Tag: lead magnet

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Types of sales funnels

Every sales funnel is different

Sales funnels can have various construction. In fact, we can say that there are no two identical funnels. Every offer and target group is different, and requires a different set of tools. However, we can assume that there are two types of funnels: classic and modern. Let’s take a closer look into them.

Classic sales funnel

The most popular sales funnel in Poland. The important element of this kind of funnel is valuable content, but obtaining contact details of your potential customers is far more important. In this model, shopping path is relatively short, and connection between the client and the salesman is really shallow.

Modern sales funnel

The most important element of this funnel is content. This is the thing the client sees, when they encounter a brand. It all starts with content. In effect, the whole path becomes longer and the transaction happens much later. The important part is remarketing.

Classic or modern?

Most e-commerce companies use the funnel in the classic version. This way they can count on relatively quick effects in the form of leads and possibly finished transactions. There is a common belief that even if one does not close the transaction at first attempt, they can push the recipient through mailing. Unfortunately, this concept becomes outdated, as people check their inboxes less and less frequently. In effect, email queue can turn out ineffective.

Using a model based on valuable content is a better idea. Generating leads happens after the client encounters your content. The contact, however, is superficial. Best case scenario – they read several posts or see a video. This way you can evoke positive emotions, before they even give you their email address. The result is the process of generating leads becomes much more effective.

Power of content

The biggest challenge in the modern type of funnel is preparing the right type of content. Right, means the type of content that sparks interest and solidifies the brand’s image in the mind of your potential client. The second factor is more important. Without it, all your effort can go to waste. Your content should help the client to understand, what your company does and how the product could benefit them. Of course, you can’t do that by pointing them to the pricing page. At this stage, it is only about establishing your company as competent and specializing in a certain field. It’s enough.

If your potential clients have such opinion on your brand, they would go back to you even if they are disconnected from your content. If they feel the need to, of course. The most important thing is that during this comeback, you don’t want them to be confused and to wander around. They should come directly to you. This is the good time to collect their email address. Of course, some people won’t come back to you. Don’t worry about them for now.

Generating leads on cold traffic

If the content was really valuable, and all the elements worked as they were supposed to, you can relax. The readers, who disappeared completely, probably wouldn’t become your clients anyway. You can notice it in classic funnels, where leads are generated on cold traffic. At this stage, there is no positive connection. In effect, when you send emails to them, they usually remain unopened. Such lead is useless and it’s not worth to waste time on it.

Of course, there are methods, which allow optimization of actions connected with cold traffic leads. One of them is systematically deleting inactive subscribers. Give them one or two chances to read your messages. Send them a reminder. If there is no reaction, you can give up on such contact. Another method is segmentation of your subscriber list. Remember that this group is not homogeneous. So it is recommended to divide it into subgroups, consisting of people, who have something in common. This way you can send customized messages to each group, to evoke positive emotions.

Remarketing as an alternative

The real problem in generating leads is different. It doesn’t matter if they were obtained from a cold traffic or a hot traffic. The fact is that people check their inbox less and less frequently, and this trend will be more and more prominent in the future. Communicators and storage platforms make things even worse. However, universality is a huge strength of emails and there is no doubt about it. If you want your sales funnel to work efficiently, you need to put the content, where it can be noticed.

Remarketing is an integral element of both classic and modern funnel. This way, despite low email opening rate, your audience has a constant contact with your brand. Remember, remarketing content should be diverse. This way you create numerous occasions for the potential customer to get interested in your offer again. The more engagement, the more focus on direct sales offer, when it comes to remarketing.

Summary

Every sales funnel model has to work efficiently in various conditions. In order to establish, which model would work the best for your business, you need to test different options. Divide your traffic generating budget into two sections and focus on generating leads and content. Change the proportions, depending on results. Remember that modern model offers gratification later than the classic one. Therefore, before you make a decision, take your time and observe the process.

Go to the entry to find out more: How to create a sales funnel in 5 steps [mini guide]>>

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Earn on your passion – create your own sales funnel

Funnel created with passion

Passion is responsible for a huge part of what we do in life, including buying different kinds of goods and services. Don’t focus on big problems, such as illness. Usually it’s about small, simple life difficulties. Did you start to notice it?

Constructing an effective sales funnel means looking for solutions to these problems. Identify the problem, find people affected by it, and show them the solution.

You think you can’t do that? You’re wrong! Discover the magic of the digital world, and look what you can do and what brings you joy. Everyone has the knowledge and skills, which can be useful to somebody. Internet is a perfect tool to reach the right target group. Create your own digital product! Create your own sales funnel! Possibilities are endless. Let’s see how that works on a particular example.

