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Top Converting Autoresponder Series Templates

You may have noticed over the last few weeks that we added a Shop and started to fill it with things.

It's been a slow trickle; however, today is the day!

Today's Our Shop's Grand Opening!

Of course, it wouldn't be much of a grand opening without an extremely awesome sale … would it?

So, until 1 October 2015 you can buy the store for $10.

Click this link to get this limited time offer.

This offer has expired; however, you can still grab the templates here. (the price is a bit higher; however, we've added several more templates!)

What's In Our Store?

Did I jump the gun earlier? My bad.

You probably want to know what's actually in our store … right?

We're selling Autoresponder Series Templates.

What's that?

It's probably best to start with a quick example and then I'll explain.

Welcome Series Email 1

Ok – back to the question of, “What is an Autoresponder Series Template?”

Simply put, it's a “fill-in-the-blank” series of emails that you plug into your email autoresponder service like ActiveCampaign.

The series are typically 3 to 4 emails long and they aim to achieve a certain goal.

For example, the sample above shows the 1st email in the Welcome Series 1 package. Its goal is to welcome people to your email list and work on segmenting those individuals.

Types Of Autoresponder Series
[Goals]

Welcome Series

The Welcome Series … get this … welcomes individuals to your email list and your business. It delivers the lead magnet, sets expectations, introduces your business, builds that initial relationship, and helps to segment your list based on interests.

Action Series

Action Series follow proven formulas that spur action. “Action” typically refers to a purchase – these are sales scripts. You use these when you're trying to make a sale.

Upsell Series

An Upsell Series is used after an individual makes a purchase in order to sell complementary products and/or services.

Cart Abandonment Series

A Cart Abandonment Series is used to help persuade individuals who have added a product to their cart, but didn't checkout – to checkout.

Re-Engagement Series

A Re-Engagement Series is used when a subscriber has not done anything (opened, clicked, read, etc) within the last 30-60 days. It helps to either “re-activate” or delete inactive subscribers.

Why Buy Autoresponder Series Templates?

Time baby, time.

And time = money.

Oh, and to keep from getting a headache.

Writing emails for an autoresponder sucks, plain and simple.

You can sit there for hours trying to figure out what to say, how you're going to map them out, and how to actually implement them.

Or, you can spend $6 on a 3 email series, or $24 (or $10 for the grand opening sale) on 8 email series (approximately 25 emails) … that's less than $1 per email.

Let me repeat that, $1 per email.

Even if, by some miraculous way, you can crank out 6 emails in an hour … you're still valuing your time at less than $6 an hour.

You're worth more than that.

Save time, money, and keep from getting a headache by using something that's already there … ready for you to take advantage of.

Click this link to go to the shop with the limited time offer.

Autoresponder Series Blueprints

Another reason why our autoresponder series templates will help your business grow are because we give you the blueprints for how to most effectively implement them.

Here's our most recent blueprint for eCommerce:

Email Marketing Strategy for eCommerce - sized

From there, it's pretty much just drag and drop!

Easy peasy.

Grand Opening Sale Ends 1 October 2015!

There you have it!

Hopefully I've addressed any questions or concerns in this article, if not, leave a comment below.

Otherwise, here's the link to the Grand Opening Super Awesome Mega Sale!

This offer has expired; however, you can still grab the templates here. (the price is a bit higher; however, we've added several more templates!)

Top Converting Autoresponder Series Templates2016-10-14T18:29:38+00:00

Email Marketing Strategy For eCommerce

While this strategy works well … there's now a “smarter” version I recommend you checkout by clicking here.

In this post, I layout an email marketing blueprint for nearly any eCommerce store to follow.

Let's get into it!

eCommerce Email Marketing Blueprint

eCommerce Email Marketing Blueprint

We will build this type of email series for you! Click here for more info!

1st Step

The very first step is to “categorize” your eCommerce store into 4 categories. More can (and should) be added later; however, let's keep it as simple as possible this first time through.

Go for 4, big, broad, categories.

For example, pretend you sell clothing – you can break it down to women's, men's, shoes, and accessories.

Sure, there are different ages, styles, types, etc within each category – but, you need to start broad.

Even if you don't do this step for your own store, the above example will serve well … I simply need you to understand the concept of segmenting your store before getting into the nitty-gritty.

Lead Magnet

The Lead Magnet is the “free gift” you give to someone in order to entice them into joining your email list.

I've already written plenty on the subject here.

Welcome Series

The Welcome Series is the email series that delivers the Lead Magnet and also introduces your business to the newly subscribed individual.

There are two purposes to this email series: establish a relationship and to segment.

It can introduce …

  • Your social media accounts
  • Picture(s) of your business and/or workforce and/or you
  • Facts about your business
  • Top products your business offers
  • Top posts on your blog
  • Testimonials

It can also ask for any questions the new lead may have – which can be a great conversation starter if you sell a more complicated product or service.

The point is to get people to understand you're a real business, with real people who truly want to take care of their customers.

