Sales funnels are arguably one of the most effective ways to grow any business online because they have high conversion rates, make advertising almost instantly profitable when they’re working which means you can buy unlimited traffic, and skyrocket the value of every customer that you get.
But all of that requires one thing – you must build the sales funnel correctly so it works.
In other words, you need to follow the 7 stages of a sales funnel and be extremely careful when creating them. And that’s why in this article I will show you what they look like and how to make all of them work:
- Determine Traffic Temperature
- Build A Pre-Frame Bridge
- Qualify Subscribers
- Qualify Buyers
- Identify Hyperactive Buyers
- Age And Ascend The Relationship
- Change The Selling Environment
So, are you ready to begin? If so, let’s dive in…
Determine Traffic Temperature
This is the first thing that you must do, and that is going to determine how the entire sales funnel and the sales message in it is going to look like.
There are 3 types of traffic that you can drive to the sales funnel:
- Cold Traffic
- Warm Traffic
- Hot Traffic
To make it clear, cold traffic just discovered you exist, doesn’t know what is the problem that needs to be solved in order to reach a solution, and neither does know the solution to that problem.
Warm traffic knows about the problem that needs to be solved and is actively looking for a solution to that problem. Sometimes they know you, sometimes they don’t.
Hot traffic knows about the problem and also knows about the solution to that problem. Currently, it’s looking for the product or service that is going to deliver it so that the problem they have is solved and they reach the goal.
In case you don’t know, traffic refers to people who visit your sales funnel.
Before you drive traffic to the sales funnel, you must determine what kind of traffic it’s going to be as you’re obviously not going to have the same sales funnel for cold traffic as for hot traffic. There is much more work required when it comes to turning cold traffic into customers and much less for turning hot traffic into customers.
To give you an idea, here is a general overview of what kind of traffic from social media is cold, warm, and hot:
- Cold traffic – everybody on social media who is your dream customer
- Warm traffic – dream customers following other accounts in your niche
- Hot traffic – people following YOU specifically
For Google traffic, it might look like this:
- Cold traffic – people searching for keywords related to your industry (in the case of sales funnels, cold traffic would be searching something like: “marketing” or “social media monetization”)
- Warm traffic – people searching for niche-related keywords (in the case of sales funnels, it might be something like: “what is a sales funnel? ” or “are sales funnels working?”)
- Hot traffic – people searching for the keywords indicating they’re in “buy mode” (in the case of sales funnels it might be something like: “Phonesites pricing” or “Phonesites free trial”, etc.)
It’s obvious that it would take far less work to convert somebody in a “buy mode” than somebody who has never done marketing and just began to look for some ways to get more customers online or wonders why are they struggling.
Here’s a simple “emoji” infographic that recaps this concept and l
Take the time to figure out what kind of traffic are you going to drive to the sales funnel as it is going to HEAVILY affect conversions and the structure…
Build A Pre-Frame Bridge
A pre-frame bridge is used to warm up the traffic enough to be in the buy mode or to get the kind of action you want them to take through the sales funnel.
A pre-frame bridge basically educates them about the problem or the solution (or both) so that the traffic is warmed up and ready to buy what you sell.
There are many ways you can do that like through:
- An Article Page
- A Bridge Page
- An Email
- A YouTube Video
- Social Media Content
And on and on. Important to remember is that people on social media can be cold traffic and warm/hot as well. It depends on when they discovered your profile, if they follow you and for how long, etc. That’s why social media content is on the list as well.
You can turn cold traffic into hot after you pre-frame them with a lot of posts.
These bridges are also extremely important when selling affiliate products and services. That’s because you have no control over the sales page of the company you’re promoting so, you want the traffic you’re going to send over already ready-to-buy, so that when they go to the sales page that’s not converting well, they don’t read the message, instead, they’ll just click the “buy” button.
It’s a fantastic way to take your affiliate commissions through the roof and sell the affiliate’s products and services like crazy!
Here’s an example of a bridge page like that:
Once the pre-frame bridge is built, it is time to see who is willing to make the first commitment…
Qualify Subscribers
Now it’s time to see who is going to give you their email address and other contact information in exchange for a lead magnet. A lead magnet is a freebie that is valuable to your dream customer like an e-book, webinar, or oftentimes even discounts (when used correctly.)
When you get the contact information of your dream customers, two things are going to happen. First, you’re going to get the ability to follow up, which is priceless. Second, you’re going to get that “first commitment” which indicates they are willing to do business with you.
You’re going to qualify subscribers through pages like:
- Lead-squeeze (opt-in) page
- Registration page (for webinars)
Once you get the contact information of your dream customers, you’ll immediately start following up, persuading them to take the next step in the sales funnel which is…
Qualify Buyers
Now, that you have the email address of your dream customers it is super important that you are going to qualify buyers as well. In other words, it’s time to sell your dream customers the product or service that you’re selling.
This is going to be done through a sales page or for high-ticket offers through a webinar.
Some people are going to buy right after they read the sales message but most are not. Instead, they won’t feel they’re ready for this and they will leave without buying.
That’s why having a follow-up system is so important. When you follow up you can bring that 80% of people who didn’t buy come back and buy.
The problem is that this is where most companies end their sales process. When people buy, it is over.
In a great sales funnel though, it’s just the beginning. Instead, we are going to increase the average cart value of the sales funnel by…
Identify Hyperactive Buyers
After you’ve identified the buyers, you want to identify hyperactive buyers. These are people who are willing to spend more money to solve their problems now.
That is why you want to include upsells in your sales funnel. When somebody buys, redirect them to an upsell page where you are going to offer them more value to what they just bought, and after they buy that you can upsell them once again.
That way you can literally explode the average cart value of the sales funnel and make the profits you make go through the roof!
Here’s an example of how an upsell page looks like:
And now, when you’ve identified who your hyperactive buyers are…
Age And Ascend The Relationship
At this point, the sales funnel is pretty much over and the selling experience is over as well. All of the previous steps will happen during 5-10 minutes when you’re selling your dream customers…
Now it is time to move them towards purchasing a more high-ticket product or service that you sell. You will follow-up using email to build relationships with your dream cusotmers and try moving them up to the next sales funnel.
Change The Selling Environment
It’s difficult to sell high-ticket products and super-expensive services online. Not many people are going to read a sales letter and click the Add to Cart button for a $15K or $20K offer.
The most common way to change the selling environment is to sell these products and services over the phone, through direct mail, a webinar, or even at a live event or seminar.
And this is how you are going to build your sales funnel! I hope you found this helpful. Let me know your view on this below in the comments.
Filip Konecny 