We recently had the privilege of helping a client conduct a 5 day challenge and product launch which produced over $20,000!

While I can't go into specifics here, I'm going to do my best to provide you with actionable takeaways so you can hopefully produce similar (or better) results!

First Things To Note

It needs to be made clear that our client, we'll call her Sara, has a great offer… it's something people want.

Also, she's very charismatic – which is essentially a requirement for this particular strategy.

So, if you have a great offer and are very charismatic… this strategy may be right up your alley!

If you don't have a good offer… you probably shouldn't be selling it in the first place…

However, if you aren't very charismatic – this might not be the best strategy for you, but reading this case study may give you some ideas to produce something similar.

The 5 Day Challenge

Sara came to us with an idea, she wanted to conduct a 5 day challenge which culminated in the selling of two similar, but different digital training products she sells. One is “basic” and sells for £79 ($102.57) while the other is “advanced” and sells for £149 ($193.45).

The challenge was to stop a bad habit for 5 days, “The 5 Day [bad habit name] Free Challenge!”

Over the course of a few days, we molded this idea into a plan…

Pre-Challenge: 8 Days Of Lead Generation

We setup a 2-step lead gen funnel and she filmed a 90 second clip talking about the challenge which we used as a Facebook ad.

The goal of this campaign was to grow her email list, develop her retargeting audience, get people to like her page, and to get people into her challenge specific Facebook Group.

Then, for a week before the start of the challenge and for a few hours the day of… we set it live:

Over the 8 days, we spent £1,400.55 ($1,818.33) which generated 4,231 leads at £0.33 ($0.43) a pop.

Our spend looked like this:

• Day 1: £8.66 ($11.24)
• Day 2: £20.10 ($26.08)
• Day 3: £57.12 ($74.12)
• Day 4: £125.27 ($162.62)
• Day 5: £251.96 ($326.93)
• Day 6: £310.70 ($403.34)
• Day 7: £521.04 ($676.08)
• Day 8: £105.70 ($137.21)

During Challenge: 5 Days Of Live Streams & Retargeting

The 5 Day Challenge ran Monday-Friday and during it, she sent a daily email at 8am that alerted people of what was to come on that day's live stream. She then performed a live stream at noon which typically lasted 30 minutes.

During the live stream, she taught helpful tips and tricks, did Q&A, and simply chatted with everyone who showed up.

Immediately after her live stream ended, we boosted the video in front of everyone that opted into the 5 day challenge to ensure as many people as possible saw the live stream video… keeping Sara at the forefront of their mind!

We spent £50.00 ($64.91) for each boost which produced these results:

The Cart Opening: 5 Days Of “Selling”

Six hours after her Day 5 Live Stream, she opened the cart (started to sell her product) with an email to all 4,231 leads and a message to her challenge specific Facebook Group.

Simultaneously, we launched ads announcing the cart opening to all of her leads.

The cart stayed open for 5 days.

During this time, she sent a daily email or two and conducted a live Q&A session:

• Day 1: Link to challenge recap page (people could re-watch all the live stream videos) and the sales page for her two products
• Day 2: Client success story and also did live Q&A
• Day 3: Common myths dispelled (handled objections)
• Day 4: Answered the question “Can I really do this?”
• Day 5a: Cart closes tonight!
• Day 5b: Last chance!

The Results

At the end of the day, this is what happened:

• We spent £1,792.28 ($2,325.57)  on ads
• 4,231 email subscribers were added to Sara's list
• 467 new page likes were added to her Facebook Page
• 786 individuals joined her challenge specific Facebook Group
• £15,610 ($20,254.76) in revenue was generated!

All told, this was an incredibly exciting project to work on!

Sara was great to work with and most of all – she was very happy with the process and results!

Do you have a plan when it comes to launching Facebook Ad Campaigns?

Or, do you just kinda wing it?

If you don't have a plan or you're not seeing the results you want…

I've got a plan for you!

Introducing…

The 5 Day Facebook Ad Launch Plan!

>> Click Here To Download The PDF <<

That video is straight from the How To Generate Leads & Sales With Facebook Ads course – so, if you need more help and want to take a deeper look at everything, please check out that course!

I decided to share this particular lesson because I believe it delivers an insane amount of value in only 13 minutes and 22 seconds… and I want you to see it!

What follows is essentially a typed version of the video because I know a lot of people still like to read.

The Goal!

At the end of this 5 day plan you should have…

• A good audience
• Good targeting
• A good ad

… or, at the very least, know what doesn't work.

The Flowchart

Campaign Settings

Each Campaign needs to focus on conversions.

Conversions are actions people take like subscribing to an email list, purchasing a product, adding a product to their cart, etc.

When you tell Facebook the type of conversion you want, Facebook will automatically optimize your campaigns for you!

Also, each Campaign needs to focus on one objective/goal/offer. (one lead magnet, one product, one service, etc.)

Ad Set Settings

Unless you have a reason to do otherwise (ie. you're selling a mobile app), select both mobile & desktop traffic at the start.

Focus on News Feed traffic only.

Select the Conversion you're going for. If you want leads, select Lead. If you want customers, select Purchase.

Select your Budget. Your budget should be $5 times the number of ads you're running (between 2-6); if you're running 4 ads, set your daily budget to $20.

Select your Audience.

• It can be a Lookalike Audience as long as the Custom Audience it's pulling from has over 500 people in it.
• It can be a Saved Audience, if your Custom Audience isn't large enough (> 500) or, simply because, you want to use a Saved Audience. Make sure you're using Precise Interests when creating your Saved Audience.
  • Precise Interests are those that aren't “made” by someone at Facebook, instead they're made by an algorithm.
  • Basically, if it's something generic/broad and short like “fitness”, “hiking”, “digital marketing” … it's NOT precise. If it's longer and specific, it's typically precise.
  • Also, as a general rule of thumb, if the Interest matches the name of a Page, then it's a Precise Interest.
  • Another general rule, Precise Interests typically have less than 1 million people in them.
  • There's a bit more too it than that, but that will get you headed in the right direction.

Finally, make sure Optimization & Delivery is set for Conversions so you're able to take advantage of Facebook's auto-optimization features.

Create 2-6 Ads

Within your ad set, you're going to create 2-6 ads.

There are 800 million ad creation strategies and you can get as fancy as you want; however, this is what I typically do:

• I create 3-4 ads.
• All the ads will have the same exact copy and I'll switch out the images and include a video if possible.
• I try not to be cute or clever in the ads. Very straight forward, “[Audience member], do you want [feature/benefit]? Click here to learn more ==> https://super-awesome-link.com”
  • Or, something to that effect. I try not to leave any room for misinterpretation.

Wait 3 Days

Launch your campaign and DON'T do a dang thing for 3 days. (you can make sure it's live, but that's it.)

Your campaign is collecting data and if you touch it, your data won't be accurate and you won't be able to make good decisions.

Did Any Conversions Take Place?

After the 3 days have passed, it's time to see if any conversions have taken place – ie. you have any leads/purchases/etc.

If no, kill all ads, create brand new ones, wait 3 more days, and see what has happened…

• Still no conversions? Something isn't right. You should have at least one conversion at this point. Either your offer isn't attractive, your squeeze/sales page isn't working…. something is wrong. You need to go back to the drawing board and start over.
• At least one conversion? Continue on!

Kill The Bottom 50% Of Ads

You should be at this step only if you've had at least one ad receive a conversion…

Now, you're going to turn OFF all the ads that don't have a conversion.

Whether that winds up being 50% or not is fine.

Maybe you're running 4 ads and 3 of them have conversions. In this case, you'll simply turn off the 1 ad that doesn't have any conversions and let the other 3 run.

