Last week I ran a small experiment with a new sales funnel template to prove that you don’t need a lot of traffic, a massive following, or a big email list to get good results. As a result, my simple funnel now converts at 9.2% from cold traffic.
I’ll show you step-by-step how I did it.
The great thing about this is anyone can emulate it (it’s stupid-simple) and you don’t need any expensive funnel software, just two web pages and an email provider are all you need. Oh, and of course a lead magnet and low ticket offer.
Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll learn in this article:
- Creating a simple sales funnel
- Leverage cold traffic
- Use a minimum of only two web pages
- No need for a massive email list
- How to maximize revenue from each sale
- How to implement it and profit immediately from one day
Table of Contents:
What exactly is a sales funnel?
I’m going to assume that most people reading this already know what a sales funnel is, but for the ones who don’t, I don’t want you to be left behind so; a sales funnel is a process. In this example today we’re looking at the three basic three stages, and with each of those stages leading to an end goal. The final stage is where your web visitors convert into customers.
This is the most powerful way to take people who don’t know you to trusting you enough to hand over their hard earned money.
It’s referred to as a funnel because, only a small percentage of web visitors reach the bottom, and convert into customers.
Stages of your web visitors
For a sales funnel to work, you need traffic. Once your web visitors land on your website, they’ll (hopefully) pass through the following three traffic stages that will ultimately result with them becoming customers:
- Cold traffic
- Warm traffic
- Hot traffic
Happy? Let’s explore each stage in more detail.
Cold traffic
These are people who literally don’t know you nor what you do. The majority of your traffic starts as cold.
Take Emily, for example, she’s searching for something related to your content and lands on your site.
If it’s her first time on your website, that’s cold traffic.
She will not trust you enough to purchase your offers right away, but she is interested. Therefore, she might opt into your mail list if you give her strong enough reason to.
We attract cold traffic to our websites with Top of Funnel content.
Resources:
- Get Organic Traffic with this Content Marketing Strategy
- The 5 Best Types Of Awareness Stage Content
- 7 Tactics that Have Proven Effective for Top of the Funnel Content
Warm traffic
These people who know you, but they aren’t ready to buy from just yet.
So you need to warm them up. The best way of warming them up this stage to give them lots of value without asking for anything in return.
This will help you to build trust, which is absolutely vital, because it’s the only way to convert them.
Trust is in short supply online, and rightly so. Turn that to your advantage and to the advantage of your email subscribers by standing out from the crowd and giving the highest amount of value you possibly can.
We call this middle of funnel content.
Resources:
Hot traffic
These are people who feel like they know you, they trust you, and they are ready to buy from you.
If we return to the example of Emily, once she experiences immense value from your emails, day by day she will begin to develop a feeling of trust towards you, eventually that might be enough to purchase your offers.
That’s why you need this sales funnel template; to illustrate the sales path and maximize conversion in each stage.
This is called the bottom of funnel and it the most profitable stage of the funnel.
Resources:
- How To Make Sure Your Content Is Profitable
- 17 Creative Examples of Bottom-of-the-Funnel Marketing
- The Best Content Types for the Bottom-of-the-Funnel
What converts cold traffic to hot traffic?
Unless visitors convert into customers, it’s pretty much useless.
To move people through each stage of a sales funnel you need to create top-notch content. Here’s how:
- Create content that addresses their pain points
- Ensure your content is compelling and authoritative
- Employ conversational content marketing
- Ask them to give you their feedback on the challenges they face
If you send a series of highly targeted emails, you will be surprised how easily cold traffic converts.
Now that you know the benefits of having a sales funnel, the following are the exact stages of creating a simple, effective one.
Sales funnel overview
The most important part of this simple sales funnel template are the first two pages.
The one time offer is converting at 9.2% because it’s relevant to my audiences pain points, and helps them to solve at least some of them.
Everything beyond the first two pages here are designed to either increase your bottom line through upsells, or continue the warm-up sequence that will eventually turn visitors into customers.
I’ll walk you through this in more detail.
Step 1: Create a squeeze page
You need a freebie to offer to your first-time visitors. The trick is to attract them into your funnel, and guess what, people find it hard to resist a freebie; we usually call this a lead magnet.
If you want some ideas on how to create lead magnets, I’ve got you covered.
Also, you need to understand that a squeeze page is different from a landing page. A landing page is long, while a squeeze page is short and has a single conversion goal; collecting email addresses.
Here’s how to create one:
- You should have an irresistible lead magnet
- Craft a short a killer headline
- Write a compelling sub-headline
- Choose an arresting image
- End with a strong CTA
It’s essential to note that, a squeeze page is an entry into the sales funnel template. Hence, dedicate time into creating a winning one.
