Month: March 2018

What You Need Know About Sales Funnel Management

                                                                       (Source: Julie Weishaar)

According to Stephen Esketzis before you even launch your #sales #funnel, the number one priority you should focus on is building your customer avatar.

Finding out whom your ideal customer is that you want to sell to, is the key differentiator between building a sales funnel that converts, and one that doesn’t.

Sales funnel refers to the process that brings a customer from discovering your product or service to completing a purchase.

                                                                          (Source: Steve Patrizi)

This framework is useful because, by dissecting and better understanding the model, marketers and salespeople can more effectively map their strategies and influence outcomes.

Chances are, you’ve seen this theoretical construct depicted in any number of different ways.

The sales funnel definition and specifics can change quite a bit based on your source, and too many organizations have failed to clarify parameters internally.

A while back, Marketing Sherpa found that 68 percent of B2B organizations had not defined their own sales funnel.

“Funnels come in many forms. There are funnel cakes, those tasty deep-fried carnival treats sprinkled with sugar. There are funnel clouds — ominous precursors to tornados that reach down like tentacles from the sky. And then there are, of course, funnels themselves: tools used for guiding a liquid or substance into a small opening”.

 

We hear the term sales funnel thrown around often, but few can agree on the specifics of how it is comprised. It’s time to bring some clarity to the topic.

Source What is a Sales Funnel? Simplifying a Complex Subject | LinkedIn Sales Solutions

Jim Hopkins of Salesforce describes in detail how sales funnels is all about finding prospects who are ready to become paying customers in “Sales Funnel Management: Simplify By Cutting Steps, Not Corners”

According to Jim, Effective sales funnel management allows a company to optimize efficiency while reducing costs, in that it prevents time from being wasted on those prospects and leads that just aren’t quite ready to commit.

A sales funnel will also facilitate the tracking and gathering of important data, thanks to the well defined steps and levels within the funnel itself.

As a result, a prospect’s progress can easily be charted, and any problems or issues can be quickly localized, identified, and resolved.

This is done by following certain stages and steps, casting a wide net at the beginning, and slowly weeding out those who are unlikely to pay off, basically optimizing your sales funnel.

At the end of the funnel, your sales team is able to step in and focus their efforts only on those with the highest likelihood of completing a purchase.

“The sales funnel is basically nothing more than an attempt to visualize a concept in which qualified buyers are located and separated from the less-than qualified prospects around them”

When it comes to sales, success is all about finding prospects who are ready to become paying customers. Unfortunately, given the overall size of the potential customer pool, and the relative few prospects who are capable of completing the journey, it can be very difficult to identify the right people on which to focus your sales efforts. This is where the management of your sales funnel comes into play.

Source Sales Funnel Management: Simplify By Cutting Steps, Not Corners – Salesforce Blog

Free Done For You Share Funnels Below:

LEAD GENERATION SALES FUNNEL

HIGH TICKET CONVERTING FUNNEL

MEMBERSHIP CONTINUITY FUNNEL

AUTOMATED WEBINAR FUNNEL

SERVICED ACCOMODATION FUNNEL

BEAUTY OR SUPPLEMENT PRODUCT FUNNE

PERSONAL INJURY LAWYER FUNNEL

AFFILIATE MARKETING FUNNEL

PRODUCT LAUNCH FUNNEL

HOME PARTY FUNNEL

 

How To Build A High Quality Sales Funnel To Increase Conversion Rate

Raghav Haran of singlegrain shares the steps you need to build a high quality marketing #funnel in “Step by Step Guide: How to Build a High Quality Marketing Funnel”

” For example, a new entrepreneur might buy lists off the Internet and then just hand them over to his salespeople. But an experienced marketer would take a more systematic approach.”

That’s why the most experienced marketers use marketing funnels. A funnel is a system or a model that guides a prospect from first becoming aware of a company to eventually becoming a paying customer and, eventually, an advocate for your business.

How to Build a High Quality Marketing Funnel

 

What matters is that you have a logical marketing strategy that holds everything together — a strategy that shows you exactly how your latest white paper is going to help you convert more leads into customers or how getting on the newest social media platform is going to help increase your bottom line.

 

The truth is, you could be on every single social media platform, you could be spending loads of money in paid ads, you could be blogging, you could be doing everything that you’re “supposed” to be doing — and you still might not get any real ROI.

 

For a marketer, it can seem like there are a million different options when it comes to which marketing tactics you should be focusing on. It doesn’t help that everyone is telling you to focus on all of them.