Maybe all your ads have conversions, that's great, leave them all on.

Wait 2 Days

As with the other “wait” … you're NOT going to touch it for 2 days because it's collecting data and you don't want to mess it up.

Run Breakdown Reports

After waiting 2 days, you'll run Breakdown Reports on your ads to see which segments are converting the best.

Typically, the order of importance is:

• Device/Placement (Mobile vs. Desktop / News Feed vs. Column)
• Age and/or Gender
• Location

You're looking for statistically significant results.

Make note of the segments that are producing the best results at the lowest cost.

Pause The Ad Set

Pause the current Ad Set you've been running these tests on.

Create & Launch New Ad Set With Optimized Ads & Targeting

At this point, you're essentially taking the best ad(s), audience, and targeting options and combining them all together to create the ultimate ad set!

Set that puppy live and let ‘er rip!

And that's pretty much it!

Now, you can start from the top again – focus on the same offer (lead magnet, product, service, etc.) and pick some different audience settings and/or ads to create another ultimate ad set. Once complete, compare it to the first one you made.

Or, of course, you can follow this 5 Day Facebook Ad Launch Plan for an entirely different offer!

Want To Learn More?

If you like what you see here and want to learn all the nitty-gritty details …

Click here to learn more about the How To Generate Leads & Sales With Facebook Ads course!

This post is the sixth in a series of posts entitled, “Digital Marketing Strategy For Startups, Small Businesses, and Entrepreneurs“.

This series of posts started with you understanding the fact you're to act as a direct response marketer. (read the Intro here)

Since you're a small business, you need to make sure every bit of marketing you do has a specific & measurable goal.

You have neither the time nor the money to waste on stuff that doesn't work.

Ya gotta make it count!

One of the best ways to make your marketing count is by having a strategy and system to sell your stuff.

We call these systems Micro Sales Funnels.

Use Micro Sales Funnels To Sell EVERYTHING!

Micro Sales Funnels are sometimes called Product/Service Sales Funnels because they're strategically designed to help you sell specific product(s) and/or service(s).

Micro Sales Funnels are used to sell both physical and digital products, services, coaching, consulting, SaaS, and even to drive foot traffic to brick & mortar businesses.

Micro Sales Funnels can, and should, be used to sell everything.

So, what do these magical, all powerful, systems look like?

It depends on what you're trying to sell, but here are a few different Micros Sales Funnel blueprints!

The Opt-in Funnel

The Opt-in Funnel is the simplest Micro Sales Funnel; however, it's perfect for growing your email list and is typically the start of most other Micro Sales Funnel models.

You've seen a few examples of this funnel model in part 2 where we discussed using Squeeze Pages to convert paid traffic into email subscribers.

The Classic Sales Funnel (POS Funnel)

The Classic Sales Funnel is a Point Of Sale (POS) funnel because its purpose is to increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) at the POS by offering additional products/services as the customer goes through the checkout process.

This is accomplished through the implementation of various tactics like Order Bumps and 1-Click Up-sells or One-Time-Offers (OTO) & Down-sells. (yup, we talked about these in part 5)

The structure of the Classic Sales Funnel can vary based upon what you're offering via up-sells (OTOs) and down-sells … there's no “defined” structure; however, below are a few common Classic Sales Funnels.

The Physical Products Sales Funnel

This Classic Sales Funnel model is ideal for small businesses and entrepreneurs that sell physical products.

For a full breakdown of this funnel and the strategy behind it, please click here.

The Digital Products Sales Funnel

This Classic Sales Funnel model is ideal for small businesses and entrepreneurs that sell offer digital/info products.

For a full breakdown of this funnel and the strategy behind it, please click here.

The “Book” Sales Funnel

This Classic Sales Funnel model is ideal for service based businesses, coaches, and consultants that have a book to offer as their front-end and services, coaching, and/or consulting to offer on the back-end.

For a full breakdown of this funnel and the strategy behind it, please click here.

The High-End “Call/Application” Sales Funnel

This simple, yet effective sales funnel is ideal for getting people on the phone and/or to fill out an application for high-end services, coaching, consulting, and mastermind groups.

The power of this funnel comes from offering visitors two ways to get in touch with you – they can call now or schedule a call for later.

If they choose to schedule a call for later, but don't go through with it, reminder emails are triggered to bring them back. (You'll be amazed by how well this simple series works!)

The Product Launch Sales Funnel

The Product Launch Sales Funnel is designed to sell high value courses and training packages.

It combines emails with video content “dripped” out over a few days that pre-sell the course you're going to offer and culminates with the “launching” of your product.

The Autowebinar Sales Funnel

Webinars are virtual seminars where you're able to sell high priced products and services.

They're great because you're able to have people's attention for about 90 minutes which gives you ample time to gain their trust and present your offer.

An autowebinar, frequently called an “evergreen webinar”, is a webinar that runs automatically 24 hours a day, constantly selling for you.

Other Micro Sales Funnels

The Micro Sales Funnel blueprints shared above are a small sample of the various Micro Sales Funnels you can create … you're by no means limited by what's above. They're presented here to give you ideas and inspiration about directions you can head.

Also, if you don't quite understand what the heck you're looking at, it's perfectly OK right now.

The key thing I want you to remember is that the sole purpose of a Micro Sales Funnel is to help you sell specific product(s) and/or service(s).

Ways To Enter A Micro Sales Funnel

Hopefully you've read the previous parts of this series and you already know how to get people into your Micro Sales Funnels; however, if not – here's a recap!

Organic Traffic

Individuals can enter your Micro Sales Funnels by opt-ing in through an opt-in form on your site. (part 2)

This is accomplished by offering a Lead Magnet on topic X, which leads them into a Micro Sales Funnel that tries to sell a product/service people interested in topic X would want to buy.

Paid Traffic

If you're paying for traffic, you better have a Micro Sales Funnel in place! (part 2)

If you don't have a way to quickly recoup your ad spend, you're going to hurt your business.

After all, you're a direct response marketer … right?

Everything you do needs to have specific and measurable purpose.

The point of your marketing is to make you more money.

Marketing Automation

In part 3 we discussed using marketing automation to gauge our subscribers' interests.

I showed you this diagram:

To recap, the left hand side is a Straight Line Sales Funnel or “Main Series”.

Its purpose is to build and maintain a relationship with your subscribers by sending great content while simultaneously segmenting them based on their interests.

When a subscriber shows interest in a particular topic (ie. they click a link), they're automatically entered into a Micro Sales Funnel that attempts to sell a product or service they will likely buy.

Retargeting

Retargeting is another great way to get individuals into your Micro Sales Funnels. (part 4)

You can also use retargeting to “guide” individuals through your Micro Sales Funnels because not everyone is going to read every email you send them. However, if you send an email AND retarget them with relevant ads … they won't be able to avoid your message!

Summary

You NEED to use Micro Sales Funnels.

There is no better way to convert leads into paying customers while simultaneously increasing their Customer Lifetime Value.

There are many Micro Sales Funnel blueprints to choose from; however, the design you choose will depend on what you're trying to sell … not all Micro Sales Funnels are designed to sell the same stuff.

Some are better at selling more expensive training, courses, and services while others are excellent at selling low priced (<$100) products.

Finally, getting people to enter your Micro Sales Funnels is as simple as sending traffic to it!

Where To Go From Here

If the marketing strategy described in this series of blog posts sounds logical and interesting to you …

It's the same exact strategy taught in The Sales Funnel Training Vault … it's just, in there, we go into a lot more detail and cover all the technical steps as well.

