Struggling to generate leads or convert them into high-ticket sales?
You might not be using the right sales funnel for your business.
A good sales funnel can mean the difference between a sexy product…
…and someone screaming into the void with zero buyers.
In this episode, we’ll talk about the top three sales funnels of 2024 and:
- Why Webinars are a great way for coaches to attract clients
- How a Video Sales Letter converts casual viewers to paying customers
- The secret to building your mailing list and getting sales at the same time 🤫
- How to optimize your landing page for maximum lead conversion
…and more kickass sales funnel strategies to boost your coaching business’s profits.
Today on Founders Go Naked, we want to address the best funnel for coaches and consultants and other questions pertaining to funnels. And with me today is my A.I. co-host Debbie, who will be asking the questions.
What in your opinion is the best funnel for coaches and consultants?
Terence: All right, Debbie, that’s a great question.
I will say it really depends on what type of coach and consultant you are, and also what type of offer you’re making. So, for example, if you’re making a high ticket offer, like most coaches listening to this podcast would be,
I would say a webinar or an event is probably your best bet.
A webinar or events funnel like a challenge funnel, a two day boot camp funnel. Those kinds of funnels are probably the best [00:01:00] for coaches who want to sell high ticket items.
The other type of funnel that’s really good are VSLs.
So what’s a VSL? A VSL is a video sales letter. So what you want to do in this scenario is you basically direct people from the ads straight to a video on your landing page. And your video basically runs through the whole program with them while adding value, giving them some aha moments, right? And then basically pivoting to saying,
“Hey, if you need help implementing this, get in touch with us.”
The third type of funnel that’s great for coaches and consultants out there is a lead magnet funnel.
So what’s a lead magnet? A lead magnet, for those of you who don’t know, it’s basically a free document, a free checklist, a free e-book or whatever it is, a free download that you give away in exchange for someone’s email address or contact number.
One of our clients, a tutor, they do tuition services for children. What they use lead magnets for is to build their lists, and through a sequence [00:02:00] of emails and follow-ups, they get them to come forward for a free trial or a free webinar. And they will basically then upsell them into the tuition program, which is a monthly subscription so that kids can learn English, Maths or whatever it is that they are selling.
- So a lead magnet funnel is a great way to number one, build your list.
- And number two, at the same time, also upsell them to a higher ticket item.
With a lead magnet funnel the downside is that you don’t get results immediately, but you get results over the medium to longer term because you’re building a list.
So a lead magnet is a good way to attract the right type of people at the top of the funnel as well, which you can then monetize in the middle and at the bottom of the funnel.
All right. So that in my opinion, the best three and most simple funnels that a coaching expert should be using to grow their business.
What are the key components of an effective sales funnel?
Terence: Okay. So the key components of an effective sales funnel, Debbie, are number one: first [00:03:00] and most important thing is you have to speak to the right audience.
I just had a consultation this week with a prospective client. They are trying to target three different audiences with one offer. And at the end of day, that’s not going to be very effective. So what I got them to do is to evaluate each of these three audiences and to determine which audience is the most profitable for their business.
And once we got that, that is the audience we want to target because that is the audience that has proven to be the ideal audience for this customer. So I think that is the number one mistake, trying to cater your message in your funnel for too broad an audience without really understanding who your audience is. So that is the number one thing. The second thing is to make sure that you consider the various steps in your customer journey, especially if you’re trying to sell a high ticket offer.
For instance, one of our clients, they are selling a high ticket item that’s worth about $10,000. So, what we’ve done [00:04:00] is we have created a multi-step process where in step one, we just get the prospect to read an article or watch a video. And then we retarget these audiences to say, All right, the next step is to book a consultation.
And then once they book consultation, the next step is then, in the consultation, walk them through a whole process and then pitch a high ticket item. So, I think it’s so important to plan out your whole customer journey and the contact points within your funnel that you need to create to move that customer one step closer to that actual purchase. So that is the second thing that you need to do.
And the third thing you need to do to create an effective sales funnel is that you need to have great offers throughout the funnel.
So, what do I mean by that?
- First of all, we need to have a great video or a great article that will draw people in the first instance and that video or that article is the offer.
- And in step two, is where we actually get them to [00:05:00] answer a quiz. So the quiz is also an offer to move them to the next step of the customer journey.