All the while – the Welcome Series is “watching” how people behave.

What are their interests? What are they clicking on in your emails? How are they behaving?

Grab a Welcome Series Template from The Vault!

Example

The lead receives a “top products” email. The purpose of this email not only serves to introduce the lead to your products, but also to segment the lead based on which products they click on.

Back to the clothing example outlined in the “1st Step” – four categories: women's, men's, shoes, and accessories.

If the lead clicks on the top selling women's product – we now know that they have an interest in women's clothing – and we can segment them as such.

Did Segmentation Occur?

Yes

Great! The lead can go straight into an Action Series!

No

No problem, a welcome series is normally 3-5 emails long and maybe nothing piqued the lead's interest – it happens more often than not.

When the segmentation doesn't occur during the Welcome Series, you continue to send emails to the lead for approximately 60 days – coming from different angles via Broadcast emails.

Note: Many times, people join an email list to grab the Lead Magnet and are never heard from again. When this happens, don't feel bad about yourself, your email list, or anything at all – it's expected. Click here for the industry averages in regards to Open Rates and Click Through Rates.

Has Subscriber Been Inactive For More Than 60 Days?

Why ask this question?

When people are loitering on your list – it's costing you money in more ways than you can imagine.

Sure, it costs a few pennies a month to keep a user on your list – no big deal, right? Multiply that by a few thousand – and those pennies start adding up quickly!

But, that's not the “real cost”. Email services like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc. track how people engage with emails delivered from each email address and domain.

For example, if Gmail sees that huge amounts of people ignore emails from YourBusiness.com – they'll start sending ALL emails from YourBusiness.com straight to the spam folder … across ALL of Gmail!

And good luck getting back out of that spam folder.

Loiters are bad. Kick them out!

Again, has the subscriber been inactive for more than 60 days?

No

Cool! Send them Broadcast/Segmentation emails!

Yes

Initiate the Re-Engagement Series.

Broadcast/Segmentation

These emails are not in a series.

They're “one-of-a-kind” emails that are sent once.

Think of a monthly newsletter.

Or maybe a weekly update.

Something along those lines.

The whole point of these emails are to get a segmentation to occur.

You'll include links to certain product categories and/or blog posts and/or whatever else may help you better segment your lead.

You want a click.

You need a click.

You want to initiate an Action Series.

Initiate Action Series

Woohoo!

You got a lead to click!

Congrats!

Now, depending on what they clicked on, you'll want to send a corresponding Action Series to that individual.

For example, if they click on something to do with Men's Clothing – the “Men's Clothing” Action Series will automatically start.

Action Series #X

An Action Series is an email series of which sole purpose is to get the lead to take an action.

That's it.

9 times out of 10 – the action you're looking for is for the lead to make a purchase.

In order to do this, you'll send several emails all surrounding the same product (normally the top selling product in the category) and/or the product category itself.

Most Action Series follow a formula in order to approach the lead from various angles – with the hope that one of the angles makes a direct impact with the lead and they make a purchase!

We have several Action Series Email Templates in The Vault!

Did The Action Take Place?

Yes

Exactly what we wanted! Now take them through an Upsell Series!

No

Well shucks.

Don't worry though, it happens … the good part is, you'll get to try again!

Make sure the lead has been active within the last 60 days and then start sending them the Broadcast/Segmentation emails.

Upsell Series

The Upsell Series runs after a lead makes a purchase.

Each version of an Upsell Series can look wildly different depending on what product is purchased and your business model.

For example, if you sell a women's dress – fairly quickly, you'll want to recommend complementary accessories to that dress like a purse, jewelry, etc.

However, if you're selling a nutritional supplement, that runs out after 30 days of use, around day 23 – you'll want to start sending your Upsell Series in order to remind them to make a re-purchase.

You can have as many Upsell Series as you have unique products. Whatever makes sense for your business model.

Regardless, once the Upsell Series has taken place – it's back to the 60 day check and on to Broadcast/Segmentation emails.

Grab an Upsell Email Series Template from The Vault!

Re-Engagement Series

The Re-Engagement Series is the last-ditch effort for “re-activating” a lead.

The goal is to spur some sort of engagement – an open, click, reply … anything … even an unsubscribe.

This is normally accomplished through intense subject lines like “I'm going to DELETE you.”

Then, within the email explain that you're going to remove the person from your email list unless they click the link.

Sure, this may offend some people – but, you need to know if that person still exists, still has that email address, and still checks that email.

Because, if not – it's hurting your business.

Don't let people hurt your business.

Get a Re-Engagement Email Series from The Vault!

Did Re-Engagement Occur?

Yes

Initiate Action Series!

No

Delete Subscriber.

Cart Abandonment Series

While the Cart Abandonment Series is not in the diagram, it's still a critically important series.

It “reminds” people they have an item in their shopping cart.

