Step-by-Step Guide to: Creating an Optimized Conversion Funnel
This guide will show you how to create your own Optimized conversion funnel, step by step.
Not only will you get the theory behind a funnel, but at the end you will find A Real Case Study to Make $792+ in LESS than 5 weeks.
So if you’re having trouble building your conversion funnel, getting new paying clients into your business, or you’re looking to improve your current funnel…– don’t worry.
You’re in the right place.
Step-by-Step Guide to: Creating an Optimized Conversion Funnel
For the new and even some of the more experienced Entrepreneurs, some might be asking these two common questions…
“What is a Conversion Funnel?” and also… “Why do I need to optimize my conversion funnel?”
Optimized Conversion Funnel definition in simplest terms:
Is a process of steps in which you anticipate from your potential customer/leads and you guide them to perform a desired outcome or action (this is where we differ from traditional funnels) by nurturing them in EVERY process.
Companies that thrive and nurture their customers during every process of their Conversion Funnel Generate more leads, and CHEAPER by 33%. They are also 50% MORE Sales-ready customers!
The traditional Conversion Funnel has leaks, and many of them; I’m going to help you plug them and Optimize your Conversion Funnel.
Optimizing your Conversion Funnel is about limiting the amount of leaks you have during each step of your funnel.
So what is the purpose of a Conversion Funnel?
Say you sell desserts, here is what the goal of a conversion funnel would be for your business.
A Conversion Funnel is meant for generating:
- Awareness (You advertise on platforms that you sell desserts, people are becoming aware EX. Social Media, Website etc.)
- Interest (People like your desserts from your advertising, Interactions on your advertisements)
- Desire (People are emitting a real desire to purchase your desserts)
- Action (Get them to purchase! You need to prompt people to take action, EX. Offer Referral discounts, 2 for 1 deals etc.)
Getting more specific; the purpose of your conversion funnel is to focus on your target market.
A clear understanding of what characteristics your ideal customer(s) have should be evident in your conversion funnel.
Another major time waste for most conversion funnels is filtering out the traffic that doesn’t apply to you.
Why pay for traffic; or pay in your blood, sweat and tears from hard work over “potential prospects” who never will have an interest in your services or product. It’s counter productive.
I am looking to teach you optimization, and awareness of some of these problems is the first step to Optimizing your Conversion Funnels.
Now what type of business can use a Conversion Funnel?
A Conversion Funnel can be Optimized in ANY field of Business.
Whether your business is…
– Online (Blog, eCommerce etc.)
– Offline (Landscapers, Jewelry Store etc.)
– A Big Business looking to shake things up
or a…
– StartUp looking for that vital boost in sales.
Optimizing your Conversion Funnel definitely applies to you and your business!
Would you like to get our free template so you can create your own conversion funnel?
Free Conversions Funnel Template Download NOW
It is one simple process for your business to implement daily; it varies under name, but all end in getting one result… More SALES.
The 3 Distinct Categories for Converting Clients
1) Acquisition
2) Activation
3) Monetization
These are all distinct categories for business funnels; depending on what your business needs you implement a fitting funnel to that need.
Examples of each funnel will follow throughout this article.
Implementing one funnel at a time is HIGHLY recommended.
Identify what your business needs are.
- Do you need to acquire more leads because you convert well on the ones you already have?
- Do you need to activate the prospects already in your system better than you are now?
- Do you need to convert at higher rates than what is being produced now?
The key to solving your business needs (Identify your Business Needs First) is to Split Test. Aka… A/B Testing, it is an easy way to track and upgrade your site and its conversions.
Split testing allows you to run multiple different options of your campaign and after a given amount of time, usually a week or two, determine which converted higher and implement that.
An example of a split test would be pop-ups that are giving information in exchange for an Email; you can play with the wording to see what converts customers more frequently.
You can always Split Test again right after you’ve decided upon which option converted better, based on your needs.
It is the savvy way to test the waters for any Entrepreneur when caught between two minds and close calls.
Conversion Funnels Are Also Known As (AKA)…
– Marketing funnel
– Conversion funnel
– Sales process
– Sales cycle
– Sales pipeline
Blah, blah, blah… you get the gist.
