Welcome to Part 3 of my new series about designing a simple and devastatingly effective video-powered funnel. Every week, starting today and until the end of June, I’m going to teach you about one aspect of funnel creation — so you can attract, nurture, and convert your ideal customers on autopilot. 

If you missed Part 1 and Part 2, then you might want to check out both of those first:

  1. Your Irresistible Offer
  2. Your Bombshell Explainer Video

But if you’re all caught up — read on, and let’s nerd out about funnels together!

Let me ask you something:

What is the perfect marketing funnel? And does it even exist?

After all, every business is different! High-converting funnels can vary wildly between industries, audience personas, offers being sold or given away, etc.

Well, here’s my take:

Personally, I believe not only that a perfect marketing funnel exists, but also — that any business can build and deploy one, with any budget.

Stick around, and I’m going to prove it in just a bit.

Here’s my personal definition of a quote-unquote “perfect” marketing funnel…

A perfect funnel = the simplest funnel you can ACTUALLY build, deploy, optimize, and get results from.

That’s it!

Because, if I’ve learned anything in over 11 years of running The Draw Shop, it’s this: 

A “good enough” marketing funnel that gets implemented is 1,000x superior to a “flawless” funnel that forever remains a twinkle in your CMO’s eye, or a mind map on your laptop.

Messy action beats perfection. Always.

A funnel that’s live and out there can always be measured, modified, optimized, and gradually improved close to perfection. A funnel that’s stuck in planning and strategy limbo until you think it’s “perfect” is never going to produce the results you’re looking for.

To create massive ROI, marketing systems need the space to start out messy and evolve over time. Not unlike people, if you think about it!

Sooo… the question is: what’s the simplest incarnation of a marketing funnel that your business can build and deploy as soon as possible, and still generate tons of leads and sales?

That’s exactly what I’m going to show you.

Read on, and you will learn the absolute simplest marketing funnel structure that you can deploy in your business. This is the same system that tons of my clients have used to 2-3X their lead generation and revenue — and I’m sharing it with you, no strings attached.

We will cover:

  • The core principles of driving high-quality traffic to your funnel, so you always have an abundance of ideal prospects coming in.
  • 4 rules of high-converting landing pages — as well as the two main challenges you need to overcome when creating one.
  • THE most underrated element of any marketing funnel, plus 5 actionable techniques to squeeze incredible ROI from it.
  • My go-to process for nurturing new leads, into eager prospects, into paying customers or clients. This will help you close sales in less than a week!

And more! Let us begin.

Pictured: soldier in full military kit is hoisting a rocket launcher with 4 multicolored funnels at the tip (blue, orange, yellow, and green).

 

1. Your targeted traffic sources

Your choice of traffic source will make a massive impact on your funnel’s performance.

Why? Because to attract your ideal buyers, you must think carefully about where they hang out… and how likely they are to leave their site of choice to go to your landing page!

I recommend picking 1-2 traffic sources for any given marketing funnel, and no more. This kind of limited scope makes it super easy to gauge how many visitors you’re getting AND how well they are responding to your funnel offer. Anything more will just muddy the waters.

Let me give you a couple of examples of solid traffic sources for your funnel:

#1. Social media

Love it or hate it, but that’s where your prospects hang out now. Yes, the entire internet is now the same 5 crappy websites that everyone hates — but if you want to grow your business, you still gotta be there!

So to drive traffic to your funnel, you could (for example) do a weekly Twitter thread with useful lessons about your area of expertise, and then post a link to your landing page at the end. You might also post in-depth articles on LinkedIn and testimonials on Facebook… all linking back to your landing page.

Pro tip: many social network algorithms intentionally suppress posts with external links. So if you can, link to your landing page in the replies or in the comments, so the main post doesn’t get buried.

#2. Joint ventures

Partnering with other entrepreneurs who already have established audiences is an amazing way to grow your business fast. And if you know your partner’s audience well enough, you can precise-engineer a high-converting funnel just for them!

You can easily leverage guest posts, webinars, partner discounts, lead magnets swaps, and other collaborations to drive thousands of highly targeted leads to your funnel. Check out this article to learn more about how to do just that.

Pro tip: if you’re using video on your landing page (see element #2), then you can also dip your toes into paid traffic relatively easily — just cut a couple of 30-60 second videos from your “main” explainer and use those as the basis for your video ads!

 

2. Your high-converting landing page

Your landing page has only ONE JOB, but it’s quite sophisticated.

Yes, it needs to convert as many incoming visitors as possible into leads… but only the right visitors.

That’s the greatest challenge of landing pages — balancing high conversion rates with high lead quality. So how can YOU put together a landing page that not only converts, but also converts your ideal prospects only?

Well, the answer is an honest but unsatisfying “it depends.”

When it comes to landing page design, “best practices” can be hard to pin down, or even downright misleading. Specific techniques can work better or worse depending on your top-of-funnel offer — and different audience personas can respond wildly differently to the same landing page.

