List Building

Today we’re going to talk about sales funnels – I’m going to show how to build your very own highly lucrative funnel, and I’ll also show you how someone is using this exact process to quietly pull in a seven figure income.

Rush Transcript

And then I’m going to give you all the essential parts of an email sequence that you can copy to convert more people into buyers.

You’re going to learn how to increase your revenue, no matter what stage you’re at right now. And you can you apply to this pretty much any website. You can use this if you’re into blogging, if you’re doing affiliate marketing or if you’re selling your own products.

This process is really simple, and you only need around three types of web pages to make this work. In total there are 5 parts to this, and you probably have already everything you need to make this work.

I’m going to show you basic sales funnel that you can use, but first a word of caution. While this is simple, it does require effort. We need to roll up our sleeves and do some actual work here.

You’ll also have to test this, and fine tune it to start getting the kind of results that you want.

Ok, if you’re happy with all that, let’s go ahead and build a sales funnel. First I’ll explain what’s involved, what things you need and what each of them does. And then I’ll show you an example of how a seven figure business does it, so you can see how everything fits together.  

You’re only going to need 3 web pages for this, and you might already have them. We need a squeeze page, a thank you page, and a download page.

Ok so, the first page we need – a squeeze page. Now if you don’t have one, or if you don’t know what one then doesn’t worry I’ll explain it to you.

Typically, a squeeze page is a web page that presents your visitors with two choices, and only two choices. Your visitor can either subscribe to your mailing list, or they can leave the page. That’s it, no other choices are available. You offer them a valuable freebie, something that will help them to solve part of their problem, in exchange for their email address.

These kinds of pages have evolved over time and now blog posts can be a hybrid. that’s a combination of an article WITH an opt-in form on the page, mixing both of these things together. However, you choose to present your opt-in form is up to you, as long as it’s prominent.

But, if you’re NOT building an email list at the moment, then that should be your priority – stop everything else you’re doing in your business and get this fixed because a responsive email list is the most valuable asset you’ll ever own. I have to really emphasize the importance of keeping it targeted – that means you only speak to people that have a specific problem that you can solve.

I can’t tell you how many times I hear from people who are struggling to make things work because their message or their content is too broad – you need to keep things really tightly focused.  

Ok, so next we need a ‘thank you page’ – this is where you thank your subscribers for joining your email list. There are a few different types of ‘thank you pages’, typically they will tell your subscribers how to confirm their subscription.

But in this version, we’re going to do something a little different. In this one, you’re going to make a direct offer – you’re going to present your lead with an opportunity to buy something from you.

Ok before we get into that stuff, the last page we need is a download page – this where your subscribers can download the free item they signed up for.

And that’s it, everything’s looking pretty simple so far right? Well, it is, but don’t underestimate how powerful this is.

This exact funnel is responsible for many seven figure businesses, and I’ll show you a case study in a few minutes.

But now let’s go through the process and see how everything fits together. So look at this diagram and I’ll talk you through it.

Ok, as you can see, we start with web traffic, we need visitors to come to the website – without traffic everything else stops. We send them to the squeeze page. This can be a blog post if you like, as long as your sign up form is easily visible.

Then in step two, we have the squeeze page, this is where people can join your mailing list.

Then step 3, people who opt-in to the mailing list are redirected to a thank you page.

And finally, once they either buy what you’re offering…. or decline it, they’re sent to a download page where they can get the thing they wanted.

Is it still really simple right?

Ok so let’s dig a bit deeper into things and get a real understanding of how it all works, and then I’ll show you an example.

Right, let’s go back to step one, web traffic. Where do we find visitors? The best way, in my experience, is to just advertise. It’s really effective, you can get awesome results, it doesn’t cost that much and you get laser targeted traffic – that means you’re only talking to people who really want your stuff.

Facebook, Google, and Linkedin are all great places to get traffic, and it’s easy to track what kind of results you’re getting too with these platforms.

Ok cool, onto step two. A squeeze page needs a compelling offer – it’s an ethical bribe you offer visitors to persuade them to join your mailing list. The moment they join your list, they become LEADS. This is an incredibly valuable asset to have because this is traffic that you own and you can promote your content to them as often as you like, and you can also sell to them.

A good squeeze page offer should be free, it should help your leads solve PART of a specific problem, or you can offer them a cheat sheet or checklist. We used to offer free e-books, but they are less effective right now.

You’re basically giving someone the ABC’s, so they can at least make a start on solving their problem.

I personally offer videos, and that works fine for me. These are called ‘lead magnets’.

Right, next is step three. After they’ve subscribed, your lead is redirected to a thank you page – on this page you can ask them if they’d like to buy your product – which can be a more advanced version of the lead magnet.

Newbie marketers often make the mistake of putting their main product on this page and expecting a sale. While everything you do needs to be tested, expecting people to buy your main item from you straight away IS optimistic.

Core products, comprehensive training products can typically cost anywhere from thirty dollars up to five hundred dollars. Don’t expect people to spend that amount with you before they get to trust you and feel like they know you a little bit.

That’s why at this stage, instead of offering the main product, we offer them a low price item that doesn’t require much thought – it sounds so good that buying it seems like a no-brainer. You remove the pain of handing over money.

The tripwire product you offer them SHOULD NOT compete with your main product. It should compliment your main product, for example, if you’re selling web hosting as your main product then a tripwire offer could be a domain name.

If you’re selling a weight loss training program as your main product, then a diet recipe book could be the tripwire.