Click here to learn more about The Sales Funnel Training Vault!

This post is the fifth in a series of posts entitled, “Digital Marketing Strategy For Startups, Small Businesses, and Entrepreneurs“.

You're at the grocery store, about to checkout, when a Snickers bar catches your eye …

You throw it on the belt without giving it a second thought.

Then you think, “Hmm, I need something to wash it down!”, so you place a Red Bull on the belt as well.

The grocery store just increased your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

Most physical stores are very, very good at positioning tantalizing products at the Point Of Sale (POS).

Products that get us to spend just a few more dollars with the business and increase our CLV.

So, physical stores are very good at this, but what happens when you're selling products and services online and you don't have your typical checkout with a register, clerk, and tantalizing products surrounding it?

You need to use some basic strategy and thoughtfulness + the right tools and you can increase CLV at the POS with ease!

This isn't just for Ecommerce!

Before moving on, I want to point out that this isn't just for Ecommerce!

All businesses, to include physical & digital products, services, coaches, consultants, and SaaS, should focus on optimizing their POS.

Consider things like warranties, additional support, bundling packages and offerings, or even partnering with other businesses for referrals and commissions.

There's no better time to increase CLV than when a customer already has his credit card out and is actively buying! 

POS Optimization Strategies

Before getting into the strategies, I recommend reading the article on Value Ladders because it will help you structure your offerings in ways to make POS optimization a breeze!

1) Pricing Tiers, Packages, & Bundles

Pricing tiers, packages, and bundles are great ways to increase a customers' order size.

By using a bit of pricing psychology, you're able to present offers in a way that appear “too good to be true” while simultaneously increasing the amount of money a customer is about to hand you.

Take a look at this example from a2Hosting:

The “Swift” package is a no-brainer … for less than a $1/mo more you get unlimited everything.

Why would anyone turn that down? No one would.

How about the “Turbo” package? It's nearly twice as much as the “Swift” package; however, it offers 20X faster speeds and the A2 Site Accelerator!

We all know speed is important and it's still less than $10/mo … so, I might as well swing it, right?

Here's an example of a bundle of physical products:

If you're doing laundry, you typically need detergent, dryer sheets, and maybe a little fabric softener every now and then!

Plus, if you purchased these items individually, it would cost roughly 30% more which makes the bundle a no-brainer!

2) 1-Click Up-Sells

A 1-click up-sell is an offer presented immediately AFTER the customer has purchased something.

This makes the 1-click up-sell incredibly powerful because the individual has already inserted their payment information and all it takes is “1 click” to add another product/service to their order.

1-click up-sells are a key ingredient in the Classic Sales Funnel models discussed in part 6!

Here's an example:

This is the page and offer an individual is presented with immediately after purchasing a survival folding knife.

The individual is already in the mindset of “I need survival gear” and has already purchased one item, so when they're presented with another item that's discounted no-less, it's a no-brainer!

3) Order Bump

The infamous “order bump” has risen in popularity over the last year or so due to the fact it works!

It's so simple too, which makes it another no-brainer to implement.

Here's an example of an order bump:

It's simply an additional, complementary offer made at checkout.

That's it!

The customer only has to tick a little box to add the product or service to their order.

It's actually quite similar to the 1-click up-sell; however, it's made right before the purchase as opposed to immediately after … but, they're both 1-click!

The Order Bump is typically easier to implement than the 1-click up-sell. If you're having a hard time figuring out a way to do the 1-click up-sell, try searching for a way to add an order bump to your checkout process!

4) Subscriptions

If you offer a product or service that needs to be replenished – offering a subscription can be a great way to increase order size because it will automatically keep the customer coming back for more!

Here's an example of a subscription from the Youpreneur membership site:

In order to stay a member of the community, you're charged $59/mo or $599/yr (a bundle!).

Also note the yearly subscription is incentivized by offering the equivalent of 3 months free, a free t-shirt, and discounted rates to live events!

Here's another subscription example:

Each container of the supplement contains 30 servings, which makes the “Repeat Delivery Every 30 Days” option incredibly tempting because I won't have to remember to go order more and by offering an extra 5% off, it becomes a no-brainer.

5) Order Bonuses & Rewards

Have you ever seen a message like this while shopping online:

“Spend just $5.91 more and get free shipping!”

Or …

These are order bonuses/rewards used to entice customers to increase their order size in order to receive the incentive!

These are typically super simple to implement and freakin' work!

How To Implement

Implementing these various tweaks is not as hard as you might think.

For example, offering a package/bundle is as simple as bundling products/services you already offer.

Other options, like the 1-click up-sell, will depend on your platform. A quick Google search will likely yield some answers.

Conduct searches like …

• [platform name] + 1-click up-sell or [platform name] + order bonuses. For example, shopify 1-click up-sell.

9 times out of 10, there is a plugin or add-on that will make whatever you're trying to accomplish possible.

Finally, there are various shopping carts like SamCart, ThriveCart, and ClickFunnels that integrate with many other platforms to make these tweaks possible.

Summary

Optimizing your Point Of Sale (POS) process is one of the most impactful areas to focus on because when a buyer is “in heat” they will keep buying until their needs are met or they run out of stuff to buy.

You never want the reason they stop buying to be that they've run out of stuff to buy. You need a plan and process in place to capitalize on the situation.

There are several strategies for optimizing your POS to include creating bundles, 1-click up-sells, order bumps, subscriptions, and bonuses/rewards.

Finding the right tool to make this happen can be as simple as installing a plugin or add-on or integrating with another shopping cart platform.

Click here to go to Part 6: How To Use Micro Sales Funnels To Convert More Leads Into Customers While Increasing CLV

This post is the fourth in a series of posts entitled, “Digital Marketing Strategy For Startups, Small Businesses, and Entrepreneurs“.

Have you ever looked at a product on Amazon and then seen ads for that same product on Facebook, CNN, and other unrelated sites as you browsed the web?

If so, you've experienced retargeting! (sometimes referred to as remarketing)

Retargeting is a powerful tool that, when combined with marketing automation (see part 3), creates an unstoppable marketing force!

How Retargeting Works

Retargeting gives you the ability to show ads to people on your audience lists. (side note: if you haven't read the previous parts yet, I highly recommend doing so now.)

As a reminder, these audience lists are lists of people that are built within the advertising platform you've chosen to master, ie. Facebook or Adwords.

You're able to add people to your audience lists in a variety of ways such as:

• Website activity: pages viewed or pages not viewed
• Customer files: upload a list of email addresses and/or other contact information and the ad platform will sync that information with users in their database, allowing you to retarget people already on your email list, customer list, phone list, etc.
• Engagement (applies to Facebook): how much of your video(s) they've consumed, if they've interacted with your Facebook Page, or if they've clicked on a Lead Ad or opened a Canvas

You're also able to define how long an individual will stay on your audience list before they “fall off”. Ie. if you only want to target people who have visited your site in the last 7 days and didn't buy anything, you can do that. That way you're only advertising to people who recently ran across your business.

Lookalike/Similar Audiences

One of the best parts about creating an audience list is that both Facebook and Adwords allow you to create Lookalike or Similar Audiences.

What does this mean?

Say, for example, you have a list of 3,000 customers' email addresses. You can upload that list to Facebook or Adwords and they'll sync those email addresses with individuals on their platform.

Then, if you create a Lookalike/Similar Audience, the ad platform will “blend” all 3,000 of those individuals' likes, dislikes, habits, demographics, behaviors, etc. and create what is essentially a customer avatar. They'll figure out the characteristics of your average customer.

