Thoughts on Sales Funnels.
Thoughts on Sales Funnels.
I can tell you several things about sales funnels that might help you, especially if you are new and feeling a little intimidated by the process of coming up with a bunch of products for the funnel…
…after you’ve just spent a good amount of time on the initial product. I get it.
However, like so many things in this game, I have found that the sales funnel is about perception. How do you see it?
With a sales funnel it is important to firstly remember it’s not just about adding more products, it can also be about changing the access of the front end product.
For example, if I have a 25 page special report on traffic getting as a front end product, could I not turn it into a mind map and do a video presentation walking people through that mind map? Of course I could.
Then I could rip the audio of that video presentation, go over to a website like Descript(dot)com and have the audio transcribed by A.I. in mere minutes for free. And now I have…
A video presentation, an audio mp3 presentation, the transcripts from the video presentation, and the actual mind map itself, which can all come together to create my first upsell. That’s OTO1 of my funnel.
Now, I can take away everything but the audio presentation for a passive learning experience, and that can become my first economic down sell (DS1,) for those on a conservative budget.
I’ve just turned 1 product into 3. Same information, different access. But I wouldn’t be done, personally. I’d like to have 7 products in total. That’s just my personal preference. Some people go less, and some go more.
At the OTO2 spot, what if we offered a PLR license on the front end offer and on the OTO1? That would come together easily because these products are already done. We just need a new license for them.
That’s OTO2 done and now we have 4 products. Of course, we can take away the license on OTO1 and just offer a PLR license on the front end and this becomes an economic down sell at the DS2 spot.
That’s 5 products.
Now, at the OTO3 spot we could offer a live 3 day workshop. What would we be covering? Everything we talked about in the front end product and OTO1. The difference is that it’s live. People have the ability to ask questions right there and spend time with the creator of the product.
So again, the access has changed.
At the DS3 spot, our third economic down sell, we could offer replays of our 3 day live workshop. It’s like they get to be a fly on the wall at the workshop.
Now of course, they don’t get to ask questions, but they still get to hear everything that happened. It’s a nice fit for someone who wanted to attend that workshop but it happened to be a little out of their budget.
And as simple as that, we have created a 7 product funnel, by only changing the access of information on the front end product.
Another thing I am very fond of when it comes to sales funnels is utilizing PLR membership sites like Bigproductstore(dot)com or IDPLR(dot)com.
With sites like these I can easily put together bundled themed packages that can bring value to the customer, and I don’t have to spend a lot of time creating them.
For example, I could have used PLR bundle packages at the OTO2 and DS2 spots if I wanted to. Think about it. We have a 25 page special report on traffic getting.
Well…if they care about traffic, they probably care about list building and email marketing as well. I can use a PLR resource to put together a “tool kit” of list building and email marketing courses and resources. That could be an easy OTO2.
Then I could create another tool kit for DS2. This time I’d probably look for some DFY lead magnets, or some templates. Something DFY that makes their life easier and speeds up their time.
But the point is, bundle packages come together easily and can really create nice OTO’s in a funnel.
The next thing I’d like to talk about when it comes to sales funnels is the idea of a linear sales funnel. So far you’ve heard me talking about upsells and down sells. However, that is not the way to maximize profits, or best serve your customers.
Ideally, I DO NOT want this business of FE, OTO1, DS1, OTO2, DS2, OTO3, DS3.
And by this I mean, they buy the front end and they are offered OTO1, if they say no to OTO1 they are offered DS1 but if they say YES to OTO1 then they skip to OTO2, and so forth.
It’s fine if you are running short on time and need to get the funnel together quickly, but you WILL lose money.
It’s far better to remove the down sells and run ALL upsells. SO it would look like this:
FE, OTO1, OTO2, OTO3, OTO4, OTO5, OTO6
By running it this way, customers are exposed to every single offer in your funnel. They will be offered OTO2 whether they buy OTO1 or not. It wasn’t that way with DS1.
So this is a better way to maximize your earnings. To run this way though, you can’t just take away parts of your upsell to create a down sell. You need to have 6 different products.
It’s really not hard to put together either. Especially after you launch a few products and start to build infrastructure for your online business, with all these assets.
The last thing I’d like to talk with you about when it comes to sales funnels is the idea of a sort of standard funnel that would save you time and speed up your process.
For example, currently I work hard to publish a new product every month. The only new thing that I create in my funnel is OTO1. The rest of my funnel is the same for every launch.
The thing is, if you are launching digital products, you are probably focused on a particular niche. Well, every single niche has its perennial problems the market in that space ALWAYS cares about.
I call that “playing the hits.”
I’m in the internet marketing “MMO” space. My market is always going to care about traffic, they are always going to care about list building and by extension email marketing, they are always going to care about DFY services and content, and they are always going to care about new information in the niche.
So with that in mind, it is fairly easy to put together a sales funnel that focuses heavily on front end congruence at the OTO1 spot and then “plays the hits” at OTO2 through OTO6.
There is a lot we could discuss when it comes to sales funnels. From price to scarcity to size to software…
However, it’s a subject for another day. What I’ve talked about here is enough to get you to the promised land and see you earning really well on your funnels.
Everything else is personal experience and testing.
Until Next Time
Dominus Owen Markham