Wild nature funnel

Your passion is wild nature. Ornithology, to be more precise. You love to photograph birds, and you take part in various events connected with it. The question is: how would you use such situation to make a sales funnel online so you make money and improve you skills at the same time?

In the beginning, ask yourself: why do you want to do that? Passion doesn’t need to equal making money. I fully agree. But what if you spent 8 hours a day doing what you love? Would you still have time and energy to go and make money? It doesn’t make sense. There is nothing wrong with earning on your passion. It’s exactly the opposite, people should earn only on their passions. This way they could be living a dream and also provide people with knowledge and the best possible products.

So, if you want to make money, without putting a lot of effort into it, do what you love! Money is a side effect. In order to optimize it, use online sales funnels. They will be perfect for that purpose. Let’s create a funnel with all it’s stages.

Stage 1. Awareness

Stage 2. Interest

Stage 3. Decision

Stage 4. Action

Everything starts with awareness of a particular product. The client has to have a chance to encounter it. If they see it, it is a key moment – they get interested in a product. The word “moment” is not accidental. Because usually it’s the matter of seconds. The next step, which is decision making, takes much longer. It is typical for online shopping. In some cases, this stage can last for weeks or even months. If everything goes well, your potential client becomes an existing one, by making a purchase.

Stage 1. Awareness

Okay, let’s go back to birds. You love to photograph them, so you must be very good at that. No? You don’t think your pictures are good? Change your attitude! If you’re a perfectionist, you will always be doubting yourself. Let others be your judges. Let them see your art. You’ll be surprised with their reaction. How to do it? Easy!

We live in a world, where social media have a huge influence on people’s lives, so images are really powerful. Text is very limiting. If you’re interested in photography, there’s no easier task than making it on social media. Put your pictures on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Then you can begin to work with stock platforms like ShutterStock, Freepik, or Unsplash.

Remember to keep your social media accounts coherent. Names should be the same. The content can be the same, but it doesn’t need to be. Its important to stick to one theme. Of course, photos are not the only thing that interests you. You know a lot about various types of birds and a many interesting facts about them. So you can also try writing: start a blog! Share your thoughts and experiences. People, who encounter it while they search for answers to tough questions, would look up to you. You would become a specialist in their eyes.

It can be a first step in creating your own sales funnel. Potential clients will be aware of your brand by then. At that stage, you don’t need to have other elements of the whole system. Just don’t waste time and create accounts today, when you still have your daytime job. This way you can organically grow your community.

Stage 2. Interest

Offer concept

The next stage is much more difficult. You need to spark people’s interest with your offer. This is the moment, when you need to have a plan of the whole offer variety. Which products do you want to sell? What is their form?

Your offer should contain the following products:

  1. Free product (lead magnet) – it’s free in order to make people curious about your offer.

  2. Paid product 1 – first paid product, which should be the cheapest. It’s purpose is to “open” the wallet of your customer. A person, who spends even the smallest amount of money is a completely different kind of recipient. Not only they are interested in your offer, but they are also willing to pay for it.

  3. Paid product 2, 3, 4… In fact, there is no limit on the amount of paid products, but the whole path shouldn’t be too long. It’s important to adjust the price so it increases with each product.

  4. Final product – the most expensive one; it generates the highest income and gives the customer the highest value. It would be the best if it was a unique product, which is inimitable.

Lead magnet in sales funnel

When you create a plan for your offer, start creating your own lead magnet. It will draw potential clients’ attention to your brand. In order to make it work, be sure to add a significant value to it. The goal is to collect the highest possible number of email addresses (leads) in exchange for the unpaid material, that you share with your audience.

Remember, when you create a lead magnet, you can’t focus only on collecting leads. You should also treat it as a sieve, that decides who falls into the funnel, and who doesn’t. Depending on the topic and the form of your lead magnet, the mesh size may vary. It may appear that the best solution is to use general topics which would guarantee you a large number of customers. But what then? Are all those clients going to pay for your product? I don’t think so.

So when you create a lead magnet, you should constantly think about paid products. The whole product path has to be consistent. It’s much easier to achieve a high sales rate when your lead magnet attracts customers, who are realistically interested in your offer.

When it comes to your interest with ornithology, we advise you to create a guide book about bird feeding. Of course you can narrow this topic down. Instead of writing about feeding, you can write about how to build a bird feeder or a nesting box. Mention the advantages of having a feeder in your garden, and what kind of feeders should people get or how to DIY one. There are many possibilities, however, you focus on your paid products, which we’re going to be talking about in a moment.

