What is Funnel Hacking and why should you do it?

Want to become a funnel hacker, but don't know how to start? Then read here to find out what funnel hacking is and how to do it.

Hi there, my name is Richard, and you are now going to learn what funnel hacking is and how to do it properly.

The first time I discovered the concept funnel hacking was in Russell Brunson's book DotCom Secret. One chapter in the book was about funnel hacking.

If you want to know more about DotCom secrets, I have written an article about it here.

Later I watched videos where he was teaching how to do it. I believe it was in an upsell to 10X secrets and I have to admit it was a powerful lesson to watch. You understand it so much more by reading and later watch Russell Brunson teach it again. The same concept is also trained in One Funnel Away Challenge that is more affordable then the upsell above.

Who is Russell Brunson?

Russell Brunson is the marketer that teaches how to do funnel hacking, but who is Russell Brunson? 

Russell Brunson is the co-founder and CEO of ClickFunnels, a page and funnel builder software.

You can read more about ClickFunnels here. 

Russell Brunson is a marketing geek that started his interest in marketing at the age of 12. This interest has made him one of the top marketers out there. He has learned about marketing and tested the concepts by creating a successful business. His failures and setbacks in the past have never stopped his pursuit for his dreams, and ClickFunnels is the most successful business he has created. 

He is the one that does the primary marketing of ClickFunnels, and he does most of it by teaching the importance of funnels. 

What are the sales funnel?

The first time I entered a sales funnel, I remember the annoyance. I bought a product that was at a low price, but suddenly I was presented another product to a higher price. I read about the first product for days, so I did not expect this new offer that I had to decide at once. 

Then I needed to read about this new offer, and I thought this would be an awesome addition, and I had this fear of missing out. I need to order it now, or I will never be able to do it again. So I accepted it, but then I received another offer. The price was much higher and even that this product also had this fantastic sales presentation, I didn't want to spend that much money. So I declined, and I don't remember what happened after that. 

Sales funnels are where you are offered multiple products after each other. The idea is that most people will not spend a lot of money from someone they don't know and have not proven themselves. So if you receive a yes on a low priced product, the customer will more easily accept the next offer.

This is not a method to get the most money from a customer and trick them into buying. If you really believe your product will help people, it's your moral obligation to offer it. This is more about delivering the most value to a customer to the correct price. If you delivered everything at once, you are not able to help as many people.

To create sales funnels needs to be done ethically and you don't want to trick or fool your customers.  That way they won't order from you again. You want to create a long term business, don't you?

There are terrible sellers, and there are terrible funnels. The best seller is the one that has given you the correct value to the right price. That way you want to order from them again. The same is with funnels.

Why Funnel Hacking is so Important

When you want to do something new, you often see what others are doing. This is how children learn, this is how adults learn, and this is also how entrepreneurs should do it.

If you want to achieve success, all you need to do is find a way to model those who have already succeeded.

Tony Robbins

And this is also how we want to do it. You find other funnels and model what they are doing. They have done research and tested what is working in their market. 

Many people are confusing the word model with copying, but this is two different methods. To steal other people's work is unethical and probably illegal. 

So you must be funnel hacking several funnels, so you get more ideas and inspiration. That way, you will not copy, but be able to model what is working for others. 

You can always tell who the pioneers are because they have arrows in their back and are lying face down in the dirt.

Often said by Russell Brunson

You don't want to be the first in the market, so by seeing others having success, the chance is high for you to have some of that success. Even if you will receive only a part of this success, it's worth it. The small success will give you motivation and confidence in your self.

Now it's time to innovate and find new opportunities and new angles. Not when you are starting your entrepreneurship. 

What you need to know after a successful funnel hacking

The goal of the funnel hacking is to know 5 things about your competition: 

1. Demographic 
2. Offer
3. Landing page
4. Traffic source
5. Ad copy

You need to answer 4 of the 5 questions above and try to answer them all to be truly successful. Never stop your funnel hacking when you have two or more unknowns.