Source Step by Step Guide: How to Build a High Quality Marketing Funnel

 

According to Neil Patel, A conversion funnel, or #sales funnel, is the path that a prospect takes through your site that ultimately results in a conversion.

 

Let’s look at where customers are coming from. No matter how they get to you, as many as 73% of leads are not even ready to be sold to. Even from the pool that are qualified, half of them aren’t ready to buy. That puts the odds against you. right out of the gate.

 

But, therein lies your problem. Your customers aren’t some mass-produced assembly line commodity and that’s exactly how “lead generation” approaches them.

 

“Set-up-wise, that is. But, there’s more to conversion optimization than just page layout, form design and copywriting. In fact, very few companies even do this one marketing tactic, let alone do it right”.

 

You’ve got your content broken down into relevant areas that readers can easily scan and your offer is irresistible. Your form only asks for the bare necessities, yet you’re still not seeing the results that you want.

 

Ever feel like you’re doing everything you can to improve your conversion rate, but people just aren’t buying? You’re following all the best practices, like having a single call-to-action and using enough white space.

Source How to Build a Conversion Funnel That Will Triple Your Profits

Shane Barker a digital marketing consultant explains the 3 key components you need to consider when building a sales funnel in “sales-funnel-increase-conversions”

According to Shane Barker your ad promoted an offer, but the landing page isn’t displaying that offer. This means visitors will have to either search for the offer, or leave your website.

 

“If you don’t have a proper sales funnel in place, there will be no structure to how you manage your leads. You may be able to drive some traffic to your site. But once visitors land on your site, they’re not sure what to do next”.

 

A sales funnel is like a map that you design for potential customers to follow. It’s the path that you design for leads to take until they take a desired action. In other words, it’s the set of steps you lay out to acquire leads and convert them. A sales funnel can help you increase conversion rate because it allows you to cater to potential customers at every stage of the purchase process.

 

There may be some stages that aren’t necessary, or some components that you’re missing out on. In this post, you’re going to learn about the three key components of a sales funnel to increase conversion rate.

 

You’ve made several attempts to increase conversions and somehow, you’re not getting the desired results. Maybe you think you’ve tried everything possible to drive conversions on your site. But have you tried reassessing your sales funnel?

Source How to Build a Sales Funnel to Increase Conversions

 

Conclusion

Remember that the conversion funnel is an ongoing cycle. The process is always shifting and your conversations with your customers are always evolving. What served their needs yesterday may not be adequate enough today.

if you plan to not only acquire new customers, but also retain existing ones, you need to include a plan for post-sale nurturing. You can basically add different components as long as they serve a purpose, but make sure these three essentials are part of your sales funnel.

By creating a high-quality funnel to guide prospects through the process of becoming paying customers, you can systematically skyrocket your business in a way that you couldn’t if you were just trying random tactics.

Popular Free Done For You Share Funnels Below:

LEAD GENERATION SALES FUNNEL

HIGH TICKET CONVERTING FUNNEL

MEMBERSHIP CONTINUITY FUNNEL

AUTOMATED WEBINAR FUNNEL

SERVICED ACCOMODATION FUNNEL

BEAUTY OR SUPPLEMENT PRODUCT FUNNE

PERSONAL INJURY LAWYER FUNNEL

AFFILIATE MARKETING FUNNEL

PRODUCT LAUNCH FUNNEL

HOME PARTY FUNNEL

 

Image Credits:

Featured Image created by Neil Patel in How to Build a Conversion Funnel That Will Triple Your Profits

Image capture from Shane Barker in How to Build a Sales Funnel to Increase Conversions

 

Revealed: Reasons Why Live Streaming Is Essential For Marketers In 2018

Alexandru Coman of  streamaxia believes live streaming is becoming the most accessible way of communicating and connecting to your audience if you want to convert them from prospects to buyers.

Nestle, the food industry giant saw the potential of live streaming and they have been searching for ways to implement it in their marketing plan. They took the first step in this direction in 2015.

“This is a great example of a successful Live streaming campaign. Started in 2015, the 3-year contract between RedBull TV and the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival improved the way fans get a feel of the festival atmosphere. Apart from being able to watch their favorite artists perform in a real time broadcast, RedBull TV will also live stream artists’ and funny fan stories. All these offer the public, outside and inside the festival, unprecedented access to backstage and the most interesting activities taking place during the festival.”

Live streaming is cost-effective and removes any barriers between you and your followers. Nothing is out of reach when it’s one click away. Many of the leading companies in the world use live streaming to reach their audience and promote their message. The likes of Nissan, Nestle, General Motors, and Red Bull have all successfully used this technology to market their products and services.

