Sales Funnels

Is Your Sales Funnel Bleeding Money?

If you know anything about sales and marketing, you know the power of the sales funnel.

This Is nothing new; sales funnels have been around in some shape or form forever. Online marketing makes them quick and simple to implement with the correct tools, such as Convertri or ClickFunnels and they can make a real difference to your profits, but can you be doing more, and is your sales funnel bleeding money and not working as well as you would like?

Let’s be honest. Does this sound a bit like you and your business?

You work hard to build your sales funnel. You’re buying traffic, but your funnel isn’t converting well enough to fully pay for that traffic.

Which means, you’re in the red. Yes, you are building your list, and yes, over time you will recoup your money from your list by promoting other products.

But wouldn’t it be great if you could get your funnel in the black NOW, so that you can buy all the traffic you want and build your list as fast as you want?

Having a self-liquidating offer, or an offer that breaks even on the front end can make a huge impact on your business because this means that you can afford to pay more for traffic, which means more eyes on your offer and more profit, but only if your offer converts well.

Anther way to boost your funnel is to take in a “lodger” of some kind. Not sure what I mean? Look at it this way…

Think of a big house – one that you love, but it costs too much on your income. What do you do? You take in a renter or two. They are paying you to stay in your house, and you now have no trouble making the mortgage payment each month.

Surprisingly, you can do the same thing with your sales funnel.

Take a good look at your funnel for places where you can accommodate “renters.” For example, if your backend offer isn’t converting as well as it should, how about renting out that back end offer to another marketer?

If that marketer has an offer that converts really well, and it’s a good match for your funnel, then this makes total sense for the both of you.

Now here’s a little trick: Let’s say you run your traffic through three different offers after they sign up to your list. All of these offers are on a related topic, in line with the subject of the lead magnet that got them into the funnel in the first place.

But if they turn down all three offers, then renting the exit splash page to another marketer with a product that is DIFFERENT for your offers could work really well.

Obviously, this offer would still be marketing-related, but it could be ANYTHING else that is marketing related. Of course, you’ll have to test this out. Do a one-week trial run with your “renter” and see if it’s a good fit. If not, find someone else.

You can rent out any space you like, whether it’s the first upsell, the exit page, a link on your download page and so forth.

How much should you charge? Enough to put your funnel into profit, or a little bit better. If your renter makes a killing, that’s fine. The point is to get you into profit. Then you can buy all the traffic you like and build that list quickly.

Your real profit comes from the list, not the funnel. Always think about the backend and your email marketing because this is where a really profitable business is built.

Selling this offer to established marketers isn’t difficult, either. Simply send them an email letting them know what you have. It’s an offer they don’t see every day – at least not yet – and it will spark immediate interest with some marketers.

Like anything else, it is a numbers game. Plan on approaching or emailing about 5-7 marketers to get 2 who are really interested, typically one of which will say yes.

I know of one fellow who’s been doing this for a couple of years now. He built a funnel in a new niche; one he was dying to enter. But for whatever reason, he had a devil of a time getting the funnel to pay for itself.

Finally, in frustration, he sent out a blanket email to 14 marketers that he personally knew. Granted, he already had the contacts, so this part was easy for him.

10 of those marketers expressed interest, and he wound up building a second, similar funnel to accommodate the demand.

He has two upsells after his squeeze page. The first is for one of his own products, and the second is rented out to another marketer. Then on the download page he rents out three different spaces to three different marketers.

Finally, he sends a ONE TIME ONLY offer to his new subscribers via email. He makes it VERY clear that this is the only time he will ever send such an offer on behalf of another marketer, but this offer is so good, he just had to let his new readers know about it. (You know the lingo to use.)

Because he makes it clear that this is a one-time only thing and he won’t be spamming his list, no one gets upset.

And between his own upsell, the upsell he rents out, the three ads on the download page and the ‘solo ad,’ he makes a good chunk of money.

He’s now able to buy more expensive traffic and still be in the black at all times. And this better traffic is more targeted and results in more sales from his list.

