00 Orientation
You are going to build a funnel that turns a Reel into a sale.
Not a diagram of one. A real one: research you can quote, a lead magnet people actually want, a Reel script with a code word, and five warm-up messages waiting to go out.
Every screen is one action. Do the action, tick the box, move on. You never see the whole workflow at once, and that is deliberate — the full version is where most people stall.
What you'll have when you finish
- An audience description written in your client's words, not your expert ones
- An awareness ladder with real thoughts, content topics and calls to action for all five levels
- A list of buying triggers specific to your people — the raw material for everything else
- A lead magnet idea that survived a hostile review from your own audience
- A Reel script with a code word, plus three alternative hooks to test
- A five-message warm-up sequence — as an email automation, WhatsApp broadcasts or Telegram posts — written from those triggers
00 Orientation
Why most funnels talk to 10% of the audience
People write content for the person who is ready to buy. That person is a sliver of your audience. Everyone else scrolls past — not because the offer is bad, but because it is answering a question they haven't asked yet.
A funnel is the machine that walks someone from "I'm fine, actually" to "where do I pay". Here is the shape of the one you are about to build:
Steps 1 to 5 are research. They feel slow. They are the reason the writing in steps 6 to 10 takes an hour instead of a week — every prompt further down is fed by them.
00 Orientation
What you need before you start
Almost nothing. This runs on one AI chat, your voice, and wherever you already post.
01 Context
Talk, don't type
AI is only as good as the context you give it. So before the first prompt: record a voice note with everything you know about your product and your client.
A transcript of you talking for 5–10 minutes, pasted into your AI chat as the base layer for every prompt in this course.
Voice, specifically — not typing. When we type we edit ourselves into marketing language. When we talk we say what we actually mean, with the messy details that make the output specific. Answer these out loud, in any order:
- Who is my client — age, gender, what they do for a living, what their day looks like
- What they come to me with — in the words they use, not the words I'd use
- What they already tried to solve it
- Why it didn't work
- How my product is different from what they tried
Then transcribe it — your phone's voice-to-text, the mic button in ChatGPT, any transcription tool. Don't clean it up. The stumbles and the "well, actually…" corrections are the useful part.
01 Context
Now the short version, for this page
Five fields. Everything you type here gets written into every prompt further down, so you paste ready-made prompts instead of editing placeholders fifteen times.
Rough is fine. It decides the shape of your funnel in step 7.
Their sentence, not your diagnosis. "Doesn't have a system" is yours. "I keep starting over every Monday" is theirs.
Watch what you're building — this updates as you type
I am a [YOUR PROFESSION]. I sell [WHAT YOU SELL] at [PRICE], to [WHO YOU HELP]. The pain they would name themselves: "[THEIR PAIN, IN THEIR WORDS]".
02 Reality check
Are you describing your client, or yourself?
Take what you said in step 1 and read it back line by line. Honestly: is that your client's thought, or your assumption about them?
This is less obvious than it sounds. Most experts describe their audience from the expert chair. "She wants self-actualisation." "She needs a system." "She's afraid she's a fraud." That is your picture. Hers has different words in it — usually plainer, usually about Monday morning, rarely about self-actualisation.
So before anything else, let the model take your description apart.
I am a [YOUR PROFESSION]. Here is how I describe my target audience:
[PASTE YOUR DESCRIPTION FROM STEP 1]
Your job is to be an honest critic.
Read my description and tell me:
1. Where am I speaking from my expert worldview instead of my client's real life?
2. Where am I assuming something that needs to be checked in a live conversation?
3. Which phrases read like marketing copy rather than how a real person thinks about themselves?
4. What would my client never say about themselves in the words I have used?
Be specific and be honest. That matters more than being polite.A corrected description of your audience — the one you'll paste into every prompt from here on. Keep both versions; the gap between them is usually where your content has been losing people.
03 Awareness ladder
The five levels, and why you only speak to one of them
Eugene Schwartz called it awareness; in the Russian-speaking market it's known as Ben Hunt's ladder. Same idea: nobody arrives ready to buy. They climb.
Two practical consequences. First: a person at level 1 is not going to buy, and pushing them to buy just loses them. Second: a person at level 4 is irritated by "save this for later" — they want the link. Same audience, opposite calls to action.
03 Awareness ladder
Build your ladder
This one prompt produces the content plan for the whole funnel: what to say at each level, and what to ask for.
