You’ve worked hard to create your product and now you need to work hard to sell your product. One of the most important things you can do to earn more money with your products is set up a great and well-thought-out sales funnel.
A sales funnel is the process you lead your customers or potential customers through. It starts off by capturing their attention, developing relationships, using the psychology of sales, guiding them to buy with a call to action, and then possibly presenting a potential series of upsells and/or downsells.
There are many different ways to create sales funnels, of course. It might be the case that you want to send people directly to your sales page instead of creating a full sales funnel. That may or may not work for the product you are promoting.
Or, maybe you want to direct people to a squeeze page, get them on your list, and then direct them to a sales page.
Maybe you want to direct people to a sales page and then present them with an upsell. Or, maybe you don’t want to do an upsell at all.
What I’m going to present you with today isn’t a strict rulebook on how to plan a sales funnel. But, I am going to present you with a variety of different options so you can choose what will work for you.
I do urge you to test different things. You’d be surprised at how many more sales you can make once you get people on your list and develop a relationship with them first. Keep in mind that it often takes a few different times of people seeing your product before they’re ready to go on to purchase it.
If you have a solid sales funnel, you’ll tend to make more sales. You’ll send your own traffic through the sales funnel. Affiliates will also send their traffic through your sales funnel. Obviously, you want to make as many sales as possible and so do your affiliates. That’s why it’s so important to really think about this and try different things, even if you’ve never set up a full sales funnel before.
To Upsell or Not to Upsell…
Before we go any further about the different options, let’s talk about upsells to get that out of the way. There are many differences of opinion when it comes to upsells. An upsell is what you would typically present after someone has purchased your main product.
They already have their credit card out, so you’re presenting them with yet another offer that’s perfectly in line with what they need. I’ll say that again – this upsell offer should be exactly in line with what they’ve already bought. It shouldn’t make them feel like they didn’t get enough of a good product the first time around. It should, however, complement the offer they’ve already purchased.
You can upsell people to higher-end, more premium products, add-ons, personal help, and so on.
In some cases, you won’t have an upsell at all. In other cases, you’ll have just one upsell. In still other cases, you might have a few upsells. Just keep in mind what’s best for your buyers as well as what’s best for you.
By the way, you can also use downsells. Let’s say someone doesn’t take the first upsell you present them. You can then present them with a downsell – generally a less expensive version of the upsell or even of the original product if they didn’t go ahead and buy that.
The idea is that you want them to buy something… Anything. Maybe they didn’t need or want exactly what the first offer was or they weren’t prepared to spend that amount of money.
A downsell can still turn them into a buying customer, but at a lower cost to them. They get to test out your products and hopefully become a lifelong customer. Again, you can present a downsell after they’ve turned down an upsell or you can present a downsell after they’ve turned down buying the original product. Generally, you’ll present the downsell after they turned down an upsell.
Why Not Send People Straight to a Sales Page?
It’s so much easier to just write a sales page and send all of your traffic there, right? Sure, it might be easier in the sense that it’s not quite as much work to set up in the beginning. But, you might be leaving a lot of money on the table if that’s all you do.
I’m not saying it’s never okay to do that and I often do that, especially when it’s a new release and, for whatever reason, I don’t want to do a full sales funnel at that point.
When I am saying is that it’s definitely worth considering creating a full sales funnel for the majority of products. If you send someone straight to a sales page, they might buy or they might not. No matter how great your sales copy and offer are, more people will click away than will buy.
This is especially true if the potential buyer isn’t familiar with you, if it’s the first time they’ve heard of your products, if they’re distracted by other things, if they meant to come back but forgot, and for countless other reasons.
Sure, you’ll make some great sales anyway if your sales copy is good. But how many more sales could you make if you had a full sales funnel set up?
Let’s take a look at the scenario again. Instead of just sending traffic straight to a sales page, you instead send them to a squeeze page where you give something away for free. Everyone loves to get things for free, right? So, they sign up to your email list to get a freebie.
Right after they’ve signed up to your list, you go ahead and present them with your sales page. At this point, they’re excited about getting something for free and the power of reciprocity comes into play. They’ve gotten something for free, so you’re already on their good side… And they sort of want to return the favor even if they don’t realize it yet.
Then, they see your sales page and they might buy or they might not. Only this time, if they do click away, it’s not forever. Because they’re now on your email list and you haven’t lost that traffic… It’s yours. Now you can email them and present them with your offer additional times.
Remember that it sometimes takes more than one time before they’re ready to buy your offer. They might have to see your offer multiple times before they’re ready. Get them on your email list and you can email them about your products.
Instead of just getting that initial traffic one time, that same traffic sees your offer over and over again. Many more people will go on to buy. If not the first time, maybe the next time or the time after that.
And, instead of just sending them to a sales page and having them buy the single product, note that they are in the buying mood. They’ve already purchased one of your products. Why wouldn’t they buy more? Especially if you now have a relationship with them.
Relationships are important. People buy from those they know, like, and trust. Now, that means you. They’re on your list, they bought your product… Why not show them an upsell?
If you come up with a great upsell, you can earn more money from the same customer. They get more of what they want and need and you earn more money. It’s a win-win situation.
Having a full sales funnel helps you build relationships. It gets people in the buying mood. Your customers and potential customers need help and you have what they need. Don’t be shy about presenting people with offers that can really help them.
Get Your Sales Funnel up and Running
Now, it’s time to take action and get your sales funnel up and running.
Prepare your email list and email follow-ups. Pepper your autoresponder with relationship building emails as well as sales emails that point to your sales page.
Get your squeeze page ready. If you aren’t going to create a squeeze page, consider putting an exit pop-up on your sales page so you can capture email addresses from those who were about to click away.
Come up with a great freebie enticement to get people to sign up for your list. It should be something highly related to the product you’re selling.
Prepare a great sales page with an offer people can’t refuse. Work on building relationships with people and presenting your sales page more than one time. Really hone in on the value you can offer people.
Come up with a great, premium upsell (possibly multiple upsells) you can present to people who’ve gone on to buy your product.
Consider if you want to come up with a downsell to present to those who are not ready to purchase your upsell.
After you have your sales funnel set up, continue to market to your list.
Market to those who joined your email list through your squeeze page and have not yet gone on to become paying customers.
You’ll also market to those who have become paying customers. You’ll present additional offers, offers as an affiliate, and premium offers to your list that you’ve built via your sales funnel.
Through your sales funnel, you should be making sales as well as adding additional names to your email list. Rinse and repeat, build your list, make more sales, and earn more with a great sales funnel.