Thinkific Funnels: Free Lesson Funnel

Utilize Free Lesson Funnels to increase sales by offering a free lesson to nurture leads into buying your product.

About This Feature

The Free Lesson Funnel, exclusively available to Creators on Thinkific's paid plans, is a powerful tool that empowers you to offer a free piece of your existing learning content to generate new leads and nurture them to make their first product purchase. By leveraging this feature, you can captivate your audience's interest and guide them toward becoming new students.

How to Create a Free Lesson Funnel

Follow the set-up prompts to create your new funnel as it guides you step-by-step through the process of creating a funnel flow. Once you have completed the set-up, the prompts will be utilized to generate separate landing pages and thank you pages, as well as a funnel flowchart for your Free Lesson Funnel.

Select Market & Sell then Funnels from your Thinkific Admin Dashboard
Click + Create Funnel then, Choose the Free Lesson Funnel
Choose a course as your Main Offer to sell as part of your funnel, select a Discount price for your main offer, and click Next.
We recommend selecting a low-price product for your main offer, with a price range of $9 to $49 for business-to-consumer (B2C) purposes and $49 to $299 for business-to-business (B2B) purposes. If you don't have such a product available, you have the option to repurpose existing content to create a mini-course that specifically targets a single problem. This discount price will only be offered if they skip the purchase prompt with the full-price offer.
Optional: Choose a Complementary Product to sell, select a Discount price for your complementary product, and click Next.
The complementary product with the applied one-time offer discount will appear alongside the main offer on the purchase confirmation page. We recommend selecting a complementary product that’s in a similar price range to your main offer.
Select the Knowledge Level of your audience based on your audience’s familiarity with your course topic and click Next.
Input information about your target audience in the textbox provided and click Next.
Share details about who they are, what makes them tick, what motivates them, etc. The more details you provide, the better!
Input information about what problem(s) your main product is trying to solve in the textbox provided and click Next.
Provide details about the challenges or frustrations your students commonly experience and how this course can help them.
Input information about the outcome students can expect from the free lesson in the textbox provided and click Done.
What will students learn from the free content and how will it benefit them?

How to Edit and Customize Your Funnel

Once a funnel flowchart has been generated you will be directed to the Funnels Flow tab where you can customize the content at each stage of the funnel to align with your brand. Funnel stages with text copy requiring customization will be marked with an Action required: review content prompt.

Funnel Settings

The funnel settings allow you to change to the main offer, cross-sell offer, and their respective discount percentage after the funnel has been created.

How to Update Your Main and Cross-Sell Offer

Select the Settings tab from your Free Lesson Funnel Flow page
Use the dropdown header under Main offer or Cross-sell offer to change your product offering
Type in a percentage under Discount to change the discount applied to your offer
Click Save

How to Delete a Funnel

Before you delete your funnel, make sure to remove any URLs from your marketing activities that would direct traffic toward the funnel as it will no longer be accessible. Once you delete a funnel, it cannot be recovered.

Go to your Funnel Settings
Click Delete This Funnel
Check-off I have removed all top of funnel references to this funnel's URL
Click Delete Funnel

Lead Capture Page

A lead capture page, also known as a landing page, is a web page designed with the primary goal of capturing the contact information of visitors, typically in exchange for a specific offer or valuable content. The purpose of a lead capture page is to convert website visitors into leads by enticing them to provide their email addresses or other relevant contact information. These pages often feature a compelling headline, concise copy, a call-to-action, and a form where visitors can input their details.

How to Change the Design Template

Click on Design in the top left-hand corner
Select one of the designs from the dropdown menu to change the template

How to Edit Text

Click on any text box on your landing page
Customize the text to align with your brand
Click Save Draft

How to Update an Image

Click on the media field on your landing page
Select Image and click Upload
Click Select Files to Upload
Select the image you want to use and click Open
Optional: Crop, circle, or rotate the image then click Save
Click Upload

How to Add a Video

Host your video on Youtube or on another video hosting site
On Youtube, click on the share button and copy the link
Select Market & Sell, then Funnels from your Admin Dashboard
Click on the Lead Capture Page card
Click on the placeholder image
Select Image then paste the link to the video under Video URL
Click Apply
Click Save Draft

How to Customize Your Brand Style

Your Landing Page and Thank You Page style will inherit your Theme Settings.

Click on the < tab on the top right corner of your landing page
Update the fonts, colors, buttons, surfaces, and or inputs
Click Save

Free Lesson

You will need to decide which lesson within your main offer course will be offered for free to your target audience. The free lesson will be the funnel that captivates your audience's interest and guide them toward becoming new students by enrolling in your full course. Your free lesson should be short and engaging.

Learn how to Create a Free Course Preview

Purchase prompt

The purchase prompt is what your lead will see as a pop-up after they have completed the free lesson to prompt them to make a full purchase of your main offer. You can make changes to the text of the prompt header, body, and CTA button.

Recapture one-time offer purchase prompt

The recapture one-time offer purchase prompt will only be shown to the lead if they skip over the initial purchase prompt by offering the course at a discounted price.

You can make changes to the text of the modal heading, modal body, and button CTA. Optionally, you can check off the 'Also display to discount prompt to users who get to the Free Preview content through the default Product page' box, if you wish to also offer your discount outside of your funnel. If you want to change the percentage of discount offered, you can do so in the Free Lesson Funnel Settings tab.

Drop-off recapture email

The drop-off recapture email is sent if the lead has not purchased the product within an hour of seeing the purchase prompt.

The email can not be customized at the moment but can be previewed by publishing the funnel and going through it in an incognito tab to have the email sent to you.

Main Offer Checkout

The lead will be taken to the checkout page if they decide to purchase your main offer. The payment is processed through Thinkific’s built-in Performance Checkout.

Thank You Page with Cross-Sell

The thank you page allows you to acknowledge and express gratitude to your new students and encourages engagement with their newly purchased course while giving you an opportunity to cross-sell with your complementary product.

You can make changes to the text of the prompt header, body, and CTA button. If you want to change the cross-sell product offered, you can do so in the Free Lesson Funnel Settings tab

Cross-Sell Checkout

The lead will be taken to the checkout page if they decide to purchase your cross-sell product. The payment is processed through Thinkific’s built-in Performance Checkout.

Thank You Page

This thank you page is your school’s default thank you page. Changes made to your default thank you page within Site Builder are not specific to this funnel and will be reflected in all products purchased through your school.

How to Publish and Share Your Funnel

After customizing your funnel, you can easily publish it by toggling on the Publish Funnel toggle located at the top right of the page. Once activated, a URL will be generated, which you can copy and share with your audience on any social platform to direct them to your funnel.

You also have the option to Preview Funnel to see your funnel from the student experience. To test your funnel, you will need to create a test student account and sign up through your funnel as a lead capture.

Learn more about How to Create a Test Student Account