What comes to your mind when you hear the term ‘automation funnels?’
Excited? Overwhelm? Exhaust? Cringe?
Well, the idea of funnels and automation may be exciting but many entrepreneurs and consultants are not comfortable with implementing them.
It’s probably because ‘funnels’ sounds more complicated than they actually are.
When it comes to implementing automation funnels, most of us feel overwhelmed. Especially, if we are not tech-friendly.
In this article, I am going to break down the concept of funnels to fundamental blocks for you and help you choose the right funnel for your business depending on your need.
Do I Need A Funnel?
So, first things first. Does your business need a funnel?
You may be familiar with the concept of funnels – It’s the process that helps you convert a stranger into your paying customer. It’s the path your customer takes to purchase from your business.
Every business has a funnel because every business (supposedly) is trying to turn strangers into leads and leads into customers.
But in the context of automation funnels, I’d recommend you use a funnel if you offer B2C products at a higher cost and B2B products at a lower cost.
So, ideally, if you fall into these two categories,
- High-end B2C products like a house, loans, and personal coaching
- Low-end B2B products like software
You should use some kind of funnels and automation in the sales process.
Aren’t Funnels Too Technical?
Funnels have a reputation for being too complex and technical.
I agree that there are many fancy and complex funnels out there that encourage us to abandon the idea of automation and stick with what is working right now.
But if we broke down the funnels to its fundamental blocks. It’s nothing but a combination of these three elements.
- Landing pages
- Email autoresponders
- Shopping carts
Every complex funnel out there can be broken into combinations of these three. And for most of the cases, you won’t even need all these combinations.
The most widely used funnel on the internet is a ‘lead magnet funnel’. You only need landing pages and email autoresponders for that.
When you start to understand funnels as individual building blocks, it becomes obvious and easy to understand.
Do I Need Expensive Software?
Clickfunnels has almost become synonymous with marketing and sales funnel in the industry. Thanks to its quick and easy setup you can set up any kind of funnel and get it running in as little as 10 minutes.
If you are not a developer or don’t want to hire one, clickfunnels is the easy way to set up funnel without relying on a tech team.
I don’t like or use clickfunnels. The main reason being it is expensive. The pricing starts from $97/month to $2,497/month.
For someone who just wants to have a simple funnel, it will be expensive. Plus every funnel built on it looks the same.
If you ask me you won’t need something expensive as Clickfunnels to get started.
You can use WordPress and some email marketing services for your funnels. WordPress combined with Woocommerce gives you a shopping cart ability to launch your sales funnels.
Before you spend tons of money on expensive software, try to come up with what you want with what’s available out there.
Post COVID-19 Digital Marketing Trends
While the COVID-19 situation has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster for many businesses, there are many businesses adapted quickly and established their presence online.
The traditional way of face-to-face business with trade shows and exhibitions is becoming obsolete.
Businesses around the world are becoming more reliant on their digital strategy.
Post COVID-19 shows a behavior change in the people. Mid to the senior leadership of most organizations, including consumers from 35 to 44 age bracket increased their internet consumption by 11% while millennials observed an average increase of 5-7%.
Even if you’re a small location-based business, suddenly your online presence is more important than ever.
Better Online Presence
With the new digital marketing trends, it’s obvious that you need to be online.
But you can’t afford to use traditional websites, where you just set up a landing page which functions as an online brochure.
Your website needs to do three distinct things for you.
- Attracting new prospect to your business
- Converting these prospect into paying customers
- Selling more products or services to these customers to grow the business
Nothing more and nothing less. Prospect. Convert. Grow.
Without these systems in place you can’t get much out of the traffic you bring to your website using paid ads and other methods.
This is where funnels come in. With the right funnels in place, you have a system to attract and convert the traffic on your website to paying customers.
How To Choose The Right Funnel?
There are mainly 3 reasons entrepreneurs typically use a funnel
- To generate leads
- To generate sales
- To run an online event
All the funnels out there are doing either one of these things or a combination of these.
Before you start working on your funnels, identify what your funnel should do.
If you have a high ticket offer you should be generating leads. Additionally, an online event like a webinar will be a great way to sell high ticket offers. You can also set up a sales funnel as a foot-in-the-door offer to shorten your sales cycle when you have a high ticket offer
If you have fairly low and mid-range products you can create a sales funnel that will sell for you on autopilot.
You can choose the right funnel for your business based on these 3 reasons.
When You Want To Generate Leads
Lead generation funnels are arguably the widely used marketing funnels on the internet. The primary goal of this funnel is, well – to generate leads.
There are primarily 3 funnels you can use to generate leads.
1. Lead Magnet Funnel
The basic concept behind this is that you’re providing some valuable piece of content for free in exchange for the contact information of the prospect. These incentives are called ‘Lead Magnets’. They’re usually downloadable digital content. Think ebook, PDF checklists, reports, case studies, and cheat sheets.
Your goal is to capture their email address and build a list.
