How To Create The Ideal Conversion Funnel For Your Business
No matter what business you’re in, converting prospects through the marketing funnel equals revenue. Whether you want customers to download, register or buy, you want your conversion rate to be the highest it can be — conversion equals your bottom line. Nothing matters unless that cash register rings!
What is a Conversion Funnel?
It’s as simple as the steps that your prospects take to become first-time customers. Paths can be long, short, complex, or extremely direct. It greatly depends on your focus and what you are selling. High ticket items tend to have longer, more complex funnels, whereas small ticket items have very short and to the point funnels.
There are 3 types of Conversion Funnels that can be utilized for your business.
They fall into one of these 3 categories.
1. Acquisition Funnel
2. Activation Funnel
3. Monetization Funnel
Each funnel type has a very specific job in your business.
The purpose of the acquisition funnel is to help the business obtain as many fresh prospects and customers as possible( at breakeven or better)…
The purpose of the activation funnel is to help the business convert as many of its prospects (or inactive buyers) into recent buyers…
…And the purpose of a monetization funnel is to help the business generate revenue from its active buyers and indoctrinated subscribers.
Now I realize what you are undoubtedly thinking…
“Which conversion funnel should I be utilizing in my business?”
… but instead of asking this question.
The right question that we should be asking is…
“Which conversion funnel should I be employing in my business right now?”
Each business should implement each funnel type at various times to various people.
Now, let me ask you a couple of questions…
“Do you want more leads in your business?”
Most people would respond emphatically with the answer “YES!” but most of the time that’s not the right question.
“Do you have a sizable prospect list but not a sizable list of buyers?”
Are you starting to see where this line of questioning is going?
Now, for my last question.
“Do you have an optimized backend sales process and do you want to generate a ton of revenue?”
The answer, of course, is yes, yes and yes.
However, this is very important to understand: A ______ Funnel can’t do the job of a ______ Funnel. To fill in the blanks…an Acquisition Funnel can’t do the job of a Monetization Funnel. A Monetization Funnel can’t do the job of an Activation Funnel. And so on…
Each funnel should exceed at meeting one specific goal.
So, now you are wandering where do I begin?
The answer is you should start with building ONE funnel.
It is best to concentrate on building the funnel that will have the most impact on your business. Once you have built that funnel, you will then add another… and another, and so on.
Your goal should be ONE FUNNEL.
So, which best describes your significant needs right now?
• “I need to turn cold prospects into leads.” Build an Acquisition Funnel first.
• “I need to turn my existing leads into customers.” Build an Activation Funnel first.
• “I need to turn my buyers into multi-buyers.” Build a Monetization Funnel first.
Let’s examine each one of these conversion funnels…
Conversion Funnel Type 1: The Acquisition Funnel
The Goal of the Acquisition Funnel is…
To obtain NEW prospects and customers for the business at break even or better.
For example, we recommend “The Splinter Offer Funnel”
There are a number of Acquisition Funnels that can be used to generate new leads for your business, however in this article we are going to talk about the Splinter Offer Funnel. This funnel is the most versatile and, in my opinion, the easiest to apply. It is great for business startups however it can easily be used for any business. It starts with defining a higher-priced offer (or continuity/membership) that can be “splintered” into smaller chunks and offered to cold prospects.
The product splinter is a low-risk way for businesses to acquire new customers. It’s low-risk because the price of the offer is significantly lower in comparison to your core offer, though the value delivered is less too. The point is that it is usually easier to sell to an existing client than it is to someone who has never bought from you before.
So with a product splinter, all we are doing is tearing off a little piece of value from the core offer and giving it to the client at a price that’s much more affordable.
3 key aspects of creating a product splinter to grow sales and to acquire new clients for less:
1. Split off a “piece of value” directly related to your core offer.
2. Make sure that it is its own separate offer and that you charge something for it.
3. Immediately offer to upsell on the core offer after the “slice of value” for the initial purchase decision is made. If the core offer isn’t immediately taken, follow-up later on and offer it again.
Some Examples…
- You sell cameras? “Splinter” camera cases and offer them to cold prospects at cost. (This is a Tripwire Offer)
- You sell social media marketing services? “Splinter” the Facebook Page set up service and offer it to cold prospects in exchange for their contact information. (This a Lead Magnet)
- You sell circuit training videos? “Splinter” a single circuit training drill from your training and offer it to cold prospects in exchange for their contact information. (Another Lead Magnet)
Another example that I have used is as follows:
Our Core Offer, of course, is the SEO Revolution membership site which offers kickass, up-to-date marketing training for $100 a month. But it’s tough to sell SEO Revolution to cold prospects.
So, we “splinter.”
One of the many benefits offered with SEO Revolution is the Kill Hummingbird training which is based on ranking on the Google SERPs.
