The 7 Core Pieces of Every High-Converting Sales Funnel

This article covers the 7 core pieces of every high-converting sales funnel. This is a brief summary of a webinar that I listened to following the purchase of Funnel Trax which is an app for recording and tracking your sales funnel stats that has just been launched by Mark Thompson.

I thought long and hard about buying Funnel Trax because in circumstances where your funnel is set up on JVZoo, or one of the other affiliate platforms, your stats are already recorded by the affiliate platform. But I thought that in circumstances where your funnel pages lie outside such a platform this app could prove useful. It also enables me to run A/B split-testing using this same app (quicker than Google Analytics) and also to carry out link tracking for marketing campaigns.

Funnel Trax looks to be very simple to set-up and use. Within the Funnel Trax training there was also a very useful video showing how to plan out a sales funnel using a mind map.

The webinar about the 7 core pieces of every high-converting sales funnel was presented by a sales funnel specialist and was a lengthy presentation. I jotted down some notes below and hopefully you can get the jist of what was discussed.

The off-putting thing is that there was a whole list of other things at the end of the webinar (- see under ‘Additional Elements’ below -) that he didn’t discuss because the presentation segued into a pitch for more training which I declined. Hopefully, from the headings below you can get an idea of what was likely to be covered.

Apart from Point 6 below, I pretty much agree with the main points listed below being the critical factors for sales funnel success. Instead of Point 6, I would have included monitoring and tracking as being crucial to sales funnel success – hence my purchase of Funnel Trax!

1. Big Idea/Differentiated Hook

Goal is to prevent prospect mental opt-out
Idea behind marketing is new, interesting, compelling, and different.
Enter into the conversation already in your prospects head.
You must know your markets sophistication level – when market is sophisticated introduce a unique mechanism or process that produces the result
What are the dominant appeals, claims and benefits being presented in the market right now?
You need to differentiate yourself from the market
What is the most surprising thing about your content
Present something unexpected (contrarian perspective)
Simple education-based sales funnel: Squeeze page – 3 content videos – 1 sales video
Power of metaphor language – instantly accessible
Tangible and concrete
The power of emotion

2. Single, Unique Big Promise

Stems from understanding the market
Must resolve an urgent problem
Powered by the unique results delivery mechanism
Understand the deeper benefits behind obvious benefits
Show, don’t tell
Turn the promise into a picture
Picture touches as many of the 5 senses as possible
Appeal to mind, heart and wallet
It must appeal to feelings, beliefs and desires
Power verbs not hypey-adjectives
Recommended Book: The Synonym Finder by J.I. Rodale

3. Education-Based Pre-Selling Content

Everything you say in the funnel should ‘further the sale’ (strategic)
Create rapport and trusted authority based relationship whilst leading them to buy, rather than trying to sell… all giving them a sense of freedom of choice/decision.
What do prospects need to believe to buy? – about themselves, you, your product
Linear progression of claims and benefit statements to establish those beliefs
Turn a want into a need
Don’t over teach – educate in a way to create more desire and demand
Hit emotional benefits
Contrast – emotional benefits of what you are offering
Demonstrate results, role performance, relief, relaxation, recognition, remuneration
Goal is to make selling superfluous

4. Unquestionable Proof

Every single claim and/or benefit statement must be backed with at least one proof point
Always be specific
Strong reasons ‘why’
Vivid compelling pictures
Strategically placed customer testimonials/case studies – outcome-based – proactively generate the right type of testimonial. Survey that elicits testimonials.
Dimensionalise facts and figures

5. Unique Delivery System

The unique method system or process behind your product/service that brings the outcome they desire
Truly unique versus ‘not being talked about’
Explain the unique mechanism for getting them results
Present the mechanism as the catalyst of results (pluralise the verb – strip body fat v strips body fat / put music in your life v puts music in your life)
Explain why the unique mechanism works (remember proof)
Establish the value of the unique mechanism

6. Multiple Engagement Paths/Sequences

Never arbitrarily move your prospects through the funnel
Conditional content
Behavourial triggering

7. Irresistible Superior Offer

List, offer, copy – order of importance
Hard offer v soft offer
Proof of value
Damaging admission
Objection resolution
Scarcity – time-based and quantity-based. Give a reason why.
Risk reversal – creative guarantee
Why now?
Repeat, reinforce and summarise the main benefits
Outcome scarcity/urgency v offer scarcity

Additional elements

Lead magnetic creation – strategically created to pre-sell
Opt-in page creation
Conversion optimization
Funnel content
Funnel flow and retention
Multi-media follow-up
List segmentation
Data collection
List management
Segway into offer
Offer structuring
Overcoming objections
Split-testing
Metrics and tracking
Stick strategies post-sale
Testimonial acquisition
Refund reduction

That concludes my notes on webinar about the 7 core pieces of every high-converting sales funnel… I hope this was useful, if only because I gave you a link to the new product called Funnel Trax!

