During 2016 our marketing site, eCommerce system, marketing funnel and membership site were all on ONE website.
I know, I know. It was killing me.
The membership plugin didn’t work 100% with the eCommerce and subscription system.
If the website needed updating, that would break the eCommerce and funnel system. It was all a bit of a mess.
So I spoke to my friend Brian who runs MASSIVE membership and funnel sites. He’s a developer/marketing genius and he asked me why I was hosting it all on one platform.
Even though I used WPEngine at the time, it was still a lot of strain on the site.
I had no idea what to do but Brian offered a LUDICROUSLY simple solution.
“Mike, put your funnel on a sub-domain and your membership site on a sub-domain”.
I cannot tell you how much time, effort and money this has saved me. It was so simple.
So below, I’m going to explain how we build customer and our own Sell Your Service marketing funnels, the function of each site and the tools we use to build those platforms.
Built with Lucidchart.com by the way
Marketing, funnel and membership
As a rule, there are 3 different websites. Most businesses are going to start building 3 sites as 3 different channels.
The marketing website is the front facing site with the blog, pages, contact, terms and conditions etc.
Sometimes our customers don’t need or want a new marketing site. We’re fine with this and not all projects require it.
If a customer already has a marketing site, usually it means there are a few people updating it with new content every day or at least every week.
If they don’t have any optin or email capture options we’ll install OptinMonster for them and maybe Gravity Forms.
This means I’ll build a marketing funnel on a sub-domain and use my technology stack to build it.
Marketing funnel technology stack-
- Beaver Builder theme
- Beaver Builder
- PowerPack
- Ultimate Addons
- Optin Monster
- Gravity Forms
The marketing funnel is on a separate sub-domain like get.website.com. The membership site is on a sub-domain like members.website.com.
Sites hosted on different platforms
Marketing funnels can be built on other platforms like ClickFunnels or Lead Pages. We’ll always build our funnels on our own turf.
This is because I don’t want another customer to change their terms of service and change how I have to build.
Customers with previous sites might also have hosting already, on another platform for their marketing site. We’ll just make sure we use ours for our funnels and membership sites.
This also means that all our sites share a process which makes it easier to build and maintain. It also means that if one needs updating, restoring or goes down, it doesn’t affect the other sites.
User journey
We’ll drive traffic to both a marketing website and the marketing funnel. Blog posts are where we’ll send cold traffic. We’ll send remarketing or warm traffic to blog posts but also squeeze pages and sales pages on the funnel site.
Users who sign up to our email lists, will then be sent emails that ultimately are designed to get them to a sales page.
The lead magnet download and thank you page is typically on the funnel site.
Sales pages are all on the marketing funnel site. Sideways letters, PLFs, sales letters, sales videos etc.
Interestingly, we’ve found that we usually host webinar and recordings on the marketing site. But we also have the choice of having them on the marketing site too.
Sales letters and pages are designed to make sales. Payments of which are usually taken on the membership platform. That’s how we’ll deliver products and digital downloads.
Sometimes we have payment methods on the funnel site, or a redirect from the marketing website. Stripe has some great features for cross platform payments. But we’ve found it easier to just keep it on one site.
That’s about it!
What process do you use? Is there an easier way? I’m always interested in seeing better methods. Let me know in the comments below.
