76 | Sales Funnels
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[00:00:00] Hello, friends. And welcome back to the crusher goals with Christie podcast. The business podcast where you'll find clarity over confusion, community, over competition, and the confidence to crush your goals. I'm your host, Christy Johnson, wedding photographer, business, strategist, and community builder. 

[00:00:24] Dedicated to helping you build the business of your dreams. Step-by-step. [00:00:30] Today, we're going to go a little bit more in depth into sales funnels. I know when we talk about sales funnels, people get squeamish. They are like, no, no, no. This is complicated. I don't want to talk about it. But sales one was, are really important to business. 

[00:00:45] And they're not as complicated as you might think. Last week's episode all about email marketing episode 75 talked briefly about sales funnels, but I want to go a little bit more in depth today. And if you ever have been wondering [00:01:00] what, even our sales funnels and how do I get started? Then this episode is for you, or if you just want to learn a few tips that maybe you haven't heard yet. 

[00:01:08] Then that's what we're going to do today. So sales funnels are really one of the most important parts of your business because without them. You might have a great product or service, but you won't be able to get it out to your customers out to the public and make money. Sales funnels are a really great way to increase your sales and your [00:01:30] profits. And they're especially important for creative entrepreneurs. Because a lot of times we rely on our email lists or growing our business on social media to make money. 

[00:01:40] So we need to have a way to bring those people in and pitch the products and services. To them or invite them into a paid offer with you. Okay. So. Let's first talk about what a sales funnel is. Okay. It's not complicated. It's just a series of steps that your potential customer goes [00:02:00] through before making a purchase. 

[00:02:02] So a sales funnel can be as basic, like a website page is a sales funnel where you walk them through the. Offer what it is, the description. And then the button to buy. That's a sales funnel. A series of emails where you pitched to them a product or a service. And at the end, they're invited to buy that's a sales funnel. 

[00:02:24] And even something like Cindy and your booking proposal, or a quote or a contract and an [00:02:30] invoice, that's a sales funnel. So. It's not a really crazy complicated thing. It's literally just the series of steps that your customers go through before making a purchase. So it's the process process of turning. 

[00:02:42] Your. Leads into paying customers into clients. So it's a way of taking someone from being interested. Into your product or service to actually making. The purchase and there are different steps in different parts of the funnel, um, from the most basic [00:03:00] funnels to the more complex one. And that includes awareness. So. 

[00:03:04] Uh, knowing what it is that step one, you want to make sure that your customers know what you offer and the way you're going to do that is by talking about it on social media, telling your list about it, having a landing page, writing blog posts about it, sharing about it on Pinterest, all these types of things. 

[00:03:20] So step one is awareness. Or, um, then the next step beyond awareness is interest or curiosity as Donald Miller [00:03:30] likes to talk about it. So, this is where they go from knowing about it, to being interested in it and wanting to learn more about it. Maybe they are not sure yet if they want to buy, but they are interested in learning more. So this is where having something like a really appealing tagline on your website or. 

[00:03:50] Some really interesting sales copy that tells a story, um, can draw them in. And this is all gonna come down to your market research to make sure that it's what your [00:04:00] customers want. And we talk about market research in episode 69 and easy way to do market research. So awareness is step one, interest or curiosity. 

[00:04:09] Then evaluation. So they're gonna evaluate whether or not they want to purchase this. Um, Donald Miller has a step called. Enlightenment. So this is where they are learning about your product and deciding if it's right for them. So evaluating your product. [00:04:30] And this is where, you know, you want to add more details about the product. 

[00:04:34] You can do things like spell out who the program is actually for who the service is actually for. And if they see themselves represented and they think, yeah, that's me, then they're more likely to make a decision, which is the next step decision deciding to make the purchase. And then last but not least the purchase. So awareness, interest, evaluation, decision, and purchase. So you want to start with your target audience. 

[00:04:58] Being aware of your [00:05:00] product or service, then you need to generate interest in what you're selling. So write some really interesting sales copy. Some Instagram posts make some reels that are interesting, whatever it might be for you. And once you've done that, then your prospects will evaluate your product or service to see if it's something they would be interested in a buying. 

[00:05:18] After that they'll make a decision whether or not to buy it. And then finally they'll make the purchase. So that's the basics of a sales funnel. And like I said, it can be as simple as sending them an email about your services. [00:05:30] And saying here's the button to buy it. Or here's what you can pay the invoice, or it can be a full fledged email sequence, a nurture sequence that walks him through different parts of that process, the awareness interest, evaluation, the decision and the purchase. So let's talk about how to build a sales funnel. It's a process and it takes some time to get it right, but to get you started, the first thing that you want to do is identify your target audience. 

[00:05:58] Who are you [00:06:00] selling to? Who are your ideal? Customers, what are their needs and wants. You need to take some time to research and identify your target audience. Again, I talk about this in episode 69, an easy way to do market research. Also, I go in depth on this and actually walk you through it in my build your business cohort, which you can register for it now, by going to Christy Johnson, creative.com/build your biz B I Z. 

[00:06:27] Build your biz, Chrissy Johnson, creative.com forward [00:06:30] slash build your biz. We talk about. Market research and I have some homework and we go through it. We actually go through like all of these things. Things, a lot of these things into build your business cohort. Um, so I really encourage you to check it out. 

[00:06:43] So after you identify your target audience, their needs and their wants, you're going to want to create a landing page. This is the first step in your sales funnel. It's the page where potential customers land when they click on a link or an advertisement. So it should be designed to capture their attention and encourage them to take. 

[00:06:59] Action. [00:07:00] You want to get this information from your market research? What is going to capture their attention? How, what are the types of problems that they face and how can you bring that into your sales copy to capture their intention? This comes from your market research. So the landing page should capture their intention attention and encourage them to take action. There needs to be a call to action that says, sign up now, or book your service or something [00:07:30] like that. 

