i just launched an infoproduct that sells for $47 I the fitness niche.
Now that the launch is over I want to scale it up via paid traffic but I'm having trouble getting my sales funnel figured out.
Does anyone who has sold infoproducts in this price range have advice for on the best sales funnel to scale it up?
Scaling with paid/cold traffic is a very different kind of beast.
Depending on your paid traffic source their motivations and behavior is different than that of a house list or affiliate / JV traffic. Usually paid (cold) traffic is more difficult to convert with a $47 initial offer.
I've had success warming up this type of traffic, with clients of mine, before asking for that level of sale. There are some exceptions to the rule depending on how rabid your market is to buy, but the fitness niche is usually more skeptical.
You can warm them up by starting with an email opt in to a lead magnet then present them with your $47 sales offer, theres a side benefit to this as well.
The other way to warm them up is to start with a survey leading them into a customized VSL to your $47 product. There's also some major benefits here if you segment your traffic right.
As far as after the initial sale in regards to the backend funnel itself my typical flow looks like this:
Sales page > Up Sell #1 > Down Sell #1 > Up Sell #2 > Thank you page. However some of my clients have much more than 2 up sells in place in some funnels.
The trick is that your up sells should flow logically to each other. Meaning make your first up sell a product that gets your target market to their desired solution faster and easier with the up sell.
For your down sell, you can keep the same product / offer but lower the price or offer a payment plan.
Hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions.
To understand what the best sales funnel might me, we must investigate what info products are. Info products are often the first introduction people have to the world of internet marketing and online business. Whether that info product covers how to rank on Google, how to build a marketing funnel, or the finer details of running a Facebook ad campaign, there are info products out there for almost every topic and sub-niche of the marketing world. However, info products also exist outside of the marketing niche, whether they are in the dating world, such as the Double Your Dating course, or in the health niche such as The Truth About Abs course. An info product is usually a long, detailed explanation of how something works, delivered in a consumable method to a hungry audience in need of information. While info products started off as PDFs in the early days of the digital info product business, nowadays many are high-end videos and recorded webinars. Such videos tend to offer more value to customers than just reading through a PDF, and many info product creators now prefer to offer courses in this recorded webinar style. Since video is an awesome tool for building relationships online, many product owners exclusively do videos, in the hope that their customers learn to like and trust them, as usually the product creator will have more than one product to offer their customers. The business of providing information earns money every time someone buys an info product. Money can come in as a payment through PayPal, Stripe or some other online processor; or the product might be integrated into a shopping cart that converts traffic to customers at a higher percentage.
There are a lot of benefits to an info product-based business. Perhaps the most noticeable is that unlike other models such as Amazon FBA or Amazon affiliate, an info product business model has much larger profit margins. After all, there are no actual costs to delivering an info product, other than sales taxes (depending where you are) and merchant processing fees. The cost to manufacture an info product is either nothing (if you create it yourself) or a one-time spend on design and production. Because of this, the net profits from an info product can be substantial, even with only a handful of sales a week. Without the need for shipping (since the customer usually either downloads the product or is given a login to a special website), you will not face the logistical hassles you may have with a physical product. An info product in your niche may also set your website up as an authority on the subject matter. Whether your product is good or bad, you will build a reputation within the niche. Obviously the better the info product, the more influence you will wield with your audience and the niche overall. A good info product will be mentioned repeatedly by other thought leaders in your niche. This will build your authority even more. It is really the only business model that builds this kind of authority, in which you or your entire brand can be considered a thought leader. Depending on your style of traffic, the model can be relatively hands off. For example, if all your traffic comes from SEO, then you may only need to put an hour or two into the business a week. Of course, this is dependent on other factors such as customer service issues.
