Funnels for the Win

Foreign hey there, Rachel Cook here, business growth strategist and host of the uncomplicate your business show. And I'm so excited that Amber has invited me to join you for this year's plan a thon and share this incredibly simple sales funnel. So if the idea of a funnel scares you a little bit, I don't want you to get nervous. This is one that will work for any business, whether you're a service provider, a local business or an online entrepreneur. So what I want to start with is the difference between list building and lead generation. There's a lot of talk right now about list building and yes, it is super important for your business to have a database of potential clients. But the gap here with most list building strategies is they don't take advantage of the fact that most people are interested in taking the next step. And in those first few weeks that they have joined your email list and when you don't have a next step for them to take, then they quickly go cold. You've probably seen this. If you've tried to launch something and those people haven't really warmed up to you, they've been sitting on your email list for a while. So what we're going to do is switch to lead generation. This is all about helping those people take the next step very quickly and convert the warmest people who've just opted in for your thing into new clients. So this simple sales funnel is ridiculously simple, guys. It is three steps. Your freebie, which you're probably familiar with this idea, your follow up and then the invitation to the next step. First up, create a great freebie. And this freebie can be literally any type of freebie that you want to create. I call this a pink spoon because it's all about giving people, just like when you go to the ice cream store, that little taste of what you have to offer. So it can be a PDF, it can be a quiz, it can be a challenge, it can be a free training video or audio. Here's some examples from some of my clients. One of my clients created this beautiful PDF guide full of photographs to help people create a home yoga practice. Another client created a 21 day challenge to stop yelling at your kids. And what I love is it's just emails. It's not videos or a fancy membership site. It's literally signing up for an email only challenge that's delivered straight to your inbox. Another client sat down with her phone and created this great video all about how to reconnect with your spouse, your husband or Your wife after having kids. So simple. And what I love about these is they used what they had and kept it incredibly simple so they could have a great freebie to offer. Once you have that, you want to set up your opt ins and your landing page and I recommend putting these in multiple places. So of course you need your landing page. This is a dedicated page page for people to get your free thing. This is one from another client. It's all about 10 strategies for a good night's sleep. And what I love about this is she has her dedicated landing page but she's also linked to it in related content. So here's her show notes from her podcast or the footer of a blog post. And don't forget your thank you page. And this is a great tip here guys. I love that she did this. She has next steps. So I love working with action takers ready to break through their healthy blind spots. See how we can work together. She's already giving them the next steps in the thank you page. So once you've done those two things, you have your great freebie and you have your opt ins all ready to go. You need to connect the dots and make sure everything is working right. I love something as simple as Mailchimp or ConvertKit, but really any email service provider should be able to handle the heavy lifting for you. Now we're going to get in to the good stuff that the follow up. And this is where a lot of people kind of have a huge gap in their marketing strategy because they give them the freebie and that's it. There's no follow up. So I'm going to share with you two versions of a follow up. Follow up Sequence one is just three parts. You can send it out over about a week. And this is great if you know that people are going to be quick to take action, you might need to educate more. And then we have a seven part follow up that you can use for that. So let's dive into the simpler one first. Email number one. Here's your awesome download. This is so straightforward and simple but it's often overlooked. You know this is one where you can actually put some personality in. You can share a little bit about your story. You can even ask them, hey, I'd love to know what are you struggling with when it comes to this topic. Hit reply and let me know. You can engage them and open up the conversation. I also love putting a little PS at the bottom of this email. Like hey, if you know you're ready to take action and get this result hit here's the next step. So never overlook those pss. This can be a powerful email and it's one that can really do a lot for you in connecting with people. The second email a few days later is all about, hey, have you tried out this tip from my pink spoon from my freebie. Now a lot of people will sign up for a video or an audio or whatever it is and they won't actually check it out. They won't actually watch it or read it. So we don't want those things just collecting dust on people's hard drives. We want them to dig into it. So I love sending this email to encourage people to check out the freebie. It's a great chance to say, hey, here's what some other people said about this or here's results other people got. And you can also start like turning up the volume on inviting them to take the next step. If you want more, here's how you can get the next step. The final email is more direct. This is a pitch email. This is letting them know what that next step is. And you lead with are you ready for this outcome, this result? And this is where you explain to them exactly if they loved what they saw so far, how you work with people and how they can take that next step towards working with you. Now, like I said, you might have to have some more education. Some topics are a little trickier. So this is where you can bring in more education pieces to build that know like and trust fact stir with people. So the first two emails, same as we described before and if you've used some pss and you've already dripped a couple times, the next step, then you can start moving into some education. So email number three, the thing you might not realize about your topic. This is great if you have something that's a more complicated topic, more vulnerable topic. I have a client who works with women who have chronic illness and her freebie sequence is all about self care for chronically ill people. So for her it might be the thing you might not realize about self care when you're in a lot of pain so she's going to break through some myths or some mistakes or things that people might be doing wrong. Email number four is all about what does this topic mean anyway? Again, you might have to define what you're talking about. Self care is a great example. A lot of people might think self care is all about getting manicures and pedicures and spa day, but the reality is for women with chronic illness, it's much deeper than that. So we have to define what that means and bring them up to speed on what we're really talking about here in the importance of it so they can see this is super relevant for them. The next email. The secret to getting this result, even when you're facing this challenge, this is all about breaking through those obstacles, breaking through those objections people have. So in the case of the self care for chronically ill people, this could be the secret to feeling better every day, even when you're in chronic pain. Not the best copywriting here, but you can start to see what I mean. We're all about helping them remove some of those obstacles and see that they can still start taking action. Email number six, have you been putting off this step? This starts to tie things back forward and say, hey, I've given you a lot of tips, I've given you some education. Have you been putting off taking action? And this is great because it's kind of calling people out a little bit, calling them out and telling them, hey, if you have been putting this off, I encourage you to get in touch with me and I encourage you to check out this next piece of the puzzle. And we wrap it all up with the same follow up email. Ready for this outcome. Again, this is the pitch telling them the next step towards working with you. Whether it's a product, a program or service, you're going to make it really, really clear for them. So this is the final piece of the puzzle, the next step. And there's a few different ways you can do this depending on what your business is and how you work. So the first option is to just send to a sales page. I have sold programs under about $500 that are sold through this exact type of email sequence. So sending to a sales page works if you have a lower price point offer without too many, you know, things that people need to actually get to know you before they sign up for that. But you might not have a online program or lower price point offer. You might be offering a service. A great option is to send them to the application to work with you on. When I did this a lot, I always had a sales page for my consulting. But they couldn't just sign up, they couldn't just book an hour. They had to apply to work with me and then I would get on the phone with them. But if you're just getting started and you're feeling like you're not quite ready for that, you can just send them to an application for a free session. And this is really really simple. I highly recommend this, especially for people who are in their first few years of business, because it gives you opportunities to talk with people, to just get in front of real people and have real conversations. Free sessions don't have to be scary and overwhelming. We find that they convert incredibly well into new clients. So I hope this encourages you guys to go ahead and set up this simple step. Sales system does not have to be complicated, it doesn't have to be scary, and it makes sure that all of your other marketing efforts aren't going to a leaky bucket. We want to make sure we filled in that gap and help those people who are most ready to take action to take the next step. All right, I'll see you in the plan a thon.