[00:07:30] Whatever the objective is for your landing page. Everything needs to be pointing to that. You don't want to distract them with a lot of links to other things. You need to have a clear call to action and encourage them to take action. You can have a short form landing page. That's as simple as enter your email address and click the button to sign up. Or you can have a long form sales page that gives more information. And if you're doing a long form page, then you want to have your calls to action. Like multiple times throughout the page. [00:08:00] 

[00:08:00] Okay, next, you're going to want to offer an incentive. So this could be something like a discount. Uh, it could be free shipping if you're doing products or a free trial. Uh, I do that with my biz besties program. I offer a free trial for biz besties because I want them to a lot of times, like they don't really understand what it is, and I know that once they get in and dive in, they're going to love it. So I give them that free trial. 

[00:08:25] And it could also be like something like this sale is going away or this, [00:08:30] the doors to this program are closing. So giving them an incentive to take action is really going to help. Next you're going to want to send some follow up emails. So once someone has clicked through your landing page, it's important to follow up with them. 

[00:08:46] And for me, let's say you're giving them a freebie. You're delivering a freebie. I like the first email to just say, Hey, here's your freebie. I'm excited for you to get started. Then the next day I send them an email that, that connects with them, tells them a [00:09:00] story about a problem that I faced, that they have as well, and how I struggled with it. Then the next day I talked to them about this dilution, how I overcame that problem. 

[00:09:09] The next day I send them. Uh, and an invitation to join my program that is going to help them, uh, achieve this result that they're looking for or that solution to their problem. The next day, I go more in depth into what the offer looks like the next day. I share some testimonials from past. Uh, clients who [00:09:30] have had a great experience. And then the next day, the final day, I give them a F a last chance. I say, this deal is going away, or the doors are closing. Whatever I've decided is going to be, you know, that incentive. So, um, 

[00:09:43] You know, offering them a discount if they purchase at a certain time or 

[00:09:46] telling them, you know, it's going away. You're not gonna be able to sign up after this. And that's something that I would send in the follow-up email. So identify your target audience, create a landing page, offer an incentive, send followup emails. Then you want to [00:10:00] measure your results. So once your funnel is up and running, you need to make sure that you measure it. Is it actually working? You can track your conversions. You can track the number of people who actually made a purchase. And this will give you an idea of what's working and what isn't. You can do this with Kajabi or Kartra. 

[00:10:18] You can have links recontract. If they click the link, how many people click the link? You can even put links. On different like places. So if you're sharing about your offer on Pinterest, you could have a [00:10:30] unique blink for Pinterest, so you can know, oh, they came from Pinterest. If you're sharing it on Facebook, you could have a link that says, oh, they're coming from Facebook. 

[00:10:36] Um, the Facebook conversion pixel does this as well. If you're running like Facebook ads, but you need to measure your results because then you will not know if it's working or not. So having some kind of way to track the results. Uh, is going to be important. So you can even do something as simple as like page views. If you don't have something like Kajabi or Kartra or something like that, you can [00:11:00] see how many people are landing on your page. And then how many people have converted, um, based on like how many people have signed up for the lead magnet. 

[00:11:09] Alright. So tho those are the steps to building a sales funnel. Identify your target audience, create a landing page. Offer an incentive, CIN follow-up emails measure your results. And that's it, but we also want to make sure that your sales funnel is effective and some ways to do that are to first of all, just make sure [00:11:30] that it's attractive. It has to be attractive enough to entice potential customers to take action. You want to make sure it's something that they can't resist. 

[00:11:38] Again, this goes all back to your market research. What are their deep desires? What are their pain points? You know, when you hear an ad or you see an ad and you're like, oh my gosh, are they reading my mind? That's because they've done their market research. You can also test different variations. You can do some, a B testing. You can send an email to your audience with one subject line or an email with a [00:12:00] different subject line and see what's better. You can have different landing pages with different Ted lines at the very top of the page and see which ones are, are operating or are performing differently. 

[00:12:13] You could have a long form sales page versus a short form sales page and see which one's converting. You could even like swap. Swap out the picture and see which one's converting. Um, this is only going to be able to happen if you have some kind of software like Kajabi or Kartra to do that. [00:12:30] Um, it makes it really, really easy to do that. 

[00:12:33] You also want to use some automation, it could help you save time and money. Um, so sending those automated emails. Is really important. You can do this with any email service provider. I use flow desk. We talked about that a little bit in the last episode on email marketing as well. And then of course you want to track your results, just like measuring your results for your sales funnel to make sure it's effective. 

[00:12:54] You want to. Um, make sure that you're measuring your conversions. How many people are converting? [00:13:00] Is there some reason that it's not converting? Are there any other metrics that are important to you in your business? This is where you want to make sure that you're tracking that always track it because results should drive your. 

[00:13:12] Your decisions what's going to be effective for you. Okay. So hopefully this overview was helpful for you. I think sales funnels are essential. It's a great way to increase your sales and your profit. They can be really, really effective if you do them. Right. So take time to build a sales funnel that is tailored to your [00:13:30] target audience and offers an attractive. 

[00:13:32] Incentive. And then you can use automation and tracking to make sure it's working. And with the right sales funnel, you can take your business to the next level. If you want help with this help and taking your business to the next level, check out my services. You can go to Christy Johnson, creative.com/services. 

[00:13:47] To see how you can work with me one-on-one or you can join my, build your business cohort at Christie Johnson, creative.com/build your biz B I Z. So build your biz. I would love to see you there. All right, thanks friends. [00:14:00] And I will see you in the next episode.