Do you have a core offer (product or service) that you want to start selling more of today? If you have found that marketing to new audiences who are unfamiliar with you are not converting into sales, then it’s time to experiment with converting your direct sales tactic into a funnel. In this post, we’re going to look at a simple funnel you can set up with to generate income for your business today.
The Elements of a Simple Funnel
The goal of a simple funnel is to introduce yourself to a new audience in a way that shows them you understand their problem and that your core offer can help them solve that problem. There are many ways to structure your funnel, but here’s one that works best for new audiences in particular.
- Blog Post – A free piece of content you can promote to new audiences to help them get to know you.
- Lead Magnet – A free piece of content behind an opt-in that you promote to those who read your blog post to further demonstrate the value you have to offer.
- Automated Webinar – A free, in-depth information session that you promote to those who download your lead magnet.
- Core Offer – The product or service that you sell to those who attend your webinar.
An Overview of How a Simple Funnel Works
Before we dive into the mechanics of setting up your simple funnel from start to finish, here’s a quick overview of how the funnel works.
You will start by promoting the blog post to a new audience that is most likely to purchase your core offer. Within the blog post, you give readers the opportunity to download the lead magnet. You also create retargeting ads for people who visited the blog post but didn’t subscribe to the lead magnet.
When people opt-in to download the lead magnet, you send them to a thank you page that lets them know their lead magnet is on its way and then offers them the opportunity to sign up for your upcoming webinar. You also create retargeting ads and remarketing emails for people who visit the thank you page but don’t register for the webinar.
People who attend your webinar will get valuable content and the opportunity to purchase your core offer. You also create retargeting ads and remarketing emails for people who attend the webinar but don’t purchase the core offer.
Creating the Main Funnel Content
Now that you know how your simple funnel will work, let’s look at the content you need to create for it. I’m going to share two examples to help you see what type of content you need for a funnel. Note that a simple funnel can work for any business, regardless of what type of product or service you sell.
Example Content for an Information Product Core Offer
For our first example, we’re going to say that your core offer is a premium video training series on YouTube marketing.
The question you need to ask yourself is what type of content would take someone through your funnel who is likely to purchase a premium video training series on YouTube marketing. Here are some example pieces of content you could use to do just that.
- The Blog Post: Why You Need to Incorporate Video Into Your Marketing Strategy
- The Lead Magnet: 5 Tools You Can Use to Create Awesome Videos for Your Business
- The Automated Webinar: How to Create Videos That Will Attract Customers
First, the blog post attracts new audiences who may be curious about video marketing, but they’re not entirely sure they need it. The blog post convinces your new audience that they should invest in video marketing, but now they need to know how to create videos.
This is where the lead magnet comes in. The lead magnet shares five tools that your new audience can use to create awesome videos. The lead magnet convinces your new audience that it is easier than they think it is to create videos, but now they need to know what types of videos to create for their business.
This is where the automated webinar comes in. The webinar shares specific tactics to creating videos that your new audience’s customers will love. The webinar convinces your new audience that must add these types of video to their marketing strategy to gain new customers, but now they need to know how to market those videos.
This is where your core offer comes in. By the end of the webinar, you have a new audience that knows why they need video, what tools to use, and what types of videos to create. They just need a way to market those videos to get them in front of their customers. You can now sell them your premium video training series on YouTube marketing to help them create their YouTube channels, upload their videos, promote them organically, and promote them through YouTube advertising.
In short, you’ve taken a new audience through the path of learning why they need something and giving them the exact resources they need to do it, ultimately leading to the sale of your core offer.
Example Content for a Service-Based Core Offer
For our second example, we’re going to say that your core offer is a service that helps startups design pitch decks for their ideal investors.
The question you need to ask yourself is what type of content would take someone through your funnel who is likely to invest in your service to draft a business plan for investors. Here are some example pieces of content you could use to do just that.
- The Blog Post: How to Determine if Your Startup Needs Funding
- The Lead Magnet: 3 Types of Investors (and Which One Will Love Your Startup)
- The Automated Webinar: How to Pitch an Investor to Get Funding
First, the blog post attracts new audiences who are in the process of determining whether their startup needs funding. The blog post convinces your new audience that they do need funding, but now they need to learn more about investors.
This is where the lead magnet comes in. The lead magnet explains the three types of investors a startup will come across in their research. The lead magnet convinces your new audience that there is a great investor type for their startup, but now they need to know how to pitch that investor.
This is where the automated webinar comes in. The webinar shares specific tactics to pitching the right type of investor for their startup. The webinar convinces your new audience that they can get funding, but now they need a great pitch deck to use in their presentation to investors.
This is where your core offer comes in. By the end of the webinar, you have a new audience that wants funding for their startup, knows who to get it from, and knows what they need for their pitch. They just need the pitch deck. You can now sell them your service to create the best pitch deck for their investment presentation.