- And then, after the quiz, we basically offer a free consult, which is again, another great offer because once again, it’s free.
So each step of the way, needs to be planned really well. And each step of the way needs to have a corresponding offer that moves your customer into the next step of the customer journey. So apart from the contact points, you need great offers and you need to have messages that speak to the right people.
Those are the key components of an effective sales funnel. And of course you can throw in automation, all that stuff to help you with those multiple contact points and those offers.
But how can I attract the right target audience to my funnel?
Terence: All right. First of all, comes back again to the messaging.
If you have a clear understanding of who your ideal audience is, you can then write the right type of messaging that addresses the pains, addresses the [00:06:00] challenges and addresses the desires, and speaks to them specifically.
- So the first point of contact is always the messaging: getting clear about who your customer avatar is and tailoring that message.
- Now the second thing is that you need to use the right targeting, whether you’re using Facebook, using Google, using TikTok, whatever it is, you need to make sure you’re targeting the right people.
For example, in our agency, we clearly target very specific coaches and experts. Coaches, and experts that are running events that want to do high ticket sales. Those are the type of audiences we want to target.
So in that sense, we can’t just go out and blanket target people on Facebook or Google. So what we have done in this case, we have a very, very small niche that we target. So we use Google and we target websites and brands and softwares that our audience is likely to visit. And make sure that they see our message.
So, yeah, this is a more complicated one. Obviously for most people you might want to target like a very broad [00:07:00] audience.
So you might just use, you know, your Facebook standard interest targeting, or you might want to use Google to target relatively broad audiences, but when you want to get really specific to target very specific people, you need to utilize the full capabilities of the ad platform that you’re using. And the third thing, once again, comes back to the offer. So in order to catch the right fish, you need to use the right bait. If the type of fish you want to catch eats worms, then you better use worms.
Similar to targeting the right audience for your funnel: if you use a lead magnet, if you have a webinar, make sure the topic is relevant to that particular audience so that you attract the right type of people to your webinar and to your funnel.
What marketing strategies are most effective for filling the top of the funnel?
Terence: Okay. The marketing strategies that are most effective for filling the top of funnel, I’ll say, as I mentioned before, one of our clients right now, we’re using video ads, we using advertorials so we’re just sending the traffic to the videos, to the [00:08:00] advertorials so that they consume video content, they consume articles so we can then re-target these people down the track.
The other thing you could use for filling the top of the funnel is using lead magnets.
You can use free reports or free checklists that are useful for your particular audience. So these are excellent for filling the top of the funnel because once you have something valuable produced that people are willing to exchange their information for, their contact details, you then get them into the email list, right? So, this is actually relatively cheap to do, and you can get your funnel up pretty quickly and you can get basically leads into your database for several dollars. Really, really cheap way to start building your list.
Another way that’s quite effective for filling the top of funnel is basically offering a free assessment, a free consultation type of offer.
Now, one of key mistakes here that people make is that they often have just a free strategic core, free discovery call without promising any outcomes. So what I want you to do is to brand your free assessment or [00:09:00] your free consultation.
Now because everybody offers free assessments or consultations, the key for you here is to make up a name for your free assessment or consultation. Make it sound a little bit fancy. So that sounds different. For example, one of the things that we do is a funnel multiplayer consultation. What we do is that in this funnel multiplier consultation we help people to evaluate their funnels, to find out where they are leaking money in their funnels. And also to improve their funnels so that we can actually get more revenue from the existing funnels.
Now, the other strategy that’s effective for filling top of the funnel are your webinars and events.
So we’ve basically talked about that lot, so I won’t go into detail. I just want you to know that webinars and events are very effective, for filling top of the funnel.
And the great thing about it is that you are actually getting people to events where they can learn more about you so that they know you, they trust you and you can pitch them your high ticket offer.
How can I convert leads into paying clients more effectively?
Terence: All right. So how can you convert your leads into paying clients more effectively is several things, right?
First of all, offered them an entry point offer that’s low-risk. So I’ve illustrated with several examples already. Like you could have just a free video, a free blog posts that people read or free lead magnets. So all of those require very low commitment from the prospects part, right?
So that’s super low risk, easy to sign up for even the free webinars are easy to sign up for. And important thing is to make it easy for them to take that first step. And then once they take that first step, you need the logical next step.
