Sales funnels are magical. It’s even more so if you implement the simple sales funnel I discuss in this post. In part one of this two-part series, I shared with you the five stages or steps in the simple sales funnel. And in today’s post, we’ll look at how to implement a simple funnel for your business.
In yesterday’s post, I shared a definition of a sales funnel. And I want to repeat that one more time here for you.
A sales funnel refers to the journey of prospective clients from the time they first experience your brand to when they buy something from you.
The Buyer’s Journey Online
So what does this “journey” look like online? Here’s what it looks like…
- A prospective buyer browsing the interwebs comes across a blog post or an article. It’s a piece of content that speaks directly to a problem they are currently dealing with or a solution to that problem.
- The content piques their interest, and they happen to see a free guide or report available as a download.
- They quickly decide to share their email address in exchange for that guide or report.
- As they read through the guide, they get an email notification. It’s from the author of that guide.
- They get an email and some other free stuff from the author every day. They are starting to wonder, “If the author is giving away so much for free, I wonder what their paid products can do…”
- And then, one day, they learn about the author’s paid product. Their antennas go up.
- Day after day, they get more details about the paid product from the author.
- And before they can think, they’ll have swiped their credit card and purchased the paid product.
While this journey can change a lot based on many factors, the flow remains the same for the most part. Now it’s time for you to implement your simple sales funnel.
Five Parts of a Simple Sales Funnel
The five parts that we will discuss in this post correspond to the five steps in the previous post. And before we dove into these parts and discuss their implementation, I need to tell you this–none of these steps are optional. Here are the five parts of a simple sales funnel:
- Content + Lead Magnet
- Opt-In Page
- Welcome Sequence
- Education Sequence
- Sales Sequence
- Sales Letter (optional)
And now, let’s look at each of these parts in greater detail.
1. Content + Lead Magnet
The top of your funnel is the content that your prospective buyers read first. This content could be a blog post like this one, a podcast episode, or an ad you run. It could also be a guest blog post you wrote on someone else’s blog or an interview you did on another podcast. But the content is just one part. You also need a lead magnet.
Lead magnets are powerful tools to grow your business. Every time you send a good piece of content and a good lead magnet out, they return with at least a few leads. And that’s what makes this combination powerful.
Action Plan
- Create a lead magnet that promises a specific target buyer a specific result.
- If you have a lead magnet, see if you can narrow the focus of the result or who it is for.
Resource
Refer to this post that I recently published on creating high-converting lead magnets.
2. Opt-In Page
Opt-in pages make promises to prospective buyers in exchange for their email addresses or phone numbers. And what happens when you put a lead magnet on a page and a signup form next to it? You get leads. People will signup. That’s the power of “free.”
The Free Trap.
The leads generated by the promise of “free” isn’t useful for your business. And that’s because they are most likely freeloaders. They can walk a mile to get something for free but would turn a blind eye if you asked them to pay.
The biggest mistake many opt-in pages make is to promise something for “free” when that isn’t true.
Your promise needs to only appeal to the emotions and desires of your specific target buyers. Lead generation is not about quantity but quality. And the tighter your promise is, the higher your lead quality.
Action Plan
- Fine-tune the promise you make on your opt-in page.
3. Welcome Sequence
You will surely get high-quality leads with a good lead magnet and opt-in page. So it’s time to think of the next step. What happens to your leads after they signup through your opt-in form? You welcome them.
A “welcome sequence” is a series of emails you send to your new leads as soon as you deliver your lead magnet. And here’s what you need to do with a welcome sequence:
- Keep the sequence extremely focused on your target buyer (not you).
- Try to keep this sequence short–four or six emails.
- Keep your emails personal and sprinkle them with your personality.
- The primary goal of the welcome sequence is to thank your new subscriber and deliver the lead magnet. Do this with your first email.
- Use the second email to discuss the problem and your experience trying to find a solution to it. Also, use this email to introduce yourself.
- The third email is all about the solution and how it changed your life (and why they should pay attention).
- Finally, in the fourth email, make a special one-time offer.
Well, this is not the place to discuss welcome emails in detail. But until I write a detailed post on the welcome sequence, read this post by Benyamin Elyias.
Action Plan
Create a welcome sequence to welcome your new subscribers based on the above seven points.
4. Education Sequence
New subscribers are inside your email list because of the promise you made on your opt-in page. So they download the lead magnet and get your welcome sequence emails too. Maybe they took you up on your one-time offer. Or, maybe not. But if they’re still in your list, it’s for a reason. So what next?
It’s time to switch gears and get into the “education mode” with your subscribers. They have most likely used your lead magnet. And hopefully, they got the results they were expecting. It’s now time to educate them using one of the following:
- Talk about the bigger problem. You help your subscribers learn about the problem space in these emails–new policies by the government? A new study? Maybe it’s a new trend.
- Tell them stories of people using your course to transform their businesses. People love to hear before-after stories or see the transformation. Stories are a great way to handle objections too.
Action Plan
- List everything you want your leads to know before they see your product, course, or membership.
- Write down the stories behind how you created your product.
- List down client stories that show transformation.
- Create a sequence of three to six emails educating your new subscribers.
5. Sales Sequence
The interesting this with a sales funnel is that every email you send takes you one step closer to finding the right buyers (and making the sale). One can write a full book about sales sequences. And I will do that in detail in a future post. But for now, here’s what I want you to remember–have one.
There are many ways to write a sales sequence. You can write traditional “launch sequence,” use story-based emails, and many others. But it all comes down to perssuading your subscribers to buying your course, membership, or coaching. Here’s everything you want to do in your sales emails:
- Tell them about your solution, product, course, or membership.
- Share the story behind the creation of this offer..and some customer testimonials.
- Walk them through the features and benefits.
- Reveal a special email-only offer and reward your subscribers for reading your emails.
Action Plan
Sign up for an email marketing tool and start creating your email sequences.
Your Sales Funnel Action Plan
I hope you found this post useful. While it’s not meant to be exhaustive, I hope this post gives you an idea of what you need to implement in a sales funnel. I’ve given a link to a post with more details wherever possible. If there’s something you’d like to know more about (and don’t see a link), drop a comment and let me know.
And since we’ve been speaking of sales funnels, join me and 3000+ small business owners, course creators, and membership owners in the Paid Course Creator newsletter. You won’t regret it.
To your prosperity,
Kartvee