The basic concept of sales funnels

Traffic, i.e. website visitors, coming in from social media? From organic search? From paid ads? From direct traffic or referral traffic?

Sales funnels help channel all the relevant, incoming traffic to pre-designed and strategic funnels to help guide them through your buying process.

Your digital sales funnel could start with a free giveaway or a free trial. Either is intended to entice a first-time visitor to give up their email so you can contact them again in the future. With lead nurturing autoresponders smartly laid out, your funnel gets to work automatically with every lead who signs up. Eventually, sales happen.

If you’ve setup your funnel right, this should work like a charm. Sales come in and pipeline fills up automatically.

But wait. Why funnels?

You need a digital sales funnel because 73% of leads don’t even want to be sold to. What they want is to buy what they need to buy when they need to. Until then, your job as a business is to nurture those leads.

Do it right and your sales figures will fly like a bat out of hell. But then, why doesn’t it always work? Why do businesses still struggle to construct sales funnels that work like a charm? If it were that easy, anyone would do it.

How to build sales funnels that convert

It isn’t easy to build sales funnels that work. There’s a lot that goes under the hood. There are best practices you should be aware of when it comes to sales funnels. Here are some of them:

Funnels aren’t silos

Digital sales funnels are much like Lego blocks – you’d have to bring various elements together to make it work.

Usually, funnels start with landing pages where people opt-in for your mailing list. In some cases, you might have multi-step landing pages.

Then, you’d have a thank you page (or a confirmation page). Some marketers and businesses also use intermittent pages for upselling or to make a one-time or special offer.

Once people sign up at the top of the funnel (at the landing page level), you’d have an automatic sequence of emails that go out to every new subscriber. A different email sequence can be sent to subscribers segments, like qualified leads or users. Each of these email sequences is laid out with a dual purpose – to nurture, and to sell.

Your subscribers are led to sales pages or product pages from within your emails to bring about sales. Of course, you could extend that to all sorts of use cases such as using affiliate links to make sales or to have subscribers sign up for something else altogether.

While that’s the basic structure of sales funnels, each of those moving parts has to work together. Connect and integrate to win.

Be wise to use the right mix of tools, applications, products, and services to ensure smooth working for your sales funnels.

One offer per page

One funnel can’t service multiple offers. If you are making multiple offers like “Sign up for the newsletter”, “Download this ebook”, “join our facebook community”, and “Buy Now” – all on the same page, it’s not going to work.

Too many funnels don’t work as well as they should due to these multiple offers for a single funnel. When you add so many offers, visitors normally freeze due to indecisiveness.

Ads, for instance, are made for a specific audience with a single offer per ad. The same ad can’t have two offers, can it?

Similarly, your funnels have to be singularly focused on exactly what you want your potential audience to do.

For every offer, you are making and for every marketing objective, launch a dedicated funnel with the proper series of autoresponders and workflows for that funnel.

Copy, message and design do more than you think

The integrations and the initial setup is relatively easy. The design and copy used on your landing pages, your email subject lines, the email copy, and even the call to action button copy – that’s even more important.

Business owners don’t have the time or patience to think through the minutest of details when it comes to sales funnels. Meanwhile, marketers and entrepreneurs are in too much of a rush to launch campaigns.

As a result, sales funnel design and the copy used across the elements of the funnel aren’t given the importance they deserve. While it’s the combination of design and copy that actually brings in the money, most funnels today suffer from design and copy afterthought.

Copy literally sells. Like trillions and more in sales each year, for the last several decades. Writing sales letters should be one of your favorite tasks!

Fortunes have been made just thanks to copy. Align powerful and yet simple copy with design and that’s when you have a winning funnel.

If you depend on an average developer to help build landing pages, you’ll probably get an average result in terms of design and copy. Developers are not necessarily the best people to create beautiful designs or write high-converting sales letters. On the flip side, if you try to create the landing page yourself using popular tools, you’ll like face problems with design customizations, like aligning elements, and your landing page won’t look professional.

If you’d like an audit or to discuss your marketing strategy or how you can use landing pages and funnels to grow your business, book a call with us.

Data wins. Theories die.

Funnels… All fine and dandy but the fact that you could gather, make decisions, and glean insights from several data points on your funnel is what gives you real power.

When you use data, the decisions you make are not just based on conjecture, whims, fancies, or opinions.

Combined data sets result from regular funnel use, testing, hypotheses, and more. Top marketers and businesses have already caught on with the power of using data to run smart campaigns and smarter businesses. About 90% of top companies are already using and sharing data between departments.

In the case of funnels, most of the data you’ll work with lies in metrics that accumulate at the landing page level and then for your email marketing sequences.

Beyond that, most of the data from the hypothesis you’ll work with comes from the various (and continuous) A/B testing that you’ll do to test out various elements of your funnels such as ads, landing pages, email subject lines, call-to-action buttons, and others.

If you want to find out more about the ingredients in funnels that just work extremely well, download our Funnel Factor Report.

If you’d like to skip the download (or have already downloaded the report!) and want more help, click here to book an Action Plan call!  Or, click the button below…

The post Do You Know These Fundamental Rules Of Digital Sales Funnels? appeared first on Done For You.

What is Funnel Management?

Understanding Your Customers

Creating Compelling Content

Qualifying Leads

Nurturing Leads

Closing the Sale

Tracking Your Results

The post The Art of Funnel Management: Maximizing Sales Efficiency and Revenue Growth appeared first on Done For You.

The average website only converts at a little more than 2%, and that’s a shame considering just how much effort, resources, time, and investments are made just to get relevant people to visit your website.

Most visitors who reach your website, your landing pages, or your funnels don’t take any action. They come in and then they leave.

That hurts.

You might get 2% conversions (on average), but you need more. You’ll want a part of the other 98% and retargeting is the way to get there. It’s a remarkable way for you to reach out to all those visitors who’ve left your site without doing anything.

But wait… Does retargeting really work or is it a fantasy?

The average click through rate of a regular display banner ad is a little shy of 0.07%. Meanwhile, the average click through rate of a retargeting banner ad is 0.7%.

According to Invespcro.com, retargeted customers are three times more likely to click on your ad (and take action) compared to brand new visitors to your website.

Compared to all other digital marketing strategies available, it’s retargeting that gives an average brand lift of over 1046%, according to ComScore.

Convinced?

But wait… Here are a few basic steps you should take before you launch your retargeting campaigns:

Sweeten your original offer

Chances are that you have a regular funnel built to convert fresh, incoming traffic into customers. Your regular funnel is usually your first attempt to get new prospects to sign up as leads or to make sales. It’s likely that you already have an offer to get people to sign up.

But that’s not the offer you’ll make when you do retargeting. You’ll have to consider sweetening the deal a bit.

For instance, let’s say your original offer was X, you’d have to give X + Y away this time around.

Here are a few examples:

Original offer: Get 20% Discount
Retargeting Offer: Get Exclusive 30% Discount

Original Offer: Download eBook
Retargeting Offer: Get the eBook + One-to-one Coaching Call

Original Offer: Get a Free Trial
Retargeting Offer: Get Free Trial + Exclusive White Glove Migration

See what we are doing here? We are enticing visitors who already saw your original offer with an even better deal.

Build dedicated landing pages for retargeting

Most businesses and marketers point their retargeting ads to their original, main campaign funnels.

Big mistake.

You don’t want to send your retargeted traffic to the same funnels and landing pages since there’s no point in doing so. They’ve already seen your offer.

Build dedicated landing pages and funnels specifically designed for your retargeting campaigns in line with the retargeting special offers you are making (as above).

Use countdown timers

One of the reasons why most offers don’t convert (whether they are main campaigns or retargeting campaigns) is because there’s no pressure for your visitors to act. They normally think that the offer you are making is going to be around for awhile so they can come back to it later.

An easy way to apply slight pressure on them to take immediate action is to use a countdown timer for your offer, stating that the offer will end soon (with a countdown timer showing just how much time there’s left before the offer ends).

Countdown timers are known to boost your conversion rates by at least 3 times, as this experiment by ConversionXL proves, thanks to Graham Charlton of SalesCycle.

Duplicate email sequences and tweak

You would already have an email sequence (or a set of autoresponders) that triggers for every lead signing up for your original offer.

Take that autoresponder sequence, and tweak it a little (at least the first few messages to acknowledge the new offers you make with your retargeting campaigns).

Since you have a new offer that you’d be making on your retargeting campaigns, allow the first few email messages (like the welcome email) to reflect the exact offer you made for an overall consistent experience for your prospects or leads.