Sales Funnel Training

We are shortly going to launch a sales funnel training product because the importance of having a sales funnel in your business cannot be under-estimated.

If you do not have a well-designed sales funnel in your business then you will be leaving a lot of money on the table.

However, it is one thing to know this in theory but, in practice, creating a sales funnel can seem technically difficult to put together. The purpose of our new product, which is called Honey Trap Funnels, is to demystify the whole process of how to build a high-converting sales funnel.

Generally, the longer your sales funnel, the more money you will make.

Also, you may need to redefine the meaning of ‘sales funnel’ to extend to all your marketing after the initial sales have taken place i.e. to include your back-end marketing. A sales funnel like this requires careful planning and execution.

Creating the web pages for a well-executed sales funnel can also be a barrier but with sales funnel template software like Optimize Press and WP Profit Builder (which I reviewed recently) building these pages quickly has become a lot easier with their fully-featured templates.

I also notice that the Thrive Content Builder is moving in this direction too as they have started creating Landing Page Templates with a view to creating many more page templates in future.

In Honey Trap Funnels we will cover:

how to select products and services for the funnel
how to plan your sales funnel
how to create your sales funnel
how to move traffic through your funnel and how to recover traffic at the drop-off points
how to test and monitor your sales funnel for higher conversions
some examples of simple funnels
and much more

There will also be an upsell where we cover all of this in more detail including examples of some actual funnels that you could build for yourself.

In the meantime, whenever you buy a product, it is worth watching how the vendor has constructed their sales funnel.

Alternatively, simply look at product vendor JV pages to see what they are doing. However, don’t forget that after their initial product sale, they will be taking their customers through their back-end marketing system which is an extension of the front-end sales funnel so you may not get the full picture.

If you are a customer, however, you will be exposed to their full sales funnel and this is instructional.

To execute sales funnels effectively requires that your business is well-planned and organised about how it executes the process of putting a sales funnel in place.

We think that this sales funnel training will therefore be very instructive to many online business owners who may fail to understand how important sales funnels are in making money.

New Products In The Pipeline

Here is a brief summary of the new products in the pipeline for the next month or so. These are new products that Chris Cole and I are creating.

After our success with The Hangout Cash, and our effort to provide tremendous value to our members through follow-up webinars, we have decided that we really need to refocus on launching new products.

Chris Cole & I have decided to launch one product a week. These products will be tightly focused and high quality – meant for consumption in around an hour or so. Ideal for the ‘one problem, one solution, at one sitting’ type of product.

With this in mind, here is our planned schedule for the next 4 products and the planned launch dates:

#1 Productivity Made Simple – in this product Chris and I have used Google Hangouts to create a series of training about improving productivity. This includes a review of some of the best productivity tools that we have used.This will be launch on 15th September 2014. Rather than a blockbuster product it was originally destined as ‘list-bait’ but we will launch it nevertheless and see how it fares in the marketplace.

#2 Honey Trap Funnels – this is a product that I have had in the pipeline for a while now as I wanted to offer a cloned sales funnel that could be quickly and easily deployed because you simply have to slot your own product offers into the pages. We will also be reviewing different types of funnel and we have a nice marketing-twist in mind for this! This product will also enable me to establish a joint, self-liquidating sales funnel for our partnership too which we can start driving paid traffic and grow our list exponentially. Launch date 22nd September.

#3 Launch a WSO in 3 Days – Chris & I are prolific product creators. In this product we will be demonstrating how it is possible to launch a WSO (Warrior Special Offer) in 3 days when you systemise the entire process. This will be an opportunity for us to review our product creation systems too. Launch date 29th September.

#4 Webinars For Local Businesses – the name of this product has yet to be established but the basic principle is that we will be exploring how Google Hangouts could be used by local businesses. This was something we covered in The Hangout Cash Code but we want to dive deeper into this aspect of video marketing for local businesses. We think this is a largely unexplored opportunity and we will get creative about how local busineses can use this technology to grow their business. Launch date 6th October.

These products may be replaced by others if we see an opportunity that needs pursuing urgently, but this is our plan for the next few weeks. I also want to create a product about email marketing, so expect that to be on the list in the near future!