Watch the 5 steps to start live streaming below.

 

Ever wanted to share something with the entire world, instantly? More than that, have you ever wished you could do it in real time? By using a one-to-many live streaming app, you’re one step closer to this reality. It’s all very easy, one click and you share your camera on multiple channels.A one-to-many live streaming app enables you to share the content on different channels. You can share it on your social media channels or any other websites you want.

 

Live streaming is quickly becoming the largest, most accessible way of communicating. It allows people to connect in real-time, no matter where they are. They create real-time coverage of any event. It’s a revolutionary technology!

 

 

Every customer wants to know all the relevant information about the company he buys a product from. He wants to know how the product is made, the way employees are treated, where is his product at a certain time, etc.

By using live streams, you can show your clients behind the scenes information. You will offer a higher transparency, thus your customers’ trust level will increase and they’ll be more inclined to buy your products or recommend them to others.

You can introduce your customers to your production team, you can offer them a short demo of your brand new tool, etc.

Unlike regular video marketing, you can offer exhaustive information regarding your company in a very short amount of time. Answer your customers’ questions on the spot and help them have a complete image of your company.

The tech community creates lots of innovative tools you can use them to create a one-of-a-kind marketing campaign.Live streaming gained traction very fast. It has turned into a real trend because the costs of creating a live broadcast are very low.

Apart from a live streaming app, all you need is a reliable Internet connection and a smartphone or tablet that can shoot in a good quality.

“Video content is one of the most impactful types of rich media content. According to a research done by Cisco, in 2017, almost 70 percent of internet traffic will be used for video content. Why? Because people assimilate information easier through this medium.If you don’t use this type of content already, you should consider adding it to your arsenal. Streaming represents the future of highly-engaged content. Two out of three marketers consider it to be an indispensable resource for their future campaigns.Live streaming represents a development of video marketing, as it turns a monologue-like conversation into a multi-party, real-time communication channel.”

If you want your company to gain the upper hand, start taking notes on that. Live streaming is a very important resource you should consider when creating your marketing plan. The real question is, why would you use it for your next campaign?

Live streaming is set to be one of the biggest content marketing trend  2018. All major social media platforms have predicted this trend and they’ve added this feature for their customers. It has begun to gain attraction in the content marketing world, too.

 

 

How To Succeed At Earning The Income Of Your Dreams Using Sales Funnels

 

Robert Kanaat of #ClickFunnels shares his tips and proven ways to generate income online in ” 10 Proven Ways  To Make Money Online“

“The better and more able you are to master the following three things, the more likely you’ll be to succeed at generating the income of your dreams. However, before you even get there, you have to believe you can achieve your goals. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will. It’s your deep-rooted beliefs that will help you succeed at generating any amount of money. Nothing else. Without that belief, you’ll falter and you’ll fail.”

I do agree, if you do not believe in yourself  absolutely no one will . It takes discipline, belief, commitment, confidence and persistence to succeed at generating any amount of money online.

“Anyone who’s serious about serious about creating a real income on the internet (whether active or passive) can do it. But there’s something relatively important that you have to realize about succeeding in an endeavor that so many people are clamoring to get a grasp on. Three things currently separate you from making the amount of money that you dream of or potentially replacing your full-time income with the ability to generate that same amount (if not more) on the internet.”

10 Proven Ways To Make Money Online

From Robert’s explanation, the three things that currently separate you from making the amount of money online are:

1-The ability to have a targeted message that is communicated to the right audience.

2-You need to know where traffic will be coming from by using the right #sales #funnel.

3- No matter what you are selling you need to know how to convert you prospects into buyers

Where you live does not affect your ability to make money online, reason why you should eliminate all  excuses and commit to mastery, persistence and perseverance.

Sometimes I do think making money online seems easy, especially the way online marketers portray it. However I do notice it takes patience, perseverance, commitment, willingness to continue to learn, test and find what works for you by modelling successful online marketers who are already generating income online.

Some proven ways according to Robert are :

  • Building Sales Funnel  using Clickfunnels
  • Setting up an ad agency
  • Starting a social media marketing is another way to make money
  • By writing ebooks and publishing them on Amazon’s publishing platforms, kindle direct publishing
  • Search Engine optimization services to clients is another lucrative way of making money online
  • By hosting a webinar
  • Consultancy services

You can also learn ways to increase landing page conversion rate. This will show you proven simple and straightforward steps to build landing pages that converts.

 

The ability to make money online fascinates every red-blooded human being on this planet. In fact, the mere thought of it certainly brings wild-eyed wonder and imagination to the mind. It conjures up thoughts of a life replete with leisure, comfort and free will to do what you want, when you want and where you want. The truth is that it’s a dream that lives on in the hearts and minds of people near and far.

 

 

Ways to Increase Landing Page Conversion rate

 

Robert Kanaat of #ClickFunnels shares the ways to ensure your landing pages are converting in “6 Ways to Increase Landing Page Conversions”

Clearly, there’s loads of psychology at work here. Understanding that will make a remarkable difference in your business. But you’ll also need landing page software to implement what you learn here. Now, whether you’re using ClickFunnels or any other landing page builder out there, having a tool to quickly build out your entire #sales #funnel and make changes on the fly is a necessity, not an option. Not many can do that. ClickFunnels can. But not many others.

 

Brunson describes it like this. They read each piece of information in both books, went and implemented it and didn’t start re-reading the section in the book they were in until it was done. That would take a few days, then they would move to the next piece of information, implement that, then continue reading it again. If that doesn’t inspire you to get out there and implement this stuff, not much would.

 

To break this down, we need to look at the psychology behind landing pages. Recently, I’ve been re-reading Brunson’s Expert Secrets. If you haven’t read it, do so immediately. That single piece of marketing gold could literally mean the difference between success and failure in your online marketing quest. In fact, two individuals who were struggling and broke not that long ago, took the information in both Dot Com Secrets and Expert Secrets, and turned it into a seven-figure-per-month business–Brandon and Kaitlin Poulin of Lady Boss Weight Loss.

 

So, how hard is it to build landing pages that convert? Or simply to increase conversions on existing landing pages? Is it really that complex or convoluted? Or, is it simple and straightforward? We’ve all watched people like Russell Brunson quickly build out a funnel in under an hour that goes on to become wildly profitable. But can anyone do it?  What’s the so-called secret sauce behind designing squeeze pages that draw in the visitors and get insane conversions?

 

There is one surefire way you can succeed in business in the long term. And that is to ensure that your landing pages are converting. If you can consistently spend $1 and make $2 or $5 or even $10 or more, then you have a profitable offer you can scale. However, when your landing pages aren’t converting, it’s like throwing money into a fire. It just keeps burning and burning and burning.

 

 

Revealed: The way GDPR Will Change The Way You Acquire

 Heather Burns  a digital law specialist in Glasgow explains the changing privacy landscape in “How GDPR Will Change The Way You Develop”

Let’s explore what you need to know about the new data protection frameworks, and how you will need to adapt your development workflows to meet them. This article is not a comprehensive overview of the European privacy overhaul by any means; rather, it focuses on issues specific to web development.

 

Web developers like you have a major role to play in embracing the new frameworks as the positive tools that they are. The good news is that the obligations in the updated frameworks are not overly complex or technical, and in fact, they don’t even require lawyers. These rules are common-sense and can be immediately adopted.

 

Getting the process just right ain’t an easy task. That’s why we’ve set up ‘this-is-how-I-work’-sessions — with smart cookies sharing what works really well for them. A part of the Smashing Membership, of course.

 

The European privacy overhaul will bring positive changes to our business processes and development workflows. We all have to become more thoughtful about what data we collect, how we collect it, and what we do with it. Those changes could not have come soon enough. With data breaches and privacy violations in the headlines every day, not to mention governments expressing open malice against vulnerable citizens, our privacy obligations are as much about ethics and humanity as they are about law and policy.

 

In May of 2018, a major upgrade to Europe’s overarching data protection framework becomes enforceable. This will be followed by a companion piece of legislation pertaining to data in transit. The extraterritorial nature of these two frameworks — they protect the privacy rights of people in Europe regardless of where their data is collected — means that they will become the de facto standard for privacy around the world.

 

In this article, we’ll explore what you, as a developer, need to know about the new data protection regime. At the end, you’ll understand how the challenges posed by the privacy overhaul will ultimately help to make you a better developer.

 

Web developers have a major role to play here. After all, healthy data protection practice is as much about the development side — code, data, and security — as it is about the business side of process, information, and strategy.

 

Europe’s imminent privacy overhaul means that we all have to become more diligent about what data we collect, how we collect it, and what we do with it. In our turbulent times, these privacy obligations are about ethics as well as law.

 

GDPR requires you to be more thoughtful about the sites and services you build, more transparent about the ways you collect and use data, more considerate of your users, and more thorough in your development and documentation processes.

 

Heather Burns is a digital law specialist in Glasgow, Scotland. Her focus is researching, writing, and speaking about internet laws and policies which impact … More about Heather…

 

 

Revealed: The Ten Copywriting Tips to Create Engaging Landing Page

10 Copywriting Tips to Create Engaging Landing Page

Korbin Voss a billing specialist with Clickfunnels reveals the copywriting tips that help engage readers in ” 10 Copywriting Tips to Create Engaging Landing Page”

“What follows are the simple tips that you will start to integrate into the copy that you spend your time writing and crafting. This takes time to develop and to truly master, but each step in the right direction is the right step”

  1. Focus on the Benefits of the products or services
  2. Build Urgency within Your Target audience
  3. Convey Information Through Story
  4. Discover Your Voice
  5. Establish Understanding with the Details
  6. Focus on Your own Headline
  7. Gear Your Copy Toward SEO
  8. Long Web form is Best
  9. Transition from Simple to Detailed
  10. Rise to the Level of Your Customers

Using the above tips will surely engage your readers to a whole new level and the results is sales which is more along the lines of what we’re interested in having.

“When you make a landing page, you want your copy to really pull them in. Videos are great at endearing people, but copy is where you’re going to actually sell them. Copy is the meat of the whole informational meal that your prospects have come to devour. It’s the bulk of the meal that you’ve offered your leads. Copywriting does everything from reducing risk on the buyer’s behalf, answer questions, and highlight the benefits of the product. It does the legwork for your selling process and get them to put their information in through the squeeze pages”

Original Source: 10 Copywriting Tips to Create Engaging Landing Page

The best way to create emotionally relevant advertising and marketing experiences for your shoppers

Natasha Wahid of WiderFunnel explains the three main emotional systems and how these systems influence customer behavior in “How To Create Emotionally Relevant Marketing Experiences For Your Shopper”

“In particular, you need to understand the three main emotional systems and how these systems influence customer behavior through both desire and aversion. These include:”

  • The Stimulance System, which aims to discover new things and learn new skills. This part of the brain is triggered by novelty, curiosity, change, surprise, and excitement. This system avoids boredom but is drawn to new sensations.
  • The Dominance System, which focuses on performance, self-assertion, the suppression of competition, and achieving status, power, and autonomy. This system’s desire is pride or a feeling of victory. And it’s aversion is anger, rage and powerlessness.
  • The Balance System, which is motivated by risk avoidance, and stability. This area may be triggered by fear and anxiety, but it is also associated with harmony and conformity, as it seeks security.

The Dominance and Stimulance systems are the expansive and risk-oriented systems in the brain, whereas the Balance system is the risk avoidance counter-system”

Natasha reveals how you has a marketer can explore, understand and leverage these emotional systems by using the Limbic model.

“The Limbic model reveals the different emotional systems that exist in your customer’s head, how these systems interact in the brain, and how they influence (shopping) behavior.

What sets Limbic apart from other personality profiling tools, like Myers Briggs or Predictive Index, is that it is the first tool of its kind designed specifically for marketing. It is focused on uncovering the emotion and motivation of a shopper, rather than on how people relate to one another.

At the center of the Limbic model is the Limbic® map. All human motives, desires, and values can be represented and related to one another within this map”

Original source: How To Create Emotionally Relevant Marketing Experiences For Your Shopper

 

What Is The Future For Software In 2018?

Adrian Bridgwater of forbes declares that automation intelligence can even be brought to bear by organizations using datasets, workflows, templates and operational blueprints that have been learned in other firms in “The future for software in 2018″

“Looking to the immediate future we will now find an increasing amount of software being built to operate on a cloud native basis, that is – being built of the cloud, in the cloud and for the cloud. Remembering once again that there is no real cloud (spoiler alert: it’s a term we generally use to describe servers in datacenters pumping computer processing, storage and data analytics power to the machine in your hand, over the Internet), the age of cloud native is finally here.”

Michael Keegan, head of product business for EMEIA region and chairman UK & Ireland at Fujitsu, said “In 2018, we will see consumer demands shift ever more towards the digital, with a particular impact on the banking sector. Where cash was once king, it will continue to fall from favor, while more and more consumers will seek the most convenient digital services for transactions like money transfers and insurance. This will have advantages for banks, in reducing the cost of physical infrastructure to support coin handling and the need for branches to provide services. However, it will also lower the barrier for entry for new challengers, meaning banks will have to compete with challengers and even financial services from organisations in other markets”

Source: https://www.forbes.com