Many new marketers come online to start their own businesses and can’t seem to put all the pieces together. They have a bit of knowledge about things like lead magnets and upsells, but they haven’t been told how and when to do it in an orderly manner.
If this scenario describes you, or if you just want a better view of how a customer proceeds from that first click-through to your entire funnel, the Best 5 strategies to make marketing funnels work for you will paint a better picture for you.
It’s important to know that you have the ability to customize this system to what best serves your customers. You can choose which elements you want to use, e.g. B. Multiple one-off offers or downsells, and make sure it resembles something you think will convert best for you.
Table of Contents
Best 5 strategies to make marketing funnels work for you
Get the click-through to a landing page
Millions of consumers are waiting online to be presented with the right ways to improve their lives. As an online marketer, you can position yourself as the leader that people turn to for niche information and guidance.
One of the biggest problems with clicking through to your landing page is that most people just forget to link to it. Instead, they focus on bringing out the content and the resulting engagement and just forget to include the link.
Before you even start putting content online to build a list and get people into your funnel, you need to work on creating the kind of landing page that consumers will respond to.
This shouldn’t be as long as a full sales letter, but still contain compelling headlines, bullet points, and an offer they can’t refuse. Once your landing page has been created to build a list, you want to generate content that will bring people into your funnel at that point.
Most uninformed marketers focus on making money. So when they link, it often goes directly to a product that people can buy. That’s short-term thinking. You want to think long-term, and with a funnel, you do that.
Instead of linking to products and earning commissions or sales, you want to link to the landing page and get people on your email autoresponder list so you can market to them for years to come.
You can thoughtfully place the content you produce on your blog. This is where your opt-in forms can be in the sidebar as well as under each blog post to get people on your list.
You can direct readers of each post to sign up on your landing page or in any of the forms displayed there. Another place where you can generate a click-through to your landing page is on social media platforms.
Sites like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube are included in this. Some of these websites and apps only allow you to have one link in your bio. Instead of sending people to your products you’ve reviewed or a blog post you’ve written, just send them straight to your landing page, where a great freebie will be awaiting them in return for their contact details.
Lead magnets that will get people on your list
When it comes to getting people into your funnel, there’s only one way to do it. You must have an amazing and enticing offer. The fact that a lead magnet is a free gift makes it a little easier for people to slip into your funnel.
However, remember that people are very protective of their contact information. Nobody likes to give their name and email address to a potential spammer.
There are many unethical marketers out there who sell their information to others and give them a lot of headaches. So what kind of lead magnet can you offer that will ensure people have very little hesitation in exchanging their dates for the gift?
Most importantly, you need to make sure it’s relevant to the niche you’re leading. Just because you have a free survival skills PLR report doesn’t mean everyone who wants to lose weight wants that information.
It needs to be closely related to the theme your site is built around. It can’t just be in the same niche either. If your site is all about the keto diet, you’d shoot yourself in the foot to offer a calorie-counting lead magnet instead.
Aside from making the lead magnet topic relevant and closely related to your niche topic, you also want to make sure the customer feels they are getting amazing value from you.
Just because the gift is free doesn’t mean you should skimp on quality. In fact, this is your chance to make a first impression. It is imperative that you delight and shock the customer that you are willing to hand over so much great information.
You want them to be grateful for their download and strong in their decision to allow you to contact them in the future. You can create a lead magnet that’s a short report, a full eBook, or even a video course.
Use email autoresponders to increase your success
The customer has now added himself to your list. This is where the slippery slope through your funnel begins. It’s important that you understand how to control the email process so that you not only keep them on your list but turn them into paying customers.
One of the first things you might want to do is over-deliver with the giveaway they signed up for. Not only should the original gift be amazing, but you can surprise them with an extra gift or two that they weren’t expecting.
From there you have the option to regularly contact your subscribers. Only you can decide how much or how little that should be. Some subscribers won’t ever appreciate your choice.
And some of them will come to be your most devoted and loyal supporters. There will be those who complain if you email once a week and those who complain if you miss a single day of the week because they can’t get enough.
The key is finding a system that works right for you. This can be daily and it can be a few times a week. Test the waters to see how your list reacts. If you end up getting too many unsubscribes, it may be a sign that you need to change either the message in your emails or the frequency with which they are sent.