Then, they'll take that customer avatar and find a percentage of people that most closely resembles that avatar. For example, if you're on Facebook and you create a Lookalike Audience targeting 1% of the US population, you'll end up with a Lookalike Audience of roughly 2 million people that look most like your customer avatar.

Doing this helps you find people most likely to connect with your business!

Super powerful and something you need to study and understand!

Combine Marketing Automation (Email) With Retargeting

As you're aware, the effectiveness of email has declined in the last few years because it's easy to do and everyone is doing it. Since everyone is doing it, people are bombarded with emails, and they've learned to ignore the “noise” in their inbox.

This is all OK.

You still need to focus on building your email list because it's an asset (see part 2).

When you have something you really want your audience to see, simply combine email marketing with retargeting.

How? I'll show you because I'm doing this exact thing right now….

Step 1: Export your list of email subscribers that you want to see your message

Step 2: Create a custom audience in your ad platform by uploading the list of email subscribers you just exported

Step 3: Launch your ad targeting that audience list

Step 4: Send your email

BOOM!

Now, I have my message greeting people in two separate places: their inbox and as they browse Facebook.

There's no escaping my important message.

Do you see how I'm combining the two? I hope so and I hope you see how powerful that is!

Retargeting Strategies

Thanks to the flexibility and power of audience lists and retargeting, there are a million and one different strategies you can employ.

I already let you in on one strategy, retarget your list of email subscribers with the same message you sent via email to ensure they see it, whether in their inbox or while browsing Facebook.

While I can't cover all of the many strategies here, I'll share a few popular concepts to help you “think” in the right direction.

Visited Site, But Didn't Opt-in

One of the most popular retargeting strategies is to retarget individuals that have visited your website, but didn't join your email list.

Maybe they didn't see your opt-in form or maybe they weren't interested in the Lead Magnet you offered (see part 2).

Whatever the reason, they left your site without opting-in. However, they did visit your site which means they were interested in what you have to offer and they now know who you are … so, if you show them any ads, they'll be more familiar with your business.

The strategy is to retarget these people with other Lead Magnets. Maybe they didn't like the first one you showed them. No problem, show them one on a completely different topic or one that's in a different format (ie. a coupon vs. a checklist vs. a video course).

You keep trying to bring them back until they're on your email list!

Pro-tip! Clicks & Video Views

To “boost” the number of visitors that land on your site, one strategy is to launch an ad with the goal of getting people to visit your site. For example, you write an amazing blog article that you want people in your niche to see. So, you create an ad that “boosts” that blog post in front of your ideal customers, they see the ad, read the article (visit your site), then you retarget them with ads that offer different Lead Magnets.

This works well is because getting “clicks” to a website is typically cheaper than other advertising goals like conversions.

Another way you can do this is by running a video ad with the goal of “video views”. Like “clicks”, “video views” tend to be cheaper than the other advertising goals available which allow your ad spend to go further.

So, the strategy is to push your video ad in front of as many ideal customers as possible and retarget those that watch 50%+ of your video. Kind of like reading a blog article, if they watch more than half of your video, they've become familiar with your business and your offer; now, it's time to retarget them with Lead Magnets until they're on your email list!

Looked At Product, But Didn't Buy

This one is self-explanatory … if someone looks at your product/service, but doesn't purchase it, retarget them with ads to bring them back to your offer.

You could also include a coupon with your retargeting ad to really incentivize them to take action!

Bought This, But Not That

Also, self-explanatory. If someone buys one product from you, but doesn't take the upsell or any of the complementary products, you retarget them with ads promoting the products they're likely interested in.

For example, if someone buys a set of kitchen knives, a complementary product would be a knife sharpener. So, a good retargeting ad would offer that person a discount on knife sharpeners.

Pull'em Through The Funnel

You're able to pull people through your sales funnel with audience lists and retargeting ads.

I'll illustrate this with an example.

Let's say you want to sell a $97 course on Facebook Ads (Core Offer), so you setup a Micro Sales Funnel (part 6) to attract people, educate them, and ultimately sell your course.

You decided to write a “Super Awesome Blog Post On Facebook Advertising” and you're sending as much traffic to that post as possible via Facebook Ads.

Every person that lands on your article is then “pixeled” and added to an audience list you've created.

You then promote ads to that audience list with offers for 3 different Lead Magnets. They all have to do with Facebook advertising; however, one is a checklist, one is video training, and one is a framework for people to follow.

Individuals will then opt-in to your email list when they request a Lead Magnet, so you can follow up with them via email in addition to retargeting.

The first product you offer after they opt-in is a $7 product, sometimes called a Trip Wire because it's priced so low, people can't help but grab it and “trip” into your Core Offer.

If they don't buy your Trip Wire right away, retarget them with ads that bring them back to your sales page.

If they do buy your Trip Wire, offer them your Core Offer (the $97 Facebook Course). If they buy it, great! They did what you wanted; however, if they don't, you can retarget them with ads bringing them straight back to your Core Offer sales page.

Obviously, as they progress through the funnel, you stop showing them the previous ads. For example, as soon as they've seen your “Super Awesome Blog Post”, stop showing the ads that promote your blog post and instead show ads that promote your Lead Magnets. Once they grab one of your Lead Magnets, stop showing them those ads and only show ads that promote your Trip Wire. And so on.

As you can see, there's a lot you can do here and many things to try … retargeting can make or break your campaigns!

What About Other Retargeting Platforms?

There are several 3rd party retargeting platforms out there like AdRoll, Perfect Audience, and Criteo …

BUT! You're not going to pay them any attention!

You're going to stay focused on the 1 paid advertising source you selected way back during part 1!

There are so many features and options in both Facebook Ads Manager or Google Adwords that you have absolutely ZERO reason to dabble with a 3rd party tool.

Master your ONE platform first. Once you've really, truly, nailed it down … ie. it's generating profit … THEN, you can work on the other platform. Once you've mastered BOTH Facebook and Adwords (will take you years), then … sure, dabble with some 3rd party tools.

Ok?

Summary

Retargeting is a very powerful advertising method where you show ads to individuals that are on various audience lists … lists that are created based on website activity, customer files, and engagement.

With these audience lists, you're able to create Lookalike or Similar Audiences to help expand your reach.

Combining retargeting with marketing automation (ie. emails) is a very powerful force.

There are a bunch of strategies you can employ with retargeting. Just use your head, look for “holes” in your marketing campaigns and “plug” them with retargeting ads.

Finally, don't mess with 3rd party retargeting tools until you've mastered BOTH Facebook and Google Adwords.

Click here to go to Part 5: How To Optimize Your Point-Of-Sale To Instantly Increase Revenue

This post is the third in a series of posts entitled, “Digital Marketing Strategy For Startups, Small Businesses, and Entrepreneurs“.

I love the era we live in.

The technology that's available can save us so much time by helping us automate portions of our business.

For example, you can automate emails, text messages, direct mail, and ringless voicemails.

Not to mention the fact you can automate your entire social media presence or outsource tasks to virtual assistants, freeing you to focus on “bigger” things.

There's so much opportunity to automate portions of your business, that if you're not … you're not only wasting time and money, but you're missing out on growth.

This article is all about using marketing automation to help generate sales.

Transactional Communication

Transactional communications (email/text/direct mail/ringless voicemail) are the easiest and most logical communications to implement and automate.

If someone requests a Lead Magnet (see part 2), you send them what they requested.

If someone purchases a product or service, you send them a receipt and/or more information.

If someone abandons their cart, you remind them about it.

This makes sense, right? Nothing revolutionary here.

But, you still gotta do it. The money is made by following the basics.

#1 Goal Of Transactional Communication

The #1 goal of transactional communication is to present your next offer. (now is a great time to ensure you have a Value Ladder!)

