20 point Sales ladder cheat sheet
Many people are intimidated by the idea of creating sales videos… and maybe you feel the same way. Isn’t it too complicated, too technical, too time consuming? It’s time to realise that this represents a massive advantage for you, if you learn the simple techniques for creating awesome online sales funnels and gain an edge over your competition.
What You’ll Discover in this Cheat Sheet:
check-circle-o
The top 10 Don’ts
Learn how to create 100% professional looking marketing videos, using free tools only.
check-circle-o
The top 10 must dos
Copy our exact recipe for creating conversion boosting videos for any purpose!
check-circle-o
The essentials of sale funnel building
Learn about the one aspect of video that is extremely important, but overlooked by your competitors.
check-circle-o
conversion tips and trick
See how you can use each video you make to get traffic from multiple sources.
#1
Don’t try to Sell the Most expensive Item 1st
With most sales funnels you will probably be selling to cold or maybe warm traffic. At this point you should be trying to keep their attention, hook them in to continue reading your copy, listening to your video and building rapport.
The beauty of a sales funnel is you have the time to do this. Take your time to nurture the lead and gain trust. Through the sales funnel you can build a relationship, overcome objections and prime the visitor for opting in or purchasing.
Let the sales funnel do the work. Sure there might be hungry, ready to buy visitors and the funnel will filter them out, leading them down a different funnel specifically for the ready and willing buyer, but don’t push too hard too fast or you will possibly lose potential leads and sales.
#2
Don’t Throw Away visitors who say ‘No’ Too Soon
A sales funnel allows you to present your visitors with downsells as well as upsells during the sales funnel process. Maybe they aren’t ready to buy your main ticket items, but present them with a smaller sale or even optin at the right time and at least you get the opportunity to try to sell again to a now warmed up client.
Some businesses make their money on the downsell and use the upsell as a diversion. And some don’t even plan to sell through their funnel, but instead use it to collect contacts and leads to then sell to in a different way, like telesales or personal visits. As the old sales saying goes, “it isn’t that the prospect has said “no”, it’s just that they haven’t said “yes” yet!
According to Marketing Insider Group, the average open rates for shopping cart abandonment is 46.6%, with a click-through rate at an impressive 28.7%, and conversion rate at 5%.
#3
Don’t forget to Follow Up A LOT!
The money is in the follow up. It’s the biggest lesson an online marketer can learn. Just because they said no the first time doesn’t mean they won’t be ready to say yes the second time. And the cash isn’t in the 1st sale in the funnel, but in the follow ups and upsells.
Or look at it this way. You can’t win the sale or more sales if the prospect isn’t thinking about you and your product or service. As soon as you have an email it’s time to add them to the database and contacting them for further upsells and resales.
When a buyer purchases something from your sales funnel, you can expect them to want to purchase more during your order follow-up emails such as feedback campaigns, order replenishment campaigns, review requests and reward campaigns.
With order follow ups, almost half (46.1%) of email recipients open emails that are related to their purchase and the conversion rate is stil around 5%.
TIP
Opt-in to a sales funnel of one of the leading marketing experts and a local marketing company and then sit back and wait a few weeks. Then count up the number of emails each company has sent you. You may be surprised at the difference!
#4
Don’t be slow with the follow up
If people are requesting information on your site then they are showing an interest in your content, products or services. That in sales parlance is called a buying signal. They are in the buying cycle.
Strike while the iron is hot and start presenting them with opportunities to revisit your site and make the purchase. Waiting too long to follow-up could cause them to look elsewhere and purchase from your competitors.
According to Increase in sales opportunities:Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads. (Demand Gen Report, 2014)67% of B2B marketers say they see at least a 10% increase in sales opportunities through lead nurturing, with 15% seeing opportunities increase by 30% or more. (Demand Gen Report, 2014)
#5
Don’t Throw the baby out with the bathwater
Even if you are sure you have done everything just right, yet you still aren’t getting the results you want, don’t get disheartened and give up.
Normally it is something small that has been overlooked that causes a low performing sales funnel. The trick is to be consistent and measure the conversion points as accurately as you can. That way you can quickly find out where the hole is in the funnel and repair it.