Test your retargeting funnels

You never know what works and what doesn’t until you start testing your funnel elements. Without A/B testing, you don’t have a way of know winghat works and what doesn’t. Just like you’d normally test your main campaign funnels, you’d have to deploy separate A/B testing workflows for your retargeting funnels too.

You can test out the offers you are making, the ads, the landing pages, the email subject lines, and more.

Yes, it’s another line of testing for an entire funnel (and your work only multiplies) but it’s worth it.

That’s how you launch retargeting campaigns, and yes, they mean more work.

Nothing worth pursuing comes easy, now, does it?

GSDdaily Episode 87

Today, we’re going to continue on the retargeting front. What we’re going to do is we’re going to walk through setting up campaigns from scratch. We’re going to start with a piece of an ad platform called AdRoll. Also, we’re going to walk through the building and creating banner ads, and we’re going to start talking about pixel data.

Now, yesterday, we introduced the following ideas

1. audiences
2. pixels
3. stepping somebody through a marketing or retargeting funnel, based on the action they took or based on the action that they were about to take

Today, we’re going to build on that and dig into AdRoll. We’re going to log into the platform and we’re also going to create some banner ads in Canva, and I’m going to show you a couple of just little tweaks, little things that I do to create the banner ads quickly, because a lot of design sucks and banner ads are expensive too, if you were to go to a designer and have them build a bunch of different banners. There’s a tool that I like to use. It spits them out really quickly. To get started today, though, we’re going to visit this article, Basics of Retargeting You Can’t Afford to Ignore.

The reason retargeting is so powerful is because, by and large, you’re never going to get a better return on ad spend.

Somebody has been to your website, they’ve watched some of your videos, they know you’re around, they’re aware of your brand, they’re aware of your products and your offers and all that other stuff, so retargeting is the quickest path to cash in terms of advertising.

The awareness is already built. They already know what you do. They’ve already investigated you to a small degree, perhaps, or maybe to a large degree, but your brand and your message are consistently being reinforced in their head every time they log in, they get online. Whether they are browsing the internet, they’re seeing little banner ads, if they’re on Facebook, they’re seeing banner ads and they’re seeing videos and stuff.

Your brand is consistently being re-reinforced. They’re being reminded of you if they did business with you and maybe they didn’t do anything or they haven’t done anything with you in a while. You’re always top of mind. You can think of it like if you’ve ever thought about buying a new car. Let’s say you want to buy a Tesla, let’s say. Every time you see a Tesla, it just jumps right out at you because you’re mentally aware of Teslas. You want a Tesla, it’s at the forefront of your brain. Do you know what I mean? You’re constantly looking for Teslas, you’re constantly picking up and spotting Teslas.

Now, retargeting works under the same modality, really. I mean, every time they start browsing online, they see your logo or they see your image or they see your banner, so it is always at the forefront of their mind with retargeting. Whether they do business with you tomorrow or a week from now or a month from now or six months from now, you’re building that awareness. You’re building that brand recognition in their head. The difference is you’re only doing it with 2,000 people or 3,000 people or 5,000 or 10,000 people. You’re doing it with a very small group of people, so you’re able to build that and channel that to a very small group of people.

Here’s just a fun little hack. In Christmas time, when ad costs go apeshit crazy when CPMs are three, four, five times what they are right now because Amazon and Best Buy and all the big box retailers, they’re all buying ads, and then, of course, ads are being purchased on a bidding model. What we do with a lot of clients is we shut off their cold traffic ads like halfway through November or so and we then ramp up their retargeting budget. We’re not attracting new people into the ecosystem of our clients, but we’re able to optimize the ad spend through the holidays.

The prospects of our clients, continue seeing the ads because we’re just doing retargeting. We’re just not welcoming new people into the silo if you know what I mean. We’re not engaging in awareness and branding campaigns through the holidays because that’s like murder, it’s just crazy, wicked expensive, but we are showing up for retargeting. Then in January, when ad prices just go through the floor because all of these big advertisers pulled out, we ramp up hard in January to the cold traffic and then we start expanding on the retargeting campaigns again. That’s just kind of a thing.

Advantages of Retargeting

Retargeting, what we’re going to do, on average, less than 2% of visitors are going to buy. Retargeting is going to let us engage with people who visit the homepage, who look at categories, who look at products, who add to cart, all of that stuff. One of the cool things you can do with retargeting is you can actually sweeten your original offer. If you want to give a 20% discount code or 30% or 50% or whatever, a flash sale, you can do all that with retargeting without having to engage them in any other way.

You can build dedicated landing pages for retargeting too, so the last chance offers a landing page that is only seen for retargeting. We’ve done this quite a bit where somebody will come into our world and then from our retargeting ad we’ll say, “Hey, this is the last chance offer,” or, “We saw you went to such and such page, but you didn’t opt-in. Why was that? What can we do differently?” that kind of thing.

You can use countdown timers, hugely effective, no matter what. I mean, just having a countdown timer on a page increases conversion. You can duplicate email sequences and then tweak those sequences. You can split-test different email sequences for retargeted audiences. It’ll be just a small variation of a cold promo sequence, but it will address the fact that this is the second or third time that somebody has been to a website. Then, you want to test your retargeting funnels.

AdRoll

What we’re going to do is we’re going to kick over first of all into AdRoll. What I want to do is I want to log into AdRoll, and I want to walk you through audiences and how to set up an audience so that you can install your pixel, set up an audience, and then go from there. Let’s go here. Inside, we have our pixel active, which basically means that the pixel is active, it was last received 15 minutes ago. Yesterday, when I told you to set up an AdRoll account and install your pixel if you did that, then you should have a pixel active right now. That way you’re collecting new people.

Audiences

If we go down here to Audiences, the audience is the most important thing that you’re going to set up first. Inside your Audiences, what we want to do is we want to … I have a number of different audiences set up. We have high-intent groups, we have website visitors, like all website visitors, we have a Facebook audience, an Amazon audience, a funnel audience, an email audience, a promoter product audience.

Just to see what this is, what the funnel audience is if somebody has been to the website and the URL that they’ve visited has the word funnel in it, then they get dropped in this audience. Well, what that lets us do is have a very specific silo of people, a very specific group of people who are only seeing funnel creative. The same goes for Facebook, the same goes for email or high-intent audiences or whatever. But how we do that is we would set up a new audience and the new audience that we want to set up, there’s a couple of different ways to do it.

We can do URL Visited, that’s probably the easiest way to do it, is the URL that they’ve visited matches Done For You. If the URL matches doneforyou.com, which is basically anywhere on the website, then it’s going to put them in this one specific audience. But let’s say I wanted to only have an audience for the number of pages viewed.

If somebody viewed five pages, then we put them in a different audience. Now obviously, if somebody went to maybe five pages of your website, they’re pretty engaged. They’re pretty interested in what it is you’re offering. Maybe they go to a sales page, maybe they go to a homepage and then a blog post, then a sales page and then a blog post, then a support page. Whatever that looks like, if they visited five pages, they’re pretty interested. It would make sense to show them a different offer, a different ad, right? Because they’re pretty high-intent.

Now, let’s say we’re looking at URL visited, and then we’re just going to go to Done For You, see what kind of page we got here. We are going to go to Solution, we’re going to go to Automated Profits, it’s just a webinar that we got running right now. Automated Profits, if you would like to register for it, I’m going to drop the link here.

Setting Up Audience

For everybody who hit this webpage, if we wanted to capture them in an AdRoll audience,

1. New Audience
2. URL Visited

You can see right now, we just started this webinar, so you can see that there have been four people. It averages four visitors a day which is nothing, but right now, that’s the number of people that are on this page.

Now, check this out. Let’s say we were to pull this out, so we’re just going to pull this out. On the Resources page, on average we get seven visitors. That’s pretty cool, right? Check this out. If we do doneforyou.com and then we just do a little hotkey, actually, we might need to fix that. We’re going to look at that page, then my audience name is going to be Webinar Registration Visitors. Then this is not a conversion audience. What a conversion audience is, is if the audience is the actual thank you page then the confirmation page, it signals a conversion, then it is a conversion audience. We’re going to keep this pixel for 90 days, we’re just going to go ahead and create this audience. That way it’s done, it’s good.

Conversion Audience

Now what we’re going to do is just to finish, to actually make that conversion audience, we’re going to opt-in here. When we opt-in, then we’re going to see the conversion page, which is right here. This URL is my conversion audience, this is the page that we’re going to be … We’re going to set up a new audience, a second audience. The URL visit is going to be this. Please remove HTTPS, okay. All right. This one is going to be Webinar Conversions, or I’m going to say Webinar Leads just so I know. Then this is a conversion audience. The conversion value is just a free opt-in, so we’re going to do zero, but if they were to convert, we can do 0.01. How long to keep a person in the audience, 90 days. Then we’re going to create this audience.