Talk about a win-win-win situation. He took something bad – a funnel that frustratingly was not paying for itself – and turned it into a way to build his lists even faster and with better prospects, while still making a small profit on his funnels.

If you want to know more about increasing conversions in your business, check out the featured resource below to grab a free report which will teach you how to boost your conversion rate. Download, read it, and take action 🙂

Is Convertri A Good Choice For New Marketers?

Selling products online can seem like a formidable challenge, and it often seems like creating the product is the easiest task. It’s the sales pages, funnels, linking them all together and making sure everything functions smoothly that’s the most intimidating and difficult part of the process.

So many new marketers get stuck on the technical aspects of online marketing, but it is now easier than ever to get up and running, even with limited technical skills.

And the good news is that it doesn’t have to be a painstaking grind. There are a plethora of page builders and funnel builders on the market to help you out.

Anyone who has been trying online marketing for more than two seconds would have heard of brands like ClickFunnels, OptimizePress, Leadpages and so on.

You’re spoiled for choice and this too becomes a challenge. You’re spoiled for choice. Which do you choose?

Some are plugins that you install, while others have pages which are hosted for you. Some are one-time payments while others are recurring. There’s a ton of decisions to consider before making your choice.

In this article, you’ll discover why Convertri is probably the best option for beginners who are new to online marketing and wish to profit from product creation.

Unlike many of the bigger brands such as ClickFunnels, Convertri has been flying under the radar for a number of years now and is used by many experienced marketers. It’s gaining popularity and will soon rival the rest of the big guys.

Now let’s see why Convertri is ideal for beginners…

Intuitive And Flexible

One of the strongest points of Convertri is that it’s easy to use. The interface is almost intuitive. Most beginners hate going through the learning curve. Since Convertri uses a ‘drag and drop’ editor, it’s perfect for beginners.

Seniors who are trying to make money online will find it very easy to use. Unlike HTML, there is no complicated code to deal with and pages can be replicated easily with the cloning feature in the software.

While OptimizePress and ClickFunnels are block-based editors, with Convertri, you can drag and drop your elements anywhere on the page and make your page look exactly the way you want it to.

Convertri was the first real fully freeform page builder, and while there are some others now available, Convertri is streets ahead in way of functionality and ease of use.

No fiddling with CSS code or any such hassle. There’s even an editor to get your mobile responsive version to look perfect. The mobile version does not affect how your page looks like on a computer. They’re separate from each other and that gives you maximum flexibility and creative license.

Plus, the level of support is incredible; you normally only find out how good a company is when things go wrong, and you have to contact support and there Convertri has you really well covered. And they also have an active Facebook group where you can get peer support and ideas too.

Speed And Convenience

Since Convertri hosts the sales pages, download pages, etc. for you, there’s really no need for you to build your own website yet. Just create a few products, put them out into the marketplace and make sales.

Once you’re rolling in the green, you’ll be motivated to have your own site, etc. Let’s get you making some cash first before doing the more mundane tasks.

Money loves speed, and speed comes from convenient processes – and that’s exactly what Convertri is all about. Speed and convenience which makes marketers’ lives much easier.

Improves Conversions

Tests have shown that pages built on Convertri load faster than pages built on other more popular platforms. People have the attention span of a housefly these days.

You want your pages to load as fast as possible so that you can hook their eyeballs, grab their attention quickly and get the sale. Slow pages WILL cost you sales. Period.

Most novice marketers neither have the technical know-how to fiddle around with caching plugins and coding nor the time to spend two months trying to speed up their load times by half a microsecond.

Using Convertri makes things a breeze while the pages are blazing fast. It doesn’t get better than that.

Simple Split Testing

‘Split testing’ is another term that strikes fear into the hearts of most newbies and even intermediate marketers.

Convertri makes it all much easier and even provides you the conversion stats so that you know which pages are working better with just one glance.

This may not be a sexy thing, but it is important to know how well your pages are performing.

This is especially important if you are thinking of spending money on any sort of advertising to get traffic to your sales pages. If they aren’t converting well, you are wasting money. And if you have a page that is seriously outperforming the rest, then it makes sense to direct more traffic to that one to maximize your conversions.