Examples:

• An individual requests a Lead Magnet, you present the product/service that complements the Lead Magnet
• An individual purchases a product or service, you present complementary products/services
• An individual abandons their cart, you remind them about the products in their cart and possibly include a discount or bonus to drive them back to complete the checkout process

Again, this is no-brainer stuff right here, but it's overlooked so often I have to bring it up.

Relationship Building

In part 2 we discussed capturing people's contact information so you can follow up with them later.

Beyond sending transactional communications, you can send more “generalized” communications that build and maintain relationships, promote your products and services, and gauge interest (more on that later).

What does it mean to send “relationship building” communications?

It means that you're sending valuable content. For example, blog posts, videos, audios, infographics, stories, Q&A, support, etc.

Now, just because you're sending valuable content, it doesn't mean that it can't link to your products/services sales pages or that you can't use it to “mold” your leads and customers to conform to your way of thinking!

It's kind of like propaganda without the whole “misleading” part. You will never, ever mislead people on purpose. Right? But, you can teach them your ways if you believe them to be better than what's out there.

Before you know it, you'll become the authority and they'll follow you anywhere. (that's the goal at least!)

How To Build A Relationship

Too many small business owners and entrepreneurs overthink the sending of communications.

They worry about sending too many emails and annoying their leads and customers.

Or, they're not sure what to send.

I'm telling you right here, right now … it's not rocket science.

Talk to your audience like you normally would. Share what you would normally share.

You don't have to use fancy pants tactics and copywriting hacks to send an email.

Be a human being talking to other human beings. Really. That's it. That's the secret.

Now, there are some general rules of thumb if you're completely lost…

General Rules Of Thumb

1. Email 3-4 times a week. Any less and they'll forget about you. Any more and you may become a nuisance.
2. 1 promotional “sales” email every 2 weeks. ie. share more valuable content than promotional content.
   1. Remember, that's not to say your valuable content can't have links to your promotional/sales material!

A Pattern

I know some folks are like, “I really, really, really, really need a formula or pattern to follow! Just give me the freakin' formula!!!”

Ok, here's an email pattern to follow.

You Gotta Gauge Interest!

We've just talked about transactional communications, where if someone performs an action, you send them something.

And, we also talked about relationship building communications, where you're sharing valuable content in order to get people to know, like, and trust you and your business.

Now, it's time to merge the two!

Introducing the Interest Driven Sales Funnel concept!

On the left hand side we have our “Straight Line Sales Funnel” or “Main Series”.

The “Main Series” contains all of our relationship building communications or engagements, ie. emails, ads, etc.

When an individual engages with a piece of valuable content we send, they're automatically placed in a “Micro Sales Funnel” or “Product/Service Sales Funnel”.

The “Micro Sales Funnel's” purpose is to drive the individual to take action, ie. buy something, register for something, etc. This is accomplished by sending more, relevant content to the individual in an effort to persuade them to buy a particular product/service.

A quick example: Let's pretend I run an ecommerce store that sells kitchenware. I offer three categories of products: flatware, pots & pans, and cutlery. I send out a piece of communications with a link to an article called, “The Best Way To Clean A Kitchen Knife”. If an individual clicks that link, I know they're interested in kitchen knives and they're automatically entered into my Micro Sales Funnel with the sole purpose to get them to purchase my self-cleaning, state of the art, kitchen knife!

It's much easier to sell someone something when they've already shown interest in it.

Micro Sales Funnels can range in complexity from very simple, like sending a few emails on a topic the person showed interest in, to full blown funnels featuring 1-click upsells, downsells, and everything in between.

We'll be going into greater detail on Micro Sales Funnels in part 6 of this series.

That's the Interest Driven Sales Funnel concept in a nutshell … figure out what someone is interested in and then try to sell them a product/service based on that interest.

For the full Interest Driven Sales Funnel concept, please check out The Sales Funnel Book. (It's free, just pay for shipping!)

The Tools

In our opinion, the best marketing automation tool on the market today is ActiveCampaign.

It lets you send emails and text messages PLUS it connects to Zapier which connects to over 750 other apps that do anything and everything from sending direct mail, to ringless voicemails, and beyond!

ActiveCampaign allows you to create automations for transactional and relationship building communications, while helping you gauge interest(s) via tagging that can trigger Micro Sales Funnel automations.

ActiveCampaign is a very solid marketing automation tool and one we highly recommend.

Summary

You need to take advantage of marketing automation. It will save you time and money while simultaneously helping you grow your business by converting more leads into paying customers.

Marketing automation really shines when it comes to sending transactional and relationship building communications. Plus, you can merge the two concepts into an Interest Driven Sales Funnel!

Finally, there are a lot of tools on the market to help you with marketing automation; however, the best tool we've found is ActiveCampaign.

Click here to go to Part 4: How To Use Retargeting To Generate Sales

This post is the first in a series of posts entitled, “Digital Marketing Strategy For Startups, Small Businesses, and Entrepreneurs“.

Traffic. The lifeblood of your digital marketing efforts. Without it – you have nothing.

There are a million ways to generate traffic and every minute someone is coming out with a new, “best” way to do it.

Here's the deal, you only need to focus on two sources of traffic:

1. One organic “free” source
2. One paid source

Before we get into which sources you should use and why, we need to talk about the #1 rule of traffic.

The #1 Rule Of Traffic

As I said earlier, there are a million ways to generate traffic … so, there are a lot of shiny objects, a lot of people pushing which traffic generation method is “best”.

It can be very tempting to get sucked into whatever they're offering … and, you know what, usually, what they're offering isn't half bad EXCEPT

1. It takes you away from what you need to focus on
2. It likely breaks the #1 rule of traffic

So, what is the #1 rule?

You need to be where your customers are.

Duh.

But, this rule gets broken all the time because someone creates this juicy concept/tool and you grab it because it promises easy traffic.

Next thing you know, you're posting 50 times a day on Pinterest trying to attract 30 year old males. (there are very few 30 year old males on Pinterest … and yes, that's from a past experience …)

Or, you launched a Snapchat profile and story aimed at attracting 60 year old women. (there are few 60 year olds on Snapchat)

So, do yourself a favor … the next time you're getting persuaded to buy some fancy new tool to drive traffic, I urge you not to buy it until you read this full post. At the very least, make sure it will actually reach your audience.

Organic “Free” Traffic

Moving forward, you will have ONE source for organic traffic and ONE source for paid traffic. (More on paid traffic in the next section)

So, what is organic traffic? Organic traffic is the traffic that naturally finds your content and your business.

Some people call organic traffic, “free” traffic, because it doesn't cost money; however, it certainly costs time.

Here are a few organic traffic sources so you understand what I mean:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – blogging
• Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Musical.ly
• Video – YouTube
• Podcasts – iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud

Here's The 411…

If you read the intro, you may recall that I gave “awareness” and “branding” a hard time because it's neither specific nor measurable.

Ok, for the most part, the results from your organic traffic efforts will be hard to quantify accurately.

You can track as much as possible by using site tracking tools like Google Analytics and link tracking tools like bit.ly and Pretty Link, but – at the end of the day, you're at the mercy of the environment you choose to operate in.

My point is, since it's hard to accurately measure your efforts already, organic traffic is the place to grow “awareness” and “branding”!

This is your chance to be your weird, funky self and show people who you and your business are!

* Note: just because organic traffic can be hard to track and you get to be your weird, funky self – it doesn’t mean you should create content willy-nilly. Everything you create still needs to serve a purpose and be as specific and measurable as possible.

The Organic Traffic Strategy

This is important.