Including and Excluding Audiences For Your Campaigns

Now we have two audiences. We basically have our webinar registration page visitors and then we have our leads. Yesterday, we talked about including and excluding. When we wanted to create an ad, we would include everybody who landed on that webinar registration page, and then we would exclude all the leads for our campaign. That way, when somebody opts in for the webinar, we aren’t asking them to opt-in for the webinar again, we’re not wasting ad dollars in doing that. Then once the audiences are set up, what we need is we need a banner ad.

Creating Banner Ads

What we’re going to do is we are going to go create banner ads for this automated webinar. For banner ads, my best … Photoshop is one way to build banner ads. It’s an easy way to build banner ads, but the better way, the way that I very much rather building banner ads, is Canva. Especially for retargeted ads, and here is why.

1. Canva

We’re going to go into Canva and we’re going to create a Facebook ad. There are lots and lots of Facebook ads that we can … I’m going to go to Home. There are lots of Facebook ads, lots of different ad sizes and images and graphics, and all kinds of stuff that we can do, but if we start from a Facebook ad then what we’re doing is we’re basically creating a Facebook ad that we can use. Then, we can resize it. If we resize it, then we can create the six different AdRoll banner ad sizes that they recommend. There’s 970 x 250, 468 x 60, 728 x 90. There are different banner ad sizes that they recommend and we can create them on demand.

What we’re going to do, we’re just going to do this. We’ve got some nice images and whatnot around here. That one’s actually a little bit more complicated than what I was thinking. How about we just use this one, just for example’s sake. The ad that we’re going to create, Find Your Footing. All right, it’s running a little bit slow today.

We are going to do Automated Profits and pull the size down a little bit. We’re going to do 42, then Click Here to Register. From there, we’re going to drop in a new image. We’re just going to look at photos and see what they’ve got. Oftentimes, I use Envato Elements for a lot of photos, but sometimes they have decent photos here inside Canva too. If you have a pro account for Canva, then you can just drop in whatever. Let’s just see what this looks like. We’re just going to drop in this laptop. That doesn’t look very good, does it? Let’s see, how about this guy? There we go. Oh, that looks cool. We’re going to remove this one.

We can export this as a Facebook ad right now, it is in the Facebook ad size that we need, but what we want to do is we want to use it for AdRoll. AdRoll, if you Google AdRoll recommended sizes, then we have our recommended sizes right here, Digital Marketing Ad Sizes You Need to Know. For our image ads, there are six, like I said. There’s 300 x 250, 160 x 600, 728 x 90, 300 x 600, 970 x 250, and 320 x 50.

What we’re going to do is I’m going to pull this off over here. This is why I love Canva for these things. We have our base image here and what we can do is we can resize this thing. Our base image is 1,200 x 628. We are going to add a custom size, and this custom size is going to be 300 x 250. We’re going to add another size, I’m just going off of that AdRoll recommended images, 160 x 600. Then we have another one, which is 728 x 90, 90. We can do the same with all six, we’re going to hit copy and resize.

Now it is creating our additional image sizes. Basically, it’s creating those. Now we have a super, super, super short one. All we have to do now is we just click this and then we’re going to want to reposition the font and stuff, make sure the phones work and all that other stuff, but basically, we can drag this over, and then we can make this look a lot better just by dragging stuff around.

If we go to the previous one, here we have a tall one, this is called the skyscraper. This, we can just change the size and then we can put it wherever we want. We’re going to want to mess around with the fonts a little bit. Make sure they’re centered, they have a button or something on the image size. All in all, you can just download these out of Canva and upload them right into AdRoll. Apply the audiences that we just created, and then now you have a retargeted banner ad campaign that is going live, after their approval. Of course, they have to approve it.

All you do is you go into Ad Campaigns, you create a new ad campaign for your audience, and then you are live within a day. You already have your audience. It’s super, super cheap. You can start with like five bucks a day for retargeted pixels. You have your banner set up, you can start split testing banners and creative against each other.

For Questions and Guide

If you would like for us to put together a retargeting campaign like this for you, in Facebook, in AdRoll, where your banners are following people around, your prospects around online, they go to doneforyou.com/start, fill out a little application, schedule a call with my team and I. We’ll walk you through putting together an action plan, putting together something like this. I’ll talk to you soon, all right? Thanks, bye.

The post Retargeting Basics: Starting Your Campaign For Your Website appeared first on Done For You.

Sales and marketing teams love inbound marketing funnels. Do you? It takes all of the hard work of prospecting off your plate.

You are putting your best efforts into capturing leads through inbound marketing, but the results are disappointing.

Well, you are not alone; Numbers show that more than 32% of marketers believe they are going nowhere with their inbound marketing campaigns.

So, what can you do to make the most out of your inbound marketing efforts?

There is one recommended solution to this problem: funnels. Sales or marketing funnels can help you deal with your inbound marketing frustration.

What are funnels? How are they related to inbound marketing? What kind of success can you experience using funnels? Why are funnels your best option compared to other inbound tools and tactics?

By the end of this post, you will have the answer to all these questions. We'll also link to related inbound marketing and sales funnel resources to help you get a complete picture. So, let's look at how marketers use funnels as part of their inbound marketing strategy.

The 3-part Inbound Marketing Funnel Formula

To sell stuff online and successfully architect a profitable sales funnel, there are three pieces of the puzzle:

1. Your Offer – What you're selling.
2. The Follow-up – Your communication with your prospect once they're in your sales process.
3. Traffic – The people coming to your website or landing page.

The sales funnel is the first thing you need to set up, even if it's just a standalone sales page… Driving traffic to a sales page without a funnel wastes resources.

You want to ensure you get an ROI from your inbound marketing budget and consistently stoke the fire with new prospects to keep growing your business!

You get sales when you combine all three – traffic, your offer, and a follow-up process!

Read more about our exact sales funnel formula to drive tons of targeted, high-converting traffic to our business and clients' business in our brand-new version of the Funnel Factor report. No time to read? Please register for our on-demand Sales Funnel webinar. You can watch it anytime from home.

ToFu: Top of the Inbound Marketing Funnel

If you have a basic understanding of sales funnels, you would know that a top-of-the-funnel (ToFu) priority is to capture your audience's attention. This is the first step and most crucial part of the funnel structure. Therefore, top-of-the-inbound marketing funnel actions can bring in the most significant number of quality leads for your sales team to nurture and convert.

So, what does ToFu relate to your inbound marketing efforts?

You need to step up the game and invest more resources towards getting as many relevant leads as possible as part of your inbound strategy.

Optimized content

One of the best ways to achieve this is by focusing on content marketing. Create epic content that provides value and helps readers connect with your brand. Use search-engine-optimized content to attract many users through organic search.

Social media

Build a solid social media presence so that when you make an announcement, you get a higher chance of it spreading like wildfire!

Your content won't become viral from the get-go. You must first grow your audience, understand them, and create exciting content.

Customer experience

You will be amazed to know that more than 70% of all social media users will likely recommend a brand to their network if they have had a good experience.

This figure makes it quite evident how important it is to build strong content marketing and social media strategy to increase customers as part of the funnel strategy for your inbound marketing efforts.

MoFu: Middle of the Inbound Marketing Funnel

The Middle of the funnel (MoFu) is where you get to know different kinds of audiences through the ToFu.

However, this is part of your inbound marketing funnel process, where you qualify different lead segments based on their interests and readiness to buy. The leads closer to converting are often called MQLs or Marketing Qualified Leads.

Nurture and convert

After you've spotted the most qualified leads, you must nurture them until they convert into paying customers. This is done partly through automated marketing workflows but also through the active involvement of your sales team.

There are different marketing strategies that you can employ to nurture these leads. Here's an example:

Suppose a user has subscribed to your newsletter. Instead of just sending a welcome email, why not pair it up with a welcome offer or discount coupon? Or maybe add a free eBook download to your welcome email? Click here to get more ideas on how you can build automated email sequences that bring results.

BoFu: Bottom of the Inbound Marketing Funnel

This is the phase where the saying 'strike while the iron is hot' holds entirely true.

The customer has already gone through the basic steps of your funnel. They have shown interest in your product or service at the top of the funnel. They have gained all the relevant knowledge they need about the service, have been qualified and nurtured thoroughly, and are about to convert into paying customers. This is the most significant opportunity for your sales team to close the sale.