Creating and Repurposing
Now that you’ve seen a couple of examples, your goal is to look at your own core offer to determine what pieces of content would be most effective for your funnel. Then, you have to see if you have that content in your library already.
Start by looking through your blog archives for content you can repurpose into your new blog post and lead magnet content. Then look through your presentation and video archive for content you can repurpose into your new webinar.
If you have an information product, as shown in the first example, you may be able to repurpose content from your course or training as the blog post, lead magnet, and webinar. If you have another type of product or service as your core offer, you may need to create your funnel content from scratch.
The key to creating these pieces of content quickly is to not focus on creating epically-long viral blog post content, but rather focused content specifically targeted to your customers and formulated for conversion.
Also, don’t focus on perfection. Perfection will turn one day of content creation into a month. Focus on creating something professional and good enough to make your sale. You can always improve upon your content later.
Constructing the Funnel
Once you have your main funnel content created (the blog post, lead magnet, and webinar), you get to create the funnel itself. Here’s what you will need if you don’t have them already.
- Mailing lists or segments for those who opt-in to your lead magnet, register for your webinar, and purchase your core offer.
- An opt-in form for the lead magnet to be placed on the blog post. This should appear in the sidebar next to the blog post and in the middle of or at the end of the blog post. You may also want to invest in an exit-intent technology that offers your lead magnet in a popup window as the person is about to leave your post.
- Retargeting pixels for Facebook and Twitter on your website and blog that do not expire for the maximum duration (180 days for Facebook and 90 days for Twitter).
- A squeeze page for the lead magnet.
- A retargeting ad to promote the lead magnet squeeze page targeted to people who visit the blog post but did not opt-in for the lead magnet.
- A thank you page for the lead magnet that includes the registration form for your webinar.
- A webinar registration page for your automated webinar.
- A thank you page for those that sign up for your webinar.
- A retargeting ad to promote the webinar registration page targeted to people who opt-in for the lead magnet but do not register for the webinar.
- A remarketing email to promote the webinar registration page targeted to people who opt-in for the lead magnet but did not register for the webinar.
- A landing page for your core offer that is geared towards webinar attendees to align with any specials or bonuses you might offer.
- A thank you page for those that purchase your core offer.
- A retargeting ad to promote the core offer landing page targeted to people who attended the webinar but did not buy the core offer.
- A remarketing email to promote the core offer landing page targeted to people who attended the webinar but did not buy the core offer.
Putting the Funnel in Action
To start generating income from your funnel today, you will need to put it into action. Here is what you will need to do to start getting people into your funnel.
First, if you haven’t already, you need to publish all of the content needed for your funnel – the blog post, the opt-in forms for the blog post, the lead magnet squeeze page, the lead magnet thank you page, the automated webinar, the webinar registration page, the webinar thank you page, and the landing page for your core offer geared towards webinar attendees.
Next, you will need to set up your ads on Facebook and Twitter to promote your blog post. Since you don’t want customers of your core offer to get into this funnel, you will want to create a custom audience of your current core offer customers based on their email address and/or phone numbers, then exclude them from the ad promoting the blog post.
You will also need to set up your retargeting ads for the lead magnet squeeze page, webinar registration page, and the core offer landing page. Using your retargeting pixels, you need to target the following specific audiences for each specific ad.
- For the lead magnet squeeze page, your ad should be targeted to people who visited your blog post but did not visit the lead magnet thank you page. You will also want to exclude your custom audience of current core offer customers.
- For the webinar registration page, your ad should be targeted to people who visited your lead magnet thank you page but did not visit the webinar registration thank you page. You will also want to exclude your custom audience of current core offer customers.
- For the core offer landing page, your ad should be targeted to people who visited the webinar registration thank you page but did not visit the core offer thank you page. You will also want to exclude your custom audience of current core offer customers.
Since the retargeting pixels for Facebook and Twitter are always updating your audience, you don’t have to worry about constantly updating them. To ensure that you don’t advertise to your current core offer customers, you will want to update the custom audience of current core customers and update your ads to exclude your new list accordingly every 180 days for Facebook and every 90 days for Twitter.
You will also want to craft remarketing emails to go out to the following lists or segments.
- For the webinar registration page, your email should be sent to people who have not moved from your lead magnet list to your webinar list.
- For the core offer landing page, your email should be sent to people who have not moved from your webinar list to your core offer customer list.
Monitoring Your Funnel
At this point, you should have a fully functional funnel that is moving new audiences to your business from an informational blog post to your lead magnet, then to your webinar, and finally to your core offer customer base. This process should lead to more conversions for your core offer as it helps new audiences get to know you before they are presented with an opportunity to buy. Be sure to monitor your analytics data to ensure that your Facebook and Twitter ads are leading to conversions for their respective goals, and modify your ads periodically to see if one type of ad converts better than another.
Got any cool funnel stuff you have been doing? I look forward to hearing about it below.