#6
don’t Make the purchase or checkout complicated
Some studies place abandonment as high as 80%, although it is likely to be much less in reality and as long as you keep to basic eCommerce practices that reduce buyer drop out, like having a good mobile responsive version of the shop because whilst it may work great on a pc , it may not work well on a mobile phone.
A complicated payment gateway or checkout is like making people jump through hoops to buy your goods. Don’t make the process complicated. Making people take extra steps will kill your sales. Remove the obstacles and keep the path to purchasing simple and quick.Although many shoppers drop out of the buying process because they can’t buy as a “guest shopper” and have to create an account to make a purchase, the most common reason for not following through with the purchase is an insecure checkout. You need to have the correct safety certificates and setup to make you buyer feel safe giving over their financial details, like a credit card.
A 9 years large-scale checkout testing study by Baymard Institute has discovered that the average large-sized e-commerce site can gain a 35.26% increase in conversion rates just through better checkout design.
TIP
Jack Dorsey of Twitter said that the key to online success today is to make something that takes 3 clicks a 2 click operation.
#7
don’t forget to include a persuasive Call-to-Action
The call to action is an essential element in a sales funnel and works as an alluring signpost that lets your visitors or clients know what to do next. Without a clear CTA, they may not know the next steps to take to make a purchase or opt in to whatever it is that you are offering them.
A call to action makes it clear what they need to do so they don’t need to think or guess what it is that you want them to do. There can also be multiple calls to action on a page if there are multiple desired actions for the user to take, but be careful not to confuse them.
Write a call to action that makes the person want to click the button to get what you are offering. Make the design striking. Try not to use the typical phrases like “Buy Now” and instead make the wording fun and personal. Test the positioning of the CTA by placing it in different areas of the site/page and running an A/B split test to see where converts best.
#8
Don’t Fail To Measure Your Performance
Without metrics you are completely blind as to the success of each stage or conversion point of your funnel. The beauty of online sales funnels is you can easily and quickly discover which part of the funnel converts well and which part is leaking prospects and sales.
You should constantly be testing all the different stages of your sales funnel to see what is and what isn’t working. All sales funnels can be improved and small incremental improvements can have a massive effect on the revenues and profits of your business.
After your number of sales and revenues generated, the minimum you want to measure is how many people are clicking through to your site/page, how many people opt in, how many people click through each stage of your sales funnel, how many people are opening, reading and clicking through in your email sequences and how many people are dropping out of the purchase process.
#9
don’t create Overly Complicated Funnels
With the technology available today it is really easy to create complicated and intricate multi step sales funnels. In fact, using ThriveThemes you can build sales funnels that your visitors and clients could get completely lost in and never find their way out.
But remember, the sales funnel is just the start of the sales process. Make the experience fun and enjoyable for your customer and then use the follow ups to bring them back in to another sales funnel and another simple sell.
#10
don’t Assume You Already Know What Will Work
Google’s digital marketing course talks about this quite a bit. The HIPPO in the room, otherwise known as the highest paid person who thinks they know better. You don’t.
The only person who knows what works and what doesn’t is the person who has the conversion metrics in their hand. Don’t rely on anything else but data, facts and figures.
#1
Do give the impression of Scarcity
Scarcity is one of the most powerful triggers for pushing a potential client into purchasing or signing up to an offer. For some reason, the fear of missing out on a deal or offer is one of the most effective methods for getting your audience to take action immediately. Put a countdown timer in your sales funnel, one of the features of Thrive Themes sales funnels or Clickfunnels, and watch your conversion rates spike up. Or, create a special offer on the first X number of sales before the price goes back up.
LIMITED TIME ONLY – GET IT NOW!
TIP
It isn’t wise to state they only have a limited time to purchase if it isn’t true.
#2
Do display Social Proof where you can
Social proof: “a psychological phenomenon where people conform to the actions of others under the assumption that those actions are reflective of the correct behaviour” ~ Professor Robert B. Cialdini.
There are 6 major types of social proof that include social proof from your existing customers or users (e.g. testimonials or case studies, credible and esteemed experts in your industry, celebrities or other influencers, having a large audience/tribe, friends of your audience, or an acknowledgement of credibility by an industry expert.
Professor Robert B. Cialdini, in his book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion“, states that social proof is one of the 6 key influencing factors to get people to say yes. When we see our peers, friends and family like, recommend or buy a product it goes a long way to persuading you to buy it too.Social influence is so powerful that the potential for a sale goes up by 60% if a prospect sees someone they know recommending a product. Common examples of this are star reviews, social share counters, and number of likes or comments.
