According to the research that covers the timespan between 1994 and 2020:

• More than 30% of new small businesses in the United States fail within the first two years.
• More than 50% fail within the first five years.
• More than 65% fail within the first ten years.

Meanwhile, for startups, the situation is even more grim: their failure rate is 90%. On the flipside, around 1.5% of them go on to have a $50M+ exit.

If you don’t want your company to end up in the graveyard of failed businesses, you should ask yourself: how can you build something that lasts?

Today we are going to share ten strategies for sustainable business growth that can help you with that!

#1: Create an Amazing Product or Service

Your core product or service is the foundation of your business.

Attempting to grow your company with a low-quality core product or service is like building a house on shaky ground. It might work for a while but it will inevitably collapse, rendering all your effort wasted.

That’s why your first priority should be creating an amazing product or service. In theory, this may seem obvious, but in practice, very few entrepreneurs do that.

If you take time to focus on quality before you start pursuing growth, you’ll almost certainly have an advantage over your competitors who went straight for the latter. But how can you tell if your product or service is good enough?

You’ll know once you start getting overwhelmingly positive customer feedback. Otherwise, even though it may be hard to admit, the chances are that your product or service is simply mediocre. And if that’s the case, your business is not ready for growth yet!

#2: Package Your Product or Service Into an Irresistible Offer

If you want to make sales, it’s not enough to have an amazing product or service, you also need to package it into an irresistible offer. But how can you do that?

Here’s our irresistible offer formula:

Low Price + High Value – Financial Risk = Irresistible Offer

This means that you can make your offer more appealing by:

• Reducing its price – Ideally, you should charge less than your competitors. However, if your price is super low, potential customers might assume that it indicates low quality and choose to go with a more expensive option instead. So don’t go overboard with it!
• Increasing its value – You can do that by throwing in bonuses that don’t cost much to you but provide value to the customer. Digital goods such as cheat sheets, eBooks, videos, etc. work best for this because they have insanely high profit margins.
• Removing financial risk – Either offer a 30-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee or find a way to tie your pricing to measurable results.

Ideally, you want to do all three, which will make your offer stand out from the competition!

#3: Use Cold Outreach to Get Your First Customers

We would argue that if you are just starting out, the best way to get your first customers is cold outreach:

• Cold calling
• Cold email
• Cold DMs

Ultimately, this low-cost, time-consuming customer acquisition strategy is a numbers game: if you make 100 cold calls, send 100 cold emails, or reach out to 100 people via social media DMs every day, sooner or later you’ll start making sales.

(Obviously, it’s not enough to just contact someone and let them know about your product or service, you should also continue following up with them until you get a clear yes or no answer.)

There’s something that our friend Alex Hormozi calls the “Rule of 100” that can be helpful here: do 100 primary actions per day for 100 days straight.

In this case, do 100 cold reachouts per day for 100 days straight, which should take you around 4 hours every day.

This will add up to a total of 10,000 reachouts, which should be enough to get things going!

#4: Acquire as Much Social Proof as You Possibly Can

Once you start making some sales, you want to proactively solicit customer feedback and then ask happy customers for testimonials.

Ideally, these testimonials should include that person’s photo, their full name, and a quote from them that mentions a specific result that your product or service has helped them achieve.

Also, consider taking your most impressive testimonials and turning them into full-blown case studies if those customers are down for it.

Your goal should be to acquire as many testimonials and case studies as you possibly can so that you can then leverage that social proof to increase your conversion rates across your entire sales funnel.

There’s no need to wait until you have a ton of it, though: the moment you get a decent testimonial, you should leverage it by featuring it on your website, sharing it on your social media, and including it in your cold emails.

The power of social proof cannot be overstated so don’t hesitate to use whatever you have, even if it isn’t something particularly impressive!

#5: Allocate Time for Building Traffic-Generating Assets

Once you establish a steady stream of revenue with cold outreach, you want to take a look at your schedule and allocate some time every week for:

• Social media marketing
• Email marketing (newsletter)
• Video marketing (YouTube and TikTok)

We recommend focusing on building a social media following first, then leveraging it to grow an email newsletter and then finally leveraging them both to grow YouTube and TikTok channels.

Building these digital assets will take time but if you stick with it, it’s going to be worth it because eventually, you’ll be able to use them to generate free traffic for your business!

#6: Build a Value Ladder Sales Funnel for Your Business

A sales funnel is a system designed to convert visitors into leads, leads into customers and customers into repeat customers.