We “splinter” this single training from SEO Revolution and offer a free eBook (“Kill The Hummingbird”) in exchange for an email address and contact information which is considered a lead magnet. We then offer another splinter which is a guide called “The Inside Track to Ranking on Google” for just $7 (this is the tripwire).
A full course of Kill Hummingbird with videos is offered at a discounted price of $27 which is normally $87 as a lead in (another tripwire) to the core offer which is the SEO Revolution membership. This is done to build relationships and trust with the customer, furthermore offering quality marketing information as well as real company shit to help them achieve business success.
Once the customer has experienced the benefits of the splintered offers they will no doubt want to get into the SEO Revolution and fill out the application for membership.
So to review….Does asking a cold prospect for their contact information in exchange for the lead magnet convert better than asking them to give me $100 every month?
You bet it does.
And asking that new lead to give me $7 converts better than making the $100 membership offer right off the bat…correct?
That is another yes.
The $7 offer and the $27 offer are a “splinter” of the $100/month offer. And the free (Lead Magnet) offer is a “splinter” of the $7 offer.
This type of funnel will obtain lots of leads and the $7 and $27 sales made to these leads will help offset the cost of traffic.
However, the acquisition funnel will not MONETIZE your leads and customers. It is not the best funnel for ACTIVATING a lot of new buyers. For this reason, you need an Activation Funnel…
Conversion Funnel Type 2: The Activation Funnel
The Goal of the Activation Funnel is…
To convert large chunks of leads into buyers.
For example, we recommend the “Flash Sale Funnel”.
The Activation Funnel goal requires some explanation, unlike the Acquisition and Monetization Funnels . Why are we interested in “activating” buyers? Activation Funnels are essential because…
Once a successful buying transaction has occured, the likelihood of a second (and third, fourth, etc) purchase is much higher.
Recognize that the goal of an Activation Funnel is QUANTITY of new customers — NOT profit. Profit comes later when these activated buyers enter a Monetization Funnel.
There are a number of Activation Funnels that can be used to convert leads into buyers, however in this post we are going to talk about the “Flash Sale Funnel”.
First we must answer this key question in the prospect’s mind to activate buyers.
“Why should I purchase NOW?”
Is the price going up? Is their a limited quantity? Is there a sale?
There are two conversion triggers demonstrated to activate buyers within The Flash Sale Funnel.
• A huge discount
• A limited time
Imagine Groupon. Imagine Black Friday Sale. Keep in mind, the goal is ACTIVATION and not profit. Offer as much value as you can at the lowest price you can stand. Consider the Splinter Offer Funnel we evaluated in the Acquisition section of this article.
Envision what would happen if we removed the Lead Magnet from this funnel and made a limited time (3-5 days) offer to get the Hummingbird Guide “ The Inside Track for Ranking in Google for just $7?
Actually, we could leverage the same resources (products/sales pages, etc) we built for the Acquisition Funnel and instead of directing traffic to the free Lead Magnet, we could send our existing leads directly to the Flash Sale page.
While ice cold prospects aren’t likely to convert with this Flash Sale Offer—this limited time deep discount (the “why”) is very likely to Activate a vast number of current leads. We have created a whole new funnel that meets a different business goal for ACTIVATION just by re-positioning the offers we made in our Acquisition Funnel.
However, these leads and customers still have not been monetized and for that reason we need to build a monetization funnel.
The Goal of the MonetizationFunnel is…
To generate as much revenue (gross sales) as possible.
There are a number of Monetization Funnels that can be used to monetize existing buyers and predetermine leads for your business, however in this post we are going to talk about the “The Magic Question Funnel”.
The Magic Question Funnel is one of the most versatile of Monetization Funnels. It is best to apply the Magic Question Funnel any time you want obtainable customers and leads (imagine hot prospects) on a consultative sales call to sell high-dollar products or services.
So, here is the “magic question”…
“Want some help?”
Essentially, this will work in any vertical or niche…
• “Want some help putting together a career plan?
• “Want some help building your website?”
• “Want some help repairing your car?”
A simple page such as this one could be set up to sell as a $20,000 “Done-For-Me” service.
Utilizing this opt-in form your lead can be sent to a video that gives information about your high-ticket product or service and either…
1. Asks them to make a deposit to hold their place for the consultation;
2. Takes them to a questionnaire to get the information you’ll need to qualify and close them on the consultative sales call.
As you can see the “Want Some Help” offer would fail miserably to cold prospects.
It is just too soon for your prospect to go from cold to hot and want to buy your high-ticket product at this point.
Eventually, you will want to have all 3 funnel types in place: Acquisition, Activation and Monetization.
It is a good idea to begin with the type of funnel that will have the greatest impact now, while placing the other two funnel types on your short list of things to do. You will be acquiring fresh leads, activating buyers and effortlessly transforming them into high-ticket, multi-buyers once you’re utilizing the strength of each type of conversion funnel.
So after reading this article, this maybe a good time to reflect on your business funnels to see which funnel should be implemented now.