Your own client contact database

At this stage, you should use precise solutions, which will allow you to collect contact information of people, who downloaded your lead magnet. It will be your potential customer contact database. In fact, funnels can’t function without your own client contact database. How else would you like to reach them with tailored offers? How else would you build further connection? We wrote more about client contact databases here.

Stage 3. Decision

It’s high time to change your potential clients into existing ones. The main factor that makes them decide if they want to pay for your offer is… the offer itself. It should be consistent with what you present in your lead magnet.

Below you can find our examples of paid products for an amateur ornithologist.

Paid product #1

As your free guide is about building bird feeders and advantages of having one in the backyard, it would be a good idea of launching a set of things you need to build a feeder – “Bird feeder DIY kit.” It could contain ready made wooden shapes, pegs, nails, tools, etc. Depending on type of birds, the kit could be different. Above all, the offer has to be visually and financially attractive. This way you can discourage your clients to build feeders on their own, and buy your product instead.

Paid product #2

Another product could be an extended version of your DIY kit. Create an upgraded package, where you can include a canned feed, and a guide about proper bird nutrition.

Now you can introduce product #1 and #2 as variants.

Paid product #3

Your client has a feeder now. They also know, how to feed birds and what to feed them… what are they missing? Any ideas?

In the end, the fun part is not to own these things, but to use them to… observe birds. During daytime, it’s not easy to do that. So in order to accommodate your customers, offer them a special digital camera, which they could install on the feeder and connect it to their computer. From now on, they won’t miss anything that happens in this little bird ecosystem.

Think about all the marketing opportunities it could bring!

You can start a YouTube channel with a live stream from your feeder. Stream in the preview mode or just upload interesting highlights from the whole live. Put the link to the free guide or a paid product in the description box.

See the pattern in the offer planning process? One product generates the need of having the next, more expensive one. Depending on your skills and how broad the topic is, you can expand the offer.

The final product of sales funnel

The final product can be the last paid product. It often happens that it’s price is much higher than other prices, and then we can say it’s a premium product. In our case, it’s just going to be a paid product #3. But the funnel can have an alternative ending: it could be paid access to valuable materials or subscription. This way you can make a steady income.

The role of trust

So now we have a complete offer. After potential client downloads your lead magnet, you offer them a product #1. Then they have to make a decision. It is a very important moment and there is a lot of things that could potentially influence their decision. Unfortunately, a lot of them is beyond your control.

So don’t think that your sales will go over the limit in first few days, weeks, or months. As we mentioned before, in the virtual world, it is much harder to measure the real worth of the product. People need time to consider the offer. In our case, the fact that we have a physical product is convenient. It automatically raises the authenticity of the offer.

In order to increase your chances to sell a product, you need to gain the trust of your customer. Trust is really powerful. You can build it by providing them with value in a free form (blog entries, free guides) and interacting through social media. A great way to build lasting relationships is email marketing. You can use it to create a newsletter. This way you can reach people, who didn’t make a decision about purchasing yet, and try to encourage them in various ways. However, don’t be pushy. Circulate around the topic, but avoid direct offers. Highlight the advantages of the product and constantly provide value.

The urge to buy

Another very important factor is the real urge to buy. In other words, the client thinks about whether they need the product or not. If you construct the funnel properly, they should ask themselves this question, when they saw the free guide.

– Well… what do I need this guide for? Of course, I went to build my own bird feeder!

And here comes the tailored offer: Bird feeder DIY kit

-Well… what do I need this kit for? Of course! I don’t have any materials or tools!

This is what decisive process can look like, in a simple version.

There are many more reasons why your client would need this product: no time, no skills, lack of experience. Unfortunately, it may turn out that there are many reasons why your product is unnecessary: it’s expensive, complicated, ugly etc. You need to be prepared for every problem, and create a special mailing campaign. People, who downloaded your lead magnet, but they didn’t make a decision to purchase the product, should receive messages, in which you would highlight the perks of the product and resolve their doubts. It’s important to stay creative.

Price policy

The last factor that has an influence on your sales success, is the price policy. Your potential client could trust you, they need your product, but they won’t make a decision… because the price is too high.

There is no perfect solution. There are many ways to establish the price policy. It’s important that the price raises with each product. From the cheapest to the most expensive one. Everything else is your decision. If you can’t price the products yourself, check the prices of the competition. Of course, don’t stick to the prices religiously. But it could be the starting point. You can change the prices later. Don’t do it too often though, as your potential clients might feel uncertain.

Stage 4. Action

Your clients have come from many different places before they ended up here. Some of them had more doubts and some had less. Your task was to resolve all of them. It could have been days, or weeks. But now, buckle up! Things start to get serious.