We believe that the best way to sell anything online is to create a Value Ladder sales funnel and drive traffic to it. That’s how we grew our software company to nine figures!

Here’s how it works:

1. You offer the potential customer a freebie known as a lead magnet in exchange for their email address.
2. You then pitch them increasingly more valuable and expensive offers via email.
3. You also set up some sort of continuity program that enables you to generate recurring revenue.

Whatever it is that you sell – services, physical products, digital products, software, memberships, you name it – the Value Ladder sales funnel can help you sell more of it!

#7: Maximize Customer Lifetime Value With Downsells, Upsells and Cross Sells

Bait, Frontend, Middle, and Backend offers are the core offers that you should create first.

Then, if you want to maximize customer lifetime value (CLV), you should add three types of additional offers to them:

1. Downsells – This is something that you pitch to the potential customer after they have rejected your initial offer. It should be a downgrade on it.
2. Upsells – This is something that you pitch to the potential customer after they have accepted your initial offer. It should be an upgrade on it.
3. Cross sells – This is also something that you pitch to the potential customer after they have accepted your initial offer, but instead of being an upgrade on it, it should be complementary to it.

For example, McDonald’s used to have its infamous “Would you like to supersize that?” upsell and is still using its equally well-known “Would you like fries with that?” cross sell. 

Think about it: if the potential customer is at the counter about to buy food, they are probably hungry. So it’s the perfect time to pitch them more food!

You want to do the same thing in your sales funnel. The best time to sell someone more stuff is when they have already decided to buy something from you and are about to proceed to the checkout. 

As for the downsells, if the potential customer has made it to the sales page of your initial offer, it means that they were at least somewhat interested in it, even if they ended up rejecting it. So why not pitch them something similar but cheaper? You have nothing to lose at that point anyway!

Adding downsells, upsells and cross sells to your sales funnel can help you increase your customer lifetime value (CLV).

That will enable you to afford higher customer acquisition cost (CAC), which can give you a competitive edge.

Remember: as Dan Kennedy put it, whoever can spend the most to acquire a customer, wins!

#8: Learn How to Run Paid Ads and Start Driving Paid Traffic to Your Value Ladder Sales Funnel

We recommend waiting until your business is consistently generating profit and then reinvesting that money into learning how to run paid ads.

Which platform you should advertise on is going to depend on your business model but if you can’t decide, Facebook ads can work well for the vast majority of businesses.

Find a reputable Udemy course that focuses on your platform of choice and then go through the entire thing. You can wait for the next sale if you want a discount.

Then, start playing with small ad campaigns just to get the hang of how it all works, with a daily budget of maybe $5-10. This approach should help you learn the basics of paid advertising without losing a ton of money.

Once you have mastered the basics and built up some confidence, create an ad campaign for your lead magnet and start optimizing it.

Finally, once you get to the point where your lead magnet ad campaign is consistently profitable, start gradually scaling it by reinvesting some of its profits back into it!

#9: Prioritize Customer Retention Over Customer Acquisition

We have noticed that entrepreneurs often make the mistake of prioritizing customer acquisition over customer retention because the former is exciting and the latter can be kind of boring.

However, this can create a leaky bucket situation where your business stagnates despite you pouring a ton of resources into customer acquisition because you can’t keep the customers you already have. So what can you do to avoid that?

• Proactively solicit customer feedback – Make sure to talk to not just happy but also neutral and even unhappy customers. That will help you get different perspectives, identify what needs to be improved, and calibrate your ad targeting.
• Prioritize what’s important to your customers – If customers keep asking for a specific feature, that’s what you should add to your product next, not something that you think would be cool that no one actually wants.
• Provide excellent customer support – Let your customers know how to contact you if they need help, explain when they should expect a response and make sure to respond within that timeframe.

You can also increase customer retention by using a weekly newsletter to stay top of mind with them. If you want to learn more about this, read our article “How to Grow an Email List from Scratch”.

#10: Scale Strategically Instead of Chasing Growth at All Costs!

It’s important to understand that scaling too early can cripple your business. So how can you know if your company is ready?

First of all, you want to wait until you start seeing a steady increase in sales that cannot be attributed to an increased marketing spend.

For example, if you have been spending $1,000 per month on marketing for the last six months and your sales have been steadily increasing during that time, that’s a good sign.

