Many new marketers come online to start their own business and can’t seem to put all of the pieces together. They have bits of knowledge about things like lead magnets and upsells, but how and when everything takes place in an orderly fashion hasn’t been laid out for them.
If this scenario describes you, or if you’d simply like a better overview of how a customer goes from that initial click-through and on through your entire marketing funnel, the sections below will paint a better picture for you.
It’s important to know that you have the ability to tailor this system to whatever best helps your customers.
As you can see, there are a number of sales funnel stages that you can use but start simple and build it up further as you go. Funnel building should be fun, not daunting, so start with a minimum viable funnel and adjust from there; the key is to take action.
There are millions of consumers online waiting to be presented with the right opportunities for improving their lives. As an online marketer, you can position yourself as the leader people turn to for niche information and guidance.
One of the biggest problems in getting the click-through to your strategic landing page is that most people simply forget to link to it. Instead, they are focused on getting the content out and the engagement that comes from it, and they simply forget to include the link.
Before you ever begin putting content on the Internet to build a list and get people into your digital marketing funnel, you need to work on building the type of landing page consumers will respond to.
This should not be as long as a full sales letter, but should still have compelling headlines, bulletpoints, and an offer they can’t refuse. Once your landing page is created to build a list, you will want to generate content that puts people into your funnel at that point.
Instead of linking to products and earning commissions or sales, you want to link to the landing page and put people on your email autoresponder list so that you can market to them for years to come.
The content you generate can be placed strategically on your blog. This is where your opt in forms can reside in the sidebar as well as beneath each blog post to get people onto your list.
You can direct readers of each post to sign up at your landing page or in one of the forms they see there. Another place you can generate a click-through to your landing page is on social media platforms.
This includes sites like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube. On some of these sites and apps, you’re only allowed one link in your bio.
Instead of sending people to your products that you were reviewing or a blog post that you wrote, simply send them directly to your landing page where an amazing freebie will be waiting for them in exchange for their contact information.
When it comes to getting people into your funnel, there’s only one way to do that. You must have an amazing and enticing offer. The fact that a lead magnet is a free gift makes it somewhat easier for people to slip into your funnel.
However, keep in mind that people are very protective over their contact information. No one wants to give their name and email address to someone who may or may not turn out to be a spammer.
There are many unethical marketers who will sell their information to others and cause them a lot of headaches. So, what kind of lead magnet can you offer that will ensure people feel very little hesitation in exchanging their details for the gift?
It must be closely related to the topic your site is built around. It can’t just be in the same niche, either. If your site is all about the keto diet, you would be shooting yourself in the foot to offer a lead magnet about calorie counting instead.
Besides keeping the lead magnet topic relevant and closely related to your niche topic, you also want to make sure the customer feels they are getting an amazing value from you.
Just because the gift is free, doesn’t mean you should skimp on the quality. In fact, this is your chance to make a first impression. It’s imperative that you wow the customer and shock them that you are willing to hand over so much great information.
You want them to walk away with their download feeling grateful and strong in their decision to allow you to contact them in the future. You can create a lead magnet that is a short report, a full eBook, or even a video course.
The customer has now opted into your list. This is where they begin the slippery slope through your funnel. It’s key that you understand how to navigate the email process so that you not only keep them on your list but convert them into paying customers as well.
One of the first things you may want to do is over deliver with the freebie gift they signed up for. Not only should the original gift be amazing, but you can surprise them with an additional gift or two that they weren’t expecting.
From there, you can contact your subscribers on a regular basis. Only you can determine how much or how little that should be. Some subscribers will never be happy with your decision.
And some will become your most loyal and dedicated followers. There will be those who complain if you email once per week and those who complain if you miss a single day of the week because they can’t get enough.
You will be able to email your subscribers using a follow up system, which automatically drips content out to them on a schedule that you devise. Or you can simply send out broadcast emails whenever you feel like it that future subscribers will not have access to.
As for what types of content should go in your emails, you want to mix that up a bit. Your subscribers are there to receive helpful tips and advice first and foremost. So, you definitely want to include a non-monetized portion of the content – either periodically or in every email.
At the same time, you’re in this career partially if not fully to earn money. So, it would be foolish not to monetize the emails you send out. Once you’re ready, begin adding recommendations for products using an affiliate link.
