No More Procrastination – How To Create an Effective Sales Funnel

Let’s talk about your business funnel for a bit today. A sales or marketing funnel is really just the series of steps you set up to turn prospects into customers. The idea behind setting up a funnel is that when you understand exactly what you want potential customers to do next, it’s much easier to get them to do it. For most of us it looks something like this:

1.  Someone comes to our blog or website.
2. He signs up for a freebie and we capture his email address.
3. Emails go out to him, including introductory (think low priced) product offers.
4. He makes a purchase and becomes a customer.
5. He’s presented with an upsell or one time offer.
6. We continue to make more relevant offers while continuing to build a relationship via the website, email and social media.
7. Eventually, the customer will buy higher and higher priced items or sign up for a recurring program.

Take a few minutes today and jot down what your current product funnel looks like. Do you have all the pieces in place to smoothly move a customer through the process? Do you have a free opt-in offer on your site to give you a chance to capture your visitor’s email addresses?

Do you have an introductory product in place? This could be a small eBook, an introductory course or even a short coaching session. Price will depend on your market but think in the $7 – $97 price range here.

Do you have an upsell or one time offer in place immediately after the first purchase is made? If not, this should be the first thing you work on. Your customer is buying and interested in what you have to offer. The chance that they add something else to their cart is pretty good right now. Make sure the offer is relevant and a bit higher priced than what they bought initially.

What might your customers need next? Is there another piece of the puzzle they should be learning to move them one step closer to their end goal? Or are you offering a consumable product like PLR articles for example? In that case, your funnel may include monthly fresh PLR offers.

Don’t forget to remind your customers regularly about what else you have to offer that might be helpful. Sometimes building out your funnel simply means writing a few follow-up emails, or bundling existing products into one larger bundle.

Last but not least think about bigger ticket items. These could be larger program bundles, large courses or training, and coaching programs. Although only a small percentage of your customers will take you up on those offers, the profit per sale will be high enough that it will be well worth it.

The idea is to build on the know like and trust concept.  Your customer will not likely buy your larger program until they had a taste of your smaller one.  And it all starts with giving them something free.