This pattern indicates that your business has positive word-of-mouth, meaning that your customers are so happy with your product or service that they are recommending it to other people. That’s the most likely source of these unexplained sales.

Meanwhile, the reverse pattern where you are spending more and more money on marketing but your sales are declining indicates negative word-of-mouth. Not only are your customers not happy with your product or service but they are also warning other people not to buy it. If you start scaling in that situation, you might end up completely ruining your brand!

Next, before you start scaling, you want to streamline your business workflow by automating everything that can be automated and developing standard operating procedures (SOPs) for everything else. This can help you save a lot of money because you’ll be able to achieve the same results with fewer employees.

Then, you want to use historical data to create sales projections and model various scenarios. This will help you get a better idea of what’s possible. We recommend reading our article “Sales Forecasting Methods – The Complete Beginner’s Guide”

Finally, you should set a realistic sales target, create a plan for achieving it, and then start scaling your business by gradually increasing your marketing spend, which should result in a corresponding increase in sales.

Just make sure that your company is prepared to handle the new sales volume!

Want to Learn How to Build Sales Funnels That CONVERT?

Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade. Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade.

He is now widely considered to be one of the top sales funnel experts in the world. Want to learn from him?

His best-selling book “DotCom Secrets” is the best place to start because it covers everything you need to know in order to build sales funnels that convert.

This book is available on Amazon where it has over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

But you can also get it directly from us for free…

All we ask is that you pay for shipping!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

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P.S. Here’s What Readers Say About “DotCom Secrets”…

What Readers Say About “DotCom Secrets”

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If you’re interested in starting as an entrepreneur, e-commerce provides one of the easiest access points today.

What’s more, e-commerce is both a low point of entry to get started and accessible for anyone with an Internet connection and a device like a phone, tablet, or computer.

Launching an e-commerce business as a new entrepreneur provides great flexibility and independence, as well as the opportunity to reach a global audience from the comfort of your home.

Like all businesses, though, to be successful in e-commerce, you’ll need a plan, effort, and a strategy to stand out and above the competition.

You’ll want to identify areas where you can create products that solve your target audience’s pain points, help nurture them with a sales funnel (more on that), and refine your strategy with data and analytics for the best performance.

This guide will share invaluable tips and outline the essential steps to creating a strategy for success in a crowded marketplace.

How to Start an E-Commerce Business

When you set out to create your e-commerce business, you must first research what type of business you want to start.

Your research should focus on a few factors, such as your potential target audience and the potential market. It should also study what types of businesses are successful, where potential holes exist in those businesses, and how you can fill those gaps.

When you’re researching your business, you’ll want to use the following checklist:

• Define your market
• Analyze competitors
• Identify the potential demand
• Research the ideal price points
• Evaluate any potential challenges to your e-commerce business

For example, if your competitors sell info products for small businesses, consider the type of audience that may need to be addressed.

If there is a gap in your competitors’ solutions, can you include something specific to help a different group or audience in your info product? 

The key here is to research what is already being offered, identify your potential target market, and determine who could benefit from your products.

You’ll gain insights into what your competitors are doing well, validate your ideas with your competitors’ successes, and possibly discover what gaps in the market exist that you could offer solutions.

With the data and insights you gain, you are better positioned to develop a comprehensive business plan based on your competitors’ successes, price points, and market dynamics.

These insights will allow you to position yourself and your products more effectively and develop a competitive edge when starting.

After validating a concept and developing a business plan, the next step is to begin thinking about your target customers and where best to find them.

Conduct Market Research

As a new entrepreneur, you may have ideas about what to sell, but what you don’t understand about the validity of your ideas could end up becoming a costly mistake.

Conducting market research is crucial to determining what type of offerings you may bring to market and also understanding whether they’re valid ideas in the first place.

To better understand the market, examine competitors and consider who may benefit from your product offerings.

Is there a demand for such products? Are they in high demand and in a highly competitive marketplace? If so, you may want to reconsider what you’re thinking about offering.

One way to examine the market is to explore different e-commerce businesses already in existence. What are they doing to drum up business?

You’ll want to look at marketing strategies, price points, and who they’re trying to serve (ideal customer) to understand whether your idea is sellable.

Once you see proof that the idea can be sold, dive into SEO page results and social media platforms to gather more evidence of success and how people reach their audience.

This research will help you position your product and find an audience interested in purchasing from you. It can also help you avoid spending a lot of money without getting a good return on your investment.