Amazing Features

The page importer feature in Convertri will allow you to replicate any page on the internet. See a page you like? Go ahead and import it. Now all you need to do is make the necessary modifications to make the page unique and attractive.

(Do note that you should get permission from the site owner if you’re replicating a page that’s not yours… OR… you may model it but make enough changes so that the content on your page is completely different from the page you imported. Don’t plagiarize or rip off someone else’s hard work.)

Another feature that marketers seem to love about Convertri is the ‘undo button’. Apparently, ClickFunnels does not have that feature and it’s something that is sorely needed… and beginner marketers who constantly need to make changes and improve will find that the Convertri undo button becomes their new best friend.

Affordable

Last but not least, Convertri is much more affordable than ClickFunnels. Currently, at half the price, it’s a much better deal and provides most of the same features that you’ll need to create high-converting sales pages, etc.

While plugins like OptimizePress are one-time payments, they tend to be clunkier and the pages load slower. They also have a yearly support fee that you’ll need to fork out money for if you need support.

Leadpages costs slightly less, but the pages don’t load quite as fast as Convertri. The editor is also not as easy to use as Convertri’s drag and drop page builder and is very limited compared to the other options available to you.

To conclude, Convertri is one of the best investments a beginner marketer could make in their business. It will increase your sales, make your marketing processes much easier and if you ever have problems, they have excellent support too.

It may not be the cheapest option but is the best and if used well, it will become an investment rather than an expense and will more than pay for itself.

Do check it out and leverage this powerful platform to launch your own successful online business.

>>> See Convertri In Action Here <<<

Of course, creating a great page is only part of the puzzle. If you want to have great results you need to be able to write highly converting copy which is difficult for many people as there are so many mistakes that can have a dramatic effect on conversions.

To help you avoid these 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. Download, read it and take action 😊

Convertri vs ClickFunnels: Which Is Really Better?

This topic has been hotly debated over and over by marketers and no one is closer to the answer. The truth of the matter is that it depends on your needs and preferences.

In this article, we’ll discuss the strengths and weakness of both brands and you can decide for yourself which one is best for you.

ClickFunnels, which was created by Russell Brunson, has achieved cult-like status. It’s used by many big-name marketers to generate millions of dollars in sales. The affiliates swear by it because they’re making a killing in commissions.

Since most people think that bigger is better, the ClickFunnels brand keeps gaining popularity because it’s already huge… and everyone loves a winner. It’s akin to Kim Kardashian being famous for being famous.

On the flip side, we have Convertri. While it is gaining popularity, it’s nowhere close to being as popular as ClickFunnels is. But does that mean it’s not as good?

Not necessarily so. If we were to use an analogy, ClickFunnels will be like an infantry battalion that’s huge and wipes out the enemy wherever it goes.

Convertri, however, is like a small elite group of commandos that’s fast, silent and gets the job done without anyone even knowing they were there.

Now let’s look at a few points and see how both brands fare…

Speed

Without a doubt, sales pages created with Convertri load faster than pages created with ClickFunnels. This is what we meant by the commando approach. Convertri is extremely swift. Even their slogan states, “Faster funnels, higher conversions”.

And that’s hitting the nail on the head. Faster pages hold the reader’s attention and translate to higher sales. In this area, ClickFunnels could use some improvement.

If you wish, you could create a similar page in both ClickFunnels and Convertri and test the page load speeds here: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

The results will prove our point.

Pricing

Convertri is definitely more affordable when compared to ClickFunnels. At $69 a months, Convertri is roughly half the price of ClickFunnels, which is $97 a month. Once you hit 100 pages with ClickFunnels, the price jumps up to $297 a month and this can be expensive for many beginner marketers.

If you’re a beginner or intermediate marketer, you’ll be able to save more money using Convertri. You’ll get 500 pages for the standard plan and even the highest plan at 10,000 pages, only costs $166, which is $131 cheaper than ClickFunnels. That is a huge savings for you.