These processes are designed to subtly lead and position your business to get your customer to perform a desired action or outcome.
Acquisition Funnel Example…
Goal: Getting the prospect to sign up for a Free Course on your landing page.
You’ve got them on your page now it’s time to subtly sell them that YOU are the solution to their problem.
So you’re promoting your Free Course on “5 Steps to Lose that Belly”, what you want to do is use power words that directly solves the problem of “having a belly”.
Appeal to their emotions; understand how your potential prospects communicate to themselves and others about their problem.
This will position you much better as someone who understands them and can help them with that understanding.
You know they aren’t exactly proud of their figure so use a tone to empower them and also prove you’re the solution.
“Grab your own Free Course valued at $37.95 to get rid of that stubborn fat in your midsection to transform yourself into how you always envisioned!”
See what I did there?
I gave incentive to direct my prospect subtly to sign up.
How?
By stating it was a Free Course, but was Valued at $37.95.
People love free, ESPECIALLY when it was much pricier beforehand!
From there what I did identifywas the problem my prospect had, and I instilled in them that my Free Course is the solution to realizing their dream figure/self.
And that is an example of an Acquisition Funnel; you acquired a prospect’s Email in exchange for a Free Course.
Now, to limit the leaks and Optimize your Conversion Funnel you need to understand these basic principles…
Understanding How to Optimize your Conversion Funnel
- Treat your prospects/leads as individuals!
They are NOT a herd of sheep, and you the shepphard.
No. They are people…
People whom you want to BUY your products/services.
Just under 75% (73% to be exact) of your leads are NOT ready to be sold to right away, you need to nurture them as people.
So it will take a mixture of hard and smart work to pull off the staggering numbers apple does with iPhones, but even they do not sell to everyone… Not right away at least.
2) Nurture Your Leads!
Nurturing your leads starts with a tactic called Marketing Automation. This will change your business around 180 degrees.
Automating your Email campaign is great because it allows anyone who fills out a form on your webpage to be “tracked”.
This allows you to receive information about what pages they visit on your site, and if they interact with your social medias at all.
Also, it simply allows you to tailor what kind of a Marketing Campaign to implement because you access ALL the data they have accumulated on your page.
Companies that use Marketing Automation experience a revelation in business, their business ramps up a whopping 451%!
Nurtured leads also spend up to 47% more than traditional leads.
So get more business and they pay more! There’s a huge upside in nurturing leads, and segmenting Email campaigns based on user preferences and history.
By the way, if you want to learn how to send hundreds of PERSONALIZED outreach emails, check this out.
3) Optimized Conversion Funnels are Dual Ended
This means that you are “getting customers” and “growing customers”. The process of converting NEVER ceases.
Optimized Conversion Funnels focus more on nurturing leads, lead/customer behavior, and retaining the lead/customer during each step the funnel has.
4) Attract Quality, NOT Quantity
What good is it attracting numerous potential leads who want nothing to do with your business or product, you will simply filter them out in the first phase of your Conversion Funnel.
You should have an Ideal Customer Avatar in which you know all the characteristics of your customer; in essence, you’ll have a better idea of who you are targeting.
Quality leads that have an interest in what you offer is essential to optimizing business.
This saves you time filtering out the unwanteds; freeing up time to create content and offers, for promising leads.
You want to ask these 4 questions in order to separate yourself from other businesses and to attract quality leads
- What are your competitors offering?
- What are your competitors lacking?
- What can you optimize in comparison to their business?
- Where can you dominate? (Refer to Question 2)
5) Encouraging Customer Experiences
Customer experiences are huge to a conversion funnel!
You have to be willing and able to adapt to what your customers are saying. If your customers are getting stuck on something, ask!
One of the richest SaaS (Software as a Service) CEO’s in the world put it best, you might have heard of him…
If you can turn unhappy customers to happy customers; your conversion funnel and business are doing well.
To optimize our funnel ALWAYS be asking yourself “What can I do to make this the best customer experience at all times?”
This will put you in a different frame of mind, rather than focusing on sales 100%; you are focusing on your customer and their priorities; because they are your priorities!
