The Ultimate Sales Funnel Checklist

When planning your sales funnel, creating info-products, and marketing them, you'll want to keep this checklist handy, so you can reference often.

The best way to find out what your audience will buy from you is to look for what they're already buying in your niche. So, do your research and answer these questions...

• What are the best selling products in your niche on Amazon, ClickBank, JVZoo, Udemy, and similar?
• What products have a lot of competition (a sign of a healthy market)?
• What are your competitors selling directly from their websites?
• What types of products are your competitors paying to advertise (such as, on Google Ads)?
• What type of ads do you see in niche publications?

You can confirm your initial market research and gain additional insight by taking the following steps...

• Read niche blogs to see which topics get a lot of comments and social shares.
• Review social media pages in your niche to see which topics are popular.
• Research sites like Quora and JustAnswer to see what questions your audience is asking.
• Reach out directly to your audience to ask what topics interest them, learn about their pain points, etc.

Now that you've researched, you can move onto the next step...

Initially, your sales funnel will consist of four main products, which include...

1. Lead Magnet/Free Offer: This is a valuable, yet free, product you use to bring people into your sales funnel (onto your mailing list).
2. Tripwire/Frontend Offer: This is a low-cost, yet high-value, offer you use to turn subscribers into buyers.
3. Core/Foundational Offer: This is a high-ticket offer and often the first place in a sales funnel where you start making a profit.
4. Backend/Finishing Offer: This is where your buyers become repeat customers, and eventually loyal, lifetime customers who buy from your repeatedly.

Check your sales funnel plans include a variety of offers at a variety of price points.

See if you can create a recurring income product, such as a membership site or other subscription.

Aim to create multiple high-ticket offers within your funnel, as it's easier to meet your income goals with high-priced offers versus low-priced ones.

And be sure each piece of your funnel naturally leads to the next piece of the funnel. Each piece should solve a component of the same overall problem. For example...

• Lead magnet: A free traffic-generation report.
• Tripwire: One module from a traffic-generation video course.
• Core: The entire traffic-generation video course.
• Backend Offer: Group or personal one-on-one online traffic generation coaching.

Now you need to create the products. You can either do it yourself, outsource, use a tool like ChatGPT, or start with PLR content as the basis to make the process go more quickly. Check the following as your create your product...

• Are you creating products that focus on helping your audience as much as you can?
• Are your info-products engaging to keep your readers hooked?
• Do your products solve a specific problem?
• Did you choose an "in-demand" product?
• Do you provide easily replicable steps and actionable content?
• Do you provide plenty of tips and examples?
• Did you make your product better than what's currently on the market?

Put on the finishing touches...

• Did you proof the content for errors? (preferably, you should have someone else do this for you).
• Did you polish the content to ensure you have a high-quality end product?
• Did you get any "beta" readers to offer constructive feedback?
• Did you select a compelling, benefit driven title?
• Did you get an attractive e-cover graphic created?
• Is the interior professionally laid out and designed?

Tips for creating an engaging and valuable product...

• Craft content using a friendly / conversational tone.
• Engage readers on an emotional level, such as by telling relevant stories.
• Sprinkle light humor into the content to hold your readers' attention.
• Use the word "you" far more often than you use the words "I" or "me."
• Add value by inserting relevant, attractive graphics.
• Offer tools alongside tutorials and other informational content.
• Use short paragraphs, short sentences, and everyday language for easy readability.
• Format with plenty of white space to improve readability.
• Focus your product on your reader and how you can help them.

Examples of tools you can include in an info-product...

• Checklists (like the one you're reading now).
• Worksheets
• Templates
• Swipes
• Mind-maps
• Process maps
• Cheat sheets.
• Planners or calendars.
• Spreadsheets.
• Lists (such as gear / resource lists).

Examples of graphics that add value to an info-product...

• Gifs.
• Relevant photos.
• Screenshots.
• Scans.
• Illustrations.
• Infographics.
• Charts.
• Tables.

And similar images. Don't insert images into content just for the sake of inserting an image. Use it to provide additional information (such as an illustration or infographic, or use it to break up long walls of text (such as a relevant photo)

Just be sure to make the most of your image captions by turning them into useful information or curiosity-arousing snippets. The idea is that skimmers will read your image captions and then get drawn back into reading your text.

The next step when crafting the sales funnel is to price your products. The lead magnet is free, while the tripwire should be low-cost, yet high-value. The core offer should have premium pricing, and the back-end offers will be a variety of price points.

So, follow these steps...

1. Do your market research to see what your competitors are charging for similar products.
2. Determine if your offer is generally worth more or less than similar offers and then price accordingly.
3. Be sure to price offers in accordance with where they appear in the sales funnel.
4. Take your branding into consideration to see if it will affect your pricing strategy.

Aside from pricing, you'll also want to consider what's included in your offer. 

Specifically...

• What's the main product?
• What bonuses are your offering?
• Are there any delayed bonuses?
• What's your guarantee?

And finally...

Plan how you're going to promote the offers in your sales funnel. This includes bringing in external sources of traffic though...

• Paid ads (search, social and niche sites)
• Guest blogging.
• Search Engine Optimization.
• Viral Marketing.
• Social Media Marketing.
• Video Marketing.
• Press release distribution.
• Podcasting.
• Giving talks online and offline.

And similar promotional activities.

It also includes internal promotions from within your website and sales funnel. Specifically...

• Put upsells and cross-sells on order forms.
• Insert offers on download and thank you pages
• Put offers in prospect and customer emails
• Embed promos in lead magnets.
• Promote from within paid courses, e-books, videos, etc.
• Insert promos into membership sites.
• Put promos in private groups.
• Promote related offers during coaching sessions.
• Send promos via mail alongside shipped physical products.

And anywhere else you communicate with your audience.