So, how can they do it?

Present an offer

Tempt the BoFu customer with an offer they cannot resist. You might have the best product for the user's needs, but – unless you can make an irresistible offer and present it in a compelling light before you lose the sale.

This is where the power of content, as part of your inbound marketing strategy, comes into the picture. By content, we mean all elements, such as graphics, copy, design, and everything in your marketing material.

Read this highly relevant article about how to create content for every stage of the buyer's journey as your incoming leads move through your marketing funnel.

Content is still King!

You may agree that creating a sales funnel that works for your inbound marketing strategy requires planning and effort. User-friendly content is not enough; you need to make a conscious effort to take action tightly related to the buyer's journey.

From creating compelling landing pages to writing effective web copy and posting on social media, every step you take must be part of a plan, your sales funnel, and an inbound marketing plan.

Don't forget – that marketing efforts generate three times as many leads at a 62% lower cost.

Creating A Funnel To Solve Inbound Marketing And Lead Generation

All we have to say is that succeeding in the game of inbound marketing requires sincere efforts, just like in any other field.

Creating an inbound marketing funnel could be just the piece you were looking for to solve the inbound marketing puzzle. Now, it is up to you to create a strategy in which you add a funnel that complements your marketing efforts and enhances your sales numbers.

Inbound Marketing Funnels: The Video Recap

What is an Inbound Marketing Funnel?

In the vast ocean of sales strategies, inbound marketing funnels have started to distinguish themselves as a unique force. While they might seem synonymous with sales funnels, they serve a different purpose. The essence of a marketing funnel is to engage with potential clients based on their familiarity and comfort with your brand.

The Three Market Temperature Levels

• Cold Market:
  • You will typically see generalized ads.
  • Promotions like downloading a lead magnet or signing up for a webinar will resonate with them.
• Warm Market:
  • Presented with slightly more direct promotions.
  • Engagements may involve signing up for sales calls, reading advertorials, or delving into specific blog posts.
• Hot Market:
  • These are the prospects ready to make a purchase. They will be presented with direct purchasing options and pitches.

Retargeting: A Game-Changer

With the rise of digital platforms, retargeting has become invaluable. For instance, if a visitor explores one page on your website but not another, this behavior can dictate the type of ads they see next. Similarly, email triggers can be set up based on which web pages they visited.

Our company's marketing automation is so advanced that we even receive Slack notifications detailing which page a user views. This immediate data can be a powerful tool. For instance, when I noticed that a potential client had visited the same pages multiple times without taking action, I occasionally called them to address any questions directly. This level of attention can make all the difference in the conversion process.

The Funnel Components

1. Your Offer:

This is the product or service you're offering, whether a coaching program, a digital product, a physical item, or something else entirely.

2. Follow-Up:

Initially, this was just email correspondence. Now, with retargeting, this follow-up includes ads on various platforms based on a prospect's interaction with your brand.

3. Traffic:

The potential clients who visit your web page and hopefully take the desired action.

ADA and The Funnel

The ADA model, which stands for Awareness, Desire, and Action, perfectly complements a marketing funnel's top, middle, and bottom stages.

• Top of the Funnel (Awareness): The goal is for prospects to become familiar with your brand, almost as if they're getting to know a friend.
• Middle of the Funnel: This stage involves multiple interactions. Prospects recognize your brand, engage with your content, and, ideally, join a nurturing database. They might sign up for more information, begin to trust your brand more, or even schedule a time to discuss a potential purchase.
• Bottom of the Funnel: This is where the offer is presented, and a prospect ideally becomes a client.

Remember, while some might navigate this funnel in hours, others might take years. Regardless of the duration, consistency in marketing is crucial. If you slack off, you risk being forgotten.

Crafting the Ideal Funnel

To create an effective inbound marketing funnel, focus on:

• Optimized Content at the Top: Content remains King. Engage with optimized content and maintain active social media interactions.
• Nurturing in the Middle: Convert prospects into leads, eventually leading them to the final stage.
• Presenting Offers at the Bottom: Lay out your offers clearly and compellingly.

To conclude, perfecting your inbound marketing funnel is the key if you aim for a strategy where potential clients come to you willingly.

The post Triple Your Sales Overnight with this Inbound Marketing Funnel Strategy! appeared first on Done For You.

TRANSCRIPT: In this video, we're going to take a look at a Direct Response eCommerce Sales Funnel.  Now, this is a sales funnel with sales pages and upsells as opposed to a traditional shopping cart like Shopify or Magento...

There are two ways that you can go about dialing in an eCommerce sales funnel for a physical product. So the first is going the traditional route and doing a Shopify store or a WooCommerce store or Magento, depending on whatever your poison is or direct linking right to Amazon, totally up to you. But that's more the traditional route.

If you are a fan of direct response marketing like we are, then you can sell physical products using a more traditional kind of sales funnel where you have a... you drive paid traffic to a sales page. Sales page sells, usually, are free plus shipping offer or a front end offer and then you march them through an upsell funnel. So this is a video that we ripped out of our course Funnel Formula and it's going to walk you through this direct response type of eCom sales funnel. And we're going to show you how all the emails, the exit pops, the upsells, the physical products tie into it. And then how everything is all... it flows together. So we're going to jump over to that snippet.

Now if you're going after a direct response architecture for your eCommerce Sales Funnel, which you're not using Shopify, you're using like a WordPress install with OptimizePress or some sort of direct response sales page with a video sales letter or you're using ClickFunnels, then we go Google Ads, into the item sales page. This item sales page has a video sales letter on it and then add to cart button right underneath and perhaps some long-form sales copy. You go from Facebook to the item sales page and this is usually a Facebook video ad. We're going to talk more about that in the traffic section and then we also send banner retargeting back into the item sales page. So they purchase, they get added to the cart, they go into Upsell One, Upsell Two, Upsell Three and we also send them to an ascension sequence to get them back into the upsells and downsells. And whatever they purchase goes into fulfillment.

Typically, we also try to do an exit pop and the exit pop usually has a free plus shipping offer or some sort of a lower ticket offer. Maybe if the quantity of the original sales item is eight, then we'll have a one-pack or a two-pack as an exit pop for free plus shipping offer or just a reduced fee. We're just trying to get that sale. We're just trying to liquidate some of those ad costs into a buyer because we know the buyer is going to bring back more revenue as they go. So we send them to an exit pop and maybe that exit pop is an opt-in or maybe it sends them to another offer that they purchase and then they would get kicked into the upsell. But we always try to exit pop something. And if they don't buy we send them into additional offers.

All right, wasn't it awesome? So you just got an inside look in my brain. Whenever I'm thinking about sales funnels, that is the kind of stuff that I geek out about. So if you would like to learn how to put these sales funnels together for your business or for your clients, click here to dig into the Funnel Formula course.

Or, if you'd like us to map out a sales funnel for your business, click here to schedule a call with us!

The post How A Direct Response eCommerce Sales Funnel Works appeared first on Done For You.

The newest type of advertising funnel is the Facebook Funnel, which gives you access to cold and warm buyers. Here's how to set it up.

Every month, more than 2 billion people are active on Facebook. That's a lot of people that could be in your Facebook Funnel. These users go to Facebook in search of something. Some come to connect with friends and families. On the other hand, some of them need information about specific products or services.

With this vast number of users, Facebook creates a great marketing opportunity. Facebook's average CPC (cost per click) is still low compared to other advertising platforms.

Facebook Ads, for instance, is one of the marketing tools you can use to reach your campaign objectives and goals, whether they be acquiring fresh leads or increasing sales.

For example, a sales funnel through Facebook Ads can help you create brand awareness. It can also aim to attract new leads or boost traffic to your business website (although traffic only is not a well-thought sales funnel goal). Note that Facebook Ads can allow customers to redeem your offers instantly. That means instant sales!

Ads can boost engagement between these customers and your business, too. Most customers are attracted to companies that respond to their issues and provide solutions. Therefore, you should take advantage of Facebook Advertising to keep customers updated.

How is Facebook Ads different from other PPC platforms?

When you compare it to Google Ads, Facebook needs to be approached differently. Facebook is not about buying impressions for keywords that people search for. It goes beyond that. It can target behaviors, demographics, and interests.

The truth is that most people will not make instant purchases when they come across your ad on Facebook. So, relax, do not yell at people, "Buy now!"

Instead, craft a Facebook Ads sales funnel. However, your funnel should be as intelligent and authentic as possible. By doing so, you'll be successful with Facebook Ads.

