Today, we will build on sales funnels. If you haven’t read the first part, you can pop over here. Let’s focus on list-building funnels.
Here’s a quick recap of what a funnel is:
It is a sequence of messages you show your audience to drive them from being an interested person to a lead and a sale. There are many different kinds of funnels. You may not realize, but I’m sure you’re already doing it. An example would be posting on social media to inform an audience about you and your product or service.
What is a List-Building Funnel?
To start off with – a list-building funnel is a mechanism that you use to get people to subscribe to your email list. From there, you will warm them up to take action and convert to a lead or a sale. I recommend that everyone has one, regardless of your industry.
The fundamental aspect of a list-building funnel is that you should offer something free and valuable that they can take immediate action on. By doing this, you are getting their email address and they are getting your offer in return!
To create a very basic setup, you will need:
Social media posts or ads
A blog article
An opt in lead magnet to add them to your subscriber list
An email nurture sequence
How to Create the Right Sequence
First, you will need some social media posts or ads (or both) that will send traffic to your blog article. Second, the blog must be informative and valuable to the audience. Third, in the blog, you should include a downloadable cheatsheet or checklist that goes with the article. This document will be free to download when they subscribe which they will do by giving their email address and name. Fourth, they will be added to your email list. And, fifth, you will have an automatic email nurture sequence.
Note:
Don’t give them the download as soon as they fill out their details. There’s two reasons behind this:
The email browser needs to understand that the reader wants to open these emails. By opening and downloading something in an email, it will show that you want to receive future emails so it won’t be moved to spam.
It trains the person to look out for your email in their inbox.
The Nuture Email Sequence
Your email sequence should start off with a delivery email so they deliver the link to your lead magnet. That will be your first email after they have added their details on the blog.
Next, you will send a reminder email of the download link. Often, people don’t open the email and download link the first time. In this second email, you are also going to introduce who you are, and tell them about your business. Also include a short story about your journey and why you are doing what you do. This email will build rapport and connection with the reader.
The third email you send will introduce your offer and your services. Remember: the whole point of marketing is to see how we can help our user, so this email will bring you one step closer to finding a solution for their problem and helping them.
Fourth, have a client testimonial or journey. It should be a story of a client that has purchased your product or offer. You use this email to help them visualise what it would be like to be a client of yours, and to succeed like your previous client.
The final email in the sequence is to address the typical objections the reader might have that would stop them from taking your up on the offer. You need to put yourself in their shoes and consider what they might be thinking when they’re reading your emails. What is blocking them from taking action? You can use email number five to clear this up.
Photo by Kaboompics .com from Pexels
And that is how you create a list-building funnel! If you would like to get in touch with me or have any comments or questions about this, click here.
As always, I will keep sharing this valuable information with you to make your online marketing easier, powerful, effective and results-driven.
In this blog, we’re going to be talking about sales funnels for beginners, who may have heard of the concept of funnels in marketing, but don’t know what it is. I’m going to walk you through some essential things that you need to know about the sales funnel and why it’s vital for your business.
What is a Funnel?
It is a sequence of messages you show your audience to drive them from being an interested person to a lead and a sale. There are many different kinds of funnels. You may not realize, but I’m sure you’re already doing it. An example would be posting on social media to inform an audience about you and your product or service.
There are many different elements to sales funnels; it can be your website, a blog article, a social media post, emails, etc. You also get offline funnels like billboards. Anything that gets your message across is part of a sales funnel.
Simply put, the purpose, the goal, and the sequence of messages funnel people into a lead or sale.
It leads to people taking action, which could be becoming a client or even just subscribing to your YouTube channel.
Keep it Simple
A common mistake that newbies make is that they overcomplicate it. If you don’t, your audience may be overwhelmed by the information; it can land up cluttering their minds. The best way to see if you are keeping it simple enough is to map out the user’s journey on a piece of paper. You want to simplify it to make it as short as possible to take action.
