Why Most Funnels Suck

If your funnel still starts with "Contact Us" or "Book a Call", you're missing out - and most likely losing potential customers.

Hi, it’s Andreas, and I’m back with Growth—my newsletter exploring the funnels and growth tactics of today’s top startups.

I’m currently in Thailand, trying to catch some sun. But nevertheless, today we’ll look at why most funnels suck - and how you can make yours better and convert like hell.

Let’s dive in.

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Are you still asking for demo calls?

Or worse - are you forcing users to create an account before they’ve even seen your tool in action?

This, my friend, is costing you a lot of potential customers.

According to statistics, 77% of B2B buyers prefer to do their own research before ever speaking to sales.

They want to test, see, and experience the value of your solution firsthand.

The old “Book a call → Talk to sales → Get nurtured → Buy the solution” funnel is dead.

Now, the question is: how do you build a funnel that actually converts?

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The Hack

Funnel (entries) today should be as smooth as possible.

Ideally, you should make users experience the value of your solution before they even have to sign up.

What do I mean by that?

Let’s look at three examples:

Canva

Canva’s video editor is a great example.

If you want to edit a video, you can fully create and edit it - essentially using the entire tool - without signing up for an account.

This lets users experience the tool, see its value, and invest time in creating and editing a video.

Once they’re ready to save or download it, they’re prompted to create an account, making it much more likely since they’ve already put in the effort.

Mindpal

Mindpal is a tool to build AI agents for a variety of tasks.

To enter the funnel, users can do this directly on the website by typing in their prompt and specifying what they need an AI agent for.

Once you hit "Generate," you get a detailed overview of what your agent will do.

By clicking the call-to-action, you are then required to create an account.

But even this detailed overview before provides value upfront, giving potential buyers more than just a simple contact or register form.

Solar Calculator

At the startup I worked for, we built our own simple tool with no-code as the entry point to our funnel.

It was a solar startup, and we wanted buyers to experience the value of our solution before even speaking to us.

So, we created a solar calculator that allowed users to mark a rooftop. Based on that, they saw the potential size of their solar plant, the energy it would generate, and the money they would save.

After that, users could create an account on our platform or contact us.

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The Result

If you build your funnel nowadays and the entry to it as straightforward as the examples above, you are much more likely to convert users.

Because:

A) The more effort users put in upfront (like in the Canva example), the more likely they are to create an account.

B) You make results visible, allowing users to experience the value of your solution before they ever have to sign up.

For example, after launching our solar calculator, we saw a 213% increase in leads in the first month. Previously, we had only a simple "Book a Call" button on our website, which struggled to generate bookings.

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Takeaway

While demo calls might make sense for some target groups, like enterprise customers, you are more likely to lose those who prefer to research and experience your solution on their own.

As marketing evolves, so do funnels. Let your customers experience your value upfront.

Think outside the box - how can you make your funnel as seamless as possible?

See you next week! 👋🏼

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