You are an expert in marketing and in how people actually make decisions. You specialise in the awareness ladder — the five-level model of customer awareness. Here is everything I know about my product and my audience: [PASTE THE TRANSCRIPT FROM STEP 1 + THE CORRECTED AUDIENCE DESCRIPTION FROM STEP 2] Build the awareness ladder for my audience. For each of the five levels (0 — no problem / 1 — discomfort, cause unclear / 2 — names the problem, looking for a solution / 3 — comparing options / 4 — ready to buy), give me: — The real thoughts of a person at this level, in first person (3–5 sentences — not marketing clichés, but how they talk to themselves at 11pm) — What they do: what they search for, what they watch, what they save — A concrete Reel or post topic that would catch them right now — The call to action that fits this level (someone at level 1 is not ready for "buy"; someone at level 4 is annoyed by "save this") — The main objection they are carrying Do not use marketing terminology inside the thoughts. Write the way a living person thinks — with hesitation, contradictions, and ordinary everyday phrasing.
Five blocks you will reuse for the rest of the course: level 2 feeds your Reel hooks, level 3 feeds the lead magnet, level 4 feeds the offer message.
04 Express research
Put the model in your client's chair
You've described your client from the outside. Now make the model answer as them, from the inside.
You are [YOUR IDEAL CLIENT — from step 1, described in first person]. Not an expert, not a coach, not a marketer. A real person. You wake up in the morning. In your head: "[THE MAIN PAIN, IN THEIR WORDS]". You scroll your feed and see other [NICHE / PROFESSION] people for whom it all seems to be working. You carry [FEARS AND DOUBTS — from the audience description]. You have already tried [WHAT THEY TRIED — from step 2] and something went wrong. Run the interview in first person. Write out: 1. Ten real thoughts in your head right now — one or two for each level of the awareness ladder from step 3. From "well, it's all fine really" to "I want this now, where do I pay" 2. What you actually look for when you feel bad — the exact search queries, the Reel topics you watch, the accounts you follow 3. What you have already tried — and the precise internal feeling of why it didn't work (not "it didn't help", but what you felt during and after) 4. What will stop you before buying — the main fear and the main objection. Not the rational one, the one in your stomach 5. One sentence you would send in a DM if a product hit your pain exactly Write in living language. With contradictions. No polished phrasing — the way a person thinks to themselves, not the way they fill in a survey.
A page of first-person material: search queries, objections, and one DM sentence. That last one is often the best hook you'll get all week — keep it verbatim.
05 Triggers
Pull the triggers — the rest of the funnel writes itself from these
A trigger is the thing that moves someone from "interesting" to "I'll do it". Get a long list now and steps 8, 9 and 10 stop being blank pages.
You are an expert in decision psychology and marketing triggers. You know how people make buying decisions, what stops them and what pushes them forward. You specialise in niche online products sold by individual experts.
[PASTE THE WHOLE CONTEXT: product + audience + the awareness ladder from step 3 + the real thoughts from step 4]
Based on all of it: list the triggers that will work on my audience for selling [PRODUCT].
For each trigger give me:
— The name
— Why it works on *this* audience specifically — through their concrete pain or fear from the interview, not in general terms
— How to express it in content: the exact phrasing, sentence or format
Go through all the categories: social proof, urgency and scarcity, safety and guarantees, comparison with alternatives, detailing the client's journey, fear of missing out, identification with the audience, uniqueness of the approach.
Do not stop at the first five to seven. Give me many — this list is what we will build the warm-up sequence, the Reel, the sales page and the webinar structure from.A long trigger list with concrete phrasings. Star the five that made you wince in recognition — those are the ones going into the warm-up sequence in step 10.
06 Lead magnet
The toxic-client method
Ask AI for lead magnet ideas and the first round is always wallpaper. "A self-esteem checklist." "5 steps to confidence." Nobody downloads that.
So it's a three-move sequence: get the ideas, then have your own audience tear them apart, then rebuild from the wreckage. Run these one after another in the same chat.
STEP A — give me 10 lead magnet ideas for this audience: [AUDIENCE DESCRIPTION]. Each idea: the title only (as the person would see it) + one sentence on what is inside. The criterion: a person should want to download it right now, not later. That means hitting a pain that was hurting five minutes ago — not "useful content for the future". Context on the product we sell afterwards: [PRODUCT]
Now become my target audience. [AUDIENCE DESCRIPTION, in first person].
You have just seen that list. Tell me honestly — why would you NOT download a single one of them?
