Your Ultimate Step-by-Step Online Sales Funnel Guide
1. Define the End Goal of Your Funnel
When setting up your online funnel, you need to have an already pre-defined end goal. Otherwise, you’ll be like a captain steering a boat to nowhere. The easiest way to know your objective is to ask yourself this question: “Why am I doing this?”
Based on this question and your response, you’ll understand if your final goal is to enroll clients into your coaching programs, get people into your seminar room, or something else entirely. Maybe you want to grow your list? Regardless of what it is, now you’ll have a target.
2. Design the Layout of Your Offer
Now that you have the goal, it’s time to make your offer. This will bring in leads who will help fulfil your objective. I use what I call the Elevation Strategy in designing my offers on my Ted McGrath reviews, which is where you elevate customers from being a free lead to a paying client.
My funnel usually has three steps:
- The first one is the opt-in page, where I’ll give a free gift in exchange for a client’s email address. In this part, I can build my list for my email marketing strategy.
- The next two steps are paid offers, and they follow the elevation model, even if they’re low tier. The second page may be a paid offer worth $37, while the third is $97. These pages must appear successively because you want to keep the urgency and the momentum going.
- To visualize them, you can grab a pen and paper and then draw three different boxes. You can then start identifying what your free gift will be, what your paid offers will be, and how the pages will look.
3. Create and Name Your Offer
Once you’ve identified your free gifts and paid offers, you have to decide on the content of each gift or offer and its name. Here’s what I normally do: for the free gift, I just write down five bullet points of what’s going to be in the free gift and then name it. For example, one of my gifts is called The Ultimate Online Presentation Swipe File. It contains bullet points of five things I’m going to teach.
Next, I move to the second offer, which is the first paid offer. I write down the three benefits of that offer and name it. Again, for your reference, one of my offers is called The Fast Client Formula. You can now move on to the second paid offer, which is like your $97 offer. Here, you simply follow the same process as above.
Writing the benefits and then naming them really starts to make this a real thing. Just as it will get your clients excited, it gets you into motion too.
4. Structure the Free Offer and Products
This basically refers to what your free offer is going to be. Will it be a report, a PDF download, a module, etc.? What I do is relate the product to the price. For instance, I may give away a 10-page report as my free gift. However, for the first paid offer, I may provide three modules. To help me design these products, I use the benefits I listed in step 3.
5. Price the Offer
Although I’ve already introduced you to some price points, in the end, you can choose your price. You can go as low as a dollar or as high as hundreds. Based on experience, I’ll recommend pricing your first paid offer between $17 and $47 and the second one between $47 and $97.
6. Schedule a Time to Write the Free Offer
Usually, the free gift is something you write. For a lot of people, this sounds time-consuming and exhausting. In the beginning, as you build your materials, this may be true. However, the more you practice this system, the faster and easier everything will become.
What I do is create a report. I set aside about two hours to make one and then add a few worksheets. A free PDF download may then have around 10 pages. Now for my paid offers, I usually make videos, and they take much longer to finish. I set aside at least a full afternoon or a day for them. The good news is you can reuse the content, so you just shoot all the videos you need once.
7. Create the Worksheets
I love pairing my videos with worksheets since it helps my clients fully understand the lessons and follow through the modules. The worksheets don’t have to be complicated or long. They can just be a series of questions.
8. Write the Sales Page for the First Offer
For the sales page, I set aside two to three hours. However, if you need more time, then take it. It’s better not to rush it than to produce something you’re not sure of or you’ll regret later.
9. Write the Sales Page for the Second Offer
I also set aside two to three hours for this, but I realize once you complete the first, this one will be much easier to do. Of course, doing this hastily won’t benefit either you or your clients. Just focus on writing without rushing yourself.
10. Shoot the Sales Video for the First Paid Offer
For your paid offers, you can always make a completely textual copy. Still, I prefer combining text and videos. This way, the message becomes more understandable and impactful. Remember, your sales video doesn’t have to be lengthy. In fact, I highly suggest you limit it to seven minutes tops.
11. Shoot the Sales Video for the Second Paid Offer
When planning, remember you have the option to shoot both videos at the same time. It’s incredibly helpful when you’re really busy. However, knowing these are sales videos, you must never settle for “just enough,’ you must strive for the best. Thus, I recommend blocking at least a few hours to shoot them.
12. Write an Email for the First Paid Offer
One of the things you’ll learn is not all customers will buy even your first paid offer immediately. The good news is you already have their email addresses by this time. Now, the goal is to send your offer again to them via their emails. Write anywhere from two to three emails for each offer you have.
13. Write an Email for the Second Paid Offer
Let’s say your customers bought the first paid offer since it’s cheap and then you proceed with the second offer. For many, there’s a huge difference between $37 and $97, and they may say no to the second offer. Do step 13 for your second paid offer.
14. Write One Email Confirming the Free Download
After your leads have given their email addresses, you need to send the free gift, which is usually a download as soon as possible (within minutes). In this email, you need to tell your leads a little something about the free gift. It can very short. Here’s an example: “Hey, congratulations. Here’s the free gift, this XYZ report.”
15. Create Your Opt-In Page
I use but there are a lot of great options out there. Do some research on opt-in pages, read their features and reviews before making your final choice.
Meanwhile, your opt-in page can be very simple and straightforward. Really, you just need a powerful and concise headline and the image of your free gift.
16. Set Up the Sales Page for the First Paid Offer
If you’ve religiously followed the steps above, you should already have your sales copy and the video. Step 16 is about combining these elements to make your sales page. You can use a template for this, which you can find online. There are also several online programs to help you. Either way, expect to spend a few hours building your sales page.
17. Set Up the Sales Page for the Second Paid Offer
You just need to repeat step 16 for the second paid offer. I strongly recommend using the same template to create harmony and a nice transition between your paid offers.
18. Set Up an Order Form
The order form is where your clients are going to input their payment details, such as credit card information. You can design your own or take advantage of e-commerce platforms that allow you to seamlessly integrate payments into your program or website.
19. Set Up the Autoresponder
One of the biggest challenges with having a growing email list is writing emails. You can no longer send individual responses to each subscriber. That’s why we use an autoresponder which sends a specific email depending on the actions of our leads. The system we use, called “Click Funnels”, already has this feature.
20. Create Your Members’ Area
One of the best ways to give value to your program is to set up a members’ area. This means only those who have purchased your paid offers can access it. In your members’ area, you need to make your products that correspond to the offer accessible.
Designing your product content doesn’t have to be complicated. We might typically have an hour’s worth of content for the first paid offer and maybe two hours of content for the second paid offer.
21. Write Your Facebook Ad Copy
A good way to become efficient in marketing is to focus on methods that work. These methods almost always include Facebook. I spend my own time creating copy for my Facebook ads. These ads are short, so make sure you pick just the right words for your message.
22. Start Testing and Running Ads
Facebook ads can be complex and cost some money. To enjoy a better rate of return and maximize this strategy, I suggest hiring somebody to run your ads.
23. Make a Membership Program
Why? This is one of the effective methods of earning a recurring revenue. Once you have a consistent flow of income, pursuing a lifestyle-friendly business is so much easier.