34: Behind the Scenes of a High Converting Sales Funnel

Welcome to the Course Creators MBA Podcast. I'm your host Destiny Cobb and in this podcast we're covering actionable tips to grow your online course business. But before I begin, I want to let you know that this episode is sponsored by my free Facebook and Instagram Ads mini Workshop series which helps you launch a high converting ad campaign in five short days. You can sign up for the free workshop series by going to destinycop.com and I will sure that this link is in the Show Notes and today we're talking about behind the scenes of a high converting sales funnel and your online course sales funnel is not a one size fits all. There are many different types of sales funnels that you can use to sell your online course. For example, I have a sales funnel that runs on automation in my business and this allows me to sell sell my Facebook and Instagram ads consulting service on autopilot. This is in addition to any live launches that I run during the year for my online course and consulting program which is also still a sales funnel and any other sales funnels that I run during various promotions that I do to keep my content fresh and my offers fresh also for my audience. But needless to say, all online course creators and coaches you need a sales funnel in your online course business. This can be as simple as setting up a discovery call to have a conversation with a potential client about your online course and coaching program. It can be an automated webinar or it can be a huge live launch that you do, such as a virtual summit or a boot camp. There are tons of different ways you can sell your online course and all of them can work. But in this podcast I'm going to take you behind the scenes of my high converting funnel for my Facebook and ad Facebook Ad Consulting service. And if you want to see this funnel in action, I'm going to give you a link in the podcast Show Notes so you can just click on it and go through it and see exactly how it works. But let me answer this first. What is a sales funnel? And simply a sales funnel is for your online course is just a process that you use to take your prospect on a buyer's journey. So when a potential client first comes in contact with you, maybe either through a Google search or they click on your link and go to your website from social media, maybe they see you from a Facebook ad or a blog or a podcast that you've done, they're generally not ready to buy right then and there, but they have a problem that they need to solve and your online course and program or whatever you have may be the solution that they've been searching for. And your sales funnel illustrates that journey that they're going to take before purchasing your online course, your membership or your coaching program. So let me give you an example on this. So let's assume that you're a style coach and you help women in their 40s and their 50s dress for their busy life. You wrote a blog that talked about winner dress trends and in that blog post you had a checklist as a free gift. So after someone signed up for your checklist then you immediately start your welcome series and then the next few email you could give some value add with an invitation at the end to join your $27 membership program. Another way to sell your online membership program in this example would be a five day challenge with the Facebook Live Masterclass at the end with a pitch to join your membership. Another funnel for this style coach could be for her in clinic client services. So let's assume this is where she travels to the client location. She goes through their entire closet and helps them refresh their wardrobe. This funnel could begin with a 30 minute discovery call from Word of Mouth Marketing. Another possible way to sell the membership is through an automated webinar workshop. So she could have her free workshop on her website that teaches them something related to their service offering. And at the end of that webinar or workshop she would present the service that she offers. So this could be her one on one styling service or her membership for those who are more budget conscious. So these are a lot of different ways that you can sell your online course, coaching program, membership or your high end service. But all of these options have something in common and that is they are walking that prospect through the buyer's journey. So let's talk about the buyer's journey in a little bit more detail. There are three main stages of a buyer's journey and you can actually drill down on these. And there could be other stages in between here. But three main stages of the buyer's journey. The first is the awareness stage. So in the awareness stage your prospect is just getting to know you, right? It's just when they are getting to know your business and what you have to offer. And this stage is like dating. So in this stage you are delivering valuable content and information to keep them coming back for more and engaging in your business. The next stage of the buyer's journey is the consideration stage. So in this stage stage your prospect is doing research, right? They're looking at your competitors, they're thinking about how they're going to solve the problem. They know that you are a possibility, but there are other options out there too. So in this stage, you want to establish yourself as an expert and help them make an informed decision. This is why challenges video series, which is what I'm going to show you today. And webinars and workshops are a great way to position yourself as an expert, even with prospects who are just getting to know you. And the final stage of the buyer's journey is the decision stage. So in this stage, your prospects, they have narrowed down the playing field and they're most likely considering you along with some of your possible competitors. This is when you are going to make your best offer. For example, one of the things you could do is offer bonuses for purchasing your online course or your service. And in this stage, you are answering objections. You were offering them case studies and testimonials. Social Proof is one of the best salespeople. So let's talk about how you can walk your prospects through the buyer's journey with with a high converting sales funnel. And I'm going to go and give you the behind the scenes of one of my sales funnel. And this particular sales funnel at the end is when I am offering my Facebook ad consulting service. And again, if you want to see this funnel in action, I do have the link below in the show notes so you can click on it and see everything and exactly how it works. So we've talked about a lot of different ways to set up a funnel, but all of these online course sales funnels, they have to have the elements that I've listed or that I'm going to talk about in this podcast. And the first one is the traffic source. So if you are not getting people into your sales funnel, then they're not going to know about you. So for my sales funnel, here are my traffic sources. Sources. One is my website. So I have an option for people when they go to my website that they can sign up on the announcement bar. So I have, you know, basically a something that says click here to start the workshop. I also have it on the front page of the website as an opt in. So it's very prominent on my website. I also have it going through Pinterest with organic pins. Organic means I haven't paid for them and it has been distributed throughout all of my tailwind tribes. And I also have it on my boards in a lot of different pins. So Pinterest is a great way to drive traffic to your sales funnel. Also