Only pick ONE organic traffic source to focus 100% of your efforts.

That's right, if you choose Instagram … that's ALL you're going to focus on. Yes, I know, it seems “logical” to do Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr too since you can post to all those networks at the same time you post to Instagram … and by having more content in more places you “should” reach more eyes … right? WRONG!

Each platform has its own set of “rules” whether by design or via social norms.

By “bulk” posting, you will spread yourself too thin and possibly alienate different platforms … which, you don't want to do.

Instead, you focus only on ONE source. 100% of your focus is on growing that channel until you have a significant following.

The size of a “significant following” will vary tremendously based on a number of variables like market size. For example, if you're a brick & mortar business and there are 2,000 ideal customers in a 25 mile radius from your store and 1,500 of them follow you on Instagram … you're doing pretty freakin' good!

You also need to take into account engagement. Who cares if you have 10k followers on Instagram if you only get 100 likes/comments when you post? The “real” size of your following is much closer to 100 than that inflated 10k number.

Once you have a significant following on one source THEN you open the next source and “feed” it with the following you built on your original source.

A good percentage of people will make the jump because most people are on multiple platforms and they can follow you elsewhere with a click or tap.

So, that's how you do it. Focus 100% of your efforts on ONE source. Take courses on how to become “good” at that source. Get yourself some fancy tools if you want. Do whatever it takes to really grow that ONE source. Once the first one is rockin' & rollin', add another source and jump start it by sending your audience over to it.

How Do You Pick Your ONE Source?

How you pick your ONE source is pretty simple…

• It must follow the #1 rule – you need to be where your customers are
• It must be something you like doing

That's it!

If you like writing and your audience likes reading … start a blog.

If you like taking photos and sharing inspirational quotes and your audience likes looking at photos and quotes … start an Instagram profile.

If you like talking and your audience likes to listen … start a podcast.

My one piece of advice is this, NEVER do something you don't like doing because you won't stick with it.

For example, I've tried a dozen times to focus on growing my Facebook following because I know my audience is there and it's a good place to generate traffic. However, after 3 days I quit because … you know what … I'm an introvert and being “social” is something I'm just not comfortable with or naturally good at doing.

However, I enjoy writing and blogging. As such, I have a blog and attract visitors through Google and other search engines.

Paid Traffic

It's been said, “You don't have a business until you can convert paid traffic.”

Here's the deal – you don't control organic traffic.

Let me say it again – YOU DON'T CONTROL ORGANIC TRAFFIC!

Platforms change. Algorithms change. Markets change.

With organic traffic, you're at the mercy of the platform you've chosen to pursue.

For example, 90% of our business on Crazy Eye Marketing comes from Google and YouTube.

If Google decides to drop Crazy Eye Marketing in the search results … our business could vanish … except, we know how to send paid traffic 😉

Once you're able to take $1, put it into an advertising campaign and get that $1 and more back … you're unstoppable.

Paid traffic also makes it very easy to define specific goals and measure the results.

So, why do I keep it at 90% organic and 10% paid? Because it's working and organic traffic is “free” … my customer acquisition costs are essentially zero beyond the time I spend developing content, which is, at this point, a sunk cost.

But, if Google decides to drop the hammer, we'll flip on our paid campaigns and keep trucking right along!

My point is, you need to know how to pay for traffic.

Before You Start Spending Money!

If you've ever “tried” paid advertising before and been astonished by how much it can cost to get someone to click your ad and wondered how it could possibly be viable … it's because you didn't have a Micro Sales Funnel in place.

Before you spend a dime on paid advertising, you need to have a Micro Sales Funnel setup and ready to go.

While I'm going to cover Micro Sales Funnels in detail in part 6 of this blog series, the simple definition of a Micro Sales Funnel is a system specifically designed to acquire leads and rapidly convert them into customers.

For example, Nathan is surfing Facebook when he sees an ad for the Top 10 Facebook Ads of 2016. Nathan clicks the ad and lands on a page that requests his name and email (a squeeze page) in exchange for the top 10 ads. Immediately after entering his contact info, he's greeted with an offer to get the top 15 WORST Facebook Ads of 2016 for only $7. Nathan thinks, “Shoot, I don't want to make the same mistakes as them, let me grab that!” and he spends $7. Immediately after purchasing the 15 worst ads, he's made an offer to join a course on Facebook Ad Optimization so he can create great ads for only $97. Nathan grabs it. Immediately afterwards, he's presented yet another offer for a training course on creating high converting sales pages for $297. He turns it down because he's a marketing genius and doesn't need help building landing pages.

All told, Nathan spends $104. Some people spend $0. And others spend $401.

All of a sudden, the average order size per click is $3. So, if the business can spend less than $3 per click, they're essentially printing money!

That's how paid advertising works.

You absolutely, positively, need a way to make your money back ASAP!

Of course there's the whole long game where your customers' lifetime value should increase over time … but, the goal is an immediate return on your investment.

If you can lock that down, you'll be unstoppable!

Paid Traffic Fundamentals

As with organic traffic, you're only going to focus on ONE source of paid traffic.

For the sake of moving forward and making progress, there are only two paid traffic sources you should consider:

1. Facebook Ads Manager
2. Google Adwords

That's it. At least a fraction of your customers are on Facebook and/or using Google.

If your audience is not on either of those platforms … they're not online and you shouldn't be focusing on digital marketing.

So, pick one or the other and let's move on!

After making your decision, you need to immerse yourself in the platform. Take courses, listen to podcasts, read blog posts and articles … become a beast on that particular platform.

What You Need To Pay Attention To

While you're immersing yourself in the ad platform of your choosing, there are a few key elements you really need to pay attention to.

These elements are often overlooked by small business owners and entrepreneurs when they launch paid advertising campaigns.

I really want to emphasize their importance here because they're the difference between success and failure.

Also note, the two aforementioned advertising platforms want you to be successful. Because, if you're successful, you'll keep spending money … so, they give you a lot of tools to help you out.

The key elements you need to know about and implement are:

• Micro Sales Funnels – Already mentioned a bunch of times, so DO IT or you're going to fail or, at the very least, have meager results. [see part 6]
• Conversion Tracking – There are pieces of code called “pixels” that you will need to place on your website that communicate with the advertising platform and can signal when conversions (ie. leads and sales) take place. You need this so you know what is/isn't working and it helps the advertising platform auto-optimize your campaigns for better results.
• Audiences – Both platforms allow you to create audiences in a variety of ways. Everything from being able to upload customer email addresses, your email lists' email addresses, website visitors, lookalike audiences, custom audiences, smart audiences, and beyond. You need to understand the various audience types and how you can take advantage of them because they can make or break your campaigns.

Summary

That's traffic generation in a nutshell.

The key things to remember are …

• Focus on ONE source of organic traffic and
• ONE source of paid traffic

Once you nail the one source of each down, you can branch out by using the audience and systems you've built with your first sources.

Click here to continue to Part 2: How To Capture More Leads The Right Way

Digital marketing can be a trip, yo!

There are a bajillion tools and a gazillion gurus spouting their wisdom on how to do it best.

There's so much information coming at you, it's hard to know where to focus.

Here's the deal, I'm not a guru and I don't believe in using a bajillion tools …

But, I've been using digital marketing to sell my products (both physical and digital), services, and coaching for the last 4+ years …

This post serves as the intro & table of contents for a series of posts that will show you how I think about digital marketing while teaching you the strategy and tactics so you can be successful as well!

MINDSET: “I Am A Direct Response Marketer”

Before getting into all the strategic and tactical stuff, we need to get on the same page with regard to mindset.