In addition to these products, we have been helping Saul Maraney, one of our students, to launch his first product as a WSO – it’s called The Showcase App Profit Formula, which is due to go live on 9th September. This has a very good upsell – comprehensive training on Google+ which is exciting because I see a lot of untapped potential in Google+. In fact, even more so than Facebook for B2B marketing.

Also, quietly in the background, I am putting together a product called ‘Video Hooks’ which is a larger product about video marketing which will be excellent to add into our sales funnel. Part of the content for this will come from a bonus session that we have promised to buyers of the product we are viewing in the paragragh below.

Chris and I have also started a weekly broadcast at Marketers Radio.com. The second episode airs tonight with two guests and we will be reviewing a product called Incredible Green Screen, made by our friend and colleague Matthew Houghton. This product reached #1 on JVZoo and has made well over 1,000 sales so this is very exciting.

We also have a LIVE event in our diary at Heathrow Airport for the 1st and 2nd November – which will be an an opportunity for Chris and I to meet physically for the first time. We will also be meeting many of the coaching students that we have been growing with over the last 12 to 18 months.

This is how a business is created – by taking action and selling stuff rather than being a perpetual consumer in training mode!

Those are the new products in the pipeline, so we have some very exciting times ahead!

Honey-Trap Funnels Coming Soon

My latest product ‘Honey-Trap Funnels’ is coming soon.

Sales funnels are a vital part of an internet marketing business but when you are starting out it can be difficult to work out the technicalities of building a sales funnel.

My new product will address this problem by providing flexible sales funnel templates that can simply be uploaded into WordPress and the sales funnel products can simply be plugged into the pages.

However, prior to constructing a funnel, there is an important planning stage. What products to include in the funnel and in what sequence?

Also, how do you use the psychology of selling to get visitors to engage with your sales funnel rather than click away?

The most important part of the funnel is the front-end – if you fail to capture the contact details of your visitor, the rest of the funnel will not be seen and you may lose the opportunity of helping your visitor forever. I will therefore be going into this part of the funnel in a lot of detail.

Then, in order to optimise your funnel, you really need to test and monitor variations of your funnel pages to optimise sales conversions. How do you do this exactly? These are questions that I will address in this new product.

Of course, once you have built your funnels, you will need to drive traffic to the front of your funnel. How do you do this? There are literally hundreds of ways to do this but you only need to master one to start with and then keep adding in new marketing channels.

I will discussing the pros and cons of the traffic channels I favour. As far as possible, I want to systemise the building of sales funnels both for my own benefit and those of my customers by going through a series of check-lists and templates.

It is important to create multiple funnels – I liken this to having multiple fishing lines out in the internet ocean baited to attract specific fish that you want to bring into your business.

(I hope you don’t mind the analogy with fishing but I think it’s a good one except for the fact that when you catch a fish, the rest of the process is quite different – I don’t want you to harm or kill your prospects and customers but instead to help them to solve a problem or in some other way that is an exchange of value!)

All my products have been built to track my own progress in my business. I already have a number of sales funnels in my business but I now want to take my skills to the next level, so this is a very important product in the evolution of my business.

Here is the framework of my membership site – it looks pretty seductive, don’t you think?

I am hoping to release Honey-Trap Funnels within one month so look out for it, it’s coming soon.

Sales Funnel Frustration

I am locked within sales funnel frustration having not yet found anyone who can explain how to test a JVZoo funnel. I’ve therefore sent a stiff support ticket to JVZoo telling them that their training is not good and asking for help. If I cannot resolve this soon, then I will set my sales funnel up elsewhere.

I have had a consultation with Marc Milburn and this has helped me to resolve a few issues in my mind. With regards to driving some traffic to my sales funnel (once testing is complete), then I am going to buy some solo ads and I have a couple of good sources for this.

List Building with List Liberation

With regards to list building I am going to test the system that Chris Ramsey has created called List Liberation. This involves building a fan page following using Facebook Ads and then running surveys with the offer of a free gift at the end as a reward for completing the survey – of course, the respondent needs to provide their email address in order to get the free gift. The free gift will be one of the free gifts I created for my funnel.

Chris Ramsey is a very clever marketer – I came across him first when I was doing offline marketing and he was really crushing it. In fact he has recently moved to a small Caribbean island to live the internet lifestyle there. Just shows what can be achieved when you get it right.