But what is a Facebook sales funnel all about?  And how do you sequence up the advertising funnel to convert more buyers?

What does a sales funnel (i.e., advertising funnel) entail?

Many businesses are offering the same products as yours. Have you ever wondered how customers connected with your business in the first place instead of choosing your competitors? Maybe you can do some research here and find the origin.

Take a moment and think of how customers found your business. It could be that you shared content from your site, a piece of content went viral, or a Facebook advert caught their attention.

Either way, there are some steps you can follow for people to connect with you and for them to notice your business. These steps include:

• Awareness in terms of engagement, tips, and sharing content.
• Consideration through videos, long/detailed content, and special offers.
• Conversion via webinars, testimonials, trials, and remarketing.

Then, there is retention and upselling by providing more value through consistent marketing efforts.

Having listed these basic automated sales funnel steps, let's now check out how to build your Facebook Funnel.

Step 1. Start Your Facebook Ads Funnel by Installing The Facebook Pixel

The first step is to download the Facebook Pixel and install it. Facebook Pixel comes in the form of a code snippet that you place on your site. Its role is to track the activities of your visitors on your website. This tool is potent in retargeting and monitoring traffic – you can't afford to miss it.

Apart from tracking traffic, your Pixel will collect data as well. It will do so even when you don't have any ads.

For any person who visits your website, the Pixel will track their activity. Hence, you'll be able to know how many people visit your site and what they do. Further, you'll learn of the interaction you get in your social profiles, and it'll timestamp prospects in your advertising funnel.

Do you need an advanced analytics tool with behavioral tracking features to map exactly what people do along your funnel's steps?

Is tracking visitors the only thing the Pixel can do?

Of course not! The Pixel will guarantee that your Facebook adverts are visible only to the right audience. Therefore, you'll be able to segment your audiences and utilize Facebook Ads in your Facebook Funnel more sophisticatedly.

Step 2. Develop captivating content for your Facebook Funnel

For leads to progress through your sales funnel with the lowest friction possible, you must facilitate the leads' journey with compelling content. There are different content needs for each stage of the Facebook Ads sales funnel. Read this post about how to create the right content.

It would help if you contented specifically for different audience segments. For example, how you address cold traffic differs from warm leads. Promote your top-ranking content to cold audiences and narrow it down to problem-specific solutions as you start to define the interests and behaviors of hard leaders.

Apart from installing the Pixel and creating some content, you should create epic content. Read this post on how captivating content will undoubtedly attract people's attention.

Step 3. Concentrate on warm audiences

About warm audiences, audiences that know your brand and have indicated that your product might be a good fit for them are audiences that you could advertise directly to.

You can start with your warm audiences. Add them as custom audiences in Facebook Ads and include them in your marketing campaigns.

Here's a video about custom audiences and how to create them to serve your Facebook Funnel.

Here, you can try a few things. For instance, you can send people directly to your product page. Then, see what trend your conversion rate takes. Or maybe send them to a limited-time offer page. As a result, you'll note that certain products yield incredible results – especially when aiming for an intuitive low-price purchase.

Nevertheless, you shouldn't take the same approach with your products - specifically if they are expensive and people know little about them. Typically, people won't buy spontaneously, so running a campaign that sends traffic directly to your sales page won't help your bottom line. Instead, it could consume your advertising budget in an instant.

What you can do instead is what we describe in this article: create a Facebook Ads sales funnel. And in the next section, we will explain how that looks.

Step 4. Attract similar audiences

So, you have installed the Facebook pixel and have created unique content for every step of the funnel. You have also separated warm leads as custom audiences.

Now, it's time to use lookalike audiences to reach out to a larger group of people on Facebook.

You can use your custom audience data to classify visitors and build lookalike audiences. Read this guide to learn how to make these expanded yet targeted audiences.

See the power of similar audiences? Users in the new audience will have similar interests and attributes to those already buying and interacting with you. Facebook knows the characteristics of your buyers (from your custom audiences) and can expand this group to include more people with similar demographics, interests, and behaviors (lookalike audiences).

Now, to paint the picture, your Facebook Funnel should look like this:

EXAMPLE OF A FACEBOOK ADS SALES FUNNEL

Top of Funnel

Cold traffic to your epic content coming from basic demographic and interest targeting.

Middle of Funnel

Warm traffic to conversion-optimized content that provides a solution.

Traffic is coming from custom audiences that have already visited your pages.

Bottom of Funnel

Hot traffic to a conversion-optimized product or sales page.

Traffic is coming from lookalike audiences and has the purchase as an objective.

This indicative Facebook Ads sales funnel will help convert cold traffic into warm leads and buyers.

But is one more step in the Facebook Ads sales funnel missing?

Step 5. Focus on retargeting

If you stopped in our previous step, you would miss out on a great opportunity. Remarketing.

Most of the time, even if people have gone through your complete sales funnel, they are not yet ready to buy. Sometimes, force majeure makes them leave products in their shopping cart. And you don't want them to forget to come back.

By the way, we have a done-for-you cart abandonment email sequence readily available for you to download and plug into your autoresponder. This can work with your Facebook Ads remarketing to get forgetful buyers back to your checkout page.

Also note that, as some marketers say, people will see your products and brand at least seven times before they make a purchase decision. Buyers are also hesitant even to enter their card information.

This is precisely why you must add another step to your Facebook Funnel. Retargeting campaigns that will show ads to people who have interacted with your other campaigns. For example, you can set ads for abandoned carts or different bottom-of-funnel audiences, e.g., people visiting a product category page. Also, you can run ads for middle-of-funnel leads to inform them of new, exciting content you just published.

Here's a guide by Facebook that explains how you can create remarketing ads for your products. We wrote This piece about advanced advertising strategies to build a high-conversion Facebook Ads sales funnel.

It would help if you kept remarketing to people who visited your site but never made a purchase until they do or you decide you don't want to deal with them anymore.

Warm Traffic VS. Cold Traffic in your Facebook Ads sales funnel

Keep tabs on the inside of your advertising funnel. It is interesting... Mainly because your ad funnel starts with cold traffic. They're They'reen they see an ad or experience your brand.

Then, the advertising funnel warms them up, so ...

The Cold Traffic Progression

We build all of our advertising for our clients this way. There is always a set of ads that is specific to cold traffic.  Your cold traffic audience comprises those who don't know who you are. They've heard of you. In the Facebook world, they aren't even searching for the solution that you provide. They go to Google and type in a keyword phrase because Facebook traffic is interruption-based.

In the Google world, they go to Google and search for the keyword phrase you are advertising for or related to your business. So that is one of the differences between Google and Facebook and how they are similar in the cold traffic sense.

But this cold traffic person doesn't care who you are. They've never heard of your business because if they'd heard of you, they'd be warmer. You know what I mean?

Warming Your Target Market Up

The advertising funnel works because folks see an ad as a cold prospect. Then, they take some action... That action might be:

• Watching a video for 50% of its length, 75% or more...
• It might be clicking on the ad and going to your website.
• It might be opting in for a report for a lead magnet.
• It might be just full-out buying something.

But that cold prospect is, in their action, warming up to you... Warming up to your brand. So, that is what the advertising funnel is all about. When we warm them up, we can do additional things with them.

Now, The Transition In Your Advertising Funnel

So after they do something, they are no longer cold prospects.

They move past that cold traffic ad, and now they see a retargeted ad because they did something... They watched the video. They clicked the link. They landed on a page. They opted in. They bought something. They're They're cold. They are warm and friendly and see a different type of ad from you.

So, with Facebook Advertising, it might be a welcome back or shopping cart abandonment ad. It might tell them about a product they might be interested in that they didn't didn't purchase.

So, you can there carry out this retargeting campaign in many ways.  One of the things that we like to do is, once they move from cold traffic to warm to a retargeted ad, we also acknowledge that they are probably getting warmer or colder within our sphere of influence. So, we might have a retargeted ad that shows a lead magnet for days 1 through 4.

So if they land on our website, then, for these four days, they see something on our ... They see a Facebook  Video Ad talking about a lead magnet, and then if they don't do anything, days 5 through 8, we give them something else. Maybe it's a titlist, or we promote a different product or newsletter.

Then, on days 9 through 13, we do something a little different.

When Prospects Cool Off

With the understanding that they're they're colder. The longer they go without doing something, the harder they are getting. They are moving past what we do because a buyer is only hot for a concise amount of time. It might be a week, three days, or three weeks, but they usually buy and consume a bunch of stuff in the same period and then move on.

Think about your own experience. Let's say you're looking for a piece of software, like a video-hosting platform. Chances are, you recognize that you need a video-hosting platform like Wistia or Vimeo or whatever.