The basic structure of the lead magnet funnel will be like this,
- The prospect lands on the landing or opt-in page
- The visitor gives you their contact information in exchange for the lead magnet
- The visitor is redirected to a thank you page with a secondary call to action
- The lead magnet is delivered via email
- The prospect enters into a marketing campaign
2. Application Funnel
If you have a high ticket offer chances are you are closing the deal in-person call, demo, or in-person meeting. You can use application funnels to generate such leads for you.
The goal of this funnel is to get your prospects to schedule a call, demo, or in-person meeting with you to discuss the offer. This will allow you to qualify the prospects before having a conversation with them
The structure of an application funnel is,
- A landing page with offer video
- CTA to apply for the call
- Prospects answer qualifying questions in their application
- Prospects see a calendar depending on their answers
An application funnel will ensure that you’re only speaking with highly qualified prospects for your offer and you aren’t wasting your time on unnecessary sales calls.
3. Survey Funnel
The survey funnel helps you to generate and segment your leads so that you can provide more relevant offers to them.
If you have multiple products and want to make sure each product is targeted to the right audience, you’ll have to add a survey funnel into your marketing campaign. This will ensure you’re offering the products and services to the right audience.
The funnel uses a lead magnet that provides value to the prospect and collects additional information to segment them.
The lead magnets used in this funnel are usually super interactive and engaging like quizzes, calculators, and surveys.
Here’s how the survey funnel looks like in action,
When You Want To Generate Sales
The sales funnels help you sell digital and physical products online. The primary goal of these funnels is to convert the lead into a paying customer.
There are mainly 3 funnels you can use to sell your products
1. Product Sales Funnel
The concept behind the product sales funnel is that it will qualify the leads by offering an irresistible low ticket item.
After the lead has purchased the low ticket item and become your paying customer, you can offer them upsells and down-sells to increase the average cart value.
You will significantly improve your conversion rate by this funnel since you’re not sending cold traffic to your core offers.
You can create a low-ticket offer by,
- Identify your most popular product or service
- Create a ‘lite’ or ‘do it yourself’ version that you can sell at a low cost
- You can also offer a small portion of the existing product that stands well on its own
Here’s the map of how the product sales funnel looks like,
2. The Video Sales Letter Funnel
The VSL funnel is generally used for the products that require a little more selling. Either these products need more explanation or you need a presentation to sell people on the perceived value of your product.
The idea behind this funnel is to have a video sales page to sell your product and maximize the chances of conversion.
The structure of a video sales letter funnel is,
- A video sales page with a high converting video and an order form
- A one time offer upsell page designed to encourage users for additional purchases
- A down-sell offer page for users who aren’t interested in the one time offer
- A thank you page with an offer wall, which contains details of the order and lists products and services the customer might interested in based on their purchase
A video sales letter funnel in action looks like this,
3. Product Launch Funnel
This funnel is mainly used to educate the audience about your product or service.
When you’re launching a product or service you need to implement this funnel so that you can pre-frame your audience and showcase what your product is all about.
This funnel is ideal for selling high ticket offers because you have more time to sell people on the perceived value of your offer.
The launch will be a series of videos you’ll send to the prospect over a few days to educate them and sell your products. Ideally, this will have 4 videos.
- Talk about your big idea and how it helps others who are using it in the first video.
- In the second video, you’ll take them behind scenes and walk them through the entire process
- Show them what’s it like to have the result in the third video
- Make an offer and sell your product the final video
A product launch funnel will look like this,
When You Want To Run An Online Event
These funnels are used when you want to run an online event like a webinar.
There are 2 kinds of funnels you can use to run a webinar
1. Webinar Funnel
The webinar funnels are often used in high ticket offers. The goal is to sell a high ticket offer by getting the prospect to register for a webinar.
These webinars are live events and hosted using 3rd party software like webinar jam or zoom.
The power of this funnel isn’t in the webinar but how you execute the funnel. Usually, you can follow a 3 step formula to sell the high ticket offer
- A simple introduction to you, your subject, and your credibility
- Deliver the value as you promised. This is the meat part of the webinar.
- At the end of a 30-60 minute webinar, make a special, limited time offer
Since your prospects are investing a significant amount of time by attending the webinar, you’re highly likely to sell the high ticket offer to them.
The webinar funnel in action will look like this,
2. Auto Webinar Funnel
Auto webinars are pre-recorded webinars you can use to sell high ticket offers instead of live ones.
These webinars are uploaded online using youtube or Vimeo and embedded with its webinar broadcasting page on your website.
Auto webinars can play every hour around the clock selling your products and services automatically for you.
The structure of the auto webinar funnel is,
- A webinar registration page where people can register
- Thank you page with the event details
- Automated email sequences about the webinar details
- A webinar broadcasting page to watch the webinar
An auto webinar funnel will look like this,
Conclusion
You should choose the right funnel for your business depending on your offer and needs.
Funnels are designed to move your prospects one step closer to become your paying customers. They’re endlessly customizable and segmentable to suit your specific business needs.
Once you break down the concept of funnels into fundamental blocks start to understand how it works, they will be your powerful ally to grow your business on autopilot.
Looking To Build Funnels?
Click here to download the 9 powerful market funnel blueprints you will need. You can use the individual funnels or a combination of these marketing funnels to practically sell anything online.