Excuses, Excuses

Progress has been exceeding slow since my last blog post for a couple of reasons:

I am gridlocked by not knowing how to test my funnel in JVZoo
I had to take a couple of days out to help my daughter
I attended the first day of the Ashes at Trent Bridge in Nottingham (cricket – England v Australia) last Wednesday – a great day out with my son James.
I cannot catch up this weekend because the whole family are descending on us for the weekend to celebrate my grandsons first birthday
Daniel, my grandson

My Son, James

Incidentally, we have set up James’ first blog at http://james-salmon.com – we literally set this up in 10 minutes so it requires a bit more work but I am pleased that James is interested in creating his own website. He is going to help me to recruit affiliates during the couple of weeks he has off after leaving IBM (his work experience job) and before he goes back to Nottingham Trent University. One of James’ strengths is that he is a people person i.e. most people like him and he will be ideal in a sales role.

My son & his girlfriend

James is living the millionaire lifestyle having just returned from 4 days in Nice with his girlfriend and shortly about to spend 4 weeks in the US travelling from California to Las Vegas by car and then a weeks Caribbean cruise with his girlfriend and her parents – I don’t know how he does it but I hope that he enjoys himself before he gets into his final year at university.

Tweaking The Funnel

Three other issues that arose from my consultation with Marc were:

to change the headline on my squeeze page
to amend the sales letters on my upsells within my sales funnels to position the offer in relation to the front-end products in the funnel
setting up a split test for my squeeze page

I am almost there with my sales funnel and once I am confident about what I am doing then I am going to create a video of how I set the funnel up.

I’ve also been consulting with Manie Amari on his FB CashFuse product and this is almost good to go – I have learnt a lot from Manie about monetising a membership site – his site is full of potential income-earning opportunities.

Future Plans

One of my former offline customers has referred me to a charity who need their website refreshing – I have quoted £500 to £1500 depending on what they want done. I am hoping they will go for the latter figure which will enable me to spend some time on building them a great site using a premium theme. I already have some great marketing messages worked out. Their existing website is horrible to behold so I am confident that I can make them very happy if they trust in me.

I have also negotiated a special deal with Andrew Hunter of Membersonic for both his membership plugin and his theme. It is my intention to use this deal to set up a free webinar to demo the Membersonic plugin with an offer to help the attendees to build their own membership site in a 4 to 6 week workshop programme to include the discounted purchase of these tools. This business model was outlined by Marc in module 6 of Email Cash Siphon and I really like it. I bought Russ Rufinos ‘Knockout Profit System’ some time ago which outlined the same business model but at the time the webinar technology was very expensive. Google Hangouts on Air have changed all that for ever and I now think I will pursue this business model.

Google Hangouts & Other Products

Manie and myself I are using Google Hangouts to carry out our meetings so that we get more used to using the technology. In our last session we used a free tool called Hangout Magix to create customised overlays for the Hangout. 10 days ago we demonstrated Google Hangouts on Air to our coaching group and had some fun doing so.

The only other progress I can report is that I am receiving monthly affiliate commission cheques from affiliate marketing activities and I have imposed a rule that I will not spend more than I earn on new internet marketing products. Buying products is a bit of a sickness as far as I am concerned. I am planning to buy Optimize Press 2.0 when it launches at the end of the month. They have just demonstrated a built in button creator which you can see on their blog. This plugin is going to be awesome!

I am also benefiting from the fact that I get all Marc Milburn’s products – he is currently rolling out several products including Online Wealth Blueprint, Profit Flare and the remaining bonus modules of Digital Millionaires Bootcamp. In addition, I am studying his Email Cash Siphon training about email marketing. So much to do and so little time to do it! It is great having access to all of Marc’s products as I am constantly learning how to do internet marketing the right way.

Concluding Remarks

Whilst progress is slow, on reflection, I am still moving forward inexorably towards my goals – next week will hopefully be a cracker jack week when I can clear up some of the outstanding issues with my sales funnel frustration and I can finish my affiliate page and start driving traffic.

Sales Funnel Fun

I’ve been having some sales funnel ‘fun’ this week – I speak sarcastically of course!

I needed a free give-away on the front-end of my funnel so I created a 30 page eBook about sales funnels at the start of this week. This is now on a squeeze page at http://mark-salmon.com/free.

I went through a number of names for this eBook including Slippery Sales Funnels, Sticky Sales Funnels, Sales Funnels on Steroids, Sales Funnel Domination but, when I saw Sterling Sherrells Book title called List Building Supremacy, I knew that ‘Sales Funnel Supremacy’ had to be it. Sorry for ‘stealing’ your idea Sherrell, hope you will forgive me!

