It’s not uncommon for new internet marketers to struggle with creating a digital marketing funnel for their business in Australia. The truth is, there’s so much misconception flying around on the use of funnels for businesses, but is it possible to create one for your business that makes money? This post shares critical, step-by-step tips to create a high-converting marketing funnel for your business.
Consider your objective and what you want to offer for your marketing funnel
Before proceeding to create your digital marketing funnel, there’s a step you need to take first. You want to picture what the backend offer of your funnel would be.
For instance, maybe your company sells heating and air conditioning products, with a final objective of replacing air conditioning units. You may also want people who didn’t need their units replaced or repair to subscribe to a monthly repair protection service plan.
Also, your more expensive or high-ticket offers should be at the backend. You can use the same principle to build any marketing funnel regardless of your offer or product.
Once you determine what to sell in the backend, the job is almost done. If you don’t have a clear objective for your funnel, you will have difficulty marketing and profiting from it.
Determine your lead magnet and what you ant to give away for free
After your backend offer, you want to think of something valuable to give away for free before promoting your funnel. Don’t make the mistake of pushing for the sale immediately.
Indeed, you will get some impulse buyers who won’t care to know you or your brand, but don’t think that is the norm. Typically, you want to build a relationship with prospects, get them to know and trust you before pitching your offer.
A proven way to develop this trust is to create a lead magnet and use it to build your email list. It is much easier to get someone to submit their email address than to convince them to pull out their credit card.
Once they join your list, you can build a relationship with them using content marketing. After building some trust, the sale can become easier to make.
Your lead magnet should be something that solves a specific problem that’s similar to the problem your main offer solves. For instance, if your main backend offer is a health and personal training product, you might give away a simple diet plan for weight loss.
A prospect who grabs your free diet plan will likely show interest in your personal training/coaching program. Therefore, you won’t struggle to sell your main backend offer since it is already positioned to get even more improved results.
Throw up your lead capture page, or sales funnel
Next, you want to create a website or funnel system page like Clickfunnels to host your entire digital marketing funnel. You’re free to go with the option that goes with your budget and marketing strategy.
Indeed, a website provides more flexibility and allows you to scale later. However, you can benefit immensely from a sales funnel system, especially with no web design or coding knowledge.
With a website, you can adopt content marketing as your traffic generation method (we’ll touch on that later). One benefit of sales funnel systems is that they come with loads of plug-and-play, high-converting pre-made templates.
If you go with the website option, you will likely need to employ either a web designer or a marketing agency for page optimisation. Also, you can learn the process on your own, but it could take weeks or months.
If you choose to go with the plug-and-play option, a sales funnel will provide a good start.
Setting up your landing page
The landing page is the first page and the first point of contact with your prospects. When you get traffic to your marketing funnel, they see your landing page first.
Consequently, it should grab attention and address the main problem of the prospect. You want to make sure your landing page ticks some checklists. The first is an attention-grabbing headline highlighting the question they are searching for.
You also want to put some social proof there. That is something that validates your claim. You could include screenshots of testimonials from people who have seen results with your offer.
Lastly, tell them the benefit they stand to gain and include a clear call to action that takes them to the next step. For instance, you can use CTAs like a “Get instant access” button prompting them to submit their email address to gain free access to the offer.
Set up your “thank you” page
Once a prospect enters their name and email, the next page you want them to see is the thank you page. You can do many things with this page, and it can help boost your sales.
Basic thank you pages only say something along the line of “thank you for submitting your information.” Then you want to deliver the info you promised them before they gave you their email or direct them to where they can get it.
Showing your prospect the thank you page will prove to them that the submission was successful, and you also fulfilled your promise. This way, you are already starting to build trust.
Another benefit of a thank you page is that you can track performance. You can install a tracker on your thank you page to help track conversions.
You can also track performance by setting goals in Google Analytics. You can track the percentage of prospects going to specific pages and grabbing your lead magnet. Facebook ads also let you install their pixel on your website so you can track conversions coming from your ad campaigns.