Do note that ClickFunnels does have a lot more features when you get the $297 plan, but most marketers will never really use the multitude of features provided.

All they really need is the page/funnel builder. At the end of the day, you’ll need to decide if the extra features are worth the monthly $131.

Features

When it comes to ease of use, Convertri wins here. With a ‘drag and drop’ editor, it’s easier to use than ClickFunnels block-based editor. Convertri also has an undo button that makes it easy to fix mistakes.

ClickFunnels doesn’t have this undo option. The only way to fix a mistake will be to restore a previously saved version of the page. This is not only a hassle, but the biggest bugbear that ClickFunnels’ users currently have.

Unlike Convertri, ClickFunnels claims to be an all-in-one solution. It’s more than just a funnel builder. It comes with a CRM and autoresponder, membership database management and many other advanced features. So, it beats Convertri here.

However, it’s best to keep your autoresponder and your funnel builder separate. If you put all your eggs in one basket and the software goes down, all your related components, autoresponder, etc. will be down too.

Ultimately, you’ll need to decide if you want to give full-control of your business to one brand, or you want to keep the different entities separate. Separation gives you flexibility and more security. ‘All in one’ solutions are easier to use, but more risky.

Reliability

Based on reports from marketers, ClickFunnels seems to go down every now and then.

While this is normal, and to some extent inevitable, it still can result in thousands of dollars lost in sales. So far, we’ve not seen any instance of Convertri being down.

Either way, both are reliable companies. So, you’re safe with them… but just that little bit safer with Convertri.

For Affiliates

When it comes to affiliate recruitment, ClickFunnels is a goliath. Convertri has a long way to go to catch up.

However, that also means that you have less competition when promoting Convertri. It’ll be easier to promote Convertri successfully, and your affiliate link will be in your dashboard.

Your commissions will be lower because the pricing is lower, but there are masses of new and beginner marketers who will be better off with Convertri, because it’s a cheaper alternative that’s just as good (better in some cases).

To wrap things up, while both funnel builders are good, we believe that Convertri is the better one. There’s a lot less hype about it, but it has been delivering over and over ever since it hit the market.

There’s a very active Convertri support group where users offer suggestions, and many have been implemented in the software. This is a company that listens to its customers.

While it may be quietly performing in ClickFunnels’ shadow for the time being, this brand has a lot of promise and will be just as big in the future. For the time being, Convertri is faster, easier to use and way more affordable. Definitely the better choice.

>> Check Out Convertri Here

Using Upsells And Backend Sales To Increase Profits

Once you have managed to persuade someone to buy one of your products or services, you should have a good sales funnel in place to try to increase the minimum order value (MOV) as this will make it much easier to be profitable if you are going to use paid traffic.

Your front-end offer should allow you to break even with any ad spend; this means that you are acquiring customers for free.

Then your sales funnels work to add profit to your business.

So, let’s look at a couple of components of a sales funnel which can have a big impact on your profit margins; upsells and backend offers.

Giving More Value with One Time Offers

One time offers are a great way to increase the money you make from each offer. You can get people to agree to purchase a product from you at a lower price that’s only available right that second, making the sale a bit easier.

This is a good way to increase the amount of your sale since they’re already in buying mode. A One Time Offer is shown right after the customer clicks the Buy button. But before they checkout, the OTO is presented for them to consider.

One time offers are a very good way to give customers more value. It’s less expensive than the product would normally be, giving your customers the opportunity to grab another great deal from you while they already have their credit card out.

Another great way to offer additional value is to trade OTOs with other marketers. For example, if you have a product that complements another marketer’s product (and vice versa), then each of you would present the other’s products to your customers as the OTOs, either sharing the revenue or giving the owner 100% in exchange for a reciprocal arrangement.

If you can’t find someone who will JV with you on an OTO offer, you can try to find someone with an affiliate program who will allow you to offer their product as an OTO at a discount. Simply tell them you expect a good volume of sales and you’d like to offer their product at a slight discount.

