In yesterday’s post, you learned about what a funnel is.
And then I promised you that I’ll be doing another post, a sort of continuation, on how to optimize each stage of your funnel so that you can get an 8x increase in your results (sales, leads, growth, etc.).
I also made you understand that every business has a default, natural sales funnel – and that is your current sales process.
So, if you want to go from just doing business the “normal” way to using consciously optimized sales funnels, then this post is for you.
Now let’s go back to the basic funnel structure.
It has 3 stages: awareness (top of funnel), evaluation (middle of funnel) and conversion (bottom of funnel).
In order to optimize your sales funnel as a whole, you need to optimize each stage individually – the offers, the messaging, copy, etc.
So let’s start from the very top.
How do you optimize the top of your funnel (for massive awareness)?
Generally, the top of your funnel is where people get to know about you; where they become aware of your brand and, perhaps, what you do.
Depending on the kind of funnel you choose to use and the steps involved, the top of your funnel could either be (but not limited to) gated or ungated content.
By gated content, I mean a piece of value that they have to enter their email address, or any other details you require, before they can access. And ungated content means content they can access without having to do anything.
Ungated content could be a blog post, a video, a social media post, an advert, etc.
Gated content could be a webinar, a video, templates, tools, anything your dream customers would jump at.
Where you use ungated content, the content itself serves as the awareness mechanism. But where it’s gated content, whatever brought them to that “gate” in the first place, or the gate itself, serves as the top-of-funnel piece.
Whatever item or tool you choose to be at the top of your funnel, you know that its job is to create awareness for your business; it’s where you get a lot of eyeballs on your business.
You want to ask yourself: what is my audience/dream customer most interested in? What are they going through right now? What’s the one thing they’ll absolutely love to know? What do they want badly?
Answering these questions should inspire you when coming up with an awareness offer.
Whatever you come up with, your goal is to put it in front of as many people as possible.
You can do this either organically, by hustling your way into the front of as many people as possible, or by paying whatever platform that works for you to show your offer/content to even more people than you could ever reach organically.
It’s simple: to double the result you get at this stage, you simply have to double the number of eyeballs that get on your offer. If the offer is great and irresistible (an epic video, a life-changing blog or podcast, etc), then you’ll more than double your results here.
How do you optimize the middle of your funnel (to hack evaluation)?
The middle of your funnel is where stuff begins to get interesting.
This is where you convert those many eyeballs you attract at the top of your funnel into traffic you own.
I see a lot of great business owners and marketers struggle because they don’t have a system of converting the awareness they’re getting into assets they own.
If someone is in an evaluation stage with your business, you want to control what happens there; you don’t want to just allow them evaluate you and simply decide to buy from you or not; you want to offer them something (called a “lead magnet”) that will make them give you their contact details (and permission to contact them) in order to get it.
If gated content is already at the top of your funnel, then it’s fine; that’s combining awareness and evaluation into one step. If not, then it’s time to put up some “gate” to get leads.
The benefit is two-fold; (1) if they don’t end up buying from you, you can follow up with them later, and (2) if they buy from you, you can sell them more stuff in the future.
Just as in the awareness stage, to get great results, you have to first have a great middle-of-funnel offer, and then get as many eyeballs as possible on it – either organically or via ads.
The best way to advertise your offer at the evaluation stage is to retarget those who are already aware of you. This way, you force those who fell off at the awareness stage (or initial evaluation stage) back into your funnel.
You want your evaluation offer to be a continuation of what gave you the awareness in the first place. You don’t attract someone with muscle building information then offer them a voice training lead magnet.
Ideas
Other than content like video, great lead magnet (middle-of-funnel offers) can be a downloadable report or eBook (most popular), downloadable tools (checklists, templates, cheat sheets, etc.), a coupon code or discount (for eCommerce), a physical product, a case study, a free trial (for software) a low-cost trial (for membership sites), free consultation (for service providers), a free discovery call (for coaches), and countless other things!
How do you optimize the bottom of your funnel (for maximum conversion)?
If someone has come this far to know you and then check out your stuff (more especially given you their contact details), you want to do whatever you can to ensure they convert – aka buy from you.
There are several ways to optimize this stage to make as many sales as possible.
One way is to quickly convert them with a low-priced product; something they can easily pay for without thinking hard about it.
Another way to optimize your conversions here is to have a great deal closer…whatever yours is – sales letter, video sales letter (VSL), phone call, one-on-one sales presentation, a webinar, etc.
My suggestion would be that you don’t rely solely on your natural ability to close sales; find the best templates that are proven to work in your industry or for your specific business model, then use that, plus your experience/expertise, to create your sales script or copy.
It’s what I do; I don’t care how “good” you are at sales; once you’re my client, I work with you to create a formidable sales script!
Finally, you already know that the best way to more than double your results here is to get more eyeballs to see your offer. And the best way is to:
(1) follow up with your leads (via email or phone or however you contact them) with your offer, and
(2) use retargeting ads to bring back into your funnel, people that fell off at the middle of your funnel.
Remember that no matter what, only a smaller percentage of those that enter each stage of your funnel would naturally move to the next. Retargeting ads are the best way to bring them back from where they fall off into the next stage. Go master it!
Now let me ask you;
If you had a great awareness offer and you do all you can to get eyeballs on it, including buying ads, and you do the same at both your evaluation and conversion stage, do you think you could be successful?
I bet YES!
So…go do it. Go optimize each stage of your funnel and get that 8x result (at the very least)!
And sure, if you need any help setting these all up or optimizing each stage of your funnel, let me know in the comments below…or shoot me an email at me@oludami.com.
Talk soon,
Oludami