What is banal in these titles? What have you seen a million times already? What sounds like more filler that says nothing? What irritates you?
Be toxic. Gentle feedback is useless here.Taking everything the toxic audience just said — give me 10 new options. The best lead magnet is the one where a person reads the title and thinks "wait, that's literally me, I need this right now". Not "this would be useful", but "this is about the thing I was thinking about five minutes ago".
06 Lead magnet
Pick one and name it
One. Not three. The lead magnet is a promise you'll deliver in a DM within seconds — it has to be small enough to actually exist by the time your Reel goes out.
This is what steps 8–10 will be built around
[LEAD MAGNET TITLE] — [WHAT'S INSIDE]. It leads to [PRODUCT] at [PRICE].
07 Funnel shape
The price decides the funnel
This is the part people get wrong most often: they build a webinar funnel for a $40 product, or try to sell a $3,000 program off a single Reel. The price band is what picks the shape.
Your product: [PRODUCT] at [PRICE]. Which band is that?
07 Funnel shape
Your shape: Reel → code word → lead magnet → short warm-up → sale
That's the whole thing. No webinar, no launch week, no 40-slide deck. At this price the extra machinery costs you more attention than it earns.
Run it once end to end before you optimise anything. A funnel that exists and converts badly beats a perfect one still in drafts.
07 Funnel shape
Your shape: the same funnel, plus a live touch
Everything in this course still applies — the research, the lead magnet, the Reel, the sequence. What changes is that the sequence doesn't sell the product. It sells attendance at something live.
07 Funnel shape
Pressure-test it against your actual resources
Before you write a single line of content, make the model argue for a specific funnel and name where it breaks.
My product: [PRODUCT] Price: [PRICE] Audience: [WARM / COLD — do I already have subscribers, or am I going into cold traffic through Reels] Resources: [WHERE MY AUDIENCE ALREADY IS — email list, WhatsApp, Telegram, or nothing yet; how many hours a week I can spend on content] Propose 3–4 funnels that genuinely work for products at this price in this niche. For each funnel: — The name of the scheme — The chain, step by step: where the traffic comes from → how a person enters → what they get → how we sell — When this funnel works best (warm or cold audience, which channel it needs for the follow-up, how much content it takes to run) — The main risk, and the point where it most often breaks Then tell me which one you recommend for my specific case, and why. Be concrete — do not answer "it depends".
One chosen funnel, and a written note of where it is most likely to break. Keep that note — in four weeks it will tell you what to fix first.
07 Funnel shape
Where the warm-up lives
Five touches have to arrive somewhere people actually read. Which somewhere depends on where your audience already is — and it changes the mechanics of the handoff, not just the tone.
Pick the one your people are on. If you genuinely don't know, pick email: it is the only channel that works in every country, and it is the only one you own.
07 Funnel shape
The email handoff — one extra step, and it's worth it
Email is the only channel where you have to ask for something before you can give something. That friction is real, and it also filters: the people who type their address are the ones who wanted it.
Any email tool with a free tier does all four — beehiiv, Kit, MailerLite, Brevo. Pick one and build the opt-in page inside it; you don't need a separate website.
07 Funnel shape
The WhatsApp handoff — fastest of the three
A WhatsApp Channel needs no opt-in page and no email address. The DM carries the invite link, they tap once, and they're in.
Two things to know about the format. Followers are anonymous to you — you see the count, not the people. And a channel is one-way: they can react with an emoji, they cannot reply. So every call to action has to point somewhere else — a link, or your DMs.
07 Funnel shape
The Telegram handoff — the most automated
Telegram is the only one of the three where a bot can take the whole handoff: deliver the file, subscribe them, and drip the sequence, with no landing page anywhere.
The trade-off is reach: outside the Russian-speaking market, tech and crypto, a sizeable part of your audience will not have Telegram installed at all. If your Reels travel internationally, watch how many people take the code word and never arrive — that gap is the tax you're paying for the automation.
08 The Reel
Choose your code word
The code word is the mechanism of the whole funnel: people type it in the comments, and that comment is what triggers the DM with your lead magnet.
Make it one word, easy to spell, and connected to the topic — not "GUIDE" or "PLUS". A word tied to the promise both filters out random traffic and reads as part of the content instead of an ad.
One word. Uppercase reads well in a caption. Avoid anything you'd have to spell out loud.
This is what the DM hands them over to, and what the prompts in step 10 will be written for.
