The secret to consistent sales online is a sales funnel. But what is a sales funnel? It’s a process. A process designed to lead your customer from “unaware” through to “ready to order”. Here are nine sales funnel hacks to increase your leads and sales.
What is funnel hacking?
Sales funnel hacking is using different techniques and strategies to optimize your sales funnels.
It’s about getting inside your customer’s minds, understanding how they think, and then providing marketing materials to motivate them to take action.
Free Ebook Sales Funnel
The first funnel hack is a free ebook sales funnel. This is a powerful way to generate leads for your business.
It’s a great way to get your product or service in front of your ideal customer.
So, what are the elements that make up this sales funnel?
The first element is a free ebook download.
To receive the free ebook, your prospect has to enter some information about themselves into a form such as: Name, email address and any other relevant details.
This information will then automatically go into a lead generation database to send follow-up emails and offers to these leads until they become customers.
The second element of the funnel is the thank you page with an opt-in form. This thank you page should give the visitor a clear call to action.
The third element is an email sequence that will be sent out to the new leads that entered their information into your lead generation database.
The emails you send should progressively build trust and move them towards taking action on your offer, whether it’s purchasing your product or signing up for a free trial. Sales Funnel Landing Pages
When promoting your products via landing pages, you can segment by interest, demographics, and geographic location of visitors coming to the sales funnel landing page.
You do this by creating different sales funnel landing pages targeted at each of these segments, so they all receive relevant to them.
Self Liquidating Sales Funnel
One of my favorite sales funnel hacks is to have a “self-liquidating offer” at the front end of your sales funnel.
A self-liquidating offer has an upsell or a downsell where the customer either gets their money back (upsell) or gets more value (downsell).
Implementing a self-liquidating offer allows you to improve your sales conversion rates without having to increase your advertising budget.
For example, let’s say you are an affiliate for different ebooks and courses on increasing memory. The main product that you send traffic to is the “60 Days To Super Memory” course.
The offer at the front end of your sales funnel could be something like: “Get 60 days free access to our other memory products once you purchase 60 Days To Super Memory Course.”
Or, it can be something like: “Receive one free ebook from our library when you purchase this course” or whatever incentive will make them more likely to choose the upsell option.
One of the key things with incentivizing your customers is to make sure the offer actually has value. They should not perceive it as a cheap trick, but something that will genuinely help them get more value from your products and services.
Automated Webinar Funnel
Webinars are a great way to convert cold traffic into customers.
Plus, automating your webinar marketing funnel will help you scale your business.
For example, once a lead signs up for the webinar they can be automatically added to an autoresponder sequence that motivates them to buy your product.
Once they are on the list and added to the autoresponder series you should set up a drip campaign of different emails that educate them about your products and services. This step leads them towards taking action on one of the offers at the bottom of the sales funnel such as:
- Signing up for a free trial.
- Purchasing a low ticket offer.
- Potentially buying something higher priced.
This is also a good time to start building trust with prospects by providing value through blog posts, quick tips, articles, and even videos about your products.
Another thing you can do with the autoresponder series is to send them a survey asking for feedback and possibly an idea of how they would like to be approached in the future. This input will help you create tailored offers that are more likely to resonate with each prospect.
Quiz Sales Funnel
A great way to increase your conversion rates and capture more leads is with a quiz.
An example could be, “What is your biggest challenge with managing your business finances?” with multiple choice answers.
This could take the prospect to different sales funnel landing pages depending on their answers.
This gives you a highly targeted and highly segmented email list.
Sales Funnel Video Sales Letter
Creating a sales funnel video sales letter is one of the best ways to convert traffic into customers, especially if it’s targeted at cold traffic or untargeted leads who don’t already know or trust you enough to purchase from you on their first visit.
One of the key things I like about video sales letters is that they let me tell my story without having to deal with any objections or potential customer questions.
Plus, they remove any questions the prospect might have about making a purchase and let me present my products and services in a more professional manner.
Upsells Funnel
This is another great way to improve your conversion rates and boost sales, especially if you are selling a higher ticket product.
Your upsell offers should gradually increase in price, as their perceived value increases.
For example, if you are selling a $5 ebook, the upsell could be a video course.
Then, the video course might be more than $100 dollars, so your upsell might be high-end consulting packages.
Upsells can also take existing customers to the next level in their relationship with you.
Free Consultation Funnel
Like the upsells funnel, your free consultation offers should also increase in value and price gradually.
They should fit in with your current products or services and be relevant to what is already being offered.
For example, if you have a self-paced online course about business accounting, your free consultation might be focused on helping that prospect prepare their taxes for the year.
In another instance, it could be just answering questions in general about various aspects of business accounting, such as tracking cash flow and increasing profits using tax-related deductions.
The key here is to make whatever offer you are making seem very valuable by educating them on a topic they are interested in learning more about from an expert source.
This helps them feel more confident about taking action because they believe the information they’ve been given is coming from a trustworthy source.
Product Launch Sequence Funnel
This is a cornerstone of funnel building.
If you are planning a product launch, it’s important to have a sequence of emails ready that nurtures the prospects over time leading up to the launch date.
This could include how-to tips, expert interviews and videos, building excitement, product testimonials, and other similar tactics that will help make your offer more appealing to buyers who don’t already know or trust you enough to take action.
Also, if you have prelaunch offers for customers who purchase in advance of the official launch date, those should be strategically placed around when the official “go live” date rolls out as well.
This helps build a sense of urgency and reduces any chances prospects will feel like they are losing out by not making the decision to buy in advance.
One last thing, after your product, goes live take advantage of the momentum you have created during the prelaunch phase as people who purchased early tend to be more engaged with your products than those who didn’t get in on the initial offer.
Monster Launch Page Funnel
A “monster launch page” is basically an oversized sales letter designed to capture as much information from buyers as possible.
These pages were originally used for lead generation purposes when Internet marketing was all about list building, but now they are also commonly used for launching new physical products and services too. This makes them great tools to increase sales.
Featuring testimonials is always a good idea.
Also, you could use special offers for customers who sign up for updates regarding the launch of your latest physical products or services.
This again adds value to what they will be getting when ordering your items and helps build trust with them because you are transparent by sharing this information.
Conclusion
By now, you should have gained a good understanding of the different sales funnel strategies, funnels, and upsells, along with some examples of what effective sales funnels from successful businesses look like.
Remember, these are just samples to demonstrate the power of the sales funnel. No matter what your marketing strategy, no two sales funnels are exactly alike because they are tailored to their respective market niches and business purposes. These funnel hacks have already been tested by thousands of marketers and generated millions of dollars in revenue.