For example, Susan goes to your eCommerce store and adds a pretty dress to her cart. However, she did this on her work computer and wants to make the purchase once she's at home. Of course, life gets in the way and Susan forgets she wanted to buy that pretty dress. No worries! A few hours later she receives an email reminding her that she has a pretty dress in her shopping cart and to resume checking out, all she has to do is “click here.”

Cart Abandonment Email Series normally convert at least 10% … most of the time, a LOT higher.

They're a must – do not neglect them.

Download an awesome Cart Abandonment Email Series straight from The Vault!

Did You Notice?

I've included quite a few links to The Vault!

We sell email series templates that help you quickly and easily write out your email automation sequence!

So … stop wasting time trying to write your emails from scratch and head on over to The Vault!

Email Marketing Strategy For eCommerce2016-10-14T18:29:38+00:00

How To Build A MVP [Sales Funnel Edition]

Links

How To Build A MVP [Sales Funnel Edition]2016-10-14T18:29:38+00:00

How To Drive Traffic To Your Sales Funnel

This article is part of a bigger article that can be found by clicking here.

This Is The Most Important Aspect

Where your traffic is coming from is the most important aspect for the success of your sales funnel.

If the people visiting your website don’t care about you, your business, or your products, they will never convert into paying customers (the whole point of a business).

Needless to say, too many people go for cheap traffic. They’ll look at sites like fiverr that offer to send UNLIMITED people to your site for $5. Sure, that sounds like an awesome deal … but, you know it can’t possibly be true. There’s no way UNLIMITED visitors cost only $5.

Yet, time and time again, businesses are buying these gigs and are then in shock that their sales funnel isn’t working, or their squeeze page isn’t converting.

Here’s the deal, if your squeeze page isn’t converting … the first thing you need to consider is where your traffic is coming from.

Below you'll find two key rules to ensure you're getting the right traffic to your sales funnel.

#1 Rule – Hangout With Your Audience

If you read nothing else in this article, read this section because it will save you time, effort, energy, and money.

The #1 Rule for driving traffic to your website is to hangout where your audience hangs out.

If your audience hangs out on Facebook … be on Facebook.

If your audience normally finds you through Google Search … be heavy on Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

If your audience hangs out on a forum online … be an active member of that community.

I know, this all sounds so simple and “duh” … but, so many people get caught up in what’s “hot right now.”

They’ll see that someone just made X dollars through LinkedIn. So, they’ll get excited and go over to LinkedIn to make X dollars too; however, they end up failing because their particular audience isn’t even on LinkedIn. They then get discouraged, figure their squeeze page isn’t working, and so they change the color of their subscribe button. I see it happen all the time.

Please, do not over think this. It really is simple. All you have to do is avoid the noise that Internet Marketers push down your throat of “what’s hot right now.” Learn to get through that noise, focus on where your audience actually hangs out … and hangout with them. It’s that easy.

#2 Rule – Set Expectations

The second biggest issue businesses have in driving traffic to their sales funnel is that they aren’t properly setting expectations with their marketing efforts.

For example, if you have an ad that says “Click Here for 10% off” … when a person clicks there, they should be presented with the 10% off coupon.

Duh … right?

This is called Conversion Coupling.

Conversion Coupling is “the bond that exists between the pre-click experience and the corresponding post-click landing experience. Conversion coupling means maintaining consistent messaging throughout your campaign.” [unbounce]

Too easy.

Whatever the ad says, should match what the landing page says.

Simple stuff, yet it’s overlooked all the time.

“Free” vs. Paid Traffic

There are already 39 million different articles on the various traffic sources, which one works “best”, and yaddy-yadda.

Remember, there is no single “best” source of traffic for all businesses. You must hangout where your audience hangs out.

But, I digress …

Most people break traffic sources into two types: Free and Paid.

The problem with this breakdown is that it’s deceptive … because, no advertising is “free” … it’s still going to cost you time.

Here are some common traffic sources with links to courses to help  you get started.

“Free” Traffic

Paid Traffic

Remember

No matter what type of traffic you’re sending, “free” or paid … remember these 2 things:

  1. Only advertise where your audience hangs out
  2. Make sure your ad matches your landing page

Once these two rules are followed unconditionally, you can begin to optimize your landing page.

How To Drive Traffic To Your Sales Funnel2018-03-27T13:39:52+00:00

How Much Should I Spend Per Click? [plus Calculator]

Many businesses struggle with figuring out how much money they should spend on advertising.

Some businesses don’t spend any money on advertising, other businesses spend too much.

Sure, the “free” advertising methods are great and if you’re generating enough money to make you and your business happy – then … good for you! Keep at it!

However, if you want to generate more sales, revenue, and profit … you’ll want to be sure that you’re spending your advertising dollars wisely.

How Much Should You Spend On PPC Advertising?

Believe it or not, figuring out how much money you should spend on your Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising campaigns is very simple.

Unfortunately, too many businesses don’t do the simple math to figure out how much they can and should spend on advertising. So, they wind up spending too much, or running away to cheaper, lower quality, sources of traffic.

