3 Digital Marketing Strategies That Work Like Crazy

You need to master digital marketing if you want to grow your business in 2024.

That’s why today we are going to discuss three digital marketing strategies that work like crazy.

These are proven methods that have helped various online entrepreneurs reach 7 figures in annual revenue and then go beyond that.

Ready to do the same?

Continue reading…

Strategy #1: Set Up a Value Ladder Sales Funnel

Okay, so we will start with the most important digital marketing strategy of them all, the Value Ladder sales funnel.

What is the Value Ladder Sales Funnel?

Our co-founder, Russell Brunson, has developed a sales funnel model called the Value Ladder.

Here’s how it looks like:

There are four stages:

• Bait – You offer the potential customer a lead magnet in exchange for their email address.
• Frontend – You offer the potential customer your least expensive and least valuable product.
• Middle – You offer the customer a more expensive and more valuable product.
• Backend – You offer the customer your most expensive and most valuable product.

You can automate all this with ClickFunnels software.

Why is the Value Ladder Sales Funnel So Effective?

Do you remember the last time you bought a product immediately after hearing about it for the first time?

If you are like most people, then that probably rarely happens, if ever. And that’s understandable. Why would you want to hand over your hard-earned cash to someone you don’t know anything about?

Yet when we are the ones selling a product, we are often tempted to immediately go for the sale, then are shocked when potential customers are not interested.

The Value Ladder sales funnel is so powerful because it allows you to start the relationship with the potential customer by providing free value instead.

It also enables you to build trust over time by:

1. Continuing to provide free value
2. Offering increasingly more paid value

That way, as the person progresses through the funnel, they are getting more value at each stage, which makes them more open to your next offer.

Consequently, someone who would have rejected your initial offer had you gone for the sale immediately might end up eventually purchasing your entire line of products.

Here’s how Russell explains the reasoning behind this approach to selling online:

How to Build a Value Ladder Sales Funnel in 3 Easy Steps

You don’t need to have an entire line of products in order to implement this sales funnel model in your business.

You can build a Value Ladder sales funnel that consists of two stages:

1. Bait
2. Frontend

You can do this in three steps:

1. Create a super valuable lead magnet
2. Create a landing page for that lead magnet
3. Create a follow-up email sequence where you pitch your product

Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps…

Step #1: Create a Super Valuable Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer potential customers in exchange for their email addresses.

It can be anything that they can either download to their devices or access online:

• An eBook
• An email course
• A video course
• A cheat sheet
• An app

…etc.

What matters is that:

1. Your lead magnet offers a solution to a problem that your potential customers are struggling with.
2. That problem is either the same or related to the problem that your paid product addresses.

This will allow you to seamlessly transition from providing free value with your lead magnet to pitching your paid product.

But here’s what you need to understand:

People are not going to give you their contact information unless you give them something super valuable in return.

You should create something that your potential customers would happily pay for, then give it away for free. That is how valuable your lead magnet needs to be if you want it to work.

And keep in mind that potential customers will use the quality of your lead magnet to evaluate whether they should invest in your paid product.

Impress them and they will be inclined to give it a shot. Disappoint them and you won’t get a second chance.

In other words: your lead magnet can make or break your entire sales funnel. So you better give it the attention it deserves.

Step #2: Create a High-Converting Landing Page

You might be giving your lead magnet away for free, but you still need to “sell” it.

Meaning, you still need to persuade people to give you their email addresses in exchange for it.

That’s why you should think about your lead magnet landing page as its sales page where you pitch your freebie.

Fortunately, online marketers have been obsessively A/B testing landing pages for more than two decades now, so at this point, we know what works and what doesn’t.

Here are some of the best landing page practices that you should implement in your lead magnet landing page:

Create a Compelling Headline That Conveys the Main Benefit of Your Lead Magnet

David Ogilvy, one of the best copywriters that ever lived, is often quoted as having said:

“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

He was a 20th-century man, so, presumably, he was talking about ads in newspapers and magazines.

However, this is just as true today, maybe even more so.

Your headline is your opportunity to grab the potential customer’s attention and get them interested in reading the rest of the page.

You need to make sure that it is:

1. Compelling
2. Informative

It should make it clear to the potential customer what the main benefit of your lead magnet is. How will it make their lives better?

Create a Compelling Sub-Headline That Provides More Information About the Lead Magnet

A sub-headline is a second headline below the main one that provides additional information about the offer.

Typically, the headline conveys the main benefit of the lead magnet, while the sub-headline explains what the offer is.

For Example:

Nick Stephenson is a best-selling author and a business coach who teaches writers how to market their books.