The demographic

You need to know who is using their product so you can target the same people. This is things like: 

• Age
• Sex
• Where they live
• Their income level
• Race
• Political affiliations
• Interests
• And more if you can gather the knowledge

This can give you some unique insights to your audience and maybe find people that you didn't believe was your target audience. 

The offer

You need to find your competitions offer, and most likely the first offer is not their main one. So you need to buy it to see what their next offer is. What are you offered when you accept their next offer? What is offered when you decline their next offer? 

This can be expensive if you want to funnel hack multiple competitors. If your budget is limited, try at least and funnel hack your main competitor. 

You want to know things like: 

• What they are selling
• The price
• Their headline
• How they sell it
• Is it written material? Video? 
• What is their follow up emails? 

Their Landing page

A landing page is the page people lands on after clicking on advertising. This is the most important page since its proven that your competitor is spending money directing people to this page. They have probably also spent a lot of money testing what is working the best in the market. 

You need to know if this is it a sales page or a lead page. What are they offering, how do they try to make you continue in their funnel? 

The traffic source

The traffic is out there so you need to find out where they are getting their people to their site so you can model what they are doing. 

Do they use advertising? Where do they advertise? Do they use solo ads? Organic traffic? Google ads? Facebook ads? This is the questions you need to answer. 

The ad copy

Most companies are using paid advertising, and you need to find it. How does it look? Are they using images, videos, or text only? What is their headline? What is the wording? This is important answers you need to find. 

How to do funnel hacking 

You want to be a successful entrepreneur without arrows in your back, so how do you funnel hack and find the answers above? 

Step1: Make a list of your direct and indirect competition

You need to do a google and Facebook search to find your competition. You want to find both your direct competition and indirect competition.

Direct competition is someone that sells something similar to you. Indirect competition is someone that sells to the same demographic as you. 

Create a list where you write them down. 

Step2: Find each landing page URL

Now you need to find their landing page. Hopefully, you saw their landing page in the last step. If not, do it now. 

One extra tip is to find their Facebook page and check for links there. If they are running Facebook ads, you will also find it inside their page. 

Write down their landing page, if they have several, write them all down. 

Step3: Use an online research tool to gather information about the page

Now its time to collect data. Go to Similarweb (free tool) and copy/paste their URL inside the tool. This tool will give you an estimate of how many monthly visits they have, where they receive their visitors from and their running advertising. 

Step4: Collect data

Write down all the data you have and answer the 5 key questions you need to answer. Remember you want at least 4 of 5 questions answered. To get all the information you need, you also need to do step5.

Step5: Create a swipe file of ideas to model

Now it's time to purchase their product so you have a swipe file to model. You want to buy from several competitors. If you are on a budget, purchase from the main one. 

You can also order what you can afford from one competition and drop what you believe is the last product. This is usually a high-cost product. Then you can use some of the money to order the first or first two products from other competitors. 

Remember emails are also a part of this exercise. What are they sending you? Are they sending many emails with value only? Are they always promoting? Long emails? Short emails? How often do they send? Write it down and save the emails. The money is in the backend, and with the emails, you can see what their backend is.

How to create your funnel

You have now learned what the 5 questions you need to answer and never have more than one unanswered. You have also learned the steps on how to successfully funnel hack a competitor. 

Now it's time to create your own funnel. Spend some time to plan you offer.

• What do you want to offer?
• Where do you want to place the different parts of your offer in the funnel?
• What will be your main product and what do you want to offer as a bonus?
• What is the price you want for the offer?
• From where will you get your visitors to your offer? 

You need to answer all those questions. After a successful funnel hack, you now have the data to decide this. You don't need to guess, and that's the whole point behind funnel hacking. You are now able to remove most of the guesswork and model what is working for others. 

To create your funnel, I recommend you to do it in ClickFunnels. You can read my review of ClickFunnels here. 

Conclusion of funnel hacking

You have now learned that you need to do funnel hacking to know what is working in the industry. That way, you don't need to guess and waste lots of time and money on discovering the data that is already out there. Most people give up before they manage to make it work, so don't be one of them. 

Do you want some extra help to launch your first funnel? Then I recommend you to join the One Funnel Away Challenge. You can read my review by clicking here.