You’ll need 3 numbers to calculate your PPC budget:

  • How much gross profit you make per product/service sold ($)
    • Gross Profit = Sale Price – Cost of Good Sold
  • Profit you want to keep per sale ($)
    • This is known as the Operating Profit
    • The amount of money, from each sale, that you want in your pocket
    • Conversely, what amount of gross profit you’re willing to spend on advertising to sell the product/service
    • Note: Don’t forget, operating profit is taxable and may incur other expenses
  • Conversion rate (%)

Bear with me a moment!

I know, those definitions may be a bit confusing at first sight, but after I run through a few examples, you’ll understand.

The PPC Formula

Here’s the formula the calculator follows … you can do your own math if you’d rather!

(Gross Profit – (Gross Profit * (Operating Profit / Gross Profit))) * Conversion Rate

The PPC Calculator

PPC Calculator Examples

Example 1 (Our Product)

We’re an eCommerce store that sells t-shirts.

We buy the t-shirts from the manufacturer for $2 per unit and sell them for $20 to our customers … resulting in an $18 gross profit.

We want to pocket $10 per shirt sold (Operating Profit).

We’ve determined Facebook Advertising traffic to our Sales Page converts at 5%.

Plug the numbers into the calculator …

PPC Example 1

Viola! We can comfortably spend $0.40 per click in order to pocket $10 per sale!

Example 2 (Affiliate Product)

We’re an affiliate for an online course that pays us $50 each time we refer someone to the course (Gross Profit).

We’ve decided we want to pocket at least half of that and spend the other half on advertising. So, $25 in operating profit is our goal.

Over time, we’ve figure out that the course’s sales page converts at around 3%, when traffic is sent via Google Adwords, for a few specific keywords.

Plug the numbers into the calculator …

PPC Example 2

Viola! We can comfortably spend $0.75 per click in order to pocket $25 per sale!

Profit Maximization

When you’re launching PPC campaigns, you may notice some people are paying ridiculous amounts of money per each click.

For example, the product for sale on the sales page is only $49, yet, people are bidding upwards of $15 per click! More than likely, their sales page isn’t converting above 30% to make it profitable.

So, how the heck are they able to bid so much and still turn a profit?!

Simple answer: The have a sales funnel.

That $49 product you see is just the front-end offer (sometimes called a tripwire). It’s what gets people in the door. Once they’re in the door, they go through upsell after upsell … which tend to have high conversion rates, thus making individuals worth way more than the original $49 they spend.

So, the average person may be worth about $200, making the $15 per click more practical, possible, and realistic.

Needless to say, if you find yourself surrounded by very expensive PPC ads, and you can’t compete … you need to spend some time building out and optimizing your sales funnel and sales pipelines.

Of course, if you need help with this … we’re here to help!

Ready For More?

Knowing how much you should spend per click is just one part of the equation.

Knowing how to decrease the cost and/or increase the profit is the other part …

The Sales Funnel Training Vault will teach you all the parts!

How Much Should I Spend Per Click? [plus Calculator]2016-11-17T17:29:52+00:00

Vanity Metrics vs. Actionable Metrics

This article is part of a bigger article on sales funnel optimization that can be found here.

I’M GOING CRAZY?!?!?!

THERE ARE TOO MANY NUMBERS!!!!

We’ve been told from the beginning we’re supposed to “track our site’s visitors”.

So, we’ve installed tracking software like Google Analytics and Clicky (like we’ve been told to) and we’ve “tracked our site’s visitors” … but, are we really tracking the right things?

Probably not.

There’s just so much to track that it’s easy to get lost in the numbers.

This article exists for two reasons, to explain the different metrics that exist and to give you one, clear, guide for how to track one “good” metric – email opt-in conversion rate.

Types Of Metrics

There are two types of metrics that exist when it comes to “tracking your site’s visitors”:

  1. Vanity Metrics: These are the “pretty”, usually, “big number” metrics that don’t really mean much. For example, site visitors, subscribers, and page views.
  2. Actionable Metrics: These are the metrics that actually matter. They’re the result of someone performing an action and are usually expressed as some kind of percentage to represent a conversion rate. For example, email opt-in rate, purchases, email open rate, and click-through-rate (sometimes).

* Note: Click-Through-Rate (CTR) is an actionable metric because it measures an action – someone clicking on something. The thing about CTR is that it can be deceiving and isn’t always the most accurate. For example, bots can click links which will throw off your CTR stats.

Also, people click things for various reasons. For example, if you have an ad with an attractive female on it and you advertise to a bunch of males age 18-26 … your ad is going to get a lot of clicks … no matter what. But, do those clicks lead to sales? Maybe, maybe not … but, sales are what truly matters.

So, just be aware … CTR is a good thing to track; however, there are so many variables that go into CTR that it should not be “THE” metric to track, but it can help with some decisions.