08 The Reel
Write the script
Fastest route to a testable script: give the model everything you've built and ask for one script plus three alternative hooks. Then shoot all four hooks and let the numbers pick.
You are an experienced writer of short viral video. You know how to catch a person in the first two seconds and hold them to the end. Here is the context on the product and the audience: [PASTE: AUDIENCE + THE AWARENESS LADDER FROM STEP 3 + THE TRIGGERS FROM STEP 5] Write a Reels / TikTok script to sell [PRODUCT] to [AUDIENCE]. Structure: 1. Hook (first 2–3 seconds) — one line that stops the scroll. No "hi, my name is". No introductions. Straight into the pain or a provocation that lands at level 2–3 of the awareness ladder. 2. Body (20–30 seconds) — show the problem, hint at the solution. Do not give everything away — create the wish to know more. 3. Call to action — ask them to comment the code word [CODE WORD]. Say what will arrive in their DMs: [LEAD MAGNET]. Requirements: — Works with the sound off (the person is reading subtitles) — 60–90 words — No corporate phrasing, no filler After the main script, give me 3 alternative hooks to test.
Four hooks and one body. Shoot the body once; re-shoot only the first three seconds for each variant.
09 The caption
The caption is the second hook
Whether someone types the code word is decided as much by the caption as by the video. It's the only place where the promise is written down and re-readable.
Write the caption for a Reel on the topic [TOPIC] that leads to a lead magnet via a code word. Context: — The product we sell afterwards: [PRODUCT] — [PRICE] — The code word: [CODE WORD] — What the person receives after they type it: [LEAD MAGNET] — [WHAT IS INSIDE] — The audience's main pain right now: [FROM THE INTERVIEW — STEP 4] Structure: 1. The first 1–2 lines (before the "more" cut) — grab them and make it clear there is something concretely valuable here. Not promises — specifics. 2. What the person gets (no filler, no "unique content") 3. The call: "comment [CODE WORD] and I'll send it to you" Length: 5–7 sentences. Tone: alive and direct. Two emoji maximum. No officialese.
A caption where the first line survives the truncation. Paste it into the app and look at it on a phone before you publish — the cut lands earlier than you think.
10 Warm-up
Five emails, from download to decision
They took the lead magnet and gave you an email address. Now the job is to get them to a purchase without spamming — with emails that are worth opening even if they never buy.
This is where the triggers from step 5 pay off: the sequence almost writes itself from them.
Write a five-email warm-up sequence for people who downloaded the lead magnet [LEAD MAGNET] and joined my list. They arrived through a Reel on the topic [TOPIC]. They saw the lead magnet and took it. They do not yet know about the paid product, or only vaguely. Context: — The audience and their real thoughts: [FROM STEPS 3–4] — The triggers that work on this audience: [FROM STEP 5] — The product: [PRODUCT] — [PRICE], and exactly what is inside, point by point: [LIST] Write 5 emails: Email 1 (sent immediately, with the lead magnet) — a warm welcome. A story or an observation that lands on the pain. No selling. The goal: "this is my person, I'll open the next one." Email 2 (day 2) — why what they were doing before did not work. Dismantle the usual solutions without aggression. Plant a gentle doubt. Email 3 (day 3) — social proof. A real case or result + a soft announcement that something important is coming. Email 4 (day 4) — the detailed offer. What is inside the product, step by step. Who it suits — and who it does not (this matters, this is where trust comes from). The price. How to buy. Email 5 (day 5) — reinforcement and a deadline. Close the main objection from the interview. The last argument. For each email give me: — A subject line, under 45 characters, that does not sound like marketing. Plus one alternative to A/B test. — Preview text, one short line that adds to the subject instead of repeating it. — The body: 150–250 words in living language, written as if to one person. — Exactly one link, and one call to action. Never two. Rules: plain text, no images, no "Dear subscriber", no exclamation marks in subject lines. Every email has to be valuable on its own — even if the person never buys anything.
Five emails with subject lines and preview text, ready to paste into your email tool as an automation triggered by the opt-in.
10 Warm-up
Five broadcasts, from download to decision
They took the lead magnet and followed your channel. Now the job is to get them to a purchase without spamming — with messages worth reading even if they never buy.
Two constraints shape everything here: it's read on the move, and nobody can reply. So: short, and every call to action points at a link or your DMs.
