I’m going to show you how we plan high converting marketing funnels, for our customers, for our funnel agency MeBox and for Sell Your Service.
We’re too quick to jump to tools, page builders and email copy. But this can lead to low performing marketing campaigns and automation.
Planning a marketing funnel isn’t about creating launch funnels or video sales letters. It’s about planning the journey that our customers will take. We can’t just expect people to buy something, no matter the cost, without building on our relationship.
Just like how we can’t expect someone to arrive at a destination by driving and just telling them “be in London by 9am” without knowing where they’re starting, what they’re driving and the directions they’ll need to take.
So in order to plan our marketing funnels better, for customers and ourselves, we need to follow these critical 4 questions when planning our marketing funnels.
What’s the end goal?
What’s the end goal for this particular funnel? Is it webinar sign ups? Splinter product sales? High ticket sales?
If we’re selling courses or online training, is this a membership subscription or one off purchase? We have to understand exactly what we want our audience to do.
This is the first thing we want to understand. Without knowing what the end goal is, we don’t know what we’re asking for. If we don’t know what we’re asking for, we don’t know what we have to give back.
Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for the money you desire. (There is no such reality as “something for nothing.”)
Napoleon Hill, Think And Grow Rich.
If you don’t know what people are expected to give you, you’re not going to match their investment. You’re asking for an input and investment from them, but do you know what you done in order to ask for that?
You wouldn’t ask someone to marry you without knowing as much as you can about them. You can’t ask for a huge commitment from people, until you’ve demonstrated that you’re reliable, consistent and helpful.
How are people in front of this end goal?
Now we’ll look back at the start of the process and think about traffic.
How are your audience in front of this end goal? Are they hear from a Twitter link? Paid social adverts? Google AdWords? Email marketing? How have people come to view your end goal?
For example, if our end goal is to get someone to sign up to an email newsletter via a lead magnet, they’re probably on that blog post or landing page from a variety of sources.
But it’s critical that we match the traffic source to the end goal. If we overshoot our traffic type and mis-match our end goal then we’re going to see low conversion rates.
Directing Google AdWords traffic straight to a sales page might not work out. The conversion rates are often too low to be profitable.
However if I direct people to a blog post and training video from paid social, that might yield really high email subscriber optin rates.
It’s important to note that we don’t decide the traffic source before the rest of the funnel. We work backwards from the end goal to make sure we choose the right source.
However we also come across funnels and campaigns that are running and we want to understand why it’s working or not working. By asking where the audience is being driven from, we can better understand the gap between discovery and call to action.
Have I earned the right to sell to them?
This has become more and more important and I build multiple businesses. Asking myself “have I earned the right to sell to them?”
Why doesn’t emailing a bought data list of email addresses, a series of sales emails asking for money in exchange for a product, work?
If we’ve never emailed them before, or contacted them before, but we know our product sells, why can’t we skip the middle part and just get them to buy?
For example we know that one of our customers, sells online courses. They sell very well and they’ve been increasing the number of courses they sell and the price for a few years now. Their customers, exclusively accountants, buy the courses several times a year.
So why can’t I just buy a database of email addresses and put the same sales message in front of new people? Why don’t they buy?
We know they don’t buy after cold emailing. We know they don’t.
However we HAVE made sales through email to warmer leads. So why doesn’t it work?
Ultimately we haven’t earned the right to sell to them. We haven’t build enough trust with that lead. That’s about it.
There are hundreds of reasons why trust is the key to sales, but the high level point is that sales are emotional decisions. Not logical.
“Regardless of what you’re selling, whether it’s products, services or advice, people buy based on feelings”
Larry Pinci and Phil Glosserman, Sell the Feeling
Their feelings and emotions aren’t connected to you. You haven’t built enough of a relationship with the customer yet. You haven’t earned the right to sell.
So, if we haven’t earned the right to sell, then we need to demonstrate that you’re helpful. The more helpful you are upfront, the higher the conversion rates for your sales and the higher prices you can charge. Read the stage below to see how to be more helpful and earn the right to sell.
If you have earned the right to sell, then send them to the sales/call to action page and content.
Where have I demonstrated that I’m helpful?
If we haven’t demonstrated that we’re helpful and valuable, that’s what we need to do.
What people want to see is consistent, reliable, honest, helpful and relative content. They want to know that you know your stuff. Customers want to see that you can help them.
Can you imagine how helpful and valuable you’d be perceived after a sale, when you’ve already helped them for free? Imagine helping someone so much for free, that they think they should have paid for it. Then when you position a product in front of them, they know how valuable and helpful you are.
You have to demonstrate that you can help, by actually helping.
“Just demonstrate you can help them by actually helping them. It’s a novel concept”
Training videos, light bulb moments, guides, videos, blogs, webinars, books, courses, software, workshops, presentations, resources, swipe files…I could go on.
Your options for helping people are limited by two things. First, are you truly willing to help people? Second, what does your audience want help with?
Those are the only two things stopping you from helping more people. You can demonstrate that you’re exactly who your audience should follow.
Be helpful and be consistent. The more you do that, the easier it is to sell something to your audience.
Does this work for customers?
So does this line of questioning work for customers as well as ourselves? Absolutely. If you’re building marketing funnels, this is how you start to plan them.
If your conversion rates are low, then take a look at these questions and ask yourself if you’ve really been helpful and if you’ve earned the right to sell.
In fact, you have to ask if you’ve earned the right to ask for an email address, low cost payment, download and any other call to action.