Vanity Metrics vs. Actionable Metrics

Actionable metrics are what “bring home the bacon”. Vanity metrics can be fun to look at – for example, it’s fun to see how much traffic your site is getting. It’s fun to watch it grow and grow and grow!

But, if the amount of sales don’t increase with that growth … you have a problem … you probably need to start paying attention to your actionable metrics.

You may have noticed from above that I listed “subscribers” as a vanity metric while I listed “email opt-in rate” as an actionable metric. But, don’t they go hand-in-hand?

No.

A business may have an email list of 10,000 subscribers; however, that number is relative. I mean, so what? Sure, it sounds like a lot; however, what if they’d been building that list for 3 years and have over 100,000 unique views a month?

10,000 doesn’t seem as impressive now … does it?

If they did a little math, they’d see that their email opt-in conversion rate (the actionable metric that matters) is only 0.3%! Pitiful!

If they had focused on optimizing their conversion rate and brought it up to 5%, they’d have an email list of over 180,000 by now!!

By looking just at list size, they missed out on 170,000 subscribers … makes me sad :/

How To Track Email Opt-in Rate With Google Analytics

Let's not let your business fall in the same trap as the example business from above!

Here's a little tutorial about how to setup conversion tracking in Google Analytics.

The Google Analtyics team made some changes to their software, so we created an updated tutorial that can be found here!

Vanity Metrics vs. Actionable Metrics2017-07-02T11:56:12+00:00

The Powerful Sales Funnel – Explained

No matter what you call them – sales funnels, marketing funnels, conversion funnels, purchase funnels, customer funnels, etc. – one thing remains true, you need one!

In this post, I will walk you through a few simple models to demonstrate the power of a sales funnel. By the end, you’ll truly grasp the concept in all its glory.

The Scenario

We’re an online only (eCommerce, B2C) electronic cigarette business.

Note: Whether you know anything about Ecigs or not … it doesn't matter, I'm simply using it to illustrate the point … which you will still understand. (I know very little about eCigs myself)

Core Product

The core product is the main reason anyone visits our store. Ours is this …

ecig

Basic Ecig ($50)

Upsell of Core Product

This is the more “prestigious” version of our core product and what we try to get people to buy as opposed to what they originally visited our store for (core product).

It costs a little more, but it's better!

Upsell

Advanced Ecig ($75)

Complementary Products

These are products that complement the core product. They’re not really useful on their own; however, they take the core product to the next level or are used with the core product.

complementary products

Fluids ($20)

Battery ($15)

Battery ($15)

Car Charger ($10)

Car Charger ($10)

Quick Recap

The point of a sales funnel is to bring people into your business, “funnel” them down until they make a purchase, and then keep that customer happy for years to come (retention).

sales funnel updated

No Sales Funnel

Although the sales funnel is a general representation for business, most businesses don't “purposefully” operate in this fashion. Instead they focus on the immediate – sell, sell, sell!

Needless to say, they’re missing out on a tremendous amount of conversions, customer loyalty, and revenue.

Here’s what our business looks like without a purposeful sales funnel in place:

No Funnel

So, assuming 1,000 people visit our store, and we have a 10% conversion rate on sales … we can expect 100 purchases a month or $5,000 in revenue a month … which means each visitor to our store is worth about $5.

Not too bad.

But, think about it … 90% of the people who visit our store leave and never come back! Certainly there is something we can do about this.

Sales Funnel (Convert Leads To Customers)

Enter the sales funnel!

With Funnel

By adding an email opt-in with a lead magnet to our site, we're able to build a better relationship with our leads and increase our conversion rate to 20%!

Sales Funnel (Maximize Customer Value [Retention])

Now, let's take it one step further by continuing to engage with our paying customers:

Funnel with pipeline

BOOM!

By implementing a “purposeful” sales funnel, we're able to bring our visitor's average worth up from $5 to $14! That's an increase of 280%!!

Let’s quickly walk through it.

Thanks to our sales funnel (the part that converts leads into customers) we’re able to boost our conversion rate from 10% to 20%. After the lead becomes a paying customer and we begin to focus on retention, we're able to recommend complementary products to our customer.

Sure, not every complementary product (cross-sale) will convert, which is why we have different conversion rates. Some will convert, which is the key.

Overall, the retention phase adds another $4 (or 40%) to our customer’s lifetime value … and this can all be handled automatically, through email marketing!

Apply To Brick And Mortar

I know what you’re thinking. This whole concept sounds all well and good with an online store … but, what about a physical, brick and mortar store?

I’ll let you in on a little secret … treat it the same way!

Instead of a landing page … you have a store. People “land” in your store.

Instead of a lead magnet … you can offer people a chance to enter a raffle for a $100 gift card … in exchange for their email address.

When someone makes a purchase … you manually tag that individual in your autoresponder tool.

Sure, some stuff will be more manual … but, it’s not at all hard. You can easily see the value between having a sales funnel in place and not.