Still, I want to give you a few solid guidelines for putting together a high-converting landing page for your marketing funnel:

  • If you can, leverage a combo of written copy AND video. This is especially critical if your funnel offer is complex — e.g. a free consultation — or it ties directly into your main product or service. See Part 2 of this series on how to craft a kick-butt landing page explainer video.
  • Sprinkle in some social proof on your landing page, even if you’re giving away a free lead magnet! Just a couple of testimonial screenshots raving about your funnel offer can create a huge lift in conversions.
  • To reduce unnecessary friction, collect as little information as you can get away with. Ideally, you want just your prospect’s name and email. That being said… if you require detailed information from your leads upfront, and you want to keep conversion rates high, break the process down into multiple steps! For example, Typeform can work great for this, because it presents questions one at a time in a buttery-smooth fashion.
  • Follow the ironclad principles of direct response copywriting! Make your calls to action clear, specific, and unique; use microcopy to your advantage; emphasize benefits and outcomes over just features; keep the focus firmly on your PROSPECT and their problems, needs, and goals — talking up your offer and business comes second.

And finally, after creating a landing page that converts incoming traffic into warm, toasty leads… you’re still not done! Because you have one more element left… 

 

3. Your delightful thank-you page

Man, thank-you pages are massively underrated.

Most marketers treat them as an afterthought. They think they can get away with lifeless and generic thank-you pages and still have a high-converting funnel.

Those marketers are dead wrong.

Think about it: your thank-you page is the first thing a fresh lead sees after they opt in. And because of that, it’s essential that you don’t waste it! Your thank-you page is THE place to start nurturing; to develop your relationship; and to validate their decision to convert. 

And maybe most importantly, it’s also the place to get another conversion almost immediately, thanks to a lil’ something called the foot in the door technique.” 

Basically, it goes like this: when someone has already agreed to some small request, they become more likely to say yes to another request. And your thank-you page, by definition, is the optimal place to deploy that technique within your funnel!

Now, here are just a few ROI-boosting things you can do with thank-you pages. You can:

  • Condition your new prospects to open and act on your confirmation email. This will boost the overall health of your email list, and teach leads to engage with your content.
  • Deliver a surprise gift in the form of a free downloadable resource, a time-sensitive discount, or any other tidbit of unexpected value that you can think of.
  • Upsell your prospects on one of your entry-level products or service packages. For extra effectiveness, make it a one-time only, limited time offer.
  • Invite new leads to follow you on social media. Remember: repeated exposure is essential to successful marketing. So if people are getting your emails AND following you on socials, your messages will have a much higher chance to sink in!
  • Highlight your best content to new leads, encouraging them to get as much value upfront as possible. The more content they consume, the more likely they will be to buy!

See? Powerful thank-you pages can be an amazing asset — and no marketing funnel can be truly high-performing without one!

 

4. Your persuasive autoresponder sequence

Well, if you thought that converting someone from a nameless, faceless visitor into a lead was hard… 

…wait till you try and get them to become a prospect, and ultimately — a paying customer or client!

On the one hand, if someone’s already on your list, they will probably stick around. That means, you will have plenty of chances to sell your product or service to them. Buuut on the other hand, lead decay is a real thing! A prospect can enter your funnel all primed and fired up, and then cool down as time goes on.

Because of that, your best bet is always going to be nurturing and closing new prospects as EARLY as possible. This is crucial for the long-term health and growth of your business. 

And that’s where your autoresponder sequence comes in! It’s the most effective asset you have for turning prospects into paying customers on autopilot.

So how do you create one?

Well, let me tell you right away — this could be its own article. (Heck, it could be a book or a course!) And I’m definitely going to write about it in the not-so-distant future, especially as we keep exploring the huge topic of marketing funnels.

But for now, let me give you some actionable pieces of advice on how to write a high-converting email autoresponder sequence for your marketing funnel:

  • Start with 5 emails spread out over 5 days (not counting the confirmation email that new leads get right away). This frequency works for the majority of products and services, and you can easily expand on it later.
  • Make the first two emails as valuable as possible. Teach your prospects something transformative and actionable that will improve their lives. Remember: give before you get — help before you sell.
  • For email #3, make it a 50/50 split between delivering valuable content and pitching your product or service. Then, repeat that same technique for email #4… and finally, go all-out on the “hard sell” in email #5.
  • If you can, don’t just sell a regular version of your product or service, but create a limited time, one time only offer specifically for NEW leads. This will allow you to leverage urgency and scarcity, which will mean more sales. Plus, after someone becomes a paying customer, you can sell more expensive offers to them later!

Stick to these principles, and you will speed up your sales cycle AND convert more prospects into customers and clients overall!

 

Want to build a profitable funnel? We’ll do all the work for you!

Hey, I hope I’m not coming on too strong, but…

My team and I want to build a high-performing video-powered funnel for your business, from start to finish. You won’t have to lift a finger, or even show up in front of a camera — we’ll build all the assets, produce all the content, and even set up the entire thing for you!

Check out all the assets you will get as part of your brand-new, shiny, revenue-generating funnel:

  • 2 prospect-pulling video ads to drive targeted traffic to your site
  • Powerful explainer video that captures the life-altering value of your offer
  • Personalized video landing page that converts (plus a thank-you page!)
  • Custom 5-part nurturing email sequence to convert prospects into buyers

Plus, you’ll get:

  • 1-on-1 marketing audit where we’ll deep-dive into your business and strategize how to create a funnel that supports your goals.
  • And hands-on tech support and implementation — so you can deploy your new funnel and start generating revenue as quickly as possible!

Interested? Then book a free, no-strings-attached appointment below:

Click here to book your 30-minute marketing funnel consultation, and let’s talk shop!