...So you do a little research and find all the companies in the market.  That might not have even been triggered by you internally but by an ad. Maybe you saw a Wistia ad and think, "Wait, it makes sense. I need to keep my videos private. So, who else has this technology?" Then" you do a little research, and then you buy. You do free trials, but you've decided in the first week or two.

How It Relates To Your Buyers

So, that's that's how buyers react. That's what's buyers react. So understanding that they're they're then they're they're then they're you...  And you can engage those customers differently through your advertising funnel with different ad types.

Now, Facebook is a little bit different when you're using these advertising funnels because:

1. You can do a lot with Facebook Video Ads.
   1. You get cheap clicks.
   2. You can do video view campaigns and then target people based on how much of a video somebody watches...  Which is essential for capitalizing on the momentum and moving somebody through this advertising funnel.

But it all returns to the targeted website traffic from the Facebook pixel. That's how you increase website traffic fast...  It's b. It's using paid traffic sources the right way.

So, on Facebook ... You add the Facebook pixel to your website, and then that pixel tracks:

• Which pages do your prospects visit
• Where do they go on your website
• What your conversion events are
• Ads send you leads, sales, and, ultimately, conversions.

So the pixel is essential in this entire makeup, and that's what up the staggered Facebook Ad Funnel process where you target different creative for:

• Day 1 through 4
• Day 5 through 8
• Day 9 through 13
• And so on...

We say, "Okay, if"somebody is brand new to this audience because of the pixel, show them this ad. Show them this ad if they're five or eight days old. Show them this ad if they're 9 and 13 days old."

Progress Lookalike Audiences Based On Your BEST Segment

It's all based on the pixel and the audience that that pixel creates.

And from that audience, we create lookalike audiences of our most successful segment of folks. So first, if we have no data, we're a lookalike audience based on the people who watch 50% or more of a video or 75% or more.

Then, suppose we get a significant population of people who hit a webpage or opt-in for a report or buy. In that case, that's the next lookalike audience we're we're we're constantly creating a new lookalike audience based on our best data set. Then, we're moving all ads to that audience. So, we're continually optimizing the audiences and letting Facebook know precisely who we want to get in front of.

So, all of this stuff is important for your advertising funnel. As protests progress, the ad funnel must align with your sales funnel. The sales funnel, your landing pages, your automated webinars, your VSLs, all of that stuff comes out to party in these Facebook ads. We like video a lot. We do a lot of video view campaigns.

DIY or DFY Facebook Ads sales funnel

As you try out different strategies and mix up sales funnel elements to create the perfect recipe, always keep track of your conversion rate. Conversion rate is arguably the best indicator of the success level of your campaigns.

If you want to run your business and you are not a DIY kind of person, then our team at DoneForYou is equipped with all the skills and tools to create high-conversion sales funnels for you, ones that start with Facebook Ads and end with filled-up shopping carts.

Schedule a call to discuss how we can create a funnel that serves your business goals and adds to your bottom line.

The post How To Create A Facebook Funnel For High Conversion Advertising appeared first on Done For You.

Your ability to create and manage a healthy sales pipeline depends on your proficiency in three diverse aspects: inflow, visibility, and execution. Mastering the pipeline is an integral component of the sales process, and an effective way to increase your revenues. Effectively creating and managing a sales pipeline that works best for your company helps improve productivity, efficiency, and ROI. Your sales representatives will have a clear understanding of every step, and they can visualize where each of their prospects stands and how difficult it is for them to close.

This article will help you understand the following aspects:

• What is a sales pipeline
• How to build your sales pipeline
• What are the areas of sales pipeline management
• Tips to optimize your pipeline to boost your ROI

What is a sales pipeline?

A sales pipeline is an overview of your entire sales process. It is broken down into several steps that provide a clear view of what actions your sales team should take to convert leads into customers. It helps organize and track your prospects, quota, and goals – as well as understand whether or not certain areas need special attention.

A quick view of your pipeline reveals whether your sales team is on the right track to achieve their quota, which stage the deal is in, how much investment is tied up in the process, and whether you have enough leads on board to reach your goals.

Done For You provides you with a custom sales funnel that helps you scale your business to a broader audience. We build and manage a sales funnel for the business that helps you get more leads, and sell more to your customers.

How to build and structure your sales pipeline

While the stages may vary depending on your product, sales process, and industry, there are five steps to follow when creating your pipeline:

1. Setting up initial contact

When prospects enter your pipeline, they are just your leads that may or may not eventually turn into customers. So, you first have to open up the lines of communication. To streamline the process, you can use advanced tools to automatically create leads in your sales pipeline.

Once you have the list of opportunities that you want to target, you next have to make contact. Typically, this involves cold calling or cold emailing the leads to see whether or not they are interested in your business, products or services.

Good sales pipeline management tools help you build, execute, and track the entire campaign seamlessly.

2. Qualifying your leads

Once you have made contact with your leads, it is essential to determine which ones are worth following up with.

Qualifying your prospects involves identifying how likely one is to make a purchase. Find out at what stage your lead is – just browsing? Interested in knowing more? Currently looking for a product like yours? Waiting for budget approval? Not interested at all?

Create a lead scoring system for your business that allows you to identify prospects interested in buying or are, at least, ready to talk to your sales representatives. Leads who are keen to speak to your sales team, respond to your email or spend much time on your pricing page may be considered qualified sales leads or SQLs. At this point, it is vital to take them to the next stage: scheduling and meeting.

3. Scheduling and meeting

Once a prospect becomes a qualified sales lead, they are likely to hear more about your solution from your sales representatives. At this stage, schedule a demo or meeting to talk to your leads one-on-one about how your products or how your services fit their needs. The objective is to push the unique selling proposition of your solution and delve into the negotiation process.

The key to presenting a winning sales meeting depends on tailoring the solution to fit the needs of the lead to whom you are pitching.

4. Create a proposal

At this stage of your sales pipeline, you have a better understanding of what a given prospect is like, and how much ROI you can earn. Leads have either received your sales proposal or you are preparing to send one very soon. You can use Done For You. Sales funnel to create automated, ROI-based sales copy that can convert a higher number of leads into sales.

Often prospects get stuck at this stage. This may be due to several reasons – perhaps the lead is awaiting approval, or he is still looking around for other solutions. Whatever be the case, it is better to have activity attributes integrated into your sales pipeline to see how long the prospects remain in each stage, and when is the last time you have made contact with them. This will help you identify bottlenecks if any, and brainstorm unique ways to optimize the sales process.

5. Closing

 It is not surprising that your prospects need a number of follow-ups before you can close the deal. In most cases, it takes more than five follow-ups to close. This means that your opportunities can get stuck at any stage if you are not persistent and unique.

By the end of your sales pipeline, every lead is either closed won or lost. If everything goes well as planned, the deal is closed, and you have a new customer. If the sales process fails, move to the closed-lost stage and clear out the dead prospects from your pipeline.

3 ways to manage your sales pipeline

There are three different aspects of effective sales pipeline management – inflow, visibility, and execution.

We will now discuss the challenges of each stage, and how to overcome the same to streamline the sales process, and increase revenues.

Image credit: pipedrive.com

1. Build a consistent lead inflow

Often sales reps miss their quotas because they do not have enough prospects down their pipeline. They are also not clear of how many opportunities they actually need to hit their number. To overcome the challenge, it is vital to monitor the trends in your lead inflow. Keep a comprehensive track record of your sales team’s pipeline, including both opportunity count and value. Take a bigger picture into count so that you can stay ahead of product, market, and seasonal trends.

It is also important to analyze what actions drive pipeline inflow. New product launches? Out-of-the-box marketing campaigns? Does the period of higher opportunity inflow correspond with higher sales rep activity? Getting answers to these questions will help match input with output.

Next, understand the opportunity coverage needs for each of your sales representatives. What is your sales rep workload? How many leads are they expected to generate? How many leads do they need to be successful? Finally, create a sales process that helps you have a consistent supply of leads through every stage of your sales pipeline.

2. Develop pipeline visibility

The challenges of your sales team do not end with having a steady inflow of opportunities. They continue to face the same in cases where the numbers do not reflect reality, or no one knows what a good sales engagement process involves.

Lack of consistency is one of the biggest roadblocks to pipeline visibility. To overcome this and attain better visibility through your sales pipeline, it is crucial to define quality. Compare all closed-won and closed-lost prospects, and track the patterns from opening to closing a deal.

Use these patterns to develop a framework for your sales representatives to determine the quality of an opportunity when it hits the pipeline.