You also want to create your own info products and begin sharing these with your subscribers. You can even give your list a better deal than others will get if you want to create a coupon or special page for them.
So, what kind of offers will you have that are sure to convince people to spend money, as opposed to simply downloading a freebie you offered them in the very beginning? You have some options.
The person who subscribed to your email list has already shown interest in what you have to say. Now is the time to strike while the iron is hot. You need to present them with an offer for a paid product that will present several options to them that have the potential to maximize your revenue.
You want to start with a front end product. This is the no brainer product that is priced very attractively for the consumers. It should be something that is in demand within your niche and not so overwhelming that it requires a higher price tag.
Usually, front end products are smaller and less expensive. For example, instead of selling a soup to nuts affiliate marketing course priced at $97, you might sell a $7 report on how to write a product review.
This is a cheap enough price point that it won’t present many obstacles to most of your subscribers. They will be willing to pull the trigger on the offer without hesitation. Once you have your front end created, you need to decide whether or not you will have any upsells, and if so, how many.
You will find two different schools of thought about product funnels. The first group of people believe all upgrade options are annoying and should not be presented to the customer.
The second group understands the value and importance of continuing to give a customer who was already in a buying mindset, the opportunity to add onto their cart. There are many consumers who will appreciate the opportunity to continue to get good deals on products that are related to their original purchase.
Your third upgrade might be a service that you provide to set up an affiliate marketing blog on their domain for $97. At any point in the funnel, the consumer can choose to decline the upgrade option.
If they purchase it, they will continue to see as many upgrades as you put in the funnel. But if they decline, you have the option to kick them out of the funnel to the download page or present what’s known as a downsell to them.
The downsell is when you offer something of a lesser value. This could be a completely different item, or it could be one of your upgrades that has certain elements extracted from it so that they don’t get everything that was in the original upgrade option.
For instance, if one of your upgrade options included 35 PLR articles and 10 product reviews for $27, then if they declined, you’re downsell might be just the 10 product reviews for $7.
You’re not making as much money as you would if they had accepted the original upgrade, but you are still adding on to the sale in its entirety. You’re giving them the option to buy a little less.
Once they have proven themselves to be paying customers, you will have the opportunity to create a follow up campaign that converts well for you. This is where the long-term income begins to materialize.
One of the most important parts of your funnel overall is your ability to cater to your subscribers again and again. This is where long-term earnings begin to mount and provide a stable income for you.
Instead of merely experiencing one time sales, you will be able to meet the needs of your subscribers and be the go to person whose recommendations they can’t pass up.
When you create your follow up email campaign, you want to make sure that you are only recommending the very best products for your audience.
Don’t spam them with too many offers from vendors or brands that fail to live up to their standards. You will lose their trust and their contact details quickly if you take that route. You want to make sure in your follow up campaign that you aren’t promoting any items that will expire.
That not only includes item you promote as an affiliate for other vendors, but also your own products. If you have products that have become outdated, either take the time to update them for your buyers or remove them completely from the marketplace and stop promoting them to your subscribers.
More than anything, you still want to continue providing value to your subscribers. If all you’re doing is promoting without sharing any tips or advice, they will feel used and quickly exit your list.
Keep sharing insight, continue surprising them with gifts from time to time, and listen to their needs and create products that help them achieve their goals or eliminate their most pressing pain points.
Any type of marketing funnel relies on good sales copy and there are many pitfalls and mistakes that inexperienced copywriters can make. If you want to know more about avoiding these and other copywriting mistakes, take a look at the featured resource below where you can download a copy of a free report, Copywriting Blunders, so you will be forewarned and can make your copy more effective. Download, read it and take action 😊
Are you presenting a product or service to a potential client or an audience of potential clients?
How can you accomplish both in one shot? We are going to give you a few hints in that area.
When salesmen have quotas, the customer can become lost in the sauce. Remember door-to-door salesmen? They didn’t have PowerPoint presentations or big event halls with a stage to speak to their prospective clients.
Being prepared for anything (even big fat Nos) actually makes your job a lot smoother and simpler. Sometimes it isn’t what you know but how you convey what you know to your target audience.
If you want to make the sale, you need to catch the attention and emotion of the customer from the first word, picture, or slide.