Define Your Target Audience and Potential Customer

To be successful as an entrepreneur, you need to understand the market landscape.

Most importantly, you need to know who your target audience is and where to find your potential customers.

Otherwise, it won’t matter if you have the best business strategy ever – it isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. You need to be able to find people who want your offerings and convert them into sales.

As a new entrepreneur, you need to define your target audience and their niche, which will help you identify your potential customers.

The best approach to finding your target audience and potential customers is to identify a specific aspect of the market and drill down as far as possible to find a niche that is parallel to your offerings.

Analyze trends, pain points, and competitors’ e-commerce products to understand what is performing well and how you can provide a different solution.

Another factor in finding your target is pinpointing the ideal customer type.

Ask yourself questions such as:

• What are their interests, behaviors, and preferences?
• What are their demographics, location, age, gender, and buying patterns?
• How do they consume content and find products to purchase? Do they watch long – or short-form videos, read blogs, or engage on social channels?

By asking these questions, you’ll want to utilize tools like search engines and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help you find and analyze the data points to give you a complete picture of your potential audience and customers.

Finally, you should incorporate all these data points into your content and e-commerce platform to appeal to your ideal audience.

Social media, content marketing, and email marketing are phenomenal ways to communicate directly to your audience and provide them with the solution (your product) they need for whatever pain points you’re addressing.

You’ll want content personalized for your ideal customer at every stage of their buying decision, known as a sales funnel.

Sales funnels help direct an individual from learning about a product to wanting it and finally acting to purchase it. ClickFunnels provides all-in-one sales funnels that you can easily plug and play for e-commerce businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Defining your target audience, identifying what motivates them to act, and creating your marketing around them is a great way to boost your conversions, which is key for any new entrepreneur.

Create a Business Plan for Success

One of the all-time greatest coaches in sports, John Wooden, led his UCLA basketball program to dizzying heights of greatness.

One of his renowned statements about success was, “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.”

That simple statement is crucial to understand – that success comes from preparation and planning, much more than simple luck.

As an entrepreneur trying to build a successful e-commerce business, your approach to planning and crafting a solid business plan will be the key difference between building something sustainable or not.

As the foundation for your success, your business plan should outline your goals and identify your market while providing ways you plan to serve that target market.

Research into potential audiences and their behaviors, as well as what competitors are doing, will help you outline the steps you need to take to achieve your short-term and long-term goals.

You will want to outline your business model, such as whether you are trying to sell digital products, grow a blog for advertising revenue, or sell physical goods and products.

Also, include the platforms from which you plan to grow your business and sell, such as email marketing, SEO, or other means.

Think of your business plan as your outline for success. It should include how you’ll handle logistical issues, financial funding, how you’ll identify, market, and sell to your target audience, and any other component that impacts your expenses and revenue.

The more comprehensive your business plan, the easier it will be to stay on task.

However, one thing to keep in mind as a new entrepreneur is that things will come up unexpectedly, so build some flexibility and wiggle room into your strategy.

Build Your Online Store

When you decide to start a business, one essential thing to consider is what platform you want to use to build your online store.

You want to find a reliable and, most of all, scalable platform so that as you grow, you aren’t required to switch platforms or make any significant changes that can stall your hard-earned success.

The platform you select and build your online store on should have SEO at the forefront of the platform, be designed for the best conversion rates, and be simple enough to set up and install so that you aren’t required to have a ton of coding knowledge to operate.

Once you set up your online store, you want to organize your product listings so that it’s easy for your customers to find and buy your offers.

To do this, you’ll want to group similar items together, write sharp product descriptions that describe the product’s benefits, use high-resolution images that showcase the product in use, and include customer reviews about the quality of your products.

Why include customer reviews?

People like to buy what they know, and from brands they trust.

For online businesses, customer reviews help create and nurture trust in their brand, helping them close more sales. One way to do this effectively is to utilize customer reviews and foster a community space for FAQs and user interaction.

Since you’re in the digital e-commerce space, you have the advantage of eliminating shipping costs.

One thing to consider is having add-ons that can upsell another product that supplements or enhances the one they are already purchasing.

You can set up your store to have pop-ups before the shopping cart or after purchase, using email marketing as a follow-up opportunity.

Finally, installing a simple checkout and payment processing system is the key to closing your sales.

The reasons for shopping cart abandonment are a variety of reasons, but some of the most common include:

• Hidden fees
• Complex check-out process
• Limited payment options
• Slow processing
• Impulse buying

To avoid this from happening to you, build your online store to provide fast, secure payment processing options and keep it simple.

