If you're anything like me, you love chasing new ideas — and there's no shortage of them.
Challenges. Quizzes. Blogging. Email Marketing. Social. Paid Ads....... the list never ends.
They all work for someone, but will they work for you?
MOST of the time it's because of one. simple. reason.
When you build them, you're so focused on the thing that you forget about the journey.
What is someone going to do next?
They read your blog article. They click on your social post. They watch your video.
And then what....?
What do you have ready for them to take more action on?
A sales funnel is a useful tool to have and it will help you generate ROI from the other things you're doing.
It's a simple concept...
- They do a thing
- You ask for their email address
- You give them something valuable in return
- You nurture them until they trust you enough to pay you money
Here's 5 simple steps to help you create your own sales funnel.
Step 1: Clarify Why They Should Buy
Your target reader needs to what you do QUICKLY while using up the fewest mental calories possible.
If you make them work to understand, they will refuse and leave.
I personally love the StoryBrand Brandscript Framework — it's simple and easy to whip out quickly when you want a person to do a thing and you need to explain why they should.
To get clear on your message... grab a piece of paper and write down your answers to the following questions...
Step 2. Create Your DIY Thing
This is also known as an Entry-Point Offer, Lead Generator, and a wide variety of wordy ways to explain giving someone something valuable in exchange for their email address, time, or a little bit of money.
The reason I don't like using those words is because — excuse me while I rant for a few sentences...
- People have really terrible ideas for things to create MOST of the time.
- The random thing they create rarely aligns well with the thing they want someone to buy.
- They run around creating 10-page PDFs of "5 Simple Things You Can Do To Write Better Emails" or other random content that someone else (probably me) is already posting as a blog for free.
- So instead of giving you my email to get that thing, I'm just going to head to Google and find someone else that gives it to me for free.
I don't like that strategy because INFORMATION rarely has a lot of value.
I can Google things and get information all day long.
So unless there's a really — and I do mean REALLY — good reason why your information is not available anywhere else and is sooooo good that I can't resist, then let's avoid making more bad opt-in offers that waste your time to create and don't give you the BEST chance of getting someone to give you their info.
Instead, let's spend less time creating them AND give someone something more valuable. Here's a few ideas...
- Worksheets
- Checklists
- Spreadsheets
- Swipe Files
- Calculators
- Quizzes
- Templates
- Self-Audits
Give someone something that helps them DIY a problem they are having BECAUSE they haven't (yet) purchased your awesome thing and are still trying to figure it out themselves.
They love it more, love you more, and be more likely to hire you as soon as the problem gets bigger, more annoying, or they can afford to because you already helped them out.
How do you figure out what to create...? Here's a few ideas to get you started...
- What do you do on that first call with someone to figure out the best solution to their problem? Do you have a series of questions you ask that can turn into a checklist with recommendations on what to do if they check one of those items on the list. Or it can turn into a quiz where you provide instant solutions based on the way they respond to questions.
- Think about things your clients tell you they spend FOREVER trying to figure out. Like a lot of people come to me wondering what types of content they should create for their blog. So I could (and should, if I'm following my own advice) create templates for the top 10 blogs they need to create for their site.
- Do you have a calculator that you use to help figure out things for you clients? Like the cost of turnover, ROI on ad spend, etc? You can easily give that tool (or a simplified version of it) away along with a quick video that will show them how to use it.
Step 3. Update Your Website
Ok - a website update isn't always the simplest thing you can do, but it's a pretty important one and I HOPE that when you answered those questions in Step 1, you had a few AH-HA moments and realized your messaging on your website isn't as awesome you thought it was.
So let's think MVP - Minimum Viable Product.
What are the smallest and fastest things you can do to your site to fix the messaging even a little now that you have some clarity on how it can be better?
You need to do this step because as you start building a sales funnel, more people are going to be looking at your site and they need to understand...
- you can help them if they are XYZ type of person or business
- how their life will better if they are in your world and/or buying your things
- and what steps they need to take to get those things
Some simple steps...
Step 4. Nurture Them via Email
After someone gives you their email in exchange for the DIY thing you created, you need to continue to talk to them — and since you have their email, this is going to happen via an email sequence.
Using an email sequence just means you're going to have some fancy software like Active Campaign, HighLevel, HubSpot, Drip, MailChimp, etc do the emailing bit for you so you're not trying to keep up with this.
Here is what I consider to be the bare minimum approach...
Here's a quick video that explains how the ongoing sequence works that you'll send after those first 3 emails — ignore me looking like a bum, it's good stuff.
Return the Dopamine...
Ah-Ha! moments, according to the great Ryan Deiss, are a combination of Understanding (Ah) and Excitement (Ha!).
My goal as a content creator, marketer, and all-around striving-to-be-helpful human is to create at least one of those Ah-Ha! moments for you when you interact with my content.
If you had an Ah-Ha! moment with this article, do me a favor and return the dopamine by dropping me a comment below and letting me know what stood out for you.
Thanks in advance 🥰
Brilliant information! Thank you!