You can send emails to your subscribers with a follow-up system that automatically sends them content on a schedule you set. Or you can just send out broadcast emails whenever you want those future subscribers won’t have access to.
What types of content to include in your emails should confuse you a bit. Your subscribers will primarily receive helpful tips and advice. So you definitely want to include some non-monetized piece of content—either periodically or in every email.
At the same time, this profession is partly, if not entirely, about earning money. So it would be foolish not to monetize the emails you send. Once ready, add product recommendations via an affiliate link.
You also want to create your own info products and share them with your subscribers. You can even give your list a better deal than others if you want to create a coupon or a special page for them.
So what kind of offers are you going to have that are sure to convince people to spend money instead of just downloading a freebie that you offered them in the very beginning? You have a few options.
Plan your frontends, OTOs, and downsells
The person who subscribes to your email list has already shown an interest in what you have to say. Now is the time to hit while the iron is hot. You need to make them an offer for a paid product that gives them multiple options that have the potential to maximize your sales.
You want to start with a frontend product. This is the no brainer product which is very attractive to consumers. It should be something that’s in demand in your niche and not so overwhelming that it demands a higher price tag.
Front-end products tend to be smaller and less expensive. For example, instead of selling a Soup to Nuts affiliate marketing course for $97, you could sell a $7 report on how to write a product review.
This is a price point that’s cheap enough that it doesn’t put many obstacles in the way of most of your subscribers. They will be ready to pull the trigger on the offer without hesitation. Once you’ve created your frontend, you need to decide whether or not you want to have upsells, and if so, how many.
You will find two different schools of thought on product funnels. The first group finds all upgrade options annoying and should not be presented to the customer.
The second group understands the value and importance of continuing to allow a customer who was already in a buying stance to add something to their cart. There are many consumers who will appreciate the ability to continue getting great deals on products related to their original purchase.
Your funnel should normally increase in price with each upgrade option. For example, if your front-end product is a short report on how to write an affiliate marketing review, your first upgrade could be a full course that teaches everything about affiliate marketing.
Your third upgrade could be a service you offer to set up an affiliate marketing blog on your domain for $97. The customer has the choice to reject the upgrade option at any time during the funnel.
If they buy it, they’ll continue to see as many upgrades as you put in the funnel. But if they decline, you have the option to kick them out of the funnel onto the download page or present them with what’s called a down-sell.
The down-sell is when you are offering something of lesser value. This could be a completely different item, or it could be one of your upgrades that has certain items extracted from them, so they don’t get everything that was in the original upgrade option.
For example, if one of your upgrade options included 35 PLR items and 10 product reviews for $27, if you declined, you could only sell the 10 product reviews for $7.
You don’t make as much money as if you accepted the original upgrade, but you still contribute to the sale in its entirety. You give them the opportunity to buy a little less.
Once they’ve proven themselves to be paying customers, you have the opportunity to create a follow-up campaign that converts well for you. This is where long-term income begins to materialize.
Create a follow-up campaign that converts
One of the most important parts of your overall funnel is your ability to keep serving your subscribers. This is where the long-term earnings start to grow and provide you with a stable income.
Instead of just experiencing one-off sales, you can meet your subscribers’ needs and be the one-stop shop whose recommendations they can’t miss. When creating your follow-up email campaign, you want to make sure you’re only recommending the very best products to your audience.
Don’t spam them with too many offers from vendors or brands that don’t live up to their standards. If you take this route, you will quickly lose their trust and contact. In your follow-up campaign, you want to make sure you’re not promoting discontinued items.
If you don’t keep up with each email and update them over time, you may be sending links that no longer work or to products that no longer exist. Anything you advertise should be naturally evergreen.
This includes not only items that you promote as an affiliate for other providers, but also your own products. If you have products that are outdated, either take the time to update them for your buyers or remove them from the marketplace entirely and stop promoting them to your subscribers.
Above all, you want to continue to provide value to your subscribers. If you just advertise without sharing any tips or advice, they will feel taken advantage of and will quickly leave your list.
Keep providing insights, surprising them with gifts from time to time, listening to their needs, and creating products to help them achieve their goals or address their most pressing pain points.
To Your Success!