I have it as a Promoted pin on Pinterest for, for paid. So that is another option to drive traffic to your funnel. Also on all of my social media accounts there is an option there to sign up for this particular offering for the workshop series. I also in addition to this, at times I do run Facebook and Instagram ads. So these are paid post on Facebook and Instagram to drive traffic into this funnel. In addition, I have also done several different blog posts that are related to this particular funnel where I drive traffic from my website from maybe a Google search and Pinterest to drive traffic into this funnel. And of course it's being sponsored by my podcast. So those are seven different traffic sources that I have coming into this funnel. And driving traffic into their funnel is one is a place where most entrepreneurs fail. And the fact is if you don't have traffic coming into your funnel, which are people who are seeing your lead magnet landing page and signing up, then you really can't sell your online course. And most online course sales funnels, they don't have enough traffic coming in to to assess whether or not the funnel is working. So traffic drivers are very, very important. So just to give you an example of this, let's just say that you have a hundred people viewing your landing page each month. Now a hundred people is quite frankly is not a lot. But let's assume that you have 30% of them signing up for your free offer. So in my case it would be my mini workshop series. That means that you have 30 people coming into your funnel and that's not really enough to make educated decisions on whether or not your funnel is converting. So you need a lot of different traffic sources and you need volume coming into your sales funnel. So after the sales, after the traffic source, right when somebody clicks on a link from one of these traffic sources, they are going to my landing page. And your landing page is where you're going to turn your visitor into a subscriber. And that's where you're going to present your irresistible free offer with the goal of capturing a leaf. And you are going to present your offer with a call to action to sign up. And immediately after they subscribe, you are going to allow them to download your free offer and you're going to send them an email with the next step steps. So this could be put the webinar date on their calendar or download their free gift. And I will have an example of my landing page for my Facebook and Instagram ads mini workshop series in the show notes so you can see exactly what this looks like. One of the things I wanted to talk about, here is a way to measure the success of your online course funnel and that is to track your conversion rate on your landing pages. So on your landing page for your free offer, you should shoot for a conversion rate of 30% or more. So most of the clients that I'm working with have conversion rates of around 40 to 50% on their landing page. And even for some of my landing pages, my conversion rate is around 60%, but 30% is really a good number to shoot for for. So once somebody signs up from, you know, for my workshop from this landing page, immediately they are going to receive an email with the day one workshop and they are going to continue to receive these emails on days two to five for each day of the workshop. And on day six, I present my offer for my Facebook email ad consulting service. And on if you go in and go through the funnel, you will see that on the daily workshops series landing pages, there's also a call to link, a call to action link for my sales page for my Facebook ad consulting service, basically saying, you know, I'd love to do this together with you. And imagine if you had your own Facebook ad consulting that you could build, bounce ideas off of or ask questions when you got stuck. So that's an way for you to, you know, promote your offer as they go through your sales funnel. Another way to set up this funnel, and again, this is not the only way I could set up this funnel, but another way to set up this funnel would be to offer an automated webinar training on Facebook and Instagram ads. So if I had the automated training at the end I would, you know, have the recorded webinar and at the end I would have a sales pitch at the end and present my offer. And then for people who didn't buy right then you could send retargeting emails after they watch the recorded webinar to encourage them, you know, to, if they didn't watch it, or encourage them to watch it, but also give them a cart close date. So let me talk about some of the, behind the, some of the tools that I use for, for this sales funnel. The first thing is I use an email service provider. I personally use ConvertKit. And basically what I do, my landing page is on Kajabi, which I'll talk about that in just a second. But from the landing page I load the subscribers into a ConvertKit form and then from there I have an automation set up where they are tagged with the offer that they signed up for, which for me is my Facebook ad Mini Workshop series. And then my email sequence starts. So from there they get tagged and then it starts the email sequence immediately after that. And then for each day of the workshop, ConvertKit will send out the daily emails based on when they signed up for the offer, which allows this funnel to run on Evergreen. Also, for my landing page, the tool that I use is Kajabi. But there are a lot of other great options out there. I'm definitely a fan of leadpages. I think they have a lot of great forms that you can use that convert very well for a lot of different options, whether you're doing a webinar or a challenge or if you just have a checklist or workbook. But I host my online course in Good job. And it has landing pages in it that convert very well. And then also for delivering the daily Mini Workshop videos, I also use Kajabi for that. But you don't have to. You can use, you know, your own website or you can use just other different options out there. But I have these set up on different landing pages. And when I send out the emails, I drive people to that landing page for that day. But I also have previous links in there so that they've. If they want to go back and let's just say they're in day three, but they want to go back and review the videos for days one and two, they can do that on that landing page for day three. So for the sales page, I do have kind of a mini sales page. It's more informational, if you would, about my Facebook ads consulting services, I use Kajabi for that also. But other options include your own website. You can use a sales page of your, you know, if you have an online course platform, you can use a sales page, you know, that they offer with that, or you can even use lead pages for your sales page. So there's a lot of different options for that. And then for the cart. So you need a way to collect payments from people, assuming that they buy your offer. I use Kajabi for that. But other options include Sam Cart and Thrivecart. So there you go. That is an insider's look at an online course sales funnel that you can use for an online course. You can use it for a coaching program. Obviously I'm using it for a service. So there's a lot of different ways that you can do that there. If you have any questions whatsoever about this, please don't hesitate to reach out and you can contact me on LinkedIn or you can DM me on Facebook or Instagram. Thanks so much for joining us today, course creators. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Would love for you to rate and review the podcast on itunes or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.