While the high profit margin of info products can make them quite lucrative, there are a few disadvantages that you are going to have to take in stride if you want to make this business model work. First, as we mentioned above, customer service issues can exist. The refund rate on info products tends to be a lot higher than physical products. Some info product owners get around this by having a zero refunds policy plainly stated in their sales letters. However, this can create ill will in your community and niche, so it is not recommended in most cases. Ideally, you want to have a good customer service system set up in advance, before scaling sales of your info product. You can cut down on the need for customer service by creating a few self-service pages. Cover topics that would be most relevant to your customers, such as:
1. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
2. Support Pages for Troubleshooting (the most common problems)
3. Community Forums (allow other users to offer solutions)
While you will still need people to handle and process refunds, these kind of self-service pages can cut down on the amount of tickets and requests for support. For outsourcing this process, there are many companies available. When creating the actual customer service portal, we recommend Zendesk. It is what we use here at Empire Flippers and has one of the easiest ticketing systems out there. In addition to effectively managing customer service problems, you need to make sure you are operating in a niche where information is highly valuable. People are willing to pay from $40 right through to $8,000+ on a course designed to show you the intricacies of making money online. People spend hundreds of dollars on courses about weight loss and fitness, but very few people are going to spend even $10 on how to trim your beard. This is important, especially because most information products are not really ground-breaking. Almost all information products contain information that can be found for free with some clever Google searching. By Google searches, I don’t mean finding the actual product that people have put up as a free download (though there is that too). I mean researching, at no expense, the information presented in the course you’re trying to sell.
At the end of the day, the reason people buy an info course is not because you are delivering unique information. It is because you deliver a unique perspective on that information. Many people are willing to pay premiums to learn an authority’s perspective on different subjects, and this is the main strength that info products really sell on: expertise. Because of this, it can take a lot more marketing acumen to effectively sell info products. Often you will need to build out entire funnels and email follow-ups if you are hoping to sell the product with any kind of regularity. This extra marketing also begets the need to make sure your product is up-to-dat. In industries like health and wellness, this can be important to make customers aware of new discoveries. In industries like SEO, having an updated product is important to reflect the most current updates from the Google algorithm. Depending on the info product, keeping it revised and “up with the times” will be paramount in making sure it stays relevant to your audience.
As a seller you must keep the following things in mind. First, the product should not be based around a personality brand or a “guru”. This could severely hamper a new buyer’s ability to grow the business, or even to keep it at the same level. If the buyer wishes to grow the business by releasing new products, doing so without the personality that the other products were branded with could be a difficult task. Since people are buying info products for the expertise, it makes much more sense to buy a brand that is separated from a personality or a guru. The niche should be lucrative as well, preferably full of opportunities for more information products. Usually, these niches are fairly broad, but they typically have an audience that has a strong hunger for information about the niche (such as weight loss, no pun intended). You will want to research the info products and see what people are saying about them. Is there goodwill and positive reviews for your brand — or is there a bunch of negative publicity? An info product can still make money with negative publicity, but it also means that your customers will likely have to be new people, and the opportunity to sell more products might be limited because of this reputation. Info products tend to galvanize people more than other products as to whether they like or hate a brand, so it is worthwhile to do a little deep dive research before making a purchase.
The buyer should preferably know the niche well enough that they can understand the info products at an intimate level. This includes having enough knowledge on the subject that they could create new info products if they want to, or at least hire someone to create the products and manage them effectively. Since information is at the core of this business model, it is very important for the new buyer to understand the information their customers will want, at least if the new buyer is hoping to grow the business in any meaningful way. One last point that a buyer should realize is that a lot of times information products receive a huge spike in sales from their launch date or the launching of other products but remain relatively quiet otherwise. You want to make sure that the business you are buying is not reliant on constantly launching new products. Find out what the profits are during the “downtime” between launches to get a more accurate picture of what this business is doing.
Once you have understood what an Info product is, what are its pros and cons and what you as a seller must do, you have understood the Stages in the Sales Funnel
1. Top of the sales funnel: awareness and discovery: Early in their journey, your potential customers are going through a specific problem and are researching and learning about it.This early in the journey, they are still identifying their challenge. They have many questions about it as they likely have not named the problem itself—they just know the symptoms. They are trying to verbalize their problem and are looking for a trusted source of information and education. Here are some examples of questions they might be having for specific industries:
1. A customer support software: “Customer support industry benchmarks”
2. A mattress store: “Why does my back hurt after sleeping?”
3. An electricity provider: “Average electricity bill”
At the top of the sales funnel, your prospect wants to feel educated and confident to be able to talk about their questions and problems when the time comes. From a marketing perspective, they want content that will guide them through the topic that matters to them, including blog posts, videos, and even quizzes. In this stage, your Untouched prospects turn into Contact made prospects. More precisely, they are now your Leads. It is time for you, the sales rep, to ask relevant questions and qualify your lead, which is what brings us to the next stage.
