The 4 Essential Steps Your Customers Need To Take For You To Make Bank...
It's a specific process that works... every single time... as long as you follow it
NO KIDDIN!
So, at this stage in play, you have a plan for three "bare minimum" pieces to be put in place.
- A Paid Offer.
- A list With A Free Offer.
- A Traffic Source.
And with these pieces alone, you can start making money with your business. But here's the thing...
You don't want a market with only one solution, for example... wedding planners (You're looking for a market with a bigger LTV = life-time-value).
Things like parenting, health, business, golf, pastoring, etc. You want customers who in a journey market. People who need ongoing help to make continued progress toward an objective... and keep on going once they've reached it.
This is the purpose of your sales funnel...
DEFINED: A sales funnel is the customers' journey from "NOT" a customer... to one who not only "IS" but also on "REPEAT."
Inside this lesson, you're going to learn the steps you need to take to create a beneficial (for your audience), profitable (for your business) funnel that contains the following pieces...
- FREE Offer: Which is the product you use to attract people onto your mailing list (AKA lead magnet).
- Front-end Offer: Which is a low-cost, high-value offer you use to turn subscribers into buyers (AKA trip-wire offer).
- Foundational Offer: This is your high-ticket, premium product (AKA core offer).
- Finishing Offer: (back-end offer) Which is the related product or service you promote after the initial core product purchase.
This path accomplishes three things...
- Attracts "qualified" prospects, getting them on your mailing list so you can follow up with more great value.
- Transforms them into "customers" who now give you their business because they know, like, and trust you.
- Turns customers into Repeat buyers because you over-deliver on your promises.
Piece #1: Free Offer
Your freebie "lead magnet" offer has two goals...
- To entice qualified prospects to sign up to your mailing list to receive FREE help to solve their problems.
- To provide valuable content that promotes your front-end offer (for a fee) for additional help.
And to those ends... your free offer must include the following characteristics...
- Be in demand. It must be something your prospects want. If you don't know what that is... do some market research to find out.
- Be valuable. It should be something you can easily offer as a paid offer, which your prospect will bite your hands off for. Something that will transform them from where they are... to where they want to be.
- Leads to the paid front-end offer. It should be part of the solution to their immediate problem, which leads naturally to the front-end offer.
Examples of free offers include...
- Reports.
- Checklists.
- Webinars.
- Templates.
- Cheat-sheets.
- Documents.
- Free trials.
- Lite versions of apps and software.
Next...
Piece #2: Frontend Offer.
As mentioned, your free offer should provide helpful information and point to your frontend offer for additional paid help. And you'll promote it within the emails you send to your subscribers.
- The frontend offer's paramount objective is to transform prospects into customers.
Which means you must offer a high-value, low-cost product (a price-point that's hard to resist). For example...
You might have a really valuable report or video that normally sells for $25-$40 (that others are selling similar for the same price)... and offer it for $5 or $10.
NOTE: Typically, you want to price it at ten bucks or less. - The frontend offer's second objective is to turn your customer into a repeat buyer.
And that's why it should be useful, but incomplete because it wants to lead your customer to your foundational offer.
Remember, if you're doing this right, your customer should be banging down your door for more solutions to their problems... It's just how it works.
Think of your sales funnel like this...
- Give them help ->
- Give them MORE progress towards solving their problem ->
- Give them ONGOING progress towards solving their problem ->
- Give them the MOST help! (The key idea here is "progress").
Because people are mostly fickle and forget how far they've come in their lives. Your job is not only to help them with their current problem, but also make them aware, they're making progress... at every opportunity you can
NOTE: It's mostly why 80% of people never finish what they start.... they think they're wasting their time, and NOT getting anywhere.
This brings us to the next point on the path to profitability....
Piece #3: Foundational Offer
This is your core offer, and it often carries a higher ticket price (such as $50, $100, and upwards).
This is a more comprehensive product, though your sales funnel should leave room to sell additional products.
In other words, your foundational offer shouldn't (and usually can't) meet 100% of your prospects long-term needs. (especially if you've picked a journey market like I suggested earlier on). Imagine me trying to teach the whole range of business, and mental health in one product... NAH, it ain't gonna happen. There's far to much to learn in one sitting... and you'll only become frustrated, overwhelmed, and end up throwing in the towel!
Think of a college education...
It's not one class - it's many - all making "Progress" towards a single "degree." Nobody gets an education with a single piece of curriculum or single resource... it just doesn't work that way.
And before we move on to the next piece, it's worth mentioning...
You'll also be offering additional FREE content to your audience. Because of its dual purpose of helping those who don't have a budget, while also promoting additional paid offers to those who do.
Piece #4: Finishing Offers
These are your upsell and backend offers, where you'll offer the most help to your audience and generate the most profits for your business. You'll strategically place these offers in multiple places, including...
- Right on the order form for your foundational offer, where you offer a related product, enhancing the use or enjoyment of said offer.
- On the fulfilment page for accessing the foundational offer, and within the content of the foundational offer itself ( I.E., on a recommended resource page).
- Inside follow-up emails you send subscribers. You'll want to send helpful content and promotional mentions of your paid products to this list as long as you're in business.
These backend offers may come at various price points, from low-cost add-ons to high-ticket offers. And in all cases they should be highly related to the foundational offer, so anyone who orders your core offer will also want your finishing offer. Make sense?
IDEAS: These offers could be a membership site, private mastermind group, coaching / group coaching, licensing, done-for-you services, etc.
So, how do you string all these pieces together?...
Examples just for you of how to do exactly that
We've identified four points along your customers' journey to receive help in solving their problems. You'll lead them through these four points via emails you send, as well as cross-selling within products themselves.
And since all the products are related to each other, it's easy for your audience to see how obtaining the suite of products will be especially helpful to them. Here's an example...
Weight Loss Sales Funnel
Can you see how this works?
And as time marches on, you can add more solutions to help your customers... as they make progress towards their chosen destinations.