You see, there are a couple of things at work here. The first one is that people are creatures of habit, and if you do something today then you’re more likely to repeat a similar action at some point in the future.

By offering them a low priced item that they can buy on impulse, we’re priming them to buy from us again in the future.

It also allows us to separate, or ‘segment’, the people on the email list into two groups; buyers and non-buyers. We treat each group in different ways. I’ll explain about this more in step four.

But for now, this kind of funnel is sometimes called ‘the ascension model’. We start with a low priced item, which is called a tripwire offer, or a liquidator offer, and we send the buyer on a separate path to the non-buyers.

Which brings us to step four, the download page. Now this page will be different depending on the kind of action that your lead takes – if someone buys, then they’ll have a different experience to the people who haven’t.

If they DO purchase the tripwire offer, you then redirect them to an upsell. This is where you ask them to buy your MAIN product.

If they decline your tripwire offer, then you redirect them to a page where they can download the lead magnet. If you think about it, most people will say no and decline to buy the tripwire product, and that’s ok.

So a lot of what we do is geared towards turning the noes into yeses.

For that to happen, the people who say no are sent a special email sequence, I’ll come to that in a minute.  

But that’s how this type of funnel works, so you now should have a good understanding of everything that’s involved. But what about seeing a real one in action?

Well, as I was preparing to shoot this video for you, I coincidentally stumbled across funnel stack designed by someone called Shawn LeBrun, and he says that this funnel is on track to pull in seven figures this year. This also happens to be the most commonly used funnel stack because it’s the easiest one to do and it works for almost every type of business.

I’ll show you the funnel right now.  

So here is a diagram that Shawn created. It’s very simple, it’s probably the most basic funnel you can find, and it’s a good starting point but if you’re selling your own products you’ll want to go to the next level and add another step, just like I showed you a minute ago. If you’re doing affiliate marketing, this is the one to go with.

Ok, so this is a good stack for newbies. Here on the left-hand side, the first thing we see is a Facebook Ad and this is how people are being pulled into the funnel.

I’ll just point out, if you’re using Facebook Ads it’s worthwhile using a picture of a human being – these tend to have a higher click through rate because our brains are programmed to respond to faces – it’s a process called ‘Face Perception’ and we can’t help but become magnetically drawn to human faces.

Ok, now onto the second part… here we have the squeeze page, and it does a few important things. Notice the red copy at the top, it says ‘one-page’ cheat sheet – this tells the visitor that the content is quick and easy to digest. It’s not some 30 page e-book they have to spend time reading.

Then it promises there’s just ONE thing the visitor needs to do to solve their problem – so it’s making the process simple for them.

And then, of course, we have the main benefit, the end result of what’s possible.

Ok, so when someone subscribes to this mailing list, they’re taken to this page. Here’s the thank you page with an offer included. It’s a low ticket item, around twenty dollars.

Simple stuff.

Ok good, and if we look at the actual cheat sheet download, you see this URL at the top? Well, that’s actually an affiliate link.

And here you can see, in this instance, three follow-up emails are used. I’ll go through my own follow-up sequence for you right now, so you can copy the sequence.

This is a four-day email sequence, and every email we send has three parts to it.

So we take the subscriber on a journey, from not knowing much about you to feeling excited about buying your stuff.

So let’s go through each one of these emails and find out what’s going on.

Ok, so on day one we send a welcome email, this is where you thank them for subscribing, you give them access to the lead magnet – which is a way of delivering value, and announce a special offer that’s going to be available to them in a few days time.

So in this email, you’re not selling anything, you’re really just giving them valuable content and starting a countdown in their minds.

On day two, send them more valuable content – here you’re actually training your subscribers to open your emails because if they do, they’ll get really good stuff. You’re creating a psychological anchor.

Also in this email, you want to tease the special offer, so tell them at least three big benefits they’ll get from your product. This is to get them to feel desire, so they feel excited about your special offer and to build anticipation.

And then you finish with a reminder about the countdown, tell them that in two days time they’ll get a special offer they can’t get anywhere else.

Then, on day three, we’re going to ramp up the desire for your product. Of course, you send them more value, and you need to tell them the benefits of our product…. but this time we also include a warning that your special offer really is limited, and it’s time sensitive – or however you’re limiting the offer. Maybe you’re including a special bonus for a limited amount of time, maybe you’re offering a discount, so think about what’s relevant to you and however you’re going to make the offer special. This is the time to really tell them they’ll need to take action when they receive the email tomorrow.

This is a good use of scarcity. When things become exclusive, when they become rare, or limited, they instantly become more desirable because the value increases.

And then on day four, the last email of this sequence, it’s all about getting them to the sales page, so keep the email short and sweet, focus on getting them to click on the link – tell them to hurry because the special offer is about to expire.

Ok, so that’s all there is to it. This simple sequence is incredibly powerful and almost every six and seven figure businesses use this approach in some way.

But you will have to experiment a little. Imagine that your campaign is like a radio signal… remember those old analog radios that you had to tune into to find the right station? Well it’s a bit like that, some ‘stacks’ work differently, for different niches, so play around with things and test every single step of the process.

Ok, now you have a powerful and highly lucrative sales funnel that you can use over and over again on as many websites as you like, and I’ve also given you an insanely profitable email sequence too. Good stuff right? Well, I hope you’ve found this to be immensely valuable and if you want more videos like this, just head over to profitcopilot.com slash subscribe, and enter your email address. Thank you for watching and I’ll see you again next time.