You probably won’t be able to land a deal like this unless you can prove you can do a large volume of business, because it would mean setting up a special sales page (or at least setting up a coupon code that could be easily tracked with your affiliate ID).

The best OTOs are usually very difficult to say no to. They offer exceptional value at a very special price. There are three separate types of one time offers. One is usually an upgrade to the first product, such as a more comprehensive version of it.

The second could be a coaching program that takes the ideas of the product and offers them in a one-on-one coaching system. And the third could be a turnkey solution that goes along with the product you sold. For example, if you’ve sold an eBook about making money with AdSense, you could offer a package of AdSense templates as the OTO.

Membership sites can also have OTOs. When someone joins your membership site, you could offer them an upgrade to a higher access level. Let’s say you have two access levels – silver and gold.

The silver level typically costs $50 per month, and the gold level costs $100 per month. You could offer anyone who joins at the silver level an upgrade to gold for only $25 more, at $75 per month – a $25 savings from the normal gold level price. You can also offer one-on-one coaching as an OTO for membership sites. Since memberships are already a monthly fee, coaching is a perfect complement to many membership sites.

Make sure you test your one time offers just like you test any part of your sales copy or site performance. Replace the offers and see which ones convert better and then tweak that offer until it performs as well as it can.

Have A Plan for Your Backend Sales

Every good marketer knows how important it is to increase the lifetime value of the customer. It’s much cheaper to make a sale to a previous customer than it is to get a new one onboard. The cost of acquiring new customers can be high but getting more money out of existing customers won’t cost you a penny.

Building a backend to your business isn’t hard but without one, you’re limiting your financial potential. A backend is how you continue selling to an existing customer. Let’s say you sell an eBook on how to make money blogging.

Your eBook could discuss what a blog is, how to set one up, and how to make money from it. Your backend sales could come from affiliate items (if you don’t feel like taking the product creation route again) or a new eBook, membership site, or video/audio package you sell.

Whenever you first start selling online, always think of complementary topics you can tack on as a backend. For our example, your backend sales could be about social networking on other networks like Instagram, Twitter etc..

After they’ve begun seeing success, your backend sales could focus on more paid methods of marketing, such as AdWords. You progress your offers with your audience like steppingstones, moving from the first logical starting point to a more advanced stage.

Plop your offers right into your autoresponder system and it’ll automatically cater to the needs of your subscribers the longer they stay on your list. Another common way to add a backend onto a product is to offer personal coaching.

Personal coaching can be expensive, sometimes costing thousands of dollars per month. A lot of marketers offer this as a backend strategy, giving them the potential to significantly increase the return on their investment (ROI) of acquiring the prospect.

If you take care to create backend offers that add value to their needs and which are of top quality, they’ll continue buying from you. If you promote anything and everything just for the sake of cashing in, they’ll lose trust in you.

Your backend sales strategy isn’t all done just through your autoresponders. You can put links to backend products on your “thank you” pages. And don’t forget that each product can act as a backend item for another one. So, you might start with an eBook about WordPress and then use a blogging eBook as your backend item for the customer.

Just make sure you don’t set yourself up for limited profits by using a single product without implementing a backend strategy that will work to increase your ROI repeatedly. You’re building a business, not dabbling in a few hit or miss sales.

Niche Marketing

Using Personalisation To Get Higher Conversions

It’s amazing what a little personalisation can do.

Quick example: You go into a store looking to buy something. A salesperson helps you, but you leave without making a purchase. You go back a week later, and the salesperson greets you by calling you by name.

How do you feel? Maybe respected, appreciated and memorable? And do you want to do business with someone who cares enough to remember your name? Of course you do; it makes you feel special doesn’t it?

When Coca-cola introduced Coke bottles personalised with people’s names, sales jumped 2%. Now I know 2% might not sound like much, but to a company as big as Coke, it’s huge.

Personalisation – when used properly – can double your conversions.

Here are 10 ideas on how to personalise not just words, but actual images – and how you might use these ideas in your own business…

1: Inactive Customers Or Subscribers

Re-engage with customers and even subscribers who are no longer active.

