Components of an effective funnel that gets hundreds (or thousands) of leads
Getting more prospects into your pipeline = more sales.
I’m focusing a lot of time this year building out all new digital assets, and sharing it all as I go along.
So far I’ve released two trainings/tutorials on:
How I revamped my website on my own in just a few hours.
Demo of how to build a website from scratch using the platform I recommend.
You can find them both on this page here. Scroll down just a little bit.
Now it’s time to get into the fun stuff. :)
The next thing I’m working on is building a new funnel for a free ebook offer. An effective marketing funnel has a few moving parts.
There’s the tech side of actually building it, and then there’s the strategy/messaging/copy. I’m going to be sharing ideas on both.
And to be clear, there are many types of funnels. Yet the one I am focusing on is probably most applicable to pretty much any business.
Why are funnels so important?
If you have expertise that people come to you for, you need at least one funnel like this in your business. Smart clients of ours are rolling out multiple new ones every year on different topics and pain points.
An effective funnel is one of the key building blocks to having an effective digital presence. Once you have a good funnel in place, there are so many ways to drive leads to it.
Lead sources can include LinkedIn, ads, email campaigns, partnerships, offline sources, speaking gigs, and a lot more. It can become the main hub of your lead generation activities.
I’ve had funnels which generated thousands of leads per month, and others that were far more humble in production.
And what I learned is you don’t need massive numbers to get the results you need.
After all, it’s all about YOUR goals.
Many of my clients need only a few new clients a year from their online campaigns. And so the volume of leads needed through their online funnels, to reach that goal, is not very great. My point is that it’s VERY DOABLE.
So let’s go…
Here’s a checklist of what you need for an effective funnel. These are the pieces I’ll be building out over the next couple weeks and sharing with you along the way.
A compelling hook, which gets a prospect to trade their information in exchange for your content. This is the most important thing. Because if you have a message that doesn’t resonate, nobody will opt in.
Landing page with halfway decent design so that you come across as trustworthy. Including necessary opt-in form to get their email address, and potentially name, phone number, and other information. Though often times, the more info you ask for, the lower your conversions will be.
Thank you / fulfillment page. This is the page after the initial landing page, which delivers the thing you promised to give them if they opt in.
Video for the thank you page. This will be a video where you introduce yourself and tell them a bit about your business, and the thing they opted in for. Doesn’t need to be fancy, in fact an iphone video can work just fine…though you want to come across in a manner consistent with your branding so each situation is different, but don’t overthink it. Plus, a video is not essential and so you can skip it if you want to do it later…but I’m gonna use one because I think it adds a nice touch. The video can also make an offer, which could be as simple as inviting them to sign up for a consultation.
The thing they opted in for. Aka “lead magnet.” In my case, this will be a PDF ebook. There are many types of lead magnets. PDF case studies, reports, ebooks, etc…are very common. But you can also have a lead magnet that is just a video of you talking about a concept! In that case you would just be a bit vague on the initial opt-in page about the exact mode of delivery for the information. (In other words, don’t tell people “Opt in to get a video of me talking about the XYZ Concept”…because people don’t perceive “a video” as valuable. Just say “Opt in below to get access to the XYZ Concept to Boost Your Revenue by 135% This Year”)
Optional: an offer on the thank you page. For the funnel I’m building, I’m not sure yet if I’ll include anything on that page.
Email campaign: an automated sequence of emails that the prospect will receive after they opt in for the PDF. These emails will start to build the relationship with the prospect, and then make an offer of some sort. Again, it can be as easy as an offer to sign up for a consult. These automated follow-up sequences can evolve into very complex and lengthy beasts. But let’s just get started and include a few emails. Then, once people have been through those, you can move them to your main email list for ongoing/regular updates.
This list is fairly comprehensive. Though I look forward to hearing from other marketing experts who will offer suggestions for other things that they think are critical in a funnel. SMS! Chat bots! Retargeting pixels! Pop ups!
Over time you can get more fancy. But I wouldn’t even bother with that stuff until you have a solid funnel that is getting results. Then you can iterate and get fancy with it, if you want.
That’s all for today. But stay tuned. I’m gonna start building this new funnel for myself, and as I go along, I’ll be showing you how to do it.
And be sure to check out the tutorials I’ve released so far here.
Talk to you soon,
Josh
Josh Turner
Multiple times Inc 500 + 5000, WSJ Bestselling author, dad, #LetsGoBlues, top LinkedIn expert, helping small businesses get more leads and clients online.
P.S. When the time is right for you, here are a couple ways we can work together:
My on-demand LinkedIn Accelerator, which includes training and 1-on-1 consulting with my head coach. This program focuses on my 5-step methodology to get connected to a lot more prospects, and build relationships with them through strategic messaging, to generate an average of 10-15 sales appointments per month. (click here)
Let me and my marketing director build a comprehensive marketing plan for your business. Once we build the plan, we can present options for execution. (click here)
Work with me 1-on-1. Hit reply to this message, tell me about your business and let me know what you want to work on together. Then I’ll get you the details on my consulting work.