The platform you choose should support e-commerce businesses. While many options are available, only ClickFunnels provides a wealth of tools to build and optimize your online store for total success.

With ClickFunnels, you can easily set up, optimize, and iterate your online store for maximum impact.

The all-in-one platform includes some key features including:

• Website Builder
• Landing pages
• Sales funnels
• Store funnels
• Third-party integrations
• Email marketing
• and so much more!

SEO is Key to Success

Finding, attracting, and converting customers is the lifeblood of success with an online store. One of the more critical aspects of achieving this is implementing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies throughout your website, funnels, and content.

To create a successful SEO strategy for your online business, you’ll want to begin with identifying relevant keywords that your audience and potential customers use to conduct searches.

You can create a list of keywords that you find through various means, including Google’s free keyword planner, but one way to find relevant keywords (on a budget) is to conduct some online searches and find out what results you come up with.

Even more, when you conduct keyword research using your search terms, Google will provide you with a list of terms others have used.

These insights will give you a wealth of terms and words to incorporate into website content, product descriptions, and blog posts to improve your potential ranking.

Creating user-friendly content and a mobile-responsive website is an effective way to boost your potential rankings since Google prioritizes content and user experience in its ranking results.

Finally, you need to establish a routine of creating and publishing content regularly. The type of content you create should be useful and relevant to the terms you used in your SEO strategy to get the user to your page.

Make your content shareable and incorporate user reviews when possible. User reviews are good social proof and can boost trust and credibility in search engine results.

Of course, implementing a good SEO strategy is much easier with ClickFunnels’ inclusive sales funnels, which can optimize your content, blog posts, and pages to provide maximum impact.

Develop a Marketing Strategy

For you to succeed in your e-commerce business as a new entrepreneur, your potential customers need to be aware and learn to trust your brand so that they’ll be willing to buy from you.

To do this well, you need a robust marketing strategy that identifies your ideal customers, where they hang out, and what interests them.

Once you understand their interests, you can, therefore, focus on understanding your potential customer’s pain points, needs, and wants.

After understanding these insights, you can begin segmenting your target market effectively, crafting your content, and offering solutions that align with their demands.

Tools like SEO implementation, social media, and email marketing are good ways to personalize your reach to your target audience and help tailor your product offerings to their needs.

SEO provides exposure for your brand, while social media and email marketing create opportunities for engagement.

This three-pronged approach of SEO, social media, and email marketing makes it easier for your potential audience to find and interact with your brand, leading to an opportunity to generate sales.

Another possibility is to utilize and leverage the power of Artificial Intelligence in your marketing strategies.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is an algorithm that can instantly incorporate hundreds and thousands of data points to create personalized content based on every user’s interaction with your brand and similar products.

Using AI in your strategy will allow you to predict what your target audience may be interested in, helping you refine your pitch and offers.

Last, to create a successful marketing strategy, you’ll want to continually monitor it for success and iterate your strategy based on what’s productive and what’s not.

Using advanced analytics tools, you can see what your audience is engaged with, incorporate customer feedback into an even more engaging strategy, and increase the likelihood of conversions.

Social Media Strategy

As mentioned, using your social media channels is a huge opportunity to engage with potential customers in a space where they’re already active. Social media is a powerful tool to find potential customers while being able to promote your e-commerce business.

To implement social media successfully into your marketing and achieve the best results, consider what platform your ideal customer likes to utilize so that you can interact with them where they already are.

Think about your social media strategy as you fish. As an angler, you could try to drive your boat out and cast a line, hoping to find a school of fish. Or you could use the tools available to find fish and cast your lines where they’re already swimming.

One strategy is casting about in the dark, hoping for results; the other is using readily available tools to cast a line where it’s most likely to be successful.

So don’t overthink it; interact on the social media platforms where your potential customers are already engaging with others and create content that resonates with them in ways that you can showcase your products.

Emphasize Customer Service

When starting an e-commerce business, one thing that’s often overlooked is implementing an emphasis on customer service.

Putting a premium on customer satisfaction from the first touchpoint with your brand to following up after a sale can go a long way toward building brand loyalty and repeat opportunities.

To start, build your website and content around identifying common issues your audience struggles with and providing solutions for them.

Engage on social channels and respond quickly to questions and inquiries. This can build trust in your brand by demonstrating that you value your customers’ time.

