What you need to create your sales funnel
The first rule of owning a website is “Don’t make development harder than it has to be!”
- First you need a website that is easy to update
- Next you will need an email marketing system
- Then you need to write some copy, shoot a video, and /or tape an online training
- After putting it all together, test it!
Website Hosting for your Sales Funnel
We recommend hosting with us because you will have access to developers if needed, and your site is hosted on a scalable WordPress Cloud Host. If you have ever had a website go down because you are hosting on a shared server, then you would appreciate the up-time of our servers and the ease of use.
Email Marketing System for your Sales Funnel
Definitely MailChimp is the best email software for your Sales Funnel process. The setup of the settings on a new account is super simple and before you know it, you will be embedding your forms right into WordPress posts/pages. Then setting up the autoresponders is a piece of cake, especially with having all the excellent Mailchimp templates available.
***Mobile responsive emails are the wave of the future. More and more readers are viewing emails on their mobile devices, so it is very important to give an excellent user experience on every device. Mailchimp is optimized for Mobile Responsive Emails.
Sell with your Sales Copy in your Sales Funnel!
Where your website is hosted and which email marketing system that you use will not change the conversion rates for your sales funnel, that is unless your emails are not sending and your website is not available.
Sell with your copy! Be short, to the point and do not leave your reader left to interpret what you are trying to say. If you are shooting a video, I have tested this thoroughly, and the results have shown that shorter videos that are more precise have a higher completion rate and a higher conversion rate. But test this for yourself. Create a 2 minute video and a 9 minute video edit to A/B test.
Putting together your Sales Funnel
The first page will be your landing page. Many times this will be the first page that your user will read or even better, first time they will see your face and hear your voice. Studies show that people are more likely to buy from you when they see and hear high quality video / audio on your site. This show a level of professionalism and eases the mind later when they are taking out their wallet.
If you have been around the internet over the past 10 years, then I am sure that you have come across a long form sales letter page. Truth is, for some reason, these pages are still converting traffic into leads. Yeah, I have no idea why and frankly, I have never signed up to these pages. But supposedly, people still are signing up to long form letters.
With every trend must come an end, so I will not be teaching long form sales letters today, perhaps later.
I prefer the video squeeze pages, and for this you need:
- A well produced, under 2 minute video
- A strong Headline
- Two to three informative sentences
- A few bullet-points of copy for the lazy readers
- Two to three testimonials from your target audience
- Mailchimp contact form with Name, Email and one other field. Don’t make these forms long!
On page Sales Funnel tips
**Remember, most people reading your page read from left to right and from top to bottom. Organize your content so it is easy to understand the concept at a glance.
**Make the font very easy to read, and try not to make too much font a light color on a dark background. This is called “knockout type” or “reverse font.” A good test is to squint your eyes and see if you can read the page.
**Only give the user one action to do, if there is more than one action, chances are more visitors will do nothing. Keep it simple.
**Make the first sign up absolutely free to get started. Make the registration a no brainer, and do not even think about the follow up emails. Focus on turning a visitor into a lead, what do they want to read to get them to sign up?
**Be sure to have tracking metrics setup, like Analytics, and watch your conversions rates. I like using Google PPC and tracking conversions back using the Google Pixel. But we will get into that in the advertising section.
Post sign up to your Sales Funnel
Mailchimp has a function to redirect to a thank you page. I highly recommend this feature to send to a “Welcome Page.” This page is dedicated to telling your story, because you want your audience to identify with you and to remember you. Chances are after this page, they are gone for their first session on your site. So leave them with something they will remember.
Some users will click around a bit and then eventually leave, and very very few will take more action like contacting you or purchasing right then. Online sales usually take up to 5 touches before a purchase.
Autoresponder Emails
Now it is time to make the cash register ring! These emails are hot leads who are ready for your knowledge, so do not burn the lead by sending something confusing. Also, this first email open will be your highest open rate, and from here you will have a fall off. So be sure to put your best foot forward.
I have sales funnels for SEO training, Social Media training, Affiliate Marketing training and overall internet marketing training. I like giving the user the quality of my time, energy and knowledge right away.
They had signed up because they want something, so I usually offer my time to them, for free! Then I also give them a Webinar or Article to read in the meantime. Then in each email I remind them to connect on Twitter and Facebook, asking them to engage with me directly on social media.
Day 2 through 30
If you are offering a daily training session, which is typically a great system to have, use the subject line Day 2:: Then the topic. It is such a great attention grabber in the email, and also reminds the user they committed to a program. This will boost engagement for sure.
For Day 2 through 7, be sure to include links to affiliate offers and start getting the user engaged, inching towards the sale. I like being direct with my readers in saying “I offer my knowledge for free here, but if you want to have my team take these steps for you, click here.” That click will turn them into a consultation pushing into a paying client.
Just remember to take your paying clients out of the free list!
Change up the email styles, and your tone. Show some videos and keep the content fresh. Don’t be afraid to ask them to share the content, comment and get your readers involved. Less than 10% of your readers will comment or take action, so come up with ways to incentivize action and encourage activity to push this up to 20%.
Conversion Rates on your Sales Funnel
Let’s say you start with 100 Free Registrations. Out of those 100 free sign ups, 20% will do nothing with you after registration. Perhaps even 5% of them will complain about “spam” or hit the unsubscribe button. Let them go, that is ok.
Now you are left with 80 people, out of this group you will have 30 to 40% open the first email, which is excellent. That means that you have a great subject line! Congratulations!
But you will lose 10% each day falling off after day 2. So by the time you get to day 7, you have around 20 interested people left. Your goal should be to get 20% of those people on a phone call, or on a webinar.
After the phone call or webinar, then you should try to close 20% of them. For those of you following along, we are down to around 2 or 3 sales. I know that it seems like you have 100 people start and only 2 to 3 purchase, that is a decent conversion rate, for whatever product you are selling.
More users might convert over time, but the key is to always be looking for the next 100 to send into your sales funnel. Don’t wait.
Once the funnel is built, ADVERTISE! And that is a whole other conversation!