6) Activate Your Customers
Take advantage of their happiness with your Optimized Conversion Funnel which creates a warming and helpful customer experience at every step.
You need to activate them, give them a reason to want to purchase!
These are most often times done with offers to prospects, giving them incentive that they feel “they just can’t pass up”.
An example from shop.CCS.com to Activate prospects is they are offering 50% OFF 1000’s items in their store for End Of Summer Steals.
Better yet, their advertisements POP out at your eyes.
It is a simple concept, you know what the offer is and what you can get. And It activates their customers.
7) Content to keep customers content
Here is where your information on your target market comes in handy.
You need to create content for precisely what your audience needs, this will keep them happy, and will keep them loyal!
To start off you want to create a “Welcoming Mat” for your customers who have little knowledge of who you are and what you do.
This is where you need to cradle in the customer like you are catching an egg with your bare hands.
You want to be firm enough to catch but soft enough not to shatter your hopes of getting referrals or cross-sales.
Make it abundantly clear how you can help them with what you do; if they cannot make that connection there is no sale to be had.
This is also where content comes into play, content and QUALITY content is valuable in gaining the trust of a new prospect.
To gain the trust of the new prospect you have to ‘Know Their Needs’ before you even know them!
You also need to show them you can solve these problems as quickly as you met them.
For this to happen, our target market must be crucially outlined and our advertisements are directly aimed at said target market.
Now you must create content that specifically solves your target market’s problems.
Put yourself in the mind of your target market, you know you have the answers but you have to convey it to your audience, and simply.
Brainstorm all their problems they have, then ask!
Get direct knowledge of what they need to know, being direct and testing to get the information is the best practice; guessing simply does more harm than justice to your business.
Now that you have asked and received answers; tailored content to solving the needs of your customers; your result will most likely be a customer who has absolute faith in what you provide.
Obviously keep your content relevant to what you are offering to potential clients, always make sure content applies to your target market.
8) Monetize Customers Further
Monetize your clients and customers further after they have purchased.
Give them relevant offers to what they have just purchased, this is called “cross-selling”.
This is considered striking while the iron is still hot.
Who better to monetize, then a client you KNOW is willing to pay for your product/service.
It is about being relevant to what they just bought; however, you can cross-sell or upsell another offer right away in order to see if they will purchase right then and there…
This is the best time because they already have their wallets out.
Another time is to wait about 2 weeks – 1 month and send them emails of promotions similar to what they have purchased.
Ask for feedback on whether they enjoyed the product, the best way to cross-sell is to ask if they are pleased with the product…
The customer will answer in their head, consciously or subconsciously and you can promote your next item or splinter a big offer.
Splintering is especially effective on previous customers, they tick 3 boxes…
- Aware of your quality products
- Have purchased before
- If you can sell them on the splinter, great odds to purchase full packaged item.
An example of Monetizing your customers…
In the past I purchased the book Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson and Amazon sent me this Monetization Offer to Cross-sell their other products…
That is a simple Monetization example from an Industry Leader in eCommerce.
It does not have to be fancy; it has to be effective!
That is how Amazon gets so many returning customers, that and their top notch customer service.
Amazon will be shipping in the future with drones, if that is not quality customer service by decreasing the shipping time and increase customer sales just by innovation, I do not want to know what is!
From digitalmarketer CVO blog:
“Tactics are worthless if you don’t understand the CVO process.
This is why you are frustrated. You have no context. You have no system.
We can teach you to drive traffic through tactics like blogging, Facebook Ads or email marketing but first you need to understand the system.
The goal, no matter which traffic source you choose, is to drive prospects into the CVO Funnel.”
But as you have probably noticed already, it’s not the same thing to hear and learn some theory; actually implementing it is fundamental.
You can get the template for you to create your own conversion funnel for your business.
I Want My Conversions Funnel Template NOW
Real Case Study to Make $792+ in LESS than 5 weeks
Are you ready to read this duplicatable case study for an online coaching business?
Grab on to something, this will get interesting…
Step #1: Defining the lead magnet
Before I even think about taking any type of actions, I sit down and I plan out the process, using the conversion funnel learnt above.
The first questions I ask are:
- How will other people get to know me?