Email marketing is a great way to connect with your potential customers, and having a dedicated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool is a great way to stay connected and make personal connections.

With a CRM, you can collect important information like birth dates and other significant personal information to tailor unique and personal messages to your targets.

By creating personalized messaging through a CRM, you can better provide solutions for their concerns and foster loyalty to your brand.

This personalization approach is one of the best sources of customer service. Other suggestions to implement a customer-centric approach that enhances your customer’s experience with your brand include:

• Have a user-friendly e-commerce platform.
• Have multiple payment options.
• Create a comprehensive FAQ section that addresses common issues and queries.
• Utilize SEO to rank helpful information.

By focusing on your potential customers and putting their needs in front of your e-commerce business, you can easily and quickly stand out in a crowded market, create loyal customers, and drive more sales.

Using Sales Funnels to Drive More Conversions

Finally, creating an e-commerce business can be chaotic and even more challenging without the right structure.

Finding, nurturing, and closing your leads can be a heavy task, which is why utilizing a tool like ClickFunnels, which is simple to install and use sales funnels, can take your efforts and drive them into the stratosphere.

With ClickFunnel’s new AI Smart Funnels tool, you can leverage the power of Artificial Intelligence into your sales funnels, personalizing your optimized interactions to drive even more sales.

Start Your 14-Day Free Trial Now!

Thanks for reading How To Launch Your First E-Commerce Business which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Thinking about starting a blog?

Maybe you have a passion for writing. Or maybe you’ve seen the thousands of bloggers who turn their websites into side hustles and full-time incomes.

These bloggers are living the dream: working remotely, traveling the world, and answering only to themselves.

But as you can imagine, a small percentage of people who start blogging actually succeed in making a living from it.

We’re here to make sure you fulfill your dream.

Below, we’ll walk you through seven steps to create a blog and start making money – literally within hours.

Let’s get into it!

How to Make a Blog That Actually Earns Money

The majority of websites and blogs never see much success. 

Most are abandoned, fail to attract meaningful traffic, or don’t make enough to justify the time and effort. 

Here are some eye-opening statistics:

• Only 8% of bloggers make enough income to support their family
• About 81% of bloggers never make more than $100 from their blogs

If you’re reading this, it’s likely you want to make more than $100 from this.

You’re here to make a blog that works for you – one that grows in both audience and income over time.

Why Most Blogs Don’t Make Money

There are many reasons why most blogs fail to earn anything substantial.

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest pitfalls:

• Not considering monetization from the beginning: Many bloggers jump in without a strategy, which can make it harder to introduce paid products later.
• Not picking the right niche: Broad, unfocused blogs are harder to monetize. A well-defined niche helps attract a specific audience willing to pay for targeted products or services.
• Not picking a topic they enjoy: Blogging requires persistence, and if you don’t enjoy the topic, it’s easy to lose interest before you see results.
• Choosing a complex website builder: Difficult-to-use platforms can create unnecessary barriers, eating up time and energy.
• No ongoing training in how to monetize blogs: Blogging requires continual learning, especially as trends and strategies change.
• Not having easy monetization features: Without tools that make it simple to introduce sales funnels, memberships, or lead captures, many blogs struggle to convert visitors into income.

While these factors are important, there’s one more core issue.

And it’s this:

Most website builders are designed to make blogging or website creation easy, but they aren’t built to make monetization easy.

If You Want to Monetize Your Blog, Read This

ClickFunnels was launched in 2014 by Russell Brunson and Todd Dickerson to solve a specific problem.

They needed an easier way to create web pages that could convert visitors into customers. 

Every time they wanted to promote a new product or service, they had to rebuild the whole website from scratch.

It wasn’t sustainable.

So they created ClickFunnels to serve as a powerful monetization platform they could use themselves.

Since its launch, ClickFunnels has attracted over 100,000 active users. 

Today, more than 2,000 of those users have generated over $1 million each using ClickFunnels websites – they’re members of the “2 Comma Club”.

And here’s how they did it. 

The platform introduced the concept of “sales funnels” which allow users to guide potential customers step-by-step toward a purchase. 

Funnels are particularly useful for bloggers who want to monetize because they offer clear pathways to sales without the need for advanced tech skills.

ClickFunnels might not be your traditional blogging platform.

But that’s its strength. 

Unlike standard website builders, ClickFunnels is a dedicated monetization platform that you can also use to create and manage your blog content. 