The time invested in setting up a little contest (lead magnet), and manually entering people’s information is well worth it!

Get Started!

I'm done trying to convince you of the power of having a sales funnel in place. If you're still not convinced … I can't help you.

If you need help … grab our top converting email series! It will get you headed in the right direction in no time!

The Powerful Sales Funnel – Explained2016-10-14T18:29:40+00:00

How To Use Chaos Theory To Optimize Your Sales Funnel

This post is a portion of this bigger post that I recommend you read first; however, if you don’t – you’ll still gain some valuable insights!

Preface

The sales/marketing funnel is a system made up of several parts. All parts must work together in order to maximize the desired results.

Sales Funnel System

What Is Chaos Theory?

Chaos theory is a field of math that studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions [Wikipedia]

This can best be illustrated through The Butterfly Effect:

It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world – Chaos Theory

Essentially, there can be some small, and seemingly meaningless change or event that results in a totally different and unexpected result. For example, a butterfly flapping its wing that causes a typhoon.

But, let’s keep this conversation in context of your sales funnel.

The Butterfly Effect On Your Sales Funnel

You have your system, like the diagram above displays, and at the top is your Traffic Source [initial condition].

Let’s say you’re using Adwords to drive traffic to your sales funnel and you decide to make a change to your campaign.

You add the negative keyword – free.

You probably shouldn’t have been using that keyword anyway, because nothing on your site is free, but you didn’t know negative keywords existed until a few minutes ago. Lesson learned.

So, after you add your negative keyword – your system conversion rate shoots up 350%. Because now you’re driving much more qualified, better, traffic.

Who’d a thought that one, four letter, word could change the entire system that much?!

That’s Chaos Theory in action.

Applying Chaos Theory To Your Sales Funnel

There are three rules to applying Chaos Theory to your sales funnel:

  1. Start At The Top
  2. The Further Down, Make More Significant Changes
  3. One Change At A Time

1. Start At The Top

The effects of the changes you make will trickle down.

If you make a change to your ad, it WILL impact how well your squeeze page performs, which will impact how well your emails perform, which will impact how well your sales pages perform.

If you make a change to your final sales page, it’ll only impact the conversion rate of the sale.

When it comes to optimizing your sales funnel, you need to start at the top – with your traffic source.

Heck, if you can really nail down the first two parts (traffic and squeeze page [landing page]), and only do a mediocre job on the emails and sales pages – you’ll be able to create awesome sales funnels!

2. The Further Down, Make More Significant Changes

The further down in the sales funnel you make changes, the more significant the changes need to be.

For example, at the top – adding the negative keyword “free” could have a dramatic impact on the whole system. Whereas, on a sales page, changing the color of a button will result in insignificant changes.

When testing later sections – make big, bold, changes.

Change the whole layout. Change all the wording. Heck, change the product (if it makes sense).

Don’t waste time testing colors of buttons. Please.

3. One Change At A Time

The third and final rule is the most important – only make one change at a time.

How?

  • You have your “before” system conversion rate – write it down.
  • Make the change.
  • Wait until you have enough statistical significance [defined below]
  • Attain your “after” system conversion rate – write it next to the “before” system conversion rate.
  • Compare the two.
  • If “before” is better than “after”, revert back to “before” setup. If “after” is better than “before”, keep changes.

Without having super fancy tools and a PhD in mathematics, this is the only way for “normal” people to test their system – ONE CHANGE AT A TIME.

I mean, how else will you know if what you changed worked if you change everything all at once? You’ll be right back where you started, albeit with a new, un-optimized, system.

Statistical Significance

Comparing the before and after isn’t hard, but it will require discipline.

First, you’ll have to segment your audience based on “before” change and “after” change. The easiest way to form each segment is based on date: If the person entered your sales funnel before the date of change – they’re in segment A. If they entered your sales funnel after the date of change – they’re in segment B.

* Disclaimer: Date is not necessarily the best choice because different date ranges may yield different results, especially if your business is seasonal. The best option would be to run the tests simultaneously; however, this is more complex to implement.

Now, you have to wait until you reach statistical significance.

Fortunately, there are free calculators to help you with this!

Get Data Driven has a nice, simple one – that works, so we recommend it.

Get Data Driven - 1

So, how do you use it?

  • You see the two segments – A and B, just like we separated above, based on “before” and “after”
  • The number of visitors on this page was – enter the number of individuals that clicked on your ad
  • The number of overall conversions was – how many people, ultimately, made the purchase (remember, it's the whole system)
  • Conversion rate – calculates the conversion rates for you
  • Your results – tells us how different our two segments are based on a percentage of certainty

Certainty?

Right!

You want to be certain the change you made is actually creating the results and not some random event.

The goal is 95%, or greater.

Anything less, and you're left with too much room for error.

Look at this example:

Get Data Driven - 2

Kind of surprising, right? We're only at 81% certainty.

You'd think Segment B is clearly better; however, based on the numbers … it's not … and it would be too risky to assume B is better than A.