* Do your homework – The key to engaging a customer is to know who they are. What do they need that your product can provide? What are their immediate needs? Who else has the potential to meet those needs? It is not inappropriate to ask a potential client or customer some questions that would help you prepare for them. But, you will have to do some digging on your own as well to get what you need.
* Know your product – What aspects of your product’s capabilities speak to the needs of the client or customer? This is how you tailor a presentation to the specific need of the audience. Choose one feature that can solve the issue they are currently having and use that as the topic of your presentation.
* Make the presentation about the customer – When you begin by discussing your company or product, the talk focuses on you. Instead, use words and imagery to show the benefits of the product to customers. It’s all about meeting their needs, not your revenue.
* Tell a story – It goes without saying that it needs to be a relevant story. Relay a time when your product was used by a past customer, and the positive outcomes. Choose a story whose outcomes are also the desires of the current audience. Show empathy towards your audience.
* Listen to the customer – Ask questions and wait for the response. Show that you are listening. Move your presentation in a direction that highlights the need expressed in their responses.
* Don’t forget the call to action – The deal is not sealed until you tell the audience what you want them to do. Some will say yes right away, and others will need time. Create a follow-up strategy to keep them interested until they say yes.
On the part of the customer, a good sales pitch will instil confidence in your ability to meet their needs.
There are four P’s of marketing: Product, place, price, and promotion. Using this marketing mix will result in a much better result than just focusing on one thing.
There are a number of webinar platforms including GoToWebinar, WebinarJam, Demio and EasyWebinar and there has been a rise in popularity of Zoom webinar due to the increase in working from home.
But remember that there is a difference between promotion and marketing. Marketing encompasses all the different aspects of marketing, whereas promotion is just one aspect.
If you want to know more about using webinars, check out this free training here
Here’s how you can promote and sell your products during your webinar without making it too sales focused.
* Create a Short Informative Sign-Up Page – One way to promote products to your audience is to promote on the backend, and the way you do that is to collect email address information when your audience signs up for your webinar. Your title should be compelling and explain exactly what the webinar will provide to your audience.
* Get the Format Down for the Webinar – Your personal story should be first, no more than five or ten minutes. If you tell a story that shows how you overcame an obstacle, it will humanize you for your audience and open their hearts to your message.
* Add Scarcity to Your Offer – You can’t make the offer too open ended, or people will sit on it and wait and maybe never act. Give them a time limit but include a lot of value in the offer, such as a special breakout Q & A session for fast acting buyers happening just a few days from now. That will help your audience make their decision.
* Describe the Products Completely – Proudly explain what they will get when they buy your product, including all the benefits available to them and the fast action bonuses too. This is your “sales page”, and you want to give them everything, including overcoming any objections they might have to buying.
* Send Buyers Directly to Checkout Page – When you’ve already made the offer and pitch, don’t send them to another sales page during the webinar. Instead, send them to a checkout page so that it’s faster and they will buy right then instead of reading the sales page again. You’ve already told them the benefits, they’re clicking to buy, and they want to buy. Don’t interfere with that.
* Follow Up – You’d be shocked at how many people give many webinars and do not follow up with their audience after the event. Most of your sales are likely to happen in the days after the webinar. You may have one or two who take advantage of the fast action bonuses, but you’ll have more buy after the event if you follow up.
Webinars are one of the best forms of marketing that your business has ever seen. But they only work if you learn how to do them correctly, by not being afraid to make your offer in a real, genuine way to the audience. If you’ve given them a lot of great free content and whetted their appetite well enough, they’ll be relieved to get the offer.
Any type of webinar or sales presentation relies on good sales copy and there are many pitfalls and mistakes that inexperienced copywriters can make. If you want to know more about avoiding these and other copywriting mistakes, take a look at the featured resource below where you can download a copy of a free report, Copywriting Blunders, so you will be forewarned and can make your copy more effective. Download, read it and take action 😊
If you’re wondering why your landing pages aren’t making you as much money as you had hoped for, you might be using common landing page copywriting techniques the wrong way.
If that’s you, read on to find out how to increase your marketing conversion rate simply and effectively.
This is not just a ‘copywriting for beginners’ post, and you aren’t going to learn how to become a world class digital copywriter in the space of a few minutes!