Below, we’ll go through seven easy steps to build a profitable blog using ClickFunnels.

Try ClickFunnels For 14 Days For Free!

How to Start a Blog and Make Money in 7 Steps

Below we’ll go over the 7 main steps to help you start a blog that generates income.

There’s a lot to cover so consider bookmarking this article or saving a link somewhere so you can revisit it.

Ready?

Let’s go!

1. Choose a Niche for Your Blog

Starting a blog and monetizing it involves time and dedication.

But it becomes much easier – and rewarding – when you’re writing about something you enjoy.

This is why picking your blog’s niche first is crucial.

• Choose the wrong niche and you’ll start making excuses and eventually give up the idea altogether.
• Choose the right niche and you’ll have an endless source of motivation.

The “1,000 True Fans” Concept

Your blog’s success, however, relies on more than just your preferences: it’s about what matters to your readers.

• What can you bring to the table that readers would value?
• What would keep them coming back for more?
• What would they pay you for?

In his book Expert Secrets, ClickFunnels co-founder Russell Brunson introduced a powerful concept called the “1,000 True Fans”.

The concept is simple:

You don’t need millions of followers to make a successful blog – you need only about 1,000 dedicated true fans to make good money.

A “True Fan” is someone who consumes everything you produce.

They don’t just passively read your blog: they engage with your content, buy your products, and share your message.

But here’s the thing.

A lot of new bloggers make the mistake of trying to appeal to everyone.

Instead, be an expert on a subject that a small group of people care about, and you’ll find your blog ends up being highly profitable.

The “Two Years Ahead” Concept

What do you know that others would find valuable?

Here’s another useful concept:

You don’t need to be a world-renowned expert in your field to create life-changing content; you just need to be about two years ahead of where your audience is.

Ask yourself:

• What do you know now that you were desperate to know two years ago?
• If you were struggling with something, what content would you have loved to read about?
• Are there others experiencing the same challenges you also experienced?

This concept of teaching someone who’s only a couple of years behind you is powerful because it makes the idea of being an “expert” more accessible.

You don’t have to be the world’s best.

Being just a few steps ahead of someone is enough to make your content engaging, authentic, and valuable.

For further inspiration on selecting your niche click below to grab a free copy of Expert Secrets.

Otherwise, let’s move on!

Click Here To Read Expert Secrets For Free!

2. Consider How You’ll Monetize Your Blog

Many bloggers dive into creating content without a clear monetization plan.

They focus on getting traffic.

While it’s not a bad approach, if your goal is to make money then you’ll save time thinking about monetization from the beginning.

Why?

Because the niche and audience you choose will impact how easily you can introduce paid products, services, or other monetization strategies.

So, how do you start thinking about monetization right from the start?

The Three Markets

In Expert Secrets, Russell Brunson explains a powerful way to approach monetization by focusing on the “Three Core Markets.”

These are the overarching themes that nearly every successful blog or business falls into:

• Health
• Wealth
• Relationships

Start by asking yourself which of these markets best fits your expertise.

Identifying this core market will give you a solid foundation for building a blog that can make money – because everyone wants better health, increased wealth, or stronger relationships.

Next, dig deeper to find your submarket.

For instance, if you choose the health market, possible submarkets could include diet, fitness, mental health, or skin care. For wealth, it could be investing, real estate, or online business. And in relationships, you could focus on dating advice, marriage counseling, or parenting.

Then go out and look for other successful bloggers in that same submarket.

This approach can benefit you in three ways:

• Focus on Core Desires: By tying your blog to one of the big three – health, wealth, or relationships – you’re aligning with things that people universally value.
• Discover What Sells: Checking out successful bloggers in your niche will give you insights into what kinds of products or services actually make money.
• Create a Unique Selling Point: By finding a fresh angle or unique offering within your submarket, you can carve out a new space, making it easier to monetize.

This might seem like overkill when you’re just starting.

However, researching other blogs in your niche is a real-world lesson in monetization.

Subscribe to their newsletters, explore their products, and even make a few purchases if you can.

Notice what happens after you buy: are there upsells to coaching, communities, or premium products?

Could you offer something similar?

Could you offer something better?

Taking these steps will provide insight into how other bloggers turn their audiences into income and give you ideas for crafting a monetization strategy that works.

For further inspiration on monetizing your niche, you can click below to grab a free copy of Expert Secrets.

Otherwise, let’s move on!

