The general rule for where to add new subscribers to your Interest Driven Sales Funnel:

  • If you don’t know the new subscriber’s interest(s) – start them with the Main Series
  • If you do know their interest(s) – start them in a Micro Sales Funnel

(wondering what an Interest Driven Sales Funnel, Main Series, and Micro Sales Funnel is? Read WTF #1, WTF #2, WTF #3, and WTF #4 first!)

Why wouldn’t you know someone’s interest upon sign-up? If your Lead Magnet is general. For example, a 15% off coupon to your entire store would be very general because you cannot easily tell what they’re looking to buy.

However, a 15% off coupon for a cordless drill would be specific enough to know the person is looking at purchasing a cordless drill. They would then enter into a Micro Sales Funnel geared toward selling cordless drills.

Which brings me to my point, there are two types of Lead Magnets: General and Specific.

General Lead Magnets are great for capturing organic traffic (search, social, “free”, etc.) because you may not really know what these people are interested in other than they landed on your website.

You typically offer these General Lead Magnets via an opt-in form like a lightbox, landing mat, side bar, ribbon, etc. across all pages on your site.

A Specific Lead Magnet, on the other hand, solves a specific problem, shows interest, qualifies the lead, and ultimately results in the sale of a product. They’re very intentional.

You typically offer these Specific Lead Magnets via a landing page or squeeze page. A page with the sole purpose of capturing that individual’s contact information in exchange for the Lead Magnet.

Because these Specific Lead Magnets are very intentional, they can serve as a great start to a Micro Sales Funnel and are perfect for paid traffic.

Using Paid Traffic

Using paid traffic is one of the best ways to fill your sales funnel. The goal, after all, is for you to be able to put $1 in and get $1+ back out. If you can consistently do that, why wouldn’t you run copious amounts of paid traffic through your sales funnel?

But, here’s the deal with paid traffic …

NEVER DO THIS… Run ads to your homepage or any other random page with the hopes someone will randomly opt-in or buy something! Every dollar you spend on paid traffic needs to be methodical and calculated! It needs to have a specific goal and metric to measure by. And, finally, unless you’re doing some advanced retargeting techniques – it must be supported by a Micro Sales Funnel!

Have you ever tried paid advertising and been shocked by how “expensive” it is? Sometimes you can spend upwards of $10 per click! This may be fine if you’re offering a $3,000 service. However, if you’re trying to sell something for only $100, you’re not going to make it, unless you have a Micro Sales Funnel in place that will increase the customer’s value.

The Paid Traffic Oath

To affirm your commitment to always having a Micro Sales Funnel in place when running paid traffic, please raise your right hand and repeat:

“I solemnly swear that I will always have a Micro Sales Funnel in place when running paid traffic.”

Good!

Now I can get off my soap box – I’ve worked with too many small businesses and entrepreneurs who are blowing money on ads with no objectives. I don’t want it to happen to you.

To Squeeze Page

Here’s the blueprint for running paid advertising campaigns:

I want you to pay particularly close attention to the segment in gray because it’s the start of any paid traffic campaign.

The portion not in gray is simply a Micro Sales Funnel and can look radically different depending on which one you’re using. Just for reference, the one in this example is a modified version of the “Classic” Sales Funnel.

  • Traffic Source: Where your traffic is coming from whether it’s Facebook Ads, Google Adwords, Bing, or any other direct source like a banner ad.
  • Squeeze Page: This is where you present your Specific Lead Magnet the ad was advertising and have an opt-in form so visitors can enter their contact information to receive the Lead Magnet.
  • Thank You Page & Initial Offer: Immediately after entering their contact information, the lead should be thanked and told how to receive the Lead Magnet they just requested. Also, this is where you’ll make the Initial Offer (ie. the thank you page is also a sales page).
  • Core Offer, Profit Maximizer, Action Series: These three parts are simply the Micro Sales Funnel I’m using in this example. Yours may look radically different.
  • Start Main Series: Since these fresh leads are new to your list – after they go through this initial Micro Sales Funnel, they join your Main Series where you begin gauging other interests and triggering other Micro Sales Funnels.

So, that covers if everything goes perfectly – the individual clicks your ad, opts-in for your Specific Lead Magnet (becomes a lead), and enters your Micro Sales Funnel where they’ll hopefully become a customer.

But, what if they click your ad, land on your squeeze page, and don’t opt-in?

  • Exit Intent w/ Redirect To Other Offer: If someone lands on your squeeze page and doesn’t opt-in, when they go to exit you’ll have an exit-intent opt-in form appear that presents a different offer than what the squeeze page presents.
    • For example: Let’s say the squeeze page presents a Specific Lead Magnet for Facebook Ads. Unfortunately, the visitor realizes they don’t want it so they decide to leave the page. As soon as their cursor leaves the browser window, we can trigger an opt-in for a different Specific Lead Magnet, one on Google Adwords. Maybe they’re interested in that topic and will opt-in. If they opt-in they will …
  • Enter A Different Funnel: Since they opted-in for the other Specific Lead Magnet, they’ve shown interest, and they are sent through that particular Micro Sales Funnel (ie. the sales funnel that sells our Google Adwords training).
  • Retargeting: Sadly, sometimes people still don’t opt-in to the exit-intent opt-in form. If they’re on a mobile device, they won’t see the opt-in form because exit-intent technology doesn’t exist for mobile devices (at least not at the time of this writing). No matter the reason, the person didn’t opt-in.
    • But, we’re not done with them yet; we still have other offers to make! These individuals are also warmer now; they’ve seen our brand, have an idea of what we do, and we know they’re at least semi-interested in what we offer. We don’t want to let them get away!
    • We can run retargeting ads to the warmer leads presenting more offers until they enter one of our Micro Sales Funnels and their journey with us begins!

Just to clarify, retargeting, sometimes called remarketing, occurs when you target people with your ads based on their previous actions – ie. if they land on your squeeze page and don’t opt-in vs. if they land on your squeeze page and do opt-in.

To Sales Page

Another strategy for filling your sales funnel is to remove the squeeze page and take individuals straight to your Initial Offer.

This strategy works especially well with Free + Shipping offers – you give away something for free, like a book or a cheap product, and the customer just pays for shipping.

Other than omitting the squeeze page, the flow is the same as the previous example. I definitely recommend split-testing these two models. The results may really surprise you!

That's It!

I really hope you enjoyed this blog series!

If you haven't already, I highly recommend going back and checking out the previous WTFs:

Finally, if you want more, I highly recommend you check out The Sales Funnel Training Vault!