Once you have defined the characteristics of good-quality prospects, it is vital to develop guidelines for how the leads should be dealt with. These guidelines should be incorporated into the daily routine of the sales reps, which will help solidify the sales process as well as aid in monitoring and analyzing performance.

3. Execute and seize opportunities

 Now that you have resolved the challenges of pipeline inflow and visibility, you should start seeing a boost in sales when your sales reps are able to seize opportunities and execute them well.

They should know how to prioritize opportunities, and likewise, make opportunities often and early. Better execution on the pipeline will not only help improve overall productivity but will also give you more free time to focus on what you are best at.

Tips to optimize your sales pipeline

Once you have successfully set up your sales pipeline, it is important to optimize it and clean it often to ensure improved opportunity inflow, better pipeline visibility, and smart execution for higher closed-won deals. Here are some valuable tips for you:

• Make sure your entire sales team has a clear understanding of your pipeline stages
• Set reminders for regular and timely follow-ups
• Communicate your expectations and actions for all stages
• Automate tasks to streamline and save time
• Perform regular sales pipeline reviews

No matter what are you are selling, having a sales pipeline can help increase your revenue. A well-designed sales funnel can help boost customer engagement and maximize profitability.

The post Ultimate Guide To Effectively Creating And Managing A Sales Pipeline appeared first on Done For You.

Retailers, SaaS platforms, service providers and practically any type of business that does online marketing is gathering ideas and preparing to launch unique offers. So, it makes sense that you’ll be looking for Black Friday or Cyber Monday ideas to promote your products and services.

In the year 2017, Black Friday deals racked up $5.03 billion in online sales. Out of this, $2 billion in sales were from mobile devices alone according to Ingrid Lunden of Techcrunch .

Black Friday — and the subsequent set of days around it, including Cyber Monday 2018 — are huge for both retailers and consumers each year.

For retailers, Black Friday sets the pace for the rest of the holiday season in November and December. It’s also a great time for online retailers to rack up their holiday says and make the most of this season.

Needless to say, it’s the time of the year when consumers just don’t stop buying. As a business — Black Friday followed up by Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year promotions — are incredible opportunities to make sales.

Use the holiday season and your Black Friday promotions to boost your brand image, generate leads, make sales, and more.

Here are some Black Friday Promotion Ideas for 2018 (with examples):

Make a Splash on Social Media

If you’ve never really used Social Media as much as you’d like (or if you just a wee bit shy), Black Friday (and the rest of the days in the holiday season) are amazing opportunities to step into the holiday frenzy and do your bit. Here are a few things you could do with social media.

• Black Friday and the following holiday season is a great time to launch contests, sweepstakes, or giveaways. Shown above is an example of a giveaway by Gopher Wood Guitars
• Create a short talking head video (shoot it with your smartphone) wishing everyone well for the holidays and share it on your social media channels. If you have a team, you can have your team members shoot short videos too (more videos, more impact).
• Pull back the curtain and shoot videos (or take photos) to let the world know what you’ve been working on during the holidays: Workplace all decked up? The nitty-gritty of how you’ve been planning your holiday campaigns?
• Create a buzz on social media building up the tempo for a special gift you’ve created for your existing (and potential) audience on Social Media.

Make your social media accounts sparkle with the spirit of the holiday season. Let the world know that you are happy, kicking, and rolling. Just the positivity alone is enough to give you some traction you didn’t have before.

Tweak Your Existing Assets, Ads, & Landing Pages

Marketing online is all about relevance. If it’s a Black Friday promotion you are running, it helps if your ads and landing pages specifically state that it’s a Black Friday deal.

You might also want to tweak your assets, ads, landing pages, and brand assets (like your logo) to reflect the holiday season.

Just by taking time to let your ads and landing pages be a little more colorful and in line with the spirit of the occasion, you’ll see spectacular results without really overhauling your entire marketing process (including ads, landing pages, and sales funnels).

See what Canva does during Christmas:

Similarly, you can tweak your ads and landing pages during the duration of your Black Friday campaigns, just to spice it all up.

See what Snapfish  — a digital photo printing service — does for its Black Friday campaigns:

Team Up For Double Impact

Already thought of the specific deals for Black Friday? Instead of just relying on your own network, potential reach, or your paid campaign muscle, you can think about teaming up with companies that serve the same audiences but don’t compete with you.

See what Career Contessa did for as a campaign by working with several other businesses to give its own audience a lot of value (worth $4000 in prizes).

New users looking to change their career (or start a new one) stand a chance to win various prizes that they can use to make a great impression — from Virgil leather tote bags to an Apple iPad.

Bundle Your Discounts

Black Friday season is all about “deals”, “discounts”, and “special access”. But then, everyone can give a discount. What’s more impactful is when you bundle discounts or when you tie up your discounts with a time-sensitive offer.

See what Vinitaly Wine Club does for its Black Friday campaigns: There are two discounts instead one.

New customers get 25% off on their Wine Club membership and another 30% discount on any of their 500+ wine collection. Also, there’s a countdown timer to make use of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

Give Away Gift Cards

Gift Cards are a smart way to increase brand loyalty, boost retention, and get some word of mouth, all at once. Black Friday promotions are almost incomplete without a campaign or two that involves gift cards.

Here’s what Eight Sleep does for its Black Friday campaigns. Instead of just giving a simple discount, they add a $100 Amazon gift card to sweeten the deal.

Gift cards help you add a punch to your existing campaigns. They also make for great offers for your campaigns. Don’t let the opportunity pass.

Pamper Your Email Subscribers

Your email subscribers are the most engaged (compared to anything else such as your social networks, for instance). Make the most of subscribers by sending them special broadcast emails. Send out an email sending out super deals exclusive only to your subscribers.

See what Incase does as a part of its ongoing Black Friday campaigns:

Need more inspiration for Black Friday Cyber Monday email marketing Campaigns? See these 8 awesome Campaigns You Can Steal This Holiday Season.

Looking for ways to make the best of Black Friday 2018, the holiday season, or your paid campaign strategy in general?

Get on a scheduled call with us and we’ll take it from there.

The post Impactful Black Friday Promotion Ideas For 2018 (& Inspiring Examples) appeared first on Done For You.

Profitable sales funnels are a real asset to your business. Once you have one (or more!) going, your sales funnels can continuously bring in sales, revenue, and profits without you having to lift a finger.

That’s the pipe dream at least. To get there, you’d need funnels that work really smart. There’s ongoing work just to keep those sales funnels working the way they should.

You need the right team, the right tools, and speed of execution.

Businesses — small and large — lose out on a lot just by doing various things that they shouldn’t be doing. In fact, chances are that you are killing the potential of your landing pages without even knowing it.

Here’s how:

Dependence on developers for landing pages

Your designers and developers are not marketers.

Good sales funnels demand skills from varied functions. You need decent design (see below), great copy, minimalistic approach, and the right technology (including tracking, analytics, and A/B testing) to power your sales funnels.

Plus, with all those campaigns waiting to be launched, you can’t afford to wait for months for your designers and developers to send in the completed funnels and landing pages.

None of that has anything to do with your IT department. They won’t be able to do it, they are expensive, and even if they did (while you don’t mind the cost), they won’t do justice to your sales funnels.

Fussing over design

Joshua Brewer once quoted:

“Socrates said, “Know thyself.” I say, “Know thy users.”

And guess what? They don’t think like you do.”

You can fuss all you want over the design aspect of your landing pages and funnels. You could spend millions (and we pray that you don’t, at least not yet) on design. Maybe you’d wait for a full year’s worth of back and forth with your designers, marketing team, and stakeholders.

All this fussing over designing, moving buttons and graphics a few millimeters here and there, worrying about background images, won’t bring you any results.

Good design can make serious money, there’s no denying that. However, given the task at hand and the inane urgency of a need for sales funnels that work, you should aim for decent design but maximum results (like leads and sales).

Making your opinions count too much

The big trouble with digital marketing? Everyone has an opinion about it (or aspects of it). Some believe that it’s SEO that we all should be focusing on.

Others swear by content marketing, content curation, and the good old inbound marketing. There are still others who spend years doing link building, guest posting, and what have you.

Having strong opinions on sales funnels can hurt your funnels so much that they are as good as dead.

Don’t waste time with opinions on your sales funnels when data tells you something else entirely. Let your campaigns run for a while, gather relevant data (with continuous testing), and then make decisions. It’s called data-driven decision making.

It’s brutal, but it’s the truth.

Focus on KPIs that really matter

Too many people focus (if at all) on metrics that don’t even matter.