While the six copywriting techniques we’re about to cover have been proven to work, too many marketers use them in a way that cancels out their otherwise potent conversion power.
This is a real shame because your landing page could be raking in larger profits if you only paid closer attention to how you implement these proven techniques.
The good news is that once you become aware of how badly you may be implementing these techniques, you can quickly fix them.
The key is to become aware that you’re using them the wrong way in the first place.
Storytelling is one of the most powerful landing page copywriting techniques you can use. Not only do you pull your reader into the scenario your offer addresses, but you also create emotional urgency with your offer.
Once emotionally engaged, chances are much higher that your viewer would enter his or her email address or make a purchase.
Awesome, right?
Well, sadly, too many marketers tell stories that are simply worthless.
They are duds.
They seem too good to be true. They show extreme conditions. They simply fail to convert.
What went wrong?
Instead, these low converting landing pages tend to present almost ‘too good to be true’ situations.
If you want your landing page stories to convert, take the most probable circumstances faced by your target audience members and base your stories on these.
These realistic stories are more believable because more of your audience members can relate to them.
Questions are very powerful ‘centering’ devices because they draw your prospects attention to one central concept or a small set of concepts. Questions help narrow and define the problems and situations your offer addresses.
If a question is well-defined, it is easier to present your solution and it is easier for the prospect to see the value in your solution.
To fix this problem, figure out the primary concern of your target audience members and pose relevant header questions.
When you’re talking to somebody, you normally change your tone of voice when you are trying to emphasize certain things. By the same token, text in bold or italics or larger, ‘special’ fonts tend to be noticed more.
To maximize the impact of special fonts when emphasizing key points in your landing page text, make sure you use them SPARINGLY.
Keep special fonts to a minimum so when you do emphasize certain words, they truly STAND OUT.
One of the most powerful selling tools you can use is social proof. People are more likely to buy whatever you are offering if they see that other people have had positive experiences with what you’re selling.
Pretty simple, right?
In fact, this is so simple that you’d think this would be hard to screw up.
Wrong. Marketers actually blow this all the time.
The key problem is RESTRAINT.
Make sure you only use REAL testimonials on your landing page.
Real testimonials are grounded in reality. This means there’s a mix of both positive and not-so-positive elements in the testimonials.
Above all else, use testimonials from happy customers who got results that are not outliers.
Otherwise, your testimonials might seem too good to be true and won’t carry much weight with people you’re trying to convince.
One of the most common, yet powerful, copywriting tips you’ll ever come across is to write out benefits of your product, not features.
People buy based on benefits, not features. Benefits solve their problems. Benefits are easier to understand. Features, on the other hand, tend to degenerate into so much sales talk and technical jargon.
Sadly, too many marketers list SO MANY BENEFITS, they flood their prospects with information. This data overflow leads to, you guessed it, lower conversions.
Of course, you need to cross reference this information with the landing pages of your competitors to make sure you’re operating in the right ballpark.
One of the most useful copywriting conversion tricks you could ever learn involves pairing a call to action to a specific benefit the reader wants.
For example, instead of relying on the tired and weak “Click Here” try using “To finally get rid of the high costs and headaches of random outsourcing, enter your email here to take your labor sourcing results to the next level!” See the difference?
Well, marketers tend to blow this technique when they end up listing a ton of benefits with the call to action. Not only does this result in horrible run on sentences, this dilutes the conversion power of your call to action.
The reader is simply too confused to take any action at this point.
The solution?
Focus on one central benefit and pair that with the conversion action.
This is quite risky because your target audience might be looking for a number of benefits instead of just one.
This is where split testing comes in. Test different landing pages with different action-tied benefits and see which pages produce the best results with your traffic.
Make no mistake about it, the landing page copywriting techniques we’ve just covered can turn your landing pages into quick winners.
If you want to know more about avoiding these and other copywriting mistakes, take a look at the featured resource below where you can download a copy of a free report, Copywriting Blunders, so you will be further forewarned. Download, read it and take action 😊
Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data.
However, the data you receive from your host company can be overwhelming if you don’t understand how to apply it to your particular business and website. Let’s start by examining the most basic data – the average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
These figures are the most accurate measure of your website’s activity. It would appear on the surface that the more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate perception.
