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🎓 A Marketing Funnel Masterclass: Yes funnels are still a (useful) thing. Did you know they were dubbed “the cockroach of marketing concepts” by Marketing Week?

There might be a good reason. Read on for:

• A better top of funnel channel

• Tips to find and stop leaks in your funnel

• How original you can get with funnels.

Funnel, funnel, funnel.

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Funnel filter or leak?

Every sales funnel loses people. That’s normal.

Losing people who were wrong for you = filter. Win.

Losing potential buyers = leak. Loss.

Here’s how you optimize for filtering and plug the leaks in one go.

Rule of thumb: movement = earned trust

Funnels don’t convert. Trust does.

Each action a lead takes — a click, a scroll, a reply — is a deposit into your trust account. Each ask you make — a form, a demo, a checkout — is a withdrawal.

Leakage happens when your asks outpace the trust you’ve earned.

That means most funnel fixes aren't about clever nudges. They're about alignment.

Before we get into alignment though, quick reminder:

Don’t assume your funnel is linear

In theory, leads progress from TOFU → MOFU → BOFU.

In practice? They zigzag. They loop. They ghost you, come back, then buy after one perfect testimonial.

To track real movement, map actions — not just stages:

• TOFU: consumed content (e.g. blog, podcast, quiz)
  

• MOFU: engaged with your offer (e.g. downloaded, subscribed, attended)
  

• BOFU: evaluated or signaled intent (e.g. demo, pricing page, cart add)
  

Pro tip: For messy funnels or long sales cycles, assign scores to actions and track intent over time.

Want better timing? Map trust vs. ask

Every conversion is a trade: “I give you this… you give me that.”

To fix bad timing, plot this for each step:

Look for imbalance.
If the ask feels heavier than the trust you’ve earned, you’re probably too early — or asking too much too fast.

You can fix it by:

• Adding intermediate actions (like a quiz, testimonial, or use-case guide)
  

• Pacing outreach to build familiarity over time
  

• Matching the format to the ask (don’t sell with blog posts, don’t teach with ads)

2 signs of unhealthy funnel movement

1. Dropoff increases further down

Dropoff is expected. But it should shrink as intent rises.

If you're losing more leads later on, it likely means:

• A mismatch between promises and asks

• Friction where momentum should peak

2. Leads stall after initial interest

They downloaded the guide… and vanished.

That’s not a leak — it’s a stall.

Fix: Think like a product manager. Where’s the activation energy gap? Leads need momentum. That means quick wins, not just nurture drips.

💥 In Brief

Funnel dropoff isn’t always a sign of failure. It’s often a sign your marketing is doing its job: filtering out people who won’t buy.

But leakage — where trust is lost and good leads disappear — is failure. And fixing it isn’t about hacks. It’s about sequencing trust-building actions before your asks.

If you want a better funnel, don’t add more tools.

Start with better timing.

🎉 One Click Survey

Click and get a chance to win our “Thought Leadership Isn’t For You” Ego Check. 🥳 

20 million.

The number of monthly active Substack subscribers (according to Substack itself). 

Does social media feel like a rat race?

Founders, creators, and operators are feeling it too, and switching to Substack.

That includes names like Dan Koe, Jay Clouse, and Lewis Howes — who’ve all moved because the medium itself encourages something the feed can’t: depth.

Social is still a powerful top-of-funnel tool.
It gets you seen.
It starts conversations.
It attracts leads.

But it has two hard limits:

1. Lack of depth — Most posts get skimmed, not studied. Trust doesn't build in 240 characters.

2. No control — You're at the mercy of algorithms. Even great content can vanish without reason.

That’s why big names like Justin Welsh and Dan Koe are moving away from social as their top of funnel channel.

As Justin Welsh puts it:

Newsletters patch the gap (and deepen the funnel)

The middle of your funnel is where trust should compound — and newsletters are built for that.

• You own the audience. No platform risk. No algo shifts.

• You can go deeper. Share nuanced ideas, case studies, frameworks.

• You get real signals. Opens, replies, and clicks tell you who’s warming up.

Startups often think of newsletters as post-conversion nurture. That’s backwards.

As Daniel Berk (Beehiiv) says:

Used well, a newsletter becomes your trust engine:

• It turns strangers into subscribers

• Subscribers into warm leads

• Warm leads into customers

All while giving you data social never will.

✅ Action: Shift one piece of content downstream

Take a high-performing social post and expand it into a newsletter:

• Add depth (context, use case, or data)

• Invite replies

• Track engagement

Which part of the funnel involves a joint-rolling competition?

All of it. If you do it right.

The Rolling Derby, which celebrates “the competitive art of joint rolling”, is underway. The four-month-long tournament is backed by RAW Rolling Papers — which, honestly, makes sense.

RAW’s Rolling Derby is a case study of a funnel in motion:

• Top-of-funnel buzz: A niche event that earns mainstream media coverage and word-of-mouth.

• Mid-funnel nurturing: A loyal audience shows up, participates, and feels seen.

• Brand reinforcement: RAW isn’t just selling rolling papers — they’re shaping culture and earning media.

According to Statista, 93% of consumers feel live events have a larger influence on them than TV ads. 

Why? 

Events leverage a moment in time and a shared experience. They bring brands and consumers together to compress the funnel.

If events aren’t already part of your funnel, it might be time to multitask with your strategies. 

Pro tip: Mike White, founder of Lively, says events only work when brands and promoters work as partners. That means you share goals and share promotion.

⚠️ But here’s where most brands stumble…

They forget to bridge the gap between in-person relationships and digital follow-up. 

Events can move people through your funnel faster than a Taco 12 Pack through a sensitive tummy.

But only if you connect to your digital nurture sequences. 

You’ve got to capture those leads and move while they remember you — especially when you’ve shelled out the cash for The Experience.

Don’t sponsor for attention. Partner for momentum. 

And make sure your funnel doesn’t end when the event does.

Written by Amy Hawthorne and edited by Catherine Solbrig.