Setting Your Funnel’s Goals
The way you create the funnel will depend on the goal the funnel has. For example, you can have a list-building funnel, which is the most basic one.
The goals could be joining a list, building rapport, connecting with people, making a sale, even registering for an event, or a class online or in person.
Once you have defined the goal, you can map out the steps your audience needs to take and then build the elements to get them there for you to reach that goal.
In Summary
Knowing the basics of funnels opens up a whole new world in online marketing, and all of a sudden, everything that you do has a purpose. It will be a vast improvement from just doing everything and doing nothing at all.
The most important thing to ask yourself is: what is the journey your audience should take to achieve the goal that you have set?
If you enjoyed this blog, you can find more helpful online marketing tools here.
And, you have any comments or questions, please feel free to get in touch. I look forward to helping you out with your online marketing!
The world is certainly a strange place right now! And the uncertainty and nervousness that the global pandemic has brought about has inevitably led to some confusion about how to adapt your small business’ advertising campaign in such challenging times.
I’ve been asked by some of my clients whether they should decrease their advertising budget during the second wave of COVID. And it’s understandable that small business owners such as yourselves are concerned – after all, knowing what the most fruitful way to spend your precious advertising budget is challenging at the best of times, let alone right now.
So, let’s think about the best way to approach this situation, keeping a clear and focused business head. It’s my view that, in business, we have to adapt pretty much constantly to the many curveballs that we are thrown. Absolutely, this is an exceptional situation, but we need to be flexible, open-minded, and adapt our strategies carefully.
It makes sense that many small business owners have had to cut their budgets right now. With this in mind, I’d like to give you four points to help you with the process of changing your strategy to attract more potential clients.
1. Create valuable content for your followers
Focus on engaging with your followers and future clients by presenting them with information that is genuinely useful for them and encourages them to follow you and then posting it on your website. Blogs, videos, “how-to” tutorials are all great ways of getting on your future clients’ wavelengths and offering them solutions to what they are needing, what their challenges are, and supporting their decision to choose you as opposed to somebody else.
2. Boost your Facebook posts
Full-blown Facebook campaigns can be expensive. So, if you are looking for a more cost-friendly option in these difficult times, consider setting aside a small budget for boosting the posts that you intend to write and share on Facebook. When you simply post your blogs onto your Facebook page, only about 5% of your followers actually see them which is far too small an amount to grow your business effectively! So allocating some money towards boosting these posts to your potential audience can be really valuable – don’t forget that Facebook’s algorithm is cleverly geared towards advertising and can help you to reach your potential audience much more effectively than posting to your followers alone.
3. A post is not complete without an opt-in!
When you write and boost your blog posts, it’s crucial to offer some kind of opt-in. It could be a sign up to download a cheat sheet, a checklist, a free mini-course – anything that enables you to capture that potential customer’s data and give them something that is valuable to them in return.
If your objective is to get some traffic to your blog posts, particularly if you boost them, you need more than for your follower to read the post – you need to tell them what to do next. Or they will leave! By getting their details, you can start engaging with them and building a relationship. Which leads me onto point number four….
4. Use email to get a dialogue going
Once you have your potential clients’ email details and they are on your email list, you can start nurturing them with a well-thought-out email sequence and continuously update them with your new blog posts, new videos. This is the perfect way to create connections with them, build trust with them so that you can answer their questions, relieve their doubts, and share your case studies and testimonials with them.
And remember that, while there’s a lot of activity on social media, there is much less competition in their email inboxes and you have a real opportunity there to connect with your future clients. Communicate with them once a week, every fortnight at a minimum, and nurture that relationship.
In a nutshell, the purpose of these four steps is really to build and enhance that close connection with your future clients, ready for the time that the current situation improves and they are ready to move forward with working with you or buying from you. I hope this helps to give you some confidence that, even if your advertising budget isn’t what you would like it to be, there are some concrete ways for you to increase your social media following and engage meaningfully with your future clients.