So in our agency we get people to download our book on funnels that effective for high ticket coaches and experts. Okay. So once they download in that funnel, the offer on the next page is I actually give them the opportunity to get in touch with me one-on-one so that I can evaluate what is the best funnel for their existing business.
And then [00:11:00] once we go through that whole process, I would say here’s your funnel that is probably best suited for your business, right? So now, you know your funnel, you can go ahead and build it yourself. Or you can let me help you to build it. it’s so important to know the step-by-step process and plan out the logical next step to your offer.
So many times I see many coaches, many businesses, their first offer is not congruent with the second offer.
So, let me give you an example. The coach might say like here’s the 10 step checklist to help you to start your business. Then in the second step, once they downloaded the report, The coach might say Let me give you my model to scale your business rapidly, right? That may look very logical, but the fact is that once that person who is a wannabe entrepreneur downloads that first step, they’re not ready yet to scale their business.
They haven’t even started the business yet. So offering them a consult to help them to scale the business or a information product to help them scale the business, [00:12:00] does not make sense yet at this stage. So the coaches skip, maybe two steps in between. They should be making some offers in between to help this customer actually start the business first before moving on to actually offering them something on scaling the business.
How do I measure the success of my funnel?
Terence: Okay.
- So first of all, check out your bounce rate, which is people coming to your page and then going off immediately.
So if they are then find out ways to decrease your bounce rate.
- And then second thing is you want to make sure the conversion rate of your page is really good.
Say for example, if you’re offering a lead magnet, a free download, you should be getting 40% to 50% or more in terms of your conversion rate. If you’re not, then you need to look at ways to improve the conversion rate. Maybe it’s changing the layout, changing the headlines, changing the copy on the page to ensure that conversion rate goes up.
- The third thing is the time spent on your page, especially if you have a long page or a video on the page.
You want people [00:13:00] to spend more time on the page so that they are consuming all the content on the page. If they are not consuming all the content on the page, if they’re just staying there for 10, 20 seconds and you know that they’re not consuming all the content. Then you need to put in measures to improve the copy or whatever it is that’s causing them to exit the page.
- And the fourth thing you need to know based on that, is that where on the page are they exiting?
So what we do is we have a video monitoring software that we can use to see where people are exiting the page. Maybe it’s like halfway down the page two third way down the page and they’re exiting. We need to then tweak that part of the page so that we improve that page and people stay longer.
- And the fifth thing is that where on the funnel are they exiting?
So you might have several pages on your funnel, right? Where are they exiting? If they come on to the signup page for your webinar, they go to the next page, which is maybe an upsell page. And then there’s a third page where there’s a thank you page.
And they [00:14:00] exiting at the upsell page then you need to figure out ways to improve the upsell page. So wherever they’re exiting, if they have not completed the whole journey, you need to tweak that part of the funnel to make sure it’s improving.
- The other way, what we also do too make sure that our funnel is successful is that we ask people some questions when they sign up for like, say the webinar or sign up for our lead magnets.
We asked them several questions so that we can assess whether we are getting the right people to our funnel, right? Because there’s no point getting really, really cheap leads where 99% of your leads are not the right fit for your high ticket offer.
So in this scenario, what we want to do is to make sure that, whatever offer we’re making, we’re attracting the right type of people.
And that’s why sometimes we might have several lead magnets running concurrently to make sure that we’re attracting the right type of people into our funnel. And of course finally, one of the key things you need [00:15:00] to make sure is that your bottom line sales is improving.
If your funnel is not bringing in the bottom line sales and everything else looks good. Then there is something wrong with your funnel. So that is the final thing you need to check.
So guys, I really hope you enjoy this episode and that you got plenty out of it.
I’m sure if you apply this to your funnels whether you are a high ticket coach, whether you are an expert, I am sure you will get better results and of course if you need help building any of your funnels and if you want a free appraisal on your funnel, please reach out to us. We’ll be happy to help you to do that. And finally make sure you watch out for the next episode, which will be coming to you fairly soon.
This podcast is hosted by Terence Tam, author of Lead Surge: 8 Radically Effective Marketing Funnels for Coaches and Experts. He is also the Founder of Radical Marketing, a digital marketing agency that partners with high-ticket coaches to scale their businesses with Webinars – by using a proprietary blend of story ads and battled-tested sales funnels to achieve better returns on ad dollars.