On the same squeeze page, I have created an exit-redirect offering another free eBook called ‘Website Traffic Tornado’ which also has an exit pop-over with another free offer for ’10 Free ways to Generate Massive free traffic from Facebook. These exit pops are designed to give me the maximum opportunity to add visitors to my list.

I have therefore written or created 3 free give-aways and I also designed and created the ecovers below using Photoshop:

I also added a $1 downsell to The Way of the Warriors by recycling an eBook that I had written a little while ago so my funnel now looks a little different to the one I planned a week ago (click on it below to read it):

I had hoped to have the funnel up and working by the end of today but I have been frustrated by problems in setting up the $1 trial for both the Product Creation Renegade and WP Website Wizard downsells in the funnel on JVZoo. For some reason the system is not giving me the correct payment buttons so I have had to submit a ticket for help to JVZoo.

Once I have the whole funnel set up on JVZoo, I am going to create a video about how I did it so that it might help some of the students in the coaching group who have yet to set up a sales funnel.

Once I have set-up the sales funnel, I am going to ensure that Google Analytics is fully installed on the front of the funnel to monitor incoming traffic and then set-up a spreadsheet to monitor sales and conversions. I will also set up a couple of split-tests using Google Experiments.

Getting stuck into Google Hangouts on Air

I had a very useful Google Hangout with Manie Amari last Tuesday evening – we are both intent on cracking the use of Google Hangouts on Air for webinars. Manie is using the Google Hangout plugin for webinar set-up and I am using the Webinar Express plugin. It is my turn to test out Webinar Express on the next call this Tuesday.

The trial of Google Hangouts was useful to Manie who was operating on an Apple computer – he discovered that he needed an app to increase the light-levels on his web-cam. The other useful thing to come out of the meeting was that we have both discovered an automated way to calculate EPC and we are just trying to get to grips with the system before we discuss with our fellow coaching students.

Manie also revealed his new product about Facebook and I suggested that he get the help of our student Facebook Group to launch the product – I note that Manie did this the following day and the reaction to his product, FB Cash Fuse, is encouraging. Sweet graphics Manie!

Reverse-Engineering My Income

Following last weeks session with Marc Milburn, I also reverse-engineered how I was going to generate an income of $100,000 this year. When I extrapolated my EPC it came out at just $0.32 for me and the same for affiliates which clearly illustrated the need for some higher-priced products in my funnel. However, Marc advised me to set up my funnel as planned on the basis that I can change it later. As he said ‘it is not set in stone’ and I say that ‘every journey starts with the first step’. Just getting a funnel online will be a major breakthrough for me.

Improving My Graphic Design Skills

I have found a free course on Udemy.com to enable me to increase my skill level on Photoshop. At the moment my tool of choice for graphics is Macromedia Fireworks but Photoshop is more advanced and I really want to up my skill levels to the point where I can produce my own amazing graphics.

Instamember Is On Fire

I also bought and promoted Instamember this week – a new membership plugin that was launched last Monday and they sold over 3,000 copies in the first 3 days which shows that a good product will always find a ready market. I bought it for the developers license so that I can now produce membership sites for anyone. I will continue using Membersonic for my sites because of its simplicity but Instamember has some features that Membersonic does not so they could become useful in certain circumstances.

I also spent an hour with Ian Horner this week showing him how to set up Membersonic on his site. It was good to connect personally with Ian, who is one of Marc Milburn’s students. (I also made initial contact with Sterling Sherrell in our student group and we have a new member in Doc TheCoach, who has recently sold his hedge fund!)

James Dyson announced the launch of Optimize Press 2.0 in mid-July – I have to say that it looks very attractive. It will be fully responsive with a drag and drop interface. The page designs are off-the-hook, so it looks like I will be investing in this in July.

Looking Forward To Next Week

So all in all it has been a busy week but I am disappointed that I did not quite meet my goal of getting my whole funnel set-up by the end of play today. Hopefully, another hour or so’s work and I will be there and I can start driving some traffic to the front of the funnel to test it. I will start with some solo ads and hopefully I can get Daniel Madeira to guide me on this after he has inspected my funnel set-up.

One of the ideas I have running around in my mind is to start creating ‘vBooks’ i.e. these are eBooks with links to illustrative videos to explain something in more detail that I am discussing in the book.

So it looks like my sales funnel fun will continue into the start of next week and I also plan to finish off my affiliate page and start recruiting affiliates or at least networking with affiliates on in the Facebook JV groups.

Mark Salmon

Posts Tagged → sales funnels