You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site.
If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be.
For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.
The more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can distort the analysis.
The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site.
It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly.
Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.
Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention.
You could, for example, consider improving the link to this page by making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.
As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation.
This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.
Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages.
Once you pinpoint potential weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.
After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it’s time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor – meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase – the more valuable that keyword is.
However, if you find a large number of visitors are being directed – or should I say misdirected – to your site by a particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors to your site who are ready to do business with you.
Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, break open the champagne! It means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.
As you can see, measuring website traffic can be difficult to do accurately as it is as much an art as it is a science, but it can at least give you a rough idea of how your website is performing so it is well worth the effort to investigate.
And if you want to learn more about converting those visitors into opt-ins and sales, then check out the featured resource below where you can download a free Conversion Boost report; download, read it and take action 😊
Have you ever wanted to create a course to teach others about a topic you are knowledgeable about but aren’t sure where to start or even whether it would be worth your time and effort?
Creating a course is a fantastic business model but you need to evaluate the niche/topic/subject first to ensure that your efforts would be profitable! After all, you are in business to make money, right?
And the truth is, there are few other opportunities quite as profitable as creating an online course on a hot topic.
People crave knowledge, and they’re willing to pay for it.
Think about just how many tutorials you’ve read or watched over the last year.
How many times have you searched YouTube for video tutorials on different topics?
How many books or reports have you read in the hopes of learning a new skill or empowering yourself?
Course creators and instructors put themselves in a very powerful position.
And think about just how powerful THAT can be.
So for today, I want you to think about the different courses you could create for your market.
Begin by digging deep into your niche or industry so you’re able to identify hot topics that people are interested in learning more about.
If you aren’t sure where to start, begin where courses are already proven to sell!
Udemy.com, Teachable.com and SkillShare.com are all fantastic places to begin your research.
Pay attention to the number of students enrolled in each course as it’s a clear indicator as to the overall popularity of the topic.
This could be a great entry point for your own course, and help you stand out from the crowd.
And finally, browse through the course outlines. These trainers have given you everything you need to come up with a solid outline for your own course!
The summaries and course descriptions can give you an unlimited number of ideas for your own modules as well as help you shape the foundation for your content.
When it comes to creating outstanding courses that attract attention and outsell the competition, you’ll want to make sure to pay attention to 3 main things:
Don’t stick with just one main format!
So obviously the more content formats you offer to students, the easier it will be to provide everyone with the type of training they’re most interested in.
A lot of course creators overlook the power of a killer title. In reality, your course title can help make or break the success of your course.
Don’t be afraid to play around with different titles.
The same goes for the description and summary of your course. You want to give people enough information to get them excited so they sign up, but you don’t want to bog them down with TOO much information.
Look to strike a healthy balance of giving them the details they need while using summary titles that provide a sense of mystery and intrigue.
Don’t underprice your course trying to compete with existing programs. Instead, consider how many people equate a higher price with a superior product.
You can always lower it later on, but it is definitely worth testing at a higher price point.
One of the things that can drive in sales and help you stand out in the market is being able to get those review numbers up.
You’ve likely experienced the different a ton of reviews can make yourself when you’re considering what products or services to buy.
It removes buyers concerns by reassuring them that their decision to purchase will be one they won’t regret.
So, how can you bump up the number of reviews you have so your course stands out?
Ask for them!
The key is to prompt your students to leave reviews throughout the learning process rather than just at the end.
That way they’re reminded several times without being bombarded. If you only ask them to leave a review once, at the end of the training, you may never have the opportunity to ask them again.
You want your reviews to demonstrate the quality of your course and how useful your information is.
So, place your review requests at key points during the training after your student’s have completed a goal.
If you really want to ramp up reviews, consider offering something extra to those who leave them.
Here are a couple of easy ways to do that:
This is a common strategy used by course instructors who don’t yet have a large following.
You could also try YouTube too; why not do a video of an overview of the course and encourage your viewers to sign up for a free review copy in return for honest feedback?
You can increase the value of your course to those who take the time to leave reviews by offering additional content or modules in exchange for their time.
Can you think of other ways to encourage your students to leave reviews? Leave a comment and let me know!
If you want to know more about creating a profitable online course, check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 😊