If you don't have the same mindset as me, you might as well stop reading … because, you're not going to “get it”.

Mindset is important because it pre-frames how you're going to use digital marketing to grow your business.

You need to have the mindset that you are a direct response marketer.

Every action you perform needs to focus on eliciting a specific, measured response from your visitor/customer/client/etc.

Everything you do needs to have a clear Call To Action (CTA).

For example, when you launch an ad, it needs to have a specific, measurable purpose, ie. to get email subscribers or to sell product X.

You do NOT launch an ad to “build awareness”. WTF is “awareness”? You made people “aware” of what? Your business? What does that mean? Did they buy something? Did they become a lead? Pointless.

Another example, when you produce a piece of content, whether it's a blog post, video, podcast, etc, it needs to have a specific and measurable purpose. Who are you trying to attract? What action are you trying to get them to take? When you present your call to action (CTA), make sure you use a tracking link so you can measure your results.

Until you have money flowing out of every orifice or loads of time, every bit of marketing/advertising you do needs to have a specific and measurable goal – ie. leads & sales.

All that “awareness” and “branding” stuff will come over time as you grow your business … but, when you're a startup or a small business, these are very vague goals and will lead to meager results. You need to make everything you do count.

Does that make sense?

I hope so, and I hope we are in agreement because, if not … save yourself some time and stop reading now.

Lay Your Groundwork

Before moving on to marketing, you need to have your business fundamentals down first.

Customers

You need to know who your customers are, their pain points, where they congregate online, etc.

If you don't know who you're trying to reach, it's going to be mighty hard to market to them.

If you don't know who your customers are, click here.

Business

Obviously, you need a business with products and/or services before you can market it. But there's a good chance you haven't put much thought into the “structure” of what you have to offer.

You need to think about how your offerings provide value to your customers.

What are your up-sells, down-sells, and cross-sells?

How do you “ascend”  your customers to give them more value while your business generates more money?

If you just kinda “sell some stuff” and there's no real rhyme, reason, or flow between what you sell …

I highly recommend you focus on establishing your value ladder before moving on.

Even if your offerings are structured in a way to “ascend” people, I still recommend checking out the value ladder article … as it will serve as a good refresher.

Delivery

The final piece of groundwork you need in place before moving on is a way to deliver your offerings.

Maybe you have a brick & mortar business, or an ecommerce store, or maybe you have a membership portal … whatever the way, it doesn't matter.

The point is, you need to have a way to collect money and deliver the goods.

And, 9 times out of 10 … the way you currently collect money and deliver your offerings is sub par, but it's OK. We're going to optimize the heck out of it when we get to the Point Of Sale Optimization segment!

The Sales Funnel Concept

Moving forward, you need to think of your digital marketing efforts like a funnel …

There's a big world out there with over 7 billion people on it.

Some of them need what you have, but most people don't.

We call the people that need what you offer your ideal customer, marketing persona, or avatar.

You attract this individual through advertising.

There are many ways to advertise and we'll get into them in another part, but all advertising needs to have the specific and measurable goal of acquiring leads.

When you have leads, you're able to use marketing automation to develop a relationship with them and build rapport.

These relationships help you convert leads into paying customers.

And, when you have a paying customer, you want to make sure you're offering them as much value as possible for days/weeks/months/years to come.

Fortunately, much of this can also be accomplished with the help of marketing automation.

And that, my friend, is the sales funnel concept.

Of course, there are a lot of moving parts inside of it (we'll be getting to them), but that's the big picture.

Moving On!

If you've made it this far, it's because you have taken on the mindset of a direct response marketer, have your business fundamentals in place, and have a general understanding of the sales funnel concept.

Now, it's time to get into the nitty-gritty digital marketing strategy and tactics!

Moving on, this post will be updated with links to complementary articles that show you how to effectively grow your business with digital marketing.

Continue Your Digital Marketing Journey…

Below, you'll find the continuation articles that deep dive into the specific areas of the digital marketing strategy and tactics that will help propel your business!

Top

1) How To Drive High Quality Traffic To Your Business

2) How To Capture More Leads The Right Way

Middle

3) How To Use Marketing Automation To Generate Sales

4) How To Use Retargeting To Generate Sales

Bottom

5) How To Optimize Your Point Of Sale To Instantly Increase Revenue

6) How To Use Micro Sales Funnels To Convert More Leads Into Customers While Increasing CLV

I'm going to cut to the chase because this post is long enough without a fancy pants intro …

A few weeks ago we launched The Sales Funnel Book as a Free + Shipping funnel.

This post is a breakdown of the funnel, how it worked, what we want to test, and where we're going from here.

Note: This funnel was aimed towards individuals on our list, ie. “warm” traffic. But, with a few tweaks, we will be launching a similar funnel to “cold” traffic via Facebook.

“The Sales Funnel Book” Sales Funnel

Here's the structure of the sales funnel:

Interest Gauging Series

The Interest Gauging Series was a series of 3 emails I sent to my list to … you guessed it … gauge interest in the book offer.

We determined if someone was interested by if they clicked the link in one of the emails.

If a link was clicked, they landed on the Confirmation & Sales Page (will cover in a sec), the Interest Gauging Series was immediately stopped because interest was shown, and the individual was automatically added to the Action Series (will cover in 2 secs).

If no links were clicked, they returned to the Main Series (general autoresponder follow up sequence).

Email 1

In Email 1, I offered the opportunity to download 19 Sales Funnel Blueprints – all of the blueprints covered in The Sales Funnel Book.

The thought was, if they were interested in sales funnel blueprints, they'd be interested in the book that explained them all.

Stats:

• Open Rate: 31.01%
• CTR: 13.04%
• Unsubscribes: 0.14%

Email 2

Email 2 made the same offer as Email 1 – to download 19 sales funnel blueprints.

Remember, if they clicked the link in Email 1, they would not receive Email 2. Essentially, this was sent to everyone that didn't click the link in Email 1.

Stats:

• Open Rate: 16.72%
• CTR: 4.55%
• Unsubscribes: 0.00%

Email 3

Email 3 was a direct offer to order The Sales Funnel Book and brought people directly to the sales page (the 19 sales funnel blueprints were not delivered if they clicked the link in this email and they were not added to the Action Series).

This was a last-ditch effort to sell the book.

Stats:

• Open Rate: 21.17%
• CTR: 2.58%
• Unsubscribes: 0.34%

Confirmation & Sales Page

The Confirmation & Sales Page was presented to individuals that clicked the link to receive the 19 sales funnel blueprints in either Email 1 or Email 2 within the Interest Gauging Series.

This is what it looked like:

As you can see, the top portion confirms their request for the 19 sales funnel blueprints, then it rolls straight into the sales page for the book.

Also note, the individual was simultaneously placed into the Action Series … which we're getting into now…

The Action Series

The Action Series was a series of 4 emails with the objective to sell The Sales Funnel Book.

As you'll notice, the engagement with these emails was over 4.3X that of the Interest Gauging Series.

Why?

Because this group of people expressed interest in sales funnel blueprints. So when we sent more emails about sales funnels, they were excited to open the emails and learn more.

Common sense, right? Show people what they want and they'll be more engaged.

Note: If an individual purchased the book at any time, the Action Series automation was stopped; they did not receive any more emails pitching the book.

Email 1

Email 1 was sent out immediately after the individual clicked the link in Interest Gauging Series Email 1 or Email 2 requesting the 19 sales funnel blueprints.

As you see, all Action Series Email 1 did was directly link to download the 19 Sales Funnel Blueprints PDF, which started and ended with this page:

Of course, beyond giving our subscribers something of value, the intent of this document was to bring people back to The Sales Funnel Book sales page and sell the freakin' book.