#3
do Convert your audience into Email Subscribers
The most important thing you can do, except get the sale, is to get people onto your email list? Everyone who signs up for your email list is money. Yes. Money. Because you can sell to them again and again and again, as long as you keep them interested of course.
With emails you have the opportunity to build rapport and a relationship and ultimately become the trusted advisor of your contact. Once there, you have their ear and trust and as long as you are sincere in having their interests at heart , you can sell to them again and again.
#4
do Retarget Everyone who don’t Convert
OK, so not everyone is ready to buy your stuff or even sign up to your email list. What then? You’ve worked hard to get them to your sales funnel. Are they just lost now? No, of course not. Thanks to technology we can “re-market” to them again and gain.Using a bit of code from companies like Google and Facebook a cookie is inserted into the browser of visitors to your website. If the visitor doesn’t interact with your site in the way you wish and and navigate away to visit another website, your remarketing ad service provider can display your adverts again ON OTHER PEOPLE’S WEBSITES and entice them back to your sales funnel to make the sale.
#5
Do Optimize Your CTA
The call to action is key. Just like bad sales people who don’t try to close the deal and ask for the sale, not having a strong call to action is letting potential sales slip through your fingers.
A good CTA is straight to the point and highlights what’s in it for people if they click. It should stick out like a sore thumb and be strikingly compelling. Thrive Themes and Clickfunnels provide plenty of ready built call to actions that have been tested and proven to work.
#6
Do use good, no excellent, copywriting
Copywriting is the secret sauce of high converting sales funnels success. In fact, if you can write great copy the sales funnel just becomes a device to herd your audience towards your products and services. The copy is what sells. Good copywriting is hard to come by. But if there is one area that most people fail in with creating good copy it is research. Research your audience. Don’t think you know what they want and how they think. Ask them. Find out by doing good research.
TIP
The best way to discover what you audience is thinking is to look on Facebook groups and forums (and Amazon, but contact me for more information on that little secret I learned from Jay Abraham).
#7
do write amazing headlines
It is headlines that sell newspapers. Headlines are really the most important part of your sales funnel. It is the first thing that grabs the attention of your reader or customer and gets them to stay on your site and keep reading or listening. It’s probably what nudged you into reading this cheat sheet.“On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.” – David Ogilvy
#8
Do test, test and test your funnels again
The number of businesses who not only lose out on sales, but lose their entire client base because they didn’t test their systems before launching is frightening. Years of work and a lot of money can be lost just because you didn’t take a few more minutes or hours to test something thoroughly. It’s the same with the sales funnel.
The payment gateway is the most dangerous area not to test and unfortunately it is often the most difficult as it involves some complicated set up usually using 3rd party services. Take your time and test.
#9
Do scratch the itch and then move on
What’s scratch the itch? Well, if you have an itch, you want to scratch it. Once you have, you don’t have the itch any more. It’s the same with sales funnel sales. Once you have sold the initial product to someone move on and sell them something else. Yes, you can upsell them with more quantity or a more expensive product, but after that try to look to scratch another itch.
For example. If I’ve just sold you a sales funnel, because you really want one, I’ve then scratched that itch. I could upsell you a larger funnel or more funnels, but after that I should change tactics and sell you what you would need along with a sales funnel, like a marketing campaign or a guide on how to get free traffic to your funnel.
#10
run split test on everything you can
A/B split tests were almost impossible to perform before digital marketing came along because it was too expensive and time consuming. Now you can run split tests in a click of a button, it is completely free and you can get results within days or even hours.
In Thrive Themes and Clickfunnels you can create a headline, CTA, Image, text, page, funnel and almost anything you want and A/B split test it with just 1 click. With slit testing you can almost guarantee to improve your conversion rates and therefore you profit margins on a daily basis, and let’s face that’s why we are in business to begin with.
SALES LADDER TRAINING
Have you signed up for the free training yet?
chevron-down
Crush it online with Sales Funnels
Sales ladders captivate and convert visitors and prospects into clients. Now it’s time for you to win more leads and increase your profit margins too.
FREE 4 PART VIDEO TRAINING.
Get started for FREE right away!