His lead magnet is a free video course called “$0 to $1k Per Month”that explains how to increase your book sales to the point where you are consistently generating $1,000+ in monthly revenue.

His lead magnet landing page headline is:

“$0 to $1K Per Month: Author Marketing Training”

And below it there’s a subheadline:

“Free Seven-Day Course: How To Build Your Author Business To $1K Per Month – And Beyond.”

So when a potential customer arrives on Nick’s lead magnet landing page, it’s immediately clear to them what the offer is all about.

Focus On Benefits in Your Landing Page Copy

The distinction between features and benefits is one of the most important concepts in copywriting:

• A feature is a quality or a function of a product (“These shoes are waterproof!”).
• A benefit is the value that the customer will derive from that product (“These shoes will keep your feet dry!”).

People buy based on benefits, which is why it’s so important to focus on them throughout your landing page copy.

How will your lead magnet make the potential customer’s life better? Emphasize that.

Have a Prominent Call to Action (CTA) Button That is Impossible to Miss

The call-to-action button’s size, color, and copy can have a significant effect on the conversion rate of your lead magnet landing page.

You want to:

• Make it large.
• Use a color that stands out in the color scheme of your landing page.
• Use benefit-driven copy instead of action-driven copy (“Get My Free eBook” instead of “Subscribe” or “Download”).

Also, if your landing page is longer than a single screen, meaning that the potential customer needs to scroll down to read the whole thing, you might want to have several CTA buttons: one above the fold, one in the middle of the page, and one at the bottom of the page.

Add Social Proof to Your Lead Magnet Landing Page

You might be familiar with the principle of social proof:

When we are unsure of what to do, we look at what others do.

In this context, if the potential customer is not sure if they should give you their email address in exchange for your lead magnet, providing them with social proof might help you nudge them towards it.

Consider adding “As Seen On…” media badges, endorsements from people that your potential customers trust, and testimonials from existing customers to your lead magnet landing page.

The Secret to a High Converting Landing Page

You might also want to watch this video where Russell shares the secret to creating a high-converting landing page:

Step #3: Create a Follow-up Email Autoresponder Sequence

You should then create an email autoresponder sequence that will be sent to every person who gives you their email address in exchange for your lead magnet.

The purpose of this email autoresponder sequence is to get the potential customer to click through to the sales page of your frontend product.

You can do that by:

1. Reminding the potential customer about the value that they have derived from your lead magnet.
2. Building on that by explaining how your frontend product will provide even more value.
3. Ending the email with a clear call to action to learn more about the product by going to its sales page.

By the way, if you keep the price of your frontend product within the impulse buy range (<$10), persuading people to check it out will be much easier.

How to 10x Your Value Ladder Sales Funnel Profits

Okay, so now you have a basic Value Ladder sales funnel, which is great.

But here at ClickFunnels we always encourage people to think big. So how can you 10x the profits of your sales funnel?

Russell explains that in this video:

Strategy #2: Build a Popular Blog

Once you have a sales funnel set up, you need to start driving traffic to it.

You might want to consider making search engine optimization (SEO) the foundation of your long-term traffic generation strategy by building a popular blog.

It all boils down to three things:

1. Creating SEO content
2. Building backlinks to that SEO content
3. Optimizing your website for lead generation

Note that you shouldn’t expect immediate results because it takes times time for content to rank on the first page of Google.

Be prepared to invest 12-24 months into building your blog before it starts paying off.

Now let’s take a look at each of the previously mentioned steps…

Step #1: Create SEO Content

SEO content is content that is designed to rank on the first page of Google’s search results for a particular keyword.

Here’s the process of creating a piece of such content:

1. Do keyword analysis to identify a promising keyword.
2. Do competitor analysis to see what’s already ranking for that keyword.
3. Figure out how you can create an article that is better than what is already ranking for that keyword.
4. Either write the article yourself or outsource it to a freelance writer (you can find one on ProBlogger Job Board).
5. Publish the article on your blog.

Arguably, the most challenging part of this process is picking the right keyword, which is why you might want to watch this keyword research tutorial from Ahrefs:

Step #2: Build Backlinks to That SEO Content

Publishing high-quality SEO content that is better than anything that is already out there is not enough.

You also need to build backlinks to that content. But how can you do that?

Here are the top three link building strategies:

Guest Posting

Guest posting means writing a free article for another website in exchange for links to your website.

The exact number of backlinks you get depends on the website but you should get at least one in your byline.

You might also be allowed to include a few links to your content in the article itself if they make sense in that context.

Guest posting is the most straightforward way to build links, so start reaching out to popular websites in your niche and pitching them guest posts.

