When Is The Right Time To Build A Sales Funnel?
Ready to drive sales on autopilot? let's find out...
If sales funnels were the silver bullet they are often made out to be online…
You’d have set them up on DAY ONE of your business and checked out to live in the Caribbean - AMIRITE?!
The truth is, there’s a certain stage in business when a sales funnel is really going to come through for you with the GOODS - ie. increasing your income - without spending all of your life minutes on social media and live launching six times a year…
There’s a lot of talk online about scaling your business with a sales funnel, or driving sales in your sleep with a sales funnel…
BUT the reality is - that’s only going to happen for you when you have these INGREDIENTS in place…
A proven offer
You know how a recipe always tastes better when you’ve used the freshest ingredients… its the same with your sales funnel.
For a sales funnel to deliver… y’know… sales.
You’ve got to be working with quality ingredients.
That means your sales funnel needs to be selling an offer that you know sells and delivers great results for your buyers.
What’s that offer you LOVE delivering, that you know creates 5-star results for your clients and customers? ~ Thats your sales funnel offer right there.
What does ‘proven’ really mean?
Perhaps you’ve live launched and run your course live a couple of times before - you’ve had great feedback from your students and it sold relatively easily.
Perhaps it’s a live coaching or teaching offer that you’ve already sold and delivered tons of times … (sales funnel offers don’t always have to be ‘passive’ income streams)
Maybe it’s a digital product you’ve already sold 20 times through talking about it on Instagram… you’ve had great feedback on it and you’re ready to put those sales on autopilot.
Or maybe it’s a course you’re run beta testing on with a few early-access students.
Once you’ve sold it at least 10-20 times - you’re ready to funnel-up!
If your offer isn’t proven yet…
Run a live launch & deliver your offer live
Get as much feedback as you can
Keep making improvements to your offer, make it the BEST offer it can be, get know for…
A sales page that delivers... sales
Following on from my point above, you need your offer to have a sales page that you know… converts to feel-good sales for you and your buyers.
The sales page is super important because it’s usually where you’ll be sending your sales funnel subscribers to.
Once they land on that page - it needs to do a great job of communicating all-the-things about your offer and inviting them to buy it!
If your sales page isn’t delivering great results… it’s time to give it a glow up
Update the copy
Add more testimonials & case studies
Improve the flow of the content.
And then re-test it until you’ve got something that works
You're using a decent email marketing platform
For a sales funnel to deliver… sales, and a great experience for your subscribers – it needs to have half-decent tagging and segmenting that means you can deliver the right messages, to the right people, at the right time.
Most mailing list platforms can handle an email sequence BUT some are better than others when it comes to creating a sophisticated sales funnel because…
A sales funnel isn’t just a sequence of emails!
I have my favourites, but any of the platforms below will allow you to build a working sales funnel:
Convertkit - for simple, but effective tagging and automated rules
Activecampaign - for sophisticated rules, subscriber scoring and in-depth insights.
Flodesk - for pretty emails and easeful email build.
Mailchimp - on the higher subscription packages (although this is personally my least favourite because the interface is SOOOO clunky)
Mailerlite - for beginners, it’s cost-effective and you can build a fairly sophisticated sales funnel on the platform for the price point.
If you’re not on any of these - it’s not an exhaustive list, there are other platforms out there. But it’s also SO easy to move your mailing list to another platform if you need to.
You're actively marketing & growing your audience
Your sales funnel is like a car…
You can build the best car in the world… 🏎
BUT… without any fuel… it’s not going anywhere.
In other words…
You’ve got to FEED your sales funnel
You need to FEED your sales funnel with consistent leads (AKA real life humans who love what you do and want to hear from you) - THAT’S what’s going to deliver the consistent sales-in-your-sleep you’re dreaming of.
So you need to have (or be able to create) a steady flow of new subscribers signing up for your lead magnets (and therefore joining your sales funnel).
Otherwise you’ve got a shiny new car (your sales funnel), but without any fuel you’re going ~nowhere~
Options for FEEDING your sales funnel
OPTION 1: Hustling your butt off on social media, running launches and challenges
PROS: A relatively quick win, a great way to give your mailing list a boost and speed up the process of taking your subscribers from discovering your brand, to getting to know you, to becoming a client or customer.
CONS: It’s ex-hausting and it’s a hamster wheel of churning out content that has a shelf life of a couple-a days
Option 2: Running ads
PROS: It’s a quick and low-effort way to drive sales… asap
CONS: 💰🤑💸 - and lots of it. AND ads are only getting more expensive owing to it becoming more tricky to accurately target your ideal audience.
Option 3: Sustainable Marketing
PROS: It’s sustainable and feels good! This approach is about having an intentional, hustle-free marketing strategy that hangs off creating evergreen, value-packed content that drives traffic to your website over time and helps your audience...
➡️ discover your [value-packed] website content
➡️ naturally flow into your sales funnel
➡️ and through to purchase - WITHOUT you needing to be present to drive every click, sign up and sale!
Oh, and did I mention this is how you drive FREE, EVERGREEN (repeat) traffic to your sales funnel?
CONS: It’s a long-game (but you know what’s not - hustle-marketing-burnout.. - been there!).
It could of course be a mix of all the above (for my clients it usually is).
BUT there’s one thing you definitely want to have set up - the sustainable marketing part - so you’re taking advantage of free, repeat traffic.
You’re ready to add a new, sustainable revenue stream to your business…
… well duhhh… obv you’re ready for more money coming into your business!
If you’ve got all of the above ingredients in your business right now, but you haven’t got a sales funnel… you’re leaving money on the table!
Wanna get your sales funnel fired up and delivering sales on autopilot, PRONTO!?
Hire me to build your sales funnel!
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