- How can I offer value to the most people possible, and simultaneously minimize time spent working?
Both of these questions allow me to answer and define what will be my lead magnet.
For example: if I can have a free weekly call, where I provide valuable content and/or coaching to a lot of people simultaneously.
Clients can get to know me and they can see the value in what I am offering.
That can be a weekly call which I can promote on a facebook group, to people in my warm market and to anyone new I discover that would benefit from the information provided in the calls.
The tool I like to use is called www.freeconferencecalls.com, there is no charge and there is unlimited amount of calls you can make. To start using it:
Create a free account
Go to your profile dashboard and click on Wall
Click on host online meeting and it will ask you to download the plugin for the computer.
Install FCC_installer
This is where you will be able to see how many people are in the line.
Useful Tricks:
- To record the call, press *9
- To mute and unmute everyone in the call press *5
- To allow participants to unmute themselves, tell them to press *6
- You can then download the call and if you want, pass it to a transcript and use keywords to classify each call.
That’s just so you can set up your call line for free.
The Facebook group I don’t think needs to be explained, everyone should know how to do a Facebook group and invite all your warm market.
The one thing I do recommend is that you publish some type of content or motivational sentence every day, this will remind constantly all the people in the group about the call you will be having.
Step #2: Defining the Tripwire
Right after the lead magnet is defined, I ask this questions:
- How can I keep offering more value in such a way that I can charge between $1.00 to $17.00?
- How can I relate the lead magnet to the tripwire, offering more personalized coaching or more in depth information.
I know that the lead magnet will attract people and now my tripwire is the test to see who is willing to go even one step further in our relationship.
In the example I can offer a Mastermind Accountability group call, limited to only 6 people for a 5 week period, for a cost of $16.50.
I’m the facilitator and each person from the group shares their process. In this case it would be specifically about growing our business.
But you can use whichever topic you want.
Questions I Ask to Reach 1 Hour Call Length:
- What worked?
- What didn’t work?
- What are we committed to do this coming week?
I’m telling you, this is pure gold because literally you can do this without having to invest any money, and you can start receiving money in less than a week if you work hard.
Imagine, 6 people each paid $16.50 upfront for 5 accountability sessions of 1 hour each, that’s a total of $99.00. WOOHA you are now making $19.80/hour, isn’t that cool?
And this process is repeatable, you can promote more your lead magnet, and get more people signed up for different accountability groups (Tripwire)
The tripwire is where you can start doing A/B testing, sometimes the value perception of what we offer might affect our closing rates.
In this case, it might be possible that $16.50 for a five week accountability group call, might be too little and people might not purchase the product because they might think it’s not going to have value.
You can play around and see what price works best, test with $16, $50, $100 or even $150, use the same amount of people being offered for each price and see what has better results. 🙂
Step #3 Defining your core product
If I have people in the accountability calls, and they see that it’s helping them take action that they hadn’t taken before, this means that they will fall in love with me.
Why not offer them something for a longer time commitment, that gives them even more value?
That’s our core product:
In this case it is a 2 hour mastermind session for 8 weeks. With a limited capacity of 8 people.
Imagine if each one pays $99.00 for the whole deal, it’s a BARGAIN! but let’s just say that we are just starting out and we need to gain some confidence before elevating the prices. That is a total of $792 upfront for the next 2 months.
YES, now we are talking
The beauty of this, is that you can get all the money up front and you can use that money to invest in different things right away.
I’ve prepared an illustration with the conversion funnel of this specific case study, so you can visualize it and understand it better.
Now it’s your turn to design your own conversion funnel, I’m pretty sure you can do it, my recommendation is that you focus for 2 hours in a clear room, and just work on it, until you are done.
I know that sometimes it’s just really hard to take action without someone guiding us and showing us the way, that’s why I created a template for a conversion funnel, you just need to follow the steps and you will have a planned conversion funnel for your business 🙂
Most importantly is to have fun and enjoy the process of you creating it.
5 Page Funnel Template Download Here
About the Author Andy Murphy
Andy`s true passion is to use the most cutting edge psychological tools blended with his own 21st century version of eastern philosophy to help global clients excel to their full potential. This passion is what drives him every day.