By sandwiching the 19 funnel blueprints between pages like the one above, people knew where they could get more information.

Stats:

• Open Rate: 78.26%
• CTR: 62.61%
• Unsubscribes: 0.00%

Email 2

Email 2 was a link to download a PDF of The Sales Funnel Book‘s introduction section.

I copied and pasted this particular section into a Word Document, added a header and footer that read “TheSalesFunnelBook.com” and linked it to the sales page. I closed out the document with the following statement: Want more? Get The Sales Funnel Book from TheSalesFunnelBook.com!

I felt that sharing content from the book was a great way for individuals to get a feel for how it was written, its quality, and to draw them in to wanting to read more.

Stats:

• Open Rate: 52.34%
• CTR: 23.36%
• Unsubscribes: 1.87%

Email 3

Email 3 included the next section of The Sales Funnel Book.

Like Email 2 above, it was a simple PDF that included links back to the sales page.

Stats:

• Open Rate: 48.08%
• CTR: 13.46%
• Unsubscribes: 0.00%

Email 4

Yup, Action Series Email 4 is the same exact email as Interest Gauging Series Email 3 – a last-ditch effort to sell the book.

Stats:

• Open Rate: 38.83%
• CTR: 10.68%
• Unsubscribes: 0.00%

The Sales Page

Here's the sales page I used to sell The Sales Funnel Book:

It may look different now than it did during this initial launch, but if you want to check it out, click here … if it's different, you can watch the old video here.

As you can see, the page consists of video, text, and images. Also, it's not super long, nor really short – it's of moderate length, I'd say! (side note: the video was 4 minutes and 46 seconds long)

I'd also like to point out that we also included instant access to the digital version of the book, so they could begin reading it while they waited for the physical version to arrive.

Stats:

With regard to stats … they're a little screwed up because I botched Google Analytics… more on that in a minute.

With as much accuracy as possible, the CTR from Sales Page to Order Form was exactly 50.0%.

Order Form w/ Order Bump

We processed orders for The Sales Funnel Book through a new shopping cart platform called ThriveCart.

This was the order form page:

It's pretty self-explanatory; however, I'd like to point out the Order Bump which is the portion in the red-dashed box above the “Ship My Book Now!” button.

That little offer saved us because we lost money on the book.

Yes, we should have broken even on the sale of the book; however, due to some bad estimation with international shipping costs, we lost money. It wasn't much, but the campaign was in the red.

Fortunately, the order bump, which were digital assets to accompany the book, converted very well and brought the campaign into the black.

Stats:

• Order Form Conversion Rate: 18.52%
• Bump Conversion Rate: 50.0% (yes, half the people that purchased the book also grabbed the bump!)

One-Time-Offer

After purchasing the book, the individual was presented with a one-time-offer (OTO) to join The Sales Funnel Training Vault.

The offer was presented as a Video Sales Letter (VSL) that was 6 minutes and 31 seconds long. [watch the video here]

The page itself is self-explanatory – watch the video and click the green button if you want to join.

Stats:

• Conversion Rate: 10.0%

Order Confirmation Page

Whether the individual accepted the OTO or not, they were greeted with the Order Confirmation Page:

And that completes the content within our sales funnel!

Some Numbers & Thoughts…

Ok, so – I screwed up the tracking a little bit.

I switched shopping cart platforms 2 days before going live and apparently didn't test the Google Analytics setup as well as I should have.

The data transfer between CrazyEyeMarketing.com and ThriveCart.com didn't work properly. The user's data wasn't transmitted, making it appear as though everyone that landed on the checkout page landed directly on it. Obviously this was not the case because they came through the sales page.

This “gap” messed up the ability to properly track user flow across the funnel.

Lesson learned – test your tracking.

Anyway, all is not lost because at the end of the day, if you put $X in and get $X+ back out, you're on the right track; however, it is nice to be able to break down the entire funnel, bit by bit, to see what works and what doesn't.

Here are the numbers I have:

The percentages above represent the conversion rate or CTR. (It's the percentage of people that moved on to the next step.)

The green and orange percentages have been discussed previously and they're accurate.

The red 🙁 represents the point where user tracking was lost. The silver lining here is I know how many people were on the Confirmation & Sales Page, how many people were on the Sales Page, and how many people were on the Order Form page, so I was able to compare all those numbers to come up with the 50%. Essentially, 50% of the people that saw the offer, clicked through to the order form.

The black 🙁 is data I did not track. Why not? The first 3 Action Series emails contained direct links to PDF files and then those files linked to the sales page. I should have used Google's UTM parameters to track the click-throughs, but, for some reason or another, I did not. Moving forward the links inside of the PDFs will have tracking.

Let's Run Some Scenarios

Even though some of the tracking was messed up, at the end of the day, the funnel “works” if I get back more than I put into it.

So, let's run a few scenarios!

This first one is the 1,000 person test without making any changes to the funnel:

For every 1,000 people I send through the funnel from my email list, I should expect to receive $539.96. Of course, I have to subtract the price of the book from that, so we're looking at around $410 net.

But, here's the deal – the OTO is 6 payments of $67 which is $402. Let's plug that in:

Doing that doubles the total … pretty cool!

But, when it comes to planning, I'm a hopeful realist. I hope people that purchase the OTO pay the 6 payments, but I plan for them to only pay the first one.

So, let's bump that $402 back down to $67 and play with some of the rates:

In the above scenario, let's say I was able to increase the Interest Gauging Series CTR from 17.59% to 20%. Let's pretend I did that by adding a 4th email to that series … simple and reasonable enough, right?

Then, let's say I was able to increase the Purchase Conversion Rate from 18.52% to 20%. Let's pretend I did that by adding a few testimonials to the checkout page.

Those small, simple, realistic tweaks bumped the total from $539.96 to $663.00! (an extra $123.04 per 1,000 people)

Of course, I could sit here and play with this calculator all day running different scenarios, but in the interest of keeping you interested in this post … I'll stop.

The point is, once you have a funnel and some numbers you can run various scenarios to find your weakest links to determine where you should run split tests, what optimizations you should make, etc.

Where It's Going From Here

I'm making a few changes to the funnel:

• Fixing the tracking issues
• Adding a 4th email to the Interest Gauging Series
• Adding testimonials to the Checkout Page
• Increasing the Bump price from $37 to $47

And, we'll see what happens!

Paid Facebook Traffic

The funnel is currently setup to approach my subscribers; however, with a few simple tweaks I'll be able to run cold traffic through it as well.

I will do this with Facebook ads for a chance to download 19 sales funnel blueprints. This will essentially place them right into the current setup and I'll see what happens with that and adjust accordingly.

One thing I'm looking forward to is that all individuals that request the 19 sales funnel blueprints will be interested … I'll essentially bypass the whole Interest Gauging Series because the ad itself will gauge the interest.

I'll also implement retargeting campaigns to continuously stay fresh in their mind!

Conclusion

The Sales Funnel Book‘s Free + Shipping sales funnel worked very well on the first go! Since it was “free” list traffic, and after covering the cost of producing and shipping the book, it was pure profit!

I did learn a few things along the way:

• Test, test, test your tracking code setup
• Be sure to take into account international shipping costs because you never know when a bunch of people from the Netherlands are going to buy your book and it costs $12 to ship to them!
• Have an order bump. Without this, we likely would have lost money.

All that's left to do now is make the changes, re-launch, and go live with paid Facebook traffic!

For You

I put together a plug & play book funnel using ClickFunnels: Click here to learn more about it!

If you've ever wanted to construct a sales funnel to launch a book, there's no better time than now!