Write a five-message warm-up sequence for a WhatsApp Channel, for people who downloaded the lead magnet [LEAD MAGNET] and followed the channel. They arrived through a Reel on the topic [TOPIC]. They saw the lead magnet and took it. They do not yet know about the paid product, or only vaguely. Context: — The audience and their real thoughts: [FROM STEPS 3–4] — The triggers that work on this audience: [FROM STEP 5] — The product: [PRODUCT] — [PRICE], and exactly what is inside, point by point: [LIST] Write 5 broadcasts, one per day: Message 1 (immediately after they follow) — a warm welcome. A story or an observation that lands on the pain. No selling. The goal: "this is my person, I'll keep reading." Message 2 (day 2) — why what they were doing before did not work. Dismantle the usual solutions without aggression. Plant a gentle doubt. Message 3 (day 3) — social proof. A real case or result + a soft announcement that something important is coming. Message 4 (day 4) — the detailed offer. What is inside the product, step by step. Who it suits — and who it does not (this matters, this is where trust comes from). The price. How to buy. Message 5 (day 5) — reinforcement and a deadline. Close the main objection from the interview. The last argument. Format rules for this channel — follow them exactly: — Each message under 90 words. This is read while walking. — The first line has to work as a preview on a lock screen. — No formatting tricks, no headers, no bullet walls. Short paragraphs, one line each. — A channel is one-way: people cannot reply. Every call to action must point to a link or to my DMs — never "reply to this message". — One link, at the end. Maximum two emoji per message. Every message has to be valuable on its own — even if the person never buys anything.
Five short broadcasts, scheduled a day apart. Read them on your own phone before you send — if one needs scrolling, cut it.
10 Warm-up
Five touches, from download to decision
They took the lead magnet and landed in your channel. Now the job is to get them to a purchase without spamming — with touches that are worth reading even if they never buy.
This is where the triggers from step 5 pay off: the sequence almost writes itself from them.
Write a warm-up sequence for [TELEGRAM CHANNEL / BOT], for people who downloaded the lead magnet [LEAD MAGNET]. They arrived through a Reel on the topic [TOPIC]. They saw the lead magnet and took it. They do not yet know about the paid product, or only vaguely. Context: — The audience and their real thoughts: [FROM STEPS 3–4] — The triggers that work on this audience: [FROM STEP 5] — The product: [PRODUCT] — [PRICE], and exactly what is inside, point by point: [LIST] Write 5 touches: Touch 1 (immediately after they get the lead magnet) — a warm welcome. A story or an observation that lands on the pain. No selling. The goal: "this is my person, I'll keep reading." Touch 2 (day 2) — why what they were doing before did not work. Dismantle the usual solutions without aggression. Plant a gentle doubt. Touch 3 (day 3) — social proof. A real case or result + a soft announcement that something important is coming. Touch 4 (day 4) — the detailed offer. What is inside the product, step by step. Who it suits — and who it does not (this matters, this is where trust comes from). The price. How to buy. Touch 5 (day 5) — reinforcement and a deadline. Close the main objection from the interview. The last argument. For each: a headline + 5–8 sentences in living language. Every message has to be valuable on its own — even if the person never buys anything.
Five messages, scheduled. Read touch 4 out loud once: if the "who this is not for" paragraph feels uncomfortable to publish, it's doing its job.
11 Done
You have a funnel, not a plan for one.
What you built
Research in your client's words, a ladder that covers the 90% you were missing, a lead magnet that survived a hostile read, a Reel with four hooks, and five messages that sell without spamming.
From here you don't need the guided path. Publish, then use the reference below.
Before you publish — the checklist
- The lead magnet file exists and opens on a phone
- The code word [CODE WORD] triggers the DM — tested from a second account
- The DM hands them over to your channel — and there is already something worth reading waiting there
- Touch 1 goes out immediately, not on a schedule the next morning
- Touch 4 says the price out loud, and says who this is not for
When it doesn't work — check in this order
Almost every broken funnel breaks in step 2. It's the least satisfying step and the one people skim.
Reuse this
Your answers stay saved in this browser, so every prompt on this page stays filled in with your product and your code word. For the next launch, jump straight to chapter 08 through the Map — the research is done, only the content changes.
One last thing
Run it once before you improve it.
This system came out of my focus groups — the same ten steps, run by people selling guides, sessions and programs in wildly different niches. The ones who got results were not the ones with the best prompts. They were the ones who published while the funnel was still slightly embarrassing.
If you build something with it, I'd genuinely like to see it.
More tools and systems I actually use →System and course by Anjela Petkova, built from the focus groups · tools · all courses · privacy