Just know that not all backlinks are made equal. The higher the domain authority (DA) or the domain rating (DR) of a website, the more valuable a backlink from it will be.

You can find out the DR of any given website with Ahref’s free Website Authority Checker tool.

“Link Magnet” Content

You can also build backlinks to your website by creating “link magnet” content that is designed to attract backlinks.

Here are the three types of content that work well for this:

1. Original research – Recent statistics tend to be in short supply because they are expensive to produce. This means that if you conduct original research and publish the results, that page is likely to attract backlinks from people who quote that data in their own content.
2. Case studies – The web is full of rehashed content written by people who haven’t done whatever it is they are writing about. That’s why case studies are so captivating. An interesting piece that tells the story of how you accomplished something is likely to attract backlinks. The more data you share, the better.
3. Custom images – Writers often use images that they found on Google, then provide attribution by linking to their sources. That’s why producing custom images that illustrate specific concepts well can help you attract backlinks. And it doesn’t have to be expensive. Companies like Design Pickle accept unlimited graphic design requests for a flat monthly fee. This can enable you to produce a ton of custom images without breaking the bank.

Broken Link Building

The aim of broken link building is to replace broken links on the target website with links to your content.

Here’s how it works:

1. You identify broken links on a particular website. You can use tools like Check My Links for this.
2. You reach out to whoever is managing the content on that website and let them know about those broken links.
3. You offer a link to your content as a replacement for one of the broken links.

Here’s a sample broken link building email:

Want to learn more about broken link building?

Check out Brian Dean’s comprehensive guide:

“Broken Link Building: The Complete Guide” (Backlinko)

Step #3: Optimize Your Website for Lead Generation

When a potential customer arrives on your website, you should direct them towards your lead magnet.

Here are three simple ways to do that:

1. Have a feature box on your homepage – A feature box is an opt-in form that is displayed at the top of your homepage. It should be the first thing that the potential customer sees.

For example, Matthew Hussey, a world-renowned dating coach, uses this feature box on his homepage:

2. Add an opt-in form at the end of each post – What could be a better time to pitch your lead magnet than when the potential customer has just finished reading your blog post? You can take advantage of this opportunity by promoting it at the bottom of your posts.

For example, Matthew Hussey encourages his blog readers to get his free “9 Texts No Man Can Resist” guide at the bottom of his blog posts:

3. Use exit-intent pop-ups – When the potential customer has decided to leave your website, you should make one last attempt at persuading them to download your lead magnet. You don’t have anything to lose at this point. Who knows, maybe it will work?

For example, online marketing expert and popular blogger Derek Halpern uses this exit-intent pop-up on his website:

Want to learn more about optimizing your website for lead generation?

Read our comprehensive guide on this subject:

“How To Generate Leads From A Website – Full Guide” (ClickFunnels)

Strategy #3: Build a Popular YouTube Channel

YouTube is the most popular video hosting platform in the world that has over 2.2 billion users.

You can tap into that vast user base by building a popular YouTube channel, then use that channel to drive traffic to your lead magnet landing page.

Here are some tips:

• Invest in professional channel art – You want to make it clear what your channel is all about and come across as an expert.
• Add a link to your lead magnet to your channel’s homepage – You can also use arrows and text in your channel art to draw people’s attention to it.

Take a look at how social media expert and business coach Vanessa Lau does it:

• Target a popular keyword with each video – You can uncover them by typing a relevant search term into YouTube’s search bar and looking at the search suggestions. These are the popular keywords that you should go after.
• Invest in thumbnail design – You want to use consistent branding for all your thumbnails so that your subscribers would immediately recognize your videos on their homepages, subscription feeds, and recommendations.

Check out Brian Dean’s thumbnail design:

• Promote your lead magnet in your videos – Mention your lead magnet in your videos where it’s relevant to the topic at hand and end each video with a call to action to download it.

You might want to consider creating several lead magnets so that you could pick the most relevant one to promote in each video.

Also, note that there’s a huge difference between a personal YouTube channel and a business YouTube channel, so make sure to keep it professional on the latter.

Meaning:

No e-drama, no rambling on controversial topics, no personal life updates. Stay on topic. Offer solutions to the problems that your potential customer are struggling with.

Want Russell to Teach You How to Build Your First Sales Funnel?

Let’s keep it real:

Building a sales funnel from scratch can seem like a daunting task.

That’s why we have created our 5 Day Challenge where Russell walks you through it step-by-step.

You will learn how to:

• Generate unlimited leads
• Create your first lead magnet
• Build your first sales funnel
• Create a simple 6-email follow-up sequence
• And launch your funnel

…in just five days!

So don’t hesitate.

Join our 5 Day Challenge today. It’s completely free!