I’ve also got more squeeze pages ideas for you to help boost your opt-in rate.
Resources:
- 3 High Converting Squeeze Pages
- Make a high converting squeeze page
- 11 Irresistible Elements of a Killer Squeeze Page
Step 2: Present a one-time offer
Once your web visitor opts into your email list, you need to send them a one-time offer.
It must be closely related to your lead magnet, but not compete with it.
Wait; don’t send an expensive offer right off the bat because you won’t get far with that. After testing out different offers, the catch is to send them something below $10. If you think of a low-ticket item in the region of $7, you’re on the right track.
When your lead subscribes to your email list, two things will happen here; a person will either buy your one-time offer or choose to say, “No, thanks.”
In that instance, here’s the sales path for web visitors who convert into customers immediately.
This is how I achieved a conversion rate of 9.2%.
Core offer
Immediately after purchase send your customer to a core offer. Since they already purchased your one-time offer a percentage will also purchase your this offer too.
You should be aiming to see an approximate 30% conversion rate, if the offer is relevant.
Here you can pitch a more expensive product, but still relevant to your lead magnet and one time offer.
Upselling
After purchasing your core offer, an easy way to maximise your revenue is to present a relevant upsell.
My usual approach to upselling is to present the solution to whatever problem the core offer creates.
Let me explain what I mean by that.
If we pretend that your core offer helps people to catch more fish, a problem they now face is storing all the fish they’re about to catch. An upsell could be a storage solution.
Make sense?
Now you’ve seen the sales funnel journey for a customer who converts immediately on day one, but what happens to someone only interested in your freebie?
I’ll show you exactly which steps to take next.
Resources:
Step 3: Deliver the lead magnet
If you send a one-time offer and the person fails to purchase, give them the lead magnet.
You can deliver the lead magnet by sending your subscriber to a ‘thank you’ page where they can download the item, or you can deliver it via email – usually the first email they receive from you.
The person is now part of your subscribers, and is warm traffic but you’ll need to continue building trust with them.
The best way of building that trust is through delivering value through a series of emails.
Resources:
Step 4: Build trust
To convert website visitors into customers who buy your products, you have to to add value by sending them a series of emails that will help them to solve their pain points.
Ensure the emails are conversational and compelling. Give your personal experiences and social proof to build trust.
Also, aim to get feedback from your subscribers; it’s the best way to develop a two-way communication, which is critical for success.
If you want to build your email list faster, I’ve got another handy tutorial for you. And if you want to boost your open rates, see this tutorial.
Resources:
- Shortcut To Building Trust With Your Customers
- 12 Tips to Gain Trust
- Building Trust with Your Content Marketing
Step 5: Make the pitch
After a few days of delivering value, it’s a good time to make a pitch.
You can promote your own offers, or someone else’s as long as it helps them solve a specific problem that’s relevant to their needs.
Since you’ve already built trust by adding value to them, most will opt to purchase your core offer, and finally the upsell.
That’s the path your web visitors take in this sales funnel template. It sounds simple, right?
But there’s a lot going on here. One of the most important parts of any pitch is the copy you use. If you want to boost your sales, this tutorial will help you out.
Resources:
- How to Sell Without Being Salesy
- A Short Guide to Writing Good Copy
- Copywriting Examples and Case Studies
- How to write a long-form sales page
The tools you need:
I’m using Kartra for my funnels because it’s an all in one solution, and I believe it’s currently the most powerful option available. But you don’t have to invest in any fancy software.
If you want to build a sales funnel like the template I’ve shown you today, without spending money on funnel builders, here’s how:
- A minimum of two web pages
- An autoresponder
- WooCommerce plugin
You can create standard HTML web pages if you’re feeling a little technical, you could go with WordPress, which I know most of you are already using.
If you’re new to email marketing then for an autoresponder I’d suggesting choosing between Aweber and ActiveCampaign. Just have something to run an automatic emails sequence to maximize your revenue.
Aweber is probably better if you’re planning to send affiliate offers, and ActiveCampaign is better if you’re planning on sending high-value emails.
The WooCommerce plugin is needed because it can hooked up to a payment processor and easily accept sales. The best thing is, it’s free to use and it can handle digital downloads too.
There are of course more sophisticated shopping carts available, but here are the basics that anyone can get ahold of.
Over to you
To ensure you get the anticipated results from this sales funnel, learn to implement each stage effectively. This system has the potential of generating passive income for you once you implement it.
So, take action. Implement it now and start getting amazing results from day one.
What’s next?
Now that you have a solid template to base your sales funnel on, you’re going to need to drive traffic to it.
That’s why I’ve got some free training for you here. It will show you exactly how to drive laser targeted traffic to your website.