If you want to take your thank you page a step further, you may recommend a product or guide prospects on the next action to take in your sales process.
Create upsell pages and a tripwire offer
We just mentioned taking your thank you page a step further. One of the ways you can achieve this is to set up an upsell page that offers a complimentary but low-priced product.
A complimentary product, also known as a tripwire product, is related to your lead magnet and has a low cost. For instance, it could cost anywhere from $7-$97, depending on the price of your backend offer.
You also want to make sure this product doesn’t require ongoing commitment from you. For instance, sell a special report for $7 or video series for $37, or if it needs more commitment, you might offer it at a higher price. For instance, you could bundle several of your products and offer them at a one-time discounted fee.
Here’s a more relatable example, our high-end offer is a done-for-you marketing package, but then we offer a discounted marketing audit as a tripwire package. Prospects who don’t want to make an upfront payment for our complete marketing services can take advantage of our special discount to new leads, where we audit and review their online marketing strategies over a short Zoom call.
Some percentage of your leads will purchase the tripwire offer, which further qualifies them for our backend offer. It also helps pay for advertising. When scaling your marketing with paid ads, it’s wise to have low-cost offers that turn leads into paying customers.
And once a prospect takes you up on the tripwire offer, there should be more upsells for them to purchase at higher prices. It’s easier to sell to someone who already bought from you.
Create your email autoresponder
Not everyone who joined your list will buy from you on the first visit. Some leads will require you to nurture and build a relationship with them before purchasing your product.
If you don’t have a way of keeping in touch with your prospect after joining your list, they may never return to your site. This is why it’s crucial to capture their information in the first place.
An autoresponder makes that possible. You can integrate most autoresponders with your lead capture opt-in forms, and some others like Getresponse allow you to create and host landing pages on their platform.
This means you can automate the follow-up and relationship-building process. Your email list is an advantageous asset that can help you leverage your digital marketing funnel for maximum profit.
You can also upload your email list to Facebook for retargeting purposes or create lookalike audiences for better targeting. These audiences have proven to convert more than cold audiences.
Write autoresponder email series
You can also write a series of follow-up emails using an autoresponder to capture leads and send out the initial welcome email. This is a series of emails where you deliver loads of value and nurture your leads so they can become paying customers.
Incorporating follow-up email series into your digital marketing funnel can boost your profits significantly. Each email in the series should contain valuable information about your backend product and include a call-to-action that tells them what to do right away.
One of the good things about an email series is that you can implement it without trying too hard to get the sale. You want your follow-up emails to highlight the benefits of your offer. Also, you can provide valuable information on issues that are closely related to your offer.
For instance, if you are into helping prospects buy and sell real estate, your autoresponder series could focus on giving them vital tips on subjects like remodelling, improving a home’s sales value, building credit, etc. Then, you could include a call to action at the end of each email that says, “for more information or inquiries on selling or buying a home call us on 1300 111 999.”
As you provide value in your email series, your leads will notice your expertise and will be more likely to take action on your call–to–action to go to the next step in your funnel. Whether it’s scheduling a call, asking for more information, or even purchasing a home from you, they’ll always trust your recommendation.
Create a content marketing plan to attract organic traffic
Okay, you’ve followed the necessary steps to get the best out of your digital marketing funnel; it’s time to drive traffic to your funnel. You can publish content on a blog, and it should be similar to the ones you created in the email series. The CTAs in your email series can even take prospects to your blog posts to further educate them on the main offer.
You want your content to address your prospects’ questions about your products and services or everyday problems in the niche.
For instance, say you’re into the sales of skincare products and makeup kits. You could create blog posts around the best skincare products for sensitive skin or choosing the best foundation that matches your skin tone.
Try putting yourself in the shoes of your prospects and think about what goes on in their head about your product. If you can figure out the potential questions and write content that provides the answer, you will likely drive loads of organic traffic to your blog, funnel, and offer.
Furthermore, you want to build your content around keywords that your audience is searching for online. Many people make the mistake of creating content that they think people want to read but don’t write to target the words they are using to search for it. To avoid this mistake, you need to incorporate SEO into your content marketing strategy.