How much traffic do I get to my sales funnels?
What are the number of impressions, click-through rate (CTR), and the Cost per Click (CPC) of your ads?

While each metric has a story to tell, they aren’t the ultimate metrics you should be concerned about. Focusing on metrics that don’t matter puts you on a path that only leads to a dead-end (or is it several dead ends?). These are metrics that don’t do you any good.

The kind of metrics you should really be concerned about — as far as sales funnels are concerned — are

• The CPA (Cost of Acquiring a lead).
• Number of leads at the landing page level
• The conversion rate of your landing pages
• The lead-to-sale ratio (how many of your leads convert into customers?).
• The average sale value, Lifetime Value (LTV) of each customer.

Those are the kind of metrics that give you the brutal truth about how well your sales funnels are performing. Everything else is fancy.

No business runs on fancy, ego-inflating metrics.

Sometimes we don’t realize that we are the main culprits for your dysfunctional or underperforming sales funnels or landing pages. Need a reality check? Get on a scheduled call with us, show us your sales funnels, and we’ll talk about how you can make your sales funnels work the way they should.

The post Sales Funnels: Avoid These Needless Bottlenecks (And Maximize Output) appeared first on Done For You.

Go to any e-commerce store and the store owners expect you to take action in this sequence (might not be in this order):

• Visit site
• Browse products
• Make a purchase

Bad news: You’ll make some sales, but it’s not a predictable occurrence and you’d never be able to tell just how much you’d make in sales or revenue in any given month (unless you are Jeff Bezos or his team reading this).

We see e-commerce stores making this mistake over and over where there’s just a store and products available for potential customers to browse.

We get it. You want to make sales. You want your e-commerce store’s revenue to soar. And, you want to profit from your business.

E-commerce store mistakes

You won’t make anything happen with the predictability and sustainability in revenue if you take that “show up expecting to sell” approach.

Here’s a simple fact:

People don’t sit with their credit cards in hand looking for something to buy. Even if they did, it’s not going to be your e-commerce store that they’ll be coming to.

You need a sales funnel for your e-commerce store

But why bother with a funnel for your e-commerce store?

Your customers go through this pattern before they actually buy:

• Visit store
• Browse products
• Read blog
• Follow you on Twitter or Facebook or Pinterest or Instagram
• Wait
• Wait some more – for the right time to buy or until they really have a need.
• One fine day, they buy

You don’t know when they’ll make a purchase and you have simple ways to be ready for them when they are ready. This process, from visiting the store for the first time till the customers buy, is called a pipeline or buyer’s journey or sales funnel.

That’s why you need sales, even for an e-commerce site. Here’s a simple, three-step process to get a sales funnel up and running for your e-commerce store:

Prepare to make an offer

You’ll need to make an offer to your potential customers when they visit your e-commerce store to make a purchase. Your customers need a compelling offer to consider a purchase. They have options so they need to be sure that they are likely to get a bargain (or much more value) if they purchase your products.

When we say “offer,” we don’t always suggest giving away “discounts.” We don’t even suggest coupon codes, deep discounting, or cutting costs as a way to do business or promotions.

But you can consider coupons if you have to.

Other kinds of offers could be a handy guide on how to use your product better, or a guide for your customers so they can solve a particular problem with the help of your product.

Deliver on your promise

For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume that you are giving a discount coupon for the visitors of your e-commerce store. Using popups, links, or slide-ins on your e-commerce site, you’ll make that offer.

Some of your potential customers will sign up for these offers through one of the many opt-in forms.

At this point, you’ll need a way to deliver this coupon code to your leads and the easiest way to do that is with email.

Use an autoresponder sequence to send out the coupon immediately on sign up, and you can choose to have a complete onboarding series (email messages) to nurture your e-commerce store leads later on (see below).

Following a lead sign up on your e-commerce site, you can choose to take multiple routes in addition to your autoresponder sequence.

One example of that is a flash sale email sequence.

Follow up and nurture e-commerce store leads

Even after your potential e-commerce store customers express interest by signing up for a coupon code, there’s no guarantee that they’ll buy right away (some will, most won’t).

That’s why you need to grow your email list — a full list of potential customers who signed up for your offers on your e-commerce store. The longer the list, the more predictable the sales figures of your e-commerce business are going to be.

How well you make this happen depends on:

• The way you generate leads
• How your autoresponder sequences are setup and how you do email marketing
• The strategies you use to attract, engage, and profit by using sales funnels, email nurturing sequences, etc.
• How you re-engage non-responsive subscribers, non-responsive previous customers, etc.

What’s your focus on your e-commerce store, right now? To generate sales right away or to generate leads for more predictable sales and revenue?

The post E-commerce Stores: You Can’t Sell By Just Showing Up appeared first on Done For You.

You’ll get approvals, licenses, and necessary permits. You’ll put in a huge corpus of cash as capital and you’ll borrow some more funds from leading banks and other corporations to start your venture. Then, you’ll then put all kinds of teams in place — for research & development; design; manufacturing plants; human resources and so much more.

At every step of the way, you’ll need help when you launch a major corporation – incorporation, taxes, manufacturing setup, research, design, etc.

There are processes and there are laws. There are certain ways to do things (depending on where in the world you are located). Even within the United States, each state has its own laws for business incorporation, taxation, labor laws, and others.

That’s how complicated it gets and yes, it’s serious business.

Underperforming funnels and campaigns

Doing digital marketing — for a completely online business or for a traditional business going online — is absolutely anyone’s game. There are hundreds of theories, thousands of different ways to achieve a singular goal, and varying levels of skill sets (depending on who you hire).

No matter how you are going to get to digital marketing in general, or your paid advertising campaigns or funnels specifically, you are bound to do those based on what you think, know, feel, or the advice you get. While not all of that is bad, there are a few myths that result in ineffective funnels and campaigns that bleed money.

Here are some of the mistakes that lead to underperforming funnels and campaigns.

Overdoing design

Countless funnels sit half-finished and many funnels are underperforming because of over-insistence on design. Looks might matter but what most people forget is that looks only matter up to a certain point.

Too many businesses fuss, waste time, and raise opportunity cost worrying so much about whether or not this ad looks pretty, or whether the landing page was designed well that they freeze to the point that they don’t even launch campaigns.

You need good design coupled with great copy to make your campaigns work. Overdoing it and wasting too much time, however, makes it even harder than it should be for you.

Too many cooks

The bigger the businesses the more people you see getting involved in a campaign and the more the chances are that the campaign won’t ever work as well as it could.

Too many people and too many ideas can only choke the progress of a campaign. While this is a problem everywhere, it takes on a whole new avatar when too many people become part of a digital marketing campaign. We don’t know what it’s about online marketing, but everyone seems to be an expert.

Even if people have a false sense of expertise, their suggestions (when implemented) can be disastrous for your campaigns.

Solution? Only work with proven experts.

Marketing stack? Anything goes

The marketing stack — or the set of tools you use — can’t be taken for granted. Some of the best businesses depend on tools only after using them, working with them, and testing them out. It’s, at best, a trial and error method. A chosen stack of tools (or a combination of tools) is unique for each business.

Some SaaS marketing tools have certain features that others don’t. Some will work well for your business and others won’t. A few tools — despite the hype — aren’t even good enough to start with.

You’ll arrive at the right marketing stack only after experimentation. Use first and decide later.

Build funnels and it’s over

Too many business owners and marketers tend to think that once a working sales funnel is up and running, the job is done.

In fact, work just begins at that stage. Funnels don’t always work the way they were designed to.

You might find out that your newly-built sales funnels are underperforming. Plus, there are a hundred variables that you’d need to look into to ensure smooth running sales funnels and ad campaigns.

• Ad campaigns themselves are never static. A/B testing and optimization is continuous work (even if you want to do it weekly). Multiply testing and optimization with the number of campaigns you run and you can very well imagine why it’s full-time agency work.
• With Facebook Ads, there’s the real problem of “frequency.” High frequency of ads would mean that way too many people are looking at your ad a lot more frequently. You will have embarked on Google Adwords Ad testing too. Plus, there’s the ongoing testing of ads on all traffic sources.
• Regarding your email marketing sequences or autoresponders, is the first email message going out immediately, consistently, and fast enough? If not, you’d have to work out the kinks either in your funnel, your landing page, or the email marketing provider itself.

Your funnels can never be “set it up and forget.” Ever.

How do your funnels look? Want to share them with us?

The post Top 4 Mistakes That Lead To Underperforming Funnels And Campaigns appeared first on Done For You.