For example, for customers who haven’t made a purchase in 90 days, or subscribers who haven’t clinked a link in a month, send them a photo of you in front of a whiteboard looking sad.

The whiteboard has a simple mathematical equation with your business name, minus their name and a frowny face, like this:

Your Business Name – Your customer’s name = ☹

2: New Customers And Subscribers

Create life-long customers and communities by taking the time to welcome someone when they join you. For example, you might send them a picture of you holding a sign that says, “Welcome Paul!”

Many people know that emails (even with their first names) are hardly personal so by going out of your way to send them a picture like this will make you stand out.

Is it a little cheesy? Perhaps, but it does work so why not give it a go?

3: Product Sales

When your customers buy a product that you are shipping out, keep them engaged by sending them an email with a picture of their package.

This keeps them excited and tells them it’s on the way.

Bonus: Get a clear shot of the address label, and it will help them to confirm their shipping address before it’s too late.

You could even do this with a digital product such as a course. Most courses will have a generic welcome video but you could easily personalise this and welcome them to the course by name. How cool is that?

4: Webinar Attendance

Get people to show up for your webinars by sending them a personalised reminder email in the form of a photo of a handwritten note, or of you standing next to a whiteboard with the written words, “Are you coming to the webinar, Joan?”

This will capture their attention, be far more memorable and do more to get them on the webinar than the standard email that webinar services send out as reminders.

Once again, this takes a little effort (but not much) and it really does make a difference.

5: Cart Abandonment

If someone goes to buy one of your products or services but doesn’t check out, you should be following up with them as soon as possible to try to save the sale.

Send out a photo of an empty box with their name on it, such as, “Order for Bob Smith.”

This emphasizes the sense of loss in not ordering and will get some of your customers to come back and finalize their purchase.

Remember that you don’t know why they abandoned the cart; it could be that their internet connection dropped, doorbell rang, any number of reasons that had nothing to do with your product or service so you lose nothing by following up.

6: Text Messages

If you use text messages for following up with customers, how about adding an image of a newspaper that features their name and the reason for the follow up?

Guaranteed you’ll have their attention.

This may not be as easy to do as some of the other methods but that is why it can be so effective.

Also, text messages and instant messaging services just feel more personal than email so if you aren’t using them in your business, perhaps it’s time you looked into adding them to your arsenal.

7: Customer Anniversaries

Send out a personalised image that contains congratulations on their anniversary – perhaps the anniversary of purchasing a product, subscribing to your list, joining your membership site, etc.

You’ll make them feel special and important.

8: Upsells

This is a brilliant idea that can put serious money in your pocket almost immediately – send out an image letting your customer know they forgot something.

It might be a picture of the upsell they didn’t take, along with words such as, “You forgot something John! (It’s our best offer).

Remember it’s much easier to convince someone who has already bought from you once than it is to convince someone who hasn’t bought from you yet so it makes sense to try to increase the average order value as soon as possible.

9: Certificates

Do you offer any kind of courses or online training?

Send out personalised and official looking certificates of completion with their name, the training level achieved, the date, signatures and seal.

You could also use gamification in your courses too.

These may appear gimmicky, but they do work to encourage buyers to actually log in and consume your content.

If they do that, they are more likely to get results, and if they get results, they are much more likely to buy from you again!

10: Online Order Confirmation

When someone places an order, send them a photo of you and your team (if you have one) with a sign that welcomes them by name. It might say something like, “Welcome to the family, Aaron.” Make sure everyone in the photo looks especially happy.

Now then, you might be saying: “Sure, this is all well and good and I can see how it will help me to retain customers and make more sales, but who has time to do all this?”

Good question. The answer is, you do – if you get PicSnippets.

PicSnippets creates personalised images for marketing, sales and customer follow-up. You can create your PicSnippet and use it on nearly any platform such as ClickFunnels, ManyChat, Convertri and more.

Just go to PicSnippets.com and register today.

OK, so there are 10 ways you can use personalisation to boost conversions and if you want some other strategies to boost your conversion then grab a free Conversion Boost report by clicking on the “Featured Resource” below.