Then you can include CTAs within or at the end of your content, asking your readers to go to your funnel as the next step they need to solve their problem.
Use the principle of build, engage, sell to market your digital marketing funnel on social media
Now that you are implementing content marketing to get more eyes on your marketing funnel, you need to leverage social media. Social media is a powerful tool to grow your business and brand, but be sure to use the principle of build, engage, and sell if you look to take your business to the next level.
It’s not uncommon for people to post on social media without a clear purpose, such as posting only sales pitches or not having the right following. Even with great content on your social media pages, you won’t get any traction without a large following.
However, if you concentrate on growing your following, building a relationship with them through value-based content, then pitching them your offer becomes much more effective. Social media can bring you tremendous results when used the right way. There’s a high chance your content will get more traction and engagement when you have a large enough audience.
If you are consistent with this approach, you will begin to see some loyal following. Then when you post CTAs to your offer, you are more likely to get positive responses. If you don’t focus on growing your following, they will likely ignore your recommendations or advice.
Scale your campaign with Facebook ads
As you fine-tune your organic marketing campaign, you should also give paid ads a try. With paid ads, you can reinvest your profits into advertising for more improved results.
Facebook ads are always a good way to start paid advertising for your digital marketing funnel and small business. There are loads of pros when it comes to Facebook ads, and one of them is that it doesn’t require a considerable budget outlay to get started.
If you’re in your digital marketing journey, your funnel and offer may be your first steps into the world of entrepreneurship. That said, you may only have a limited budget for your paid ad campaigns.
Even if your business is established and has been around for a while, Facebook ads can still help you kick-start your digital marketing funnel. You can always test the waters with small amounts, then scale things up by gradually increasing your ad spend and adjust your campaign.
Facebook ads allow you to create lookalike audiences and retargeting to help maximise your return on investment.
Target relevant keywords using a Google Ads campaign
Google Ads is another paid advertising platform that allows you to scale ROI from your marketing funnel. Google Ads offers something different from Facebook advertising because you can bid on the exact keywords your ideal customers are typing into major search engines online.
Facebook ads have a feature known as interest targeting, which means you can target people whose interests are similar to those of your potential customers. The targeting in Google Ads is search-based. Here you can bid on keywords your potential customers type into Google search engine. Ideally, you want to bid on keywords with good buying intent.
For instance, if you sell vegan products or weight loss products, you want to go for keywords like “tasty vegan recipes,” or “best vegan diet,” or related keywords. You can even bid on a competitors’ product name plus the word “review.”
People searching for reviews of a product are about to make a buying decision. Bidding on keywords that include the word review can attract highly targeted traffic because people searching for reviews of a product are in buying mood.
Often buyer intent keywords can quickly get competitive on Google Ads. However, they will give you the highest conversion rates. Even if you have to spend more on ads, it often converts well when done right.
Finally
Many digital marketing consultants will tell you that having a digital marketing funnel is essential for small businesses in Australia. This is absolutely true, but not many actually roll up their sleeves and show how it’s done. You need more than a digital marketing funnel, which means having the right systems and processes to help you get the best return on investment.
The key to creating a profitable sales funnel is to start with the final objective in mind. It becomes easier to create a funnel around when you have an eye on your backend offer. Once your backend product blends with your lead magnet, the next step would be to set up your landing page or website.
Set up a thank you page so you can incorporate your tripwire products and tracking to get more return on investment. You also want to make sure your follow-up emails are on point. You can improve and automate the process using an email autoresponder.
When you have all these systems working for you then you’ll want to support this with effective content marketing and social media. When you become successful at promoting your digital marketing funnel through organic means, then you can start using advertising to start really growing.
Implement these tips to get the best ROI from your digital marketing funnel!
If you want to get more sales and build your business and are looking for an affordable marketing agency in Australia with expertise in digital marketing funnel development, then get in touch with the experts at Bright Owl Marketing.