2. Middle of the sales funnel: researching solutions: In this stage, you are no longer dealing with nameless and faceless contacts. They have now named and defined their problem, and they are looking into all available solutions such as products and services. Questions in the middle of the funnel are no longer generic. Instead of asking ‘why’ questions, your leads are diving into a range of opportunities to remedy their struggle. Using the same industries as in the previous section, these might be their questions:
1. “How to provide good customer support over the phone?”
2. “How to choose the best mattress for [condition]?”
3. “How to break down an electricity bill?” or “How to choose an electricity provider?”
At the middle of the sales funnel, you lead is diving deeper into the specifics of the problem. They understand what is bothering them in detail and want to know the possible solutions. At this point, they might not necessarily be evaluating solution providers such as specific companies and their products. Instead, they are looking for types of solutions available to them.
For example, they have yet to decide if they will buy a software solution for in-house support teams or outsource support altogether. Another example: they are not sure if they just need a mattress topper or if they should buy a new mattress. The content that serves your leads best in this stage includes in-depth guides, comparison-style checklists, pros versus cons lists, and other insightful pieces. In this stage, your Leads become Qualified as you get to talk to them and ask them questions that help you decide whether your offer is the right fit for their problem.
3. Bottom of the sales funnel: making an educated purchase decision:
Finally, the bottom of your funnel is when your leads now know everything about their problem, the best type of solution for them, and are ready to select the provider to purchase this solution from. Therefore, their questions and concerns in this stage become vendor driven. So, their online searches, as well as their questions to you, might look something like this:
1. “Does [provider 1] provide better support software features than [provider 2]?”
2. “Who offers the longest and most complete warranty policy for mattresses?”
3. “What is the electricity contract terms with [provider 1] versus [provider 2]?”
That is what helps your lead make a decision that suits their exact needs, specific problems, budget, and other relevant resources. The best content for the bottom of the funnel are frequently-asked-questions pages, videos about product features, live demos, and side-to-side competitive feature analysis. These reinforce their confidence in your offer as they keep seeing its fit for their specific problem. This is when your Qualified leads go through Proposal presented and Negotiation phases, after which you ideally win their business.
Best sales funnel cannot be predicted because it depends on the proper implementation of all 3 stages of Sales funnel process, how well you can implement those stages completely depend on you, you can draw a plan of how to implement your own sales funnel from the examples below:
1. Netflix: Netflix is the most used paid subscriber video streaming service that allows its members to watch a wide variety of award-winning movies, TV shows, documentaries, and more on millions of internet-connected devices.
Research from Statista shows that in July 2018, Netflix had 72.9 million monthly users.
Their site is quite simple too. There is not a lot of confusing copy and you know exactly what you’re getting. They change their background image based on what movies and shows are being promoted.
They also offer a risk reversal where you can cancel any time and not be locked into a contract.
Steps in The Sales Funnel
1. Homepage: their homepage clearly explains their risk-free trial with a progress bar/timeline design. They state that there is no commitment with the free trial, and you can cancel anytime. They emphasize the risk reversal because Netflix is a recurring charge.
2. Pricing Page: you can scroll right down to the FAQ section and find the pricing info.
By default, Netflix selects the Premium plan for you (which is a very smart move). You can downgrade if you want though.
Why the Sales Funnel Works:
1. You have multiple payment options: gift card, credit card, and PayPal. All major credit cards are accepted. You can also go back and edit the information, so you are not locked in. There is an emphasis on security which is great because people are naturally risk-averse.
2. Netflix is simple. It is extremely focused on the end consumer. And they answer consumer questions cleanly and clearly with the least amount of text needed.
