their enrollment.

This is where audience decides to step fully into your world as a student.

So that's the funnel top to bottom. I hope that painted the picture for you. You don't need fancy tech or perfect branding to get started.

When you build these pieces step by step, you move from, I hope people buy my course, to having a real clear path for your audience to go from discovering you to enrolling with confidence.

And if you're listening to this and thinking, okay, I get what a funnel is, but building all of these pieces still feels overwhelming. I got you. Inside digital Course assistant, I'm working on a sales funnel tool designed specifically to help course creators like you. Map out your funnel, clarify your offer, and build the pieces you need without getting stuck in tech overwhelm or overthinking every step.

It's like having a funnel building co-pilot to guide you so you can launch with confidence.

This tool is gonna walk you through choosing your funnel type, so is it gonna be a live launch, evergreen, or a wait list? It'll help you map out the steps in order. It will help you outline and write your emails and can even help you create a timeline to keep you on schedule for launch.

Just like with every other AI assistant in the digital course assistant membership, it comes with a quick start video to walk you through it and a companion workbook so you can put it into action.

So if you've ever tried to build a funnel and ended up in tech meltdown mode, or equally as bad, your funnel might be live, but it's not converting. It's time for a reset. It's time to join Digital Course Assistant, my AI powered membership for course creators who want to market smarter.

If you've ever felt like you've needed more hours in the day or just need more support, you'll love what you can accomplish with your digital course assistant.

Head on over to digital course assistant.com and I'll see you in the next episode.