Internet marketers and affiliates alike are unlikely to create much success online without well conceived sales funnels. This will be the first in a series of articles in which I will cover the basics of building a sales funnel.
What Is A Sales Funnel?
A sales funnel is a structured method for walking people through a process for buying something from you.
Who Do You Want In The Sales Funnel?
When you have something to sell, you will want people apt to be interested in that product in your sales funnel.
This is what we call “targeted prospects”.
So, if your niche is elder care, you might target people who care for elderly relatives, or maybe even folks who are elderly themselves.
You will offer information of value to them on a regular basis. As you build a relationship of trust with these prospects, you will try to interest them in things you want them to buy.
What Will You Sell To Them?
You will sell things or information to these prospects that are related to elder care.
But not random things.
In fact, it would be best if you don’t even try to sell anything until you’ve built a sales funnel for them to enter into.
What Are The Components of Your Sales Funnel?
The sales funnel you build will comprise of inter-related products and services.
Typically, you would offer a fairly cheap “front end” product that would interest a broad spectrum of your prospects.
Using the elderly care example, this might be a $10 ebook called “How To Care For Elderly Relatives In Your Home”.
As soon as a prospect enters your sales funnel by purchasing the $10 ebook, they would be offered an “upsell”.
This might be a $25 digital “Resources Guide” that would contain a catalog of government services and programs available to your buyer, with detailed instructions and advice on how to apply for the programs and obtain the services.
For those who decline the $25 upsell, you might offer an immediate “downsell”.
This could be a $15 version of the $25 “Resources Guide”.
For $15, the buyer might be able to obtain the digital resources guide, but not the application instructions and advice.
So the sales funnel is now complete.
You have a front end product, an upsell and a downsell.
Where Do The Products Come From?
If you are an affiliate, you will probably have access to a sales funnel that was already built by the vendor of the product you are affiliating.
If you represent a company, such as a direct sales, binary or multi-level marketing company, there is undoubtedly an elaborate sales funnel already in place, consisting of products and business opportunity.
If you have your own products or services, you will need to build your own sales funnel.
In upcoming articles in this series, I will teach you a bit about building a sales funnel as an affiliate or product/services direct vendor.
I will touch on expanding your sales funnel into high end services and products as well as continuity and membership products.
And we will explore a bit more about how to find and position affiliate products for your funnel.
I’d like to hear if you’ve already built a sales funnel or if you are interested in building a sale funnel for the first time.
Please leave your comments below, and share this article on your social media sites.