2. Groupon: Groupon is still a huge company reaching millions of consumers every month. They have a clear and prominent email opt-in pop-up on their site. This pop-up displays on their homepage to visitors on their first visit. This pop-up is part of the strategy they have been using for a while. It has successfully been growing their audience since they have continued to use it over the years. Let’s examine the rest of their sales funnel to see how it works.
Steps in The Sales Funnel
1. Traffic: from ads, direct, referrals, affiliates, email lists, and more.
2. Homepage: the pop-up on the homepage incentivizes visitors to give their email address. They get to save up to 70% on restaurants, spas, things, and other deals just for signing up. From there, visitors can browse and shop for services.
Why the Sales Funnel Works:
1. When you find a deal you like on Groupon, there is a clear CTA to get you to click. You do need to sign up through email, though.
3. HELPSCOUT.COM: Help Scout offer to watch a demo video. The designs and animations feel emotional. The site has good contrast; it is easy to read. There is nothing interfering with the copy. There is no messy background. There is a clear CTA and lots of social proof. It may be below the fold, but it is still high up enough that it is easy to see.
Steps in The Sales Funnel:
1. Traffic: blog or resources page.
2. Homepage: Help Scout’s homepage is clean, visually attractive, and has great contrast. There’s plenty of social proof and a clear CTA.
3. Pricing Page: There are three pricing tiers in their pricing page: company, standard, and plus and a CTA to start the free trial.
Why the Sales Funnel Works:
1. Overall, Help Scout has a beautiful design. Their message and services seem clear. They are doing all the right stuff to address the basics.
2. Their blog is great. They have some fantastic resources with nice graphics. They have a lot of high-quality content overall. It is super original with a clean layout. You can easily learn more about the team. They also have a strong lead magnet with a CTA to download their tool kit.
3. Help Scout once just offered helpdesk services. Today, they have expanded their offerings to include a research component and a data library.
4. AutoGrow.co: As you may already know, we offer a Done-For-You Sales Funnel Service for clients who want Auto Grow to custom-craft a funnel that will automate their sales or client lead generation, get them better quality prospects, and let them own a sales pipeline packed full of clients.
Steps in The Sales Funnel
1. Traffic: organic traffic and referrals from Auto Grow’s weekly newsletters and articles.
2. Homepage: the main call to action on the homepage is to watch the demo video for the Done-For-You service and then book a consultation. Our newsletters, articles, and products’ page all lead back to our homepage.
3. Pricing: we used to have a pricing page exclusively for each of the service’s packages but not so long ago we started featuring them on the homepage instead for greater visibility. Also, each product’s page has its own pricing.
Why it Works
1. We have truly clear copy in all our pages. We display all the products’ information, features, and guarantees for all the products and packages we offer too.
5. Basecamp: Basecamp helps you manage all your company’s projects, work, and communications in one place. They continually test new designs. The copy focuses a lot on problems they can solve. Basecamp also feels very personal. They emphasize social proof, and they present it in a unique way.
Steps in The Sales Funnel:
1. Traffic: blog, PR, organic search.
2. Homepage: in addition to the social proof, they show their product “in action”. They put a face on their logo for an emotional tie-in.
3. 30-day free trial sign-up: Basecamp is free to try. For visitors’ peace of mind you don’t have to fill in your credit card information initially when you sign up. They keep their pricing info super simple and clear.
Why It Works:
1. Its “new” design emphasizes testimonials. They’re promoting how it’s free to sign up, and let’s face it, who doesn’t love free stuff?
6. Planscope: Planscope helps you gain total control of your agency, get your team and clients on the same page, earn more contracts, and find out how you can create a better business. Their site is quite straightforward.
Steps in The Sales Funnel:
1. Traffic: email newsletter and blog.
2. Homepage: the homepage is nicely designed. You can see what the software looks like right on the page in the welcome video.
3. Pricing Page: the pricing page with the pricing table is super simple. There are four different tiers: freelancer, small team, consultancy, and agency. You get a 14-day free trial for the tier of your choice.
Why It Works:
1. One of the things why Planscope works so well is because they require a credit card. There are no tire-kickers and people who sign up are highly qualified.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