So … how do you get to Statistical Significance?

Simple answer – more visitors and/or more conversions:

Get Data Driven - 3

Notice how we still have the same, exact, conversion rates … but, now we're 96% certain that Segment B (the “after” changes segment) is better.

Now, we can keep the changes we made as permanent changes, and start a whole new test!

Summary

  • Changes you make at the top of your sales funnel affect all subsequent portions of the system.
  • Nail down the first two parts of the sales funnel – traffic source and Squeeze Page before spending tons of time and effort on the remaining portions.
  • When you do make changes to the bottom half of the funnel, make sure they're big, bold, changes.
  • Patience is a virtue. It's fun and exciting to change a bunch of things and think you're making a difference; however, it's not an accurate, nor productive way to optimize your sales funnel.
How To Use Chaos Theory To Optimize Your Sales Funnel2017-07-02T11:55:34+00:00

How To Optimize Your Sales Funnel

This is the first post in a series of posts concerning the optimization of a sales or marketing funnel. This post will be updated with links to related articles as they’re written.

It’s A System

The first issue that needs to be addressed in this post is your view on “optimization”.

Too many people only focus on one aspect of optimization without taking into account the fact that it’s a whole system.

For example, people know they’re supposed to optimize their landing pages and they go about changing wording, colors, layouts, fonts, images, etc. Trying to improve the page’s conversion rate.

And you know what? That's “Ok”.

It’s certainly better than nothing; however, it’s only one piece to the whole puzzle.

This is what the puzzle looks like when put together:

How To Optimize Your Sales Funnel

See, it’s a system, and the landing page is one small piece.

It’s the system, as a whole, that produces (or fails to produce) the desired result.

What Makes A System Run Smoothly?

Since you now see, and understand, that the whole sales/marketing funnel is a system, it would make sense to explain how to get the most out of it.

It has to flow.

The traffic source and advertisement need to match the landing page, which need to match the thank you page, which need to match the follow up email series, and so on.

You cannot have an advertisement for a car, which goes to a landing page that talks about a new diet, which goes to a thank you page that talks about how to get started blogging, which leads to a follow up email series that discusses the stock market.

That paragraph above is plain ridiculous, yet it happens all the time. (Ok, maybe not quite that bad; however, there are ads that promise one thing while the landing page delivers something totally different. For example, you click an ad expecting the opportunity to get a coupon; however, the landing page doesn't mention a single thing about a coupon … bad flow = bad system).

To get the most out of your sales system, ensure it flows!

Actionable Metrics

Simply put, there are two types of metrics that exist in the world of digital marketing:

  • Vanity Metrics
  • Actionable Metrics

Vanity metrics are “pretty” and “fun” to look at, but are only skin deep. For example, how many people visit your site, how many followers you have, and how many subscribers you have is fairly meaningless.

Sure, it’s exciting to see a 100% growth in traffic from one month to the next, but – what if sales stay stagnate or even decline?

Which is more important? How many people visited your site? Or, how many people visited your site and made a purchase?

The latter – right? All that matters is that conversion because it’s what keeps the lights on.

Conversions or conversion rates = actionable metrics. THIS is what you want to measure and optimize for.

The “technical” term for this is Conversion Rate Optimization or CRO.

Related article: Vanity Metrics vs Actionable Metrics

Traffic Source

The first piece of the system, when it comes to optimizing your sales funnel, is your traffic source.

Without a doubt, this is arguably the most crucial piece of the puzzle because if you’re sending junk traffic, it doesn’t matter how good the rest of your system is – it’ll never lead to your desired result.

There’s obviously a plethora of traffic sources and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Some sources of traffic are “free” like SEO, social media, word of mouth, etc. While others are paid like Facebook Advertising, Google Adwords, banner ads, etc.

The best type of traffic for accurately measuring results is paid traffic – and it’s what I’ll discuss in related posts.

Paid traffic is the best form because not only can you accurately target your specific market, but you can easily measure actionable metrics like Cost Per Action/Conversion (CPA). Remember, it’s all about actionable metrics!

Whereas, with “free” traffic, it’s more holistic and less measurable. Sure, certain aspects can be measured, but it’s not nearly as precise as paid traffic.

Related article: How to drive traffic to your sales funnel

Landing Page(s)

As you'll notice by looking at the diagram above – Landing Pages are listed twice, because they're used … A LOT!

Technically, a landing page is simply the page someone “lands” on when they arrive on your site through whatever source of traffic (search engine, ad, link in an email, guest post, etc).

As much as is humanly possible, you want to control the pages visitors land on. Especially, when you're paying money for that visitor to land on your website. You never, ever, want to send people willy-nilly onto random pages within your site.

Each landing page in your sales funnel should have one purpose only (a conversion [actionable metric]). You then measure the results and optimize.

For example, the landing page someone arrives on after clicking on an ad should probably be a squeeze page with a lead magnet that “squeezes” contact information out of the visitor. This way you can follow up with emails and build a relationship.

Another example, the landing page someone arrives on after clicking on a link in an email, should probably be a sales page with the objective being to sell a product or service.

That's all I'll say about Landing Pages in this post, but there is more in related articles!

Related article: What is a Landing Page?

Follow Up Email Series

The main point of having an email series is to build a relationship with the lead. This is done through providing informational and entertaining content with the underlying purpose of driving some kind of action (mainly a purchase, but can include other actions like social media follows, volunteer work, etc.).

The emails should include links to various landing pages like sales pages with the sole purpose to drive one action – ie, a purchase.

Actionable metrics (like open rates, click through rates, and ultimately conversion rates) are tracked and optimized in regard to an email series.

Related article: What's My Email List Worth? [calculator]

Sale (Final? Action)

The only actionable metric that really matters is the conversion rate between the start (the traffic source) and the finish (the sale).

This metric alone answers the question of, “How well is my sales funnel doing?”

Everything in between either increases or decreases this one metric.

So, when you make a change to your system – you see what happens to this one metric – and judge from there if the change you made was good or not.

For example, let's say you change your squeeze page and it happens to get a lower opt-in conversion rate than the previous one; HOWEVER, when you look at this final metric (the conversion rate from traffic source to sale) you see that it's gone up! And, that's ALL THAT MATTERS!!!!

Butterfly Effect (Chaos Theory)

It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world – Chaos Theory

Earlier in the article I talked about your sales funnel “needing to flow” – where the traffic source is in line with the landing page, which is in line with the emails series, and so on.

Remember, the entire sales/marketing funnel is a system and, in order to properly optimize it, you need to measure the results of the system as a whole.

Where the Butterfly Effect (Chaos Theory) comes into play is when you make one change, anywhere in the system, it can have dramatic effects on subsequent portions of the system. This can either dramatically improve or diminish its overall results.

Knowing the Butterfly Effect exists in your sales funnel (system) is the first step, in the next article I’ll show you a few ways to control it.

Related article: How to use Chaos Theory to optimize your sales funnel

Why Final With A ?

As you noticed, I had a question mark behind final. Because, realistically – the initial sale is not the final step in the sales funnel.

It's only the beginning.

You now have a paying customer that has money and trusts you and your business enough to make a purchase! It's now time to nurture that relationship and generate more and more sales for years to come!

However, this is beyond the scope of this post … at a later date we'll dive more into maximizing your customers' lifetime value. Today, we're just focusing on turning leads into customers.

Leaks

Your sales funnel is going to leak. People are going to fall out of it by not opening emails, not clicking links, not committing action, etc.

It’s going to happen – and that’s why it’s in the shape of a funnel.

There are ways to “plug the holes” in your sales funnel.

The primary way, and the way I’ll explain in a later article, is through retargeting  (remarketing).

Essentially, retargeting allows you to create ads that “follow” individuals across the Internet.

For example, someone clicks on your ad and goes to your squeeze page; however, they don’t convert. Maybe that particular landing page wasn’t good, or maybe the lead wasn't interested in that particular lead magnet. Through retargeting, you can show that lead different ads and different landing pages (squeeze pages) in order to try and get that initial conversion and thus, “plugging a hole in your funnel.”

Related article: How Does Retargeting Work?

Key Takeaways

  • A sales/marketing funnel is a system made up of many parts
  • Each part needs to “flow” with the other parts in order to have an optimized system
  • Only track actionable metrics and optimize based on those results
  • The Butterfly Effect is ever present, you must measure the success of the entire system, not just one part
  • There are ways to plug some of the holes in your system through retargeting
How To Optimize Your Sales Funnel2017-07-02T11:52:49+00:00

How To Develop A Marketing Persona When You Don’t Know Where To Start

You’ve heard it time and time again, you need to define your customer. We even talk about it in regards to the 3 Ps of an automated sales system (the first P is People).

You’ve read many articles and tutorials about developing customer avatars and marketing personas.

You’ve probably downloaded several templates to help you define your customer.

The thing you’re stuck on is – how the heck do you start?

You don’t have any “real” customers yet, so you can’t go out there and “ask” them. You can’t look at your Google Analytics or Social Media accounts, because … well, you just don’t have much data.

And, you’ve put in a lot of thought and effort, yet you’re still coming up short.

Don’t worry! The goal of this article is to show you how to start filling out one of the many marketing persona templates.

Grab A Marketing Persona Template

There are a ton of marketing persona/customer avatar templates available. If you want to use a different one – no problem.

However, I’ll be using the one you see below. You can click the picture to download a PowerPoint version of it.

Marketing Persona Template

Click to Download PowerPoint Version!

Watch This Video!

Do You Want More?

If you want a Part 2 to this video – let me know in the comments below!

Part 2 has been released and can be found here!

How To Develop A Marketing Persona When You Don’t Know Where To Start2016-10-14T18:29:40+00:00