Click Here To Read Expert Secrets For Free!

3. Choose Hosting and Website Builder

Once you’ve chosen your niche and thought through your monetization strategy, the next logical step is choosing a platform to actually build your blog.

Most people who start blogging aren’t web designers or tech experts.

To launch a blog you’ll need to:

• Get a domain name
• Purchase hosting
• Find a website builder
• Choose a template
• Add basic design elements
• Review for a professional look
• Hit launch!

The sheer number of steps can feel intimidating and, honestly, can even prevent people from getting started.

So why not make it easy for yourself?

Building Your Blog the Easy Way: With ClickFunnels

With ClickFunnels, creating a blog is simple. 

The platform is designed to support both beginners and experienced marketers and allows you to build beautiful, high-converting blogs without needing any coding knowledge or third-party plugins.

It’s literally “drag-and-drop”.

All you need to do is pick a theme, customize the layout, and add your content and you’re ready to go live. 

Plus, ClickFunnels is much more than a blogging tool.

It’s an entire business platform that ties together your blog, website, products, CRM, email marketing, and more. 

Here’s a breakdown of what makes blogging on ClickFunnels so easy:

• Establish Authority: Build credibility and establish yourself as an expert with valuable, engaging blog content.
• SEO Optimization: ClickFunnels blogs are optimized to rank well on Google, helping you attract long-term organic traffic.
• Content Repurposing: Easily turn blog posts into social media content, giving you omnipresence across platforms.
• Convert Visitors to Leads: Use exit popups, lead magnets, and sales funnels directly from your blog to capture leads and drive sales.
• Integrated Business Growth Tools: Instead of patching together multiple tools, ClickFunnels offers an all-in-one solution for building and growing your business, including email marketing to nurture readers into customers.

Using ClickFunnels for your blog means you’re not just building a blog; you’re building a fully integrated business platform.

Here’s what the back end of ClickFunnels looks like when creating your blogs:

And here’s how easy it is to later monetize your blogs with products or service offerings:

Try ClickFunnels For 14 Days For Free!

4. Brainstorm Blog Topics

Your blog topics will depend on how you’re planning to promote your blog. 

If you already have an audience to tap into, then focus on creating compelling, transformative content.

To help you tell these stories in a powerful way, check out the Epiphany Bridge script in Russell Brunson’s Expert Secrets. 

This script walks readers through your journey so they become invested in both your story and your products.

But what if you don’t have any audience at all?

Google Hacks to Find Blog Topics

If you’re starting out with no audience, don’t worry.

Many bloggers build their first audience through search engines, bringing in traffic (and sales) directly from Google.

The advantage of this approach?

It’s free.

By creating blog posts targeting specific search keywords, you can attract readers who are actively searching for information so they’re already primed to engage with your content.

But of course, you need to choose keywords relevant to your niche.

And… that won’t take you years and years to rank for.

So how can you find the right keywords?

In the book Traffic Secrets, Russell Brunson explains a practical, actionable method to uncover high-impact keywords through the “Dream 100” exercise.

Here’s a quick overview:

1. Start with Your “Dream Keywords”: Think about the phrases your dream audience would type into Google to find the kind of solution your blog offers. Russell’s “Dream 100” keywords for ClickFunnels included terms like “sales funnels,” “digital marketing,” and “growth hacking.” Make a list of 10-20 phrases that match the products, services, or solutions your blog is about.
2. Find Long-Tail Variations: Instead of focusing solely on these popular keywords (which can be competitive) look for longer, more specific versions that are easier to rank for. To do this, type one of your dream keywords into Google, and note the autocomplete suggestions that pop up – these are highly relevant, frequently searched terms related to your topic.
3. Explore Related Searches: After searching, scroll to the bottom of Google’s page to see “related searches.” This list gives more ideas for closely related, long-tail keywords.

For example, if your dream keyword is “sales funnels,” you might find suggestions like:

• “Sales funnels for Shopify”
• “Sales funnels explained”
• “Sales funnels for real estate”
• “Sales funnels templates”

Following this approach, you can build a keyword list that includes specific terms your target audience is actively searching for.

And if you expand each dream keyword into 10 long-tail keywords, you’ll have a solid list of blog topics – just like Russell’s examples above – giving you a roadmap for targeted content that can attract organic traffic.

For even more depth, you can explore software tools (Russell shares a list at TrafficSecrets.com/resources) to assess monthly search volume, competition, and other metