How to Increase Online Income With an Effective Sales Funnel Technique
In this digital marketing age, a sales funnel is one of the most tried and tested techniques when it comes to increasing sales and customers for online businesses. It is easy to set up, works via an automated process, and it helps build a more personal connection with leads and customers throughout the buying process.
Sales Funnels can come in different types. The trend right now is the “free shipping” funnels which have worked incredibly well for most e-commerce sites. Some online businesses, however, employ special discounts and “freebie” funnels, which could be effective too.
What most of us don’t know, however, is that sales funnels are not a new thing that just came about due to the digital age. This has already been used by several businesses in the 90s to gain traction and sales, though, at the time, they are called tripwires.
Take Columbia House, for example, they sell 13 CDs and tapes for only $1 for the whole set. Cheap, right? But more than that, they have a continuity program that automatically enrolls customers to a monthly CD shipment with a predetermined rate. It’s more or less equivalent to a subscription nowadays, which you can cancel or unsubscribe from at any time.
This technique, however, did not help Columbia House to earn as much revenue, but it did gain traction in terms of customer attraction and retention. This is because it offered an easy, convenient and irresistible service-like offer that appeals to most people.
Another old-school example of a funnel is what Sports Illustrated did during the 90s. Magazines, like Sports Illustrated and People, are suffering from a major drop of monthly subscribers each month.
They needed a marketing gimmick to save the company – fast. What they did is to offer a football and sneaker-shaped phone that comes free for subscribers at a limited time. The response, of course, was overwhelming. Sports Illustrated gained over a million new subscribers over that period.
But how can you come up with your own sales funnel technique or tripwire? How can you come up with something that will actually work for your target market? There are several tips below:
Create THE Offer
Attracting new customers is harder than retaining existing ones. It takes more effort to hook new customers to your brand, or even get them to try out your product and services. What you could do is to offer a good deal.
Like Columbia House, for example, the offer there is for customers to get 13 CDs of choice for only $1. That’s actually a pretty good deal, and with such an offer, it becomes easier to market your business. It is the same reason why most online services like Spotify and Netflix maintains a very minimal subscription rate.
Spotify Premium costs $9.99 for a music library that has the latest hits and thousands of tracks and artists on its catalog. Netflix, which offers hundreds of shows and movies each month, offers a basic plan for just $7.99. And that’s on top of a one month free trial for their services!
Create Offers On A Limited-Time Basis
Some leads cannot be convinced right away with just the main offer, so for these people, you have to exert some extra effort to reel them in. This can come in the form of limited-time offers. It could be an extra freebie when they sign up or subscribe, a special product discount if they buy on certain days, or even as simple as a free ebook and PDF guides that could relate to your main products.
Create a Webinar
If your business is a service-oriented one, informative webinars could be an effective sales funnel. People love information, and they want it in a simplified and easy to digest form, that’s why vlogs, short guides, blogs, and webinars are very effective in transforming online businesses into lucrative income channels.
Use A High-Ticket Coaching Funnel
This is similar to webinars where you have to talk about informative stuff to your target audience and customers. However, this is on a more personal and one on one level. While webinars usually just talk about a general topic, coaching will deal with the main issues and questions that a certain customer has encountered. This is also the reason why it is effective for some entrepreneurs, especially if it deals with services and consultations that require technicalities.
Use A Free Shipping Funnel/Offer
If you are in the eCommerce industry, a free shipping offer is a very effective deal to hook in new customers. This basically works like your main offer, and it can be bundled as a limited-time offer too, so customers will have no choice but click on the purchase button right away!
Your business can use just one or a combination of any of these types of sales funnels. The trick here is to know what works for your business. If you are a business to customer (B2C) company, freebies, free shipping, and special discounts will work best. Business to business (B2B) companies, however, can also make use of freebies, but it needs a combination of a webinar and high-end coaching funnels because these industries are more technical.
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