After making a decision, the client should finish the transaction as soon as possible. The payment page should be simplified to the maximum and lead to the one particular goal. The worst that could happen, is the client who wants to buy the product, but in the meantime they… changed their mind. So don’t give them too much time to think. Payment should be as simple as a few clicks, without distracting forms or excess information. Remember to include various payment and shipping methods. Everybody should find the best option for themselves.

Finished sales funnel

So you have a sales funnel, that was made because of your passion for wild nature. When it comes to our bird funnel, there is a drawback: you sell a physical product. This type of offer has some obstacles. You need to find a supplier or produce them by yourself. Anyone can produce DIY kits, however, when you sell a digital camera, you need to find an external source. It begins a new series of problems (price, margin, fulfillment etc.)

And what if you want to build a funnel that sells digital product, which you can create on your own? No problem. Let’s prepare an alternative product offer for a sales funnel. The core remains the same: we focus on wild birds.

Alternative offer

This time we are going to focus on your photography skills. It is a great foundation for digital products. Here is our example offer layout:

Lead Magnet – “Wild birds in Poland” album

Use pictures you’ve gathered and make a digital album. Under each picture, you can put a fun fact about each bird type, or a story behind the particular photo. Tell people about your passion. Tell people about your passion and show them, what you’ve gained thanks to it (great connection with nature, stamina, etc.)

Paid product #1 – “How to photograph wild birds” guide

In this guide, tell your clients about the technical aspect of photography. You can talk about topics such as gear, masking methods, useful accessories, how to find a particular type of bird etc.

Paid product #2 – a training program on bird photography

Video training, where you can show how to work in the field. You can include the instruction, how to edit photos.

Here, we can end the 100% digital offer. However, you don’t have to finish the funnel yet. You can include one more premium product in your offer – practical training in the field.

Premium product – practical training

For the real wildlife lovers, there is nothing more exciting than the company of like-minded people. Positive vibes and sharing knowledge. Use that and organize practical workshops in the field. It will give you the opportunity to show people like you, what you can do. You can even host a camp, where you can teach people photography step-by-step, for a several days.

This sales funnel is doable

Our ornithology example sounds made up? Ever heard about Dr Andrzej Kruszewicz, who is very well-known among certain groups. He is an ornithologist, who can speak about the world of birds for hours. He is a great example, that people with passion will always find recognition. What’s important is to put your whole heart into it. Talks of Dr Kruszewicz can be bought online in the form of book or CD.

Let this example be an inspiration for you to search for your own products and create your own sales funnels. Possibilities are endless. You can say that there is a funnel for every person. Everyone has their unique knowledge and approach. The most important thing is to find people, who can see value in it. Everything else is just a formality.

Go to the entry to find out more: Types of sales funnels >>

Posted on by — Leave a comment

11 ideas for lead magnet and how to grow your email database

Email marketing is the most effective way of reaching your client directly with your offer. Moreover, it works, because you can be sure that the emails go to people who are interested in the topic. They gave you their email address for a reason – so you can provide them with value they expect. There are a number of ways to generate leads which may be good for your business. So get inspired by 11 ideas for lead magnet, which will draw attention and help you to attract new customers.

What is Lead Magnet?

Before we get into listing examples, let’s start from the beginning. In order to build an email list, you need a strong lead magnet, which would draw the attention of people who are interested in the topic. Lead Magnet works like a catch on a client. It brings unpaid value in exchange for the email address.

Instead writing “join the newsletter,” write “download a free guide on how to increase your sales.” In both cases the person goes to the email list, but the second option will bring you way more email addresses. Quid pro quo.

If you create a lead magnet, you can be sure that the people who sign up are truly interested in your product. They become your potential clients. We can honestly say that email marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach your client directly with your sales content. And, as you know, every client is precious to your company.

What should Lead Magnet contain?

Above all, you need to answer yourself, what problem your audience has and what solutions they look for. Your Lead Magnet has to solve a particular problem your readers have. Lead Magnet doesn’t have to attract everyone. It’s job is to attract a group of people that are interested in your product. Only that way you can get a high conversion rate.

What are the qualities of a good lead magnet?

  • Solves a problem

  • Promises to solve a particular problem

  • It’s concise and has a focus on details

  • Contains value

  • It’s delivered to the recipient directly

  • It shows expert knowledge of the author

11 ideas for Lead Magnet

Lead magnets can be divided to useful, which solve a particular problem. It can also be a tool like a calendar. Another type is educational Lead Magnets, where you teach the audience and provide them with valuable information. They make you look like an authority in the field. There are also funny lead magnets, that provide mostly entertainment.

1. Checklist (control list)

List built from several steps, which help you to check your actions concerning a particular topic. The list is constructed the way you can check off the things you already did and what is still left to work on. It is a list of the most important steps, which you have to take to achieve something. By using such list, you can organize your business strategy. It is one of the best lead magnets, as it is fast to prepare for you and easy to use for the recipient.

2. Ready-made template

Templates make work easier to organize. All it takes is to create relevant spaces for the client to fill in with their own text or ideas. It could be a collection of email templates for a number of occasions. For example: email you need to prepare when the subscriber joins the list, how to encourage them to read the articles on the blog, etc.

3. Courses

Free courses can help you to create a good relationship with the participants. Establish the topic of a course and divide it into individual lessons. Lead magnet doesn’t have to be a product that the client gets in full version immediately. Instead, they can be getting a series of lessons over a certain period of time. This way, the person who takes the course gets an email everyday and gets familiar with the material. After the course is over, you can still maintain the relationship with the subscriber, by sharing your knowledge. Eventually, they will purchase your product and become your customers.

4. Calendar/Planner

Create a calendar with important dates, that could allow users to plan their actions. Calendars turned out to be useful in many business fields.

It could also be a planner, where you can put suggestions on what to post on social media. You could put there things like content ideas, suggest, what images to use depending on the season etc. It’s a useful tip on what to do and when.

For example, create a calendar for March, April, and May. Let’s say you run an e-commerce business. So you put all the important dates connected with this field in it. You can guide people on how to use that knowledge to increase the sales in their online store.

5. Webinar

Organizing a webinar is a great example of lead magnet. This way you offer a client much more. Webinar is a live meeting where you talk about the specific subject, or a problem. Participants can ask questions during the meeting, if they don’t understand something or have doubts. Give your audience a possibility to sign up to the webinar, as a part of subscription. You can sens the link to a webinar directly to their email address. The link would take them to a website of the webinar host. This way you get the email address of your potential client and you can inform them about any upcoming events.

6. Coupons and promo codes

You run an online store? Then it can be a particularly good option for you. All you need to do is to prepare a discount code and put a banner on your website. It could be a crucial part of the decision making process for the person who just looks at the products on your store. They will gladly use promo code and make a purchase. Congratulations, you’ve just made a new client and a new subscriber at the same time.

7. Quiz

One of the most entertaining ways of creating a lead magnet. Who doesn’t like quizzes? You’ve probably encounter this form numerous times, and you solved it out of curiosity to find out something about yourself. You can, for example, prepare a quiz titled “How much do you know about social media advertising.” Quiz contains a number of questions, and the user finds out the answer by entering their email address. This way you receive their answers and find out what is their weak spot. While you collect their email addresses, you can prepare interesting materials for them, which can help them to develop further in their field.

8. Trial version

Software is your product. It doesn’t matter if it’s email marketing software, e-commerce software, or a salon managing software. As you see, you can offer a trial version in a lot of cases. This way you can offer your potential clients to try your program. The user can use the full version of your system for, let’s say, 30 days. Limit the in formation you collect about the trial users to the minimum. Name and email address are enough to get familiar with the system. If the user doesn’t purchase your product after the trial period, don’t worry. Prepare a series of emails, ask for opinion about the software, guide the potential client, by showing them your offer until they become your clients.

9. E-book/Reports

E-book or guide. It’s all about creating a valuable and essential knowledge. It could be a guide on how to create an ad on Facebook, how to prepare a newsletter, or what are free ways of promoting an online store. Find out what could interest your audience.

Reports, which present data on a particular subject, have a huge value. They can be created based on data, statistics, or research studies. If you’re interested and you want to know, what changes happen in the field of our interest, you need to know what you should prepare for.

10. PDF version

When you prepare a report or a guide you can put a small part of it on your blog. Then put a sign-up form below. After signing up, the subscriber can see the whole article. This way, the person who is interested in the topic, will give you their email address, as they will be curious to read the whole thing.

You can also gather the most popular articles from your blog and save them in a PDF format. This way, you give the reader the opportunity to download blog entries in a PDF format in exchange for email address.

11. Free consultation

It allows you to be in a direct contact with your client. If a person wants to consult a specialist in order to see the offer, it means that they are close to making decision. You can offer a free consultation, as it is the best opportunity to show the best side of you and build a lasting relationship with a person who might become your client.

Your free product has to be valuable and substantial. Only then you will attract new customers. The ideas from this article will surely help you to build your mailing database. Adjust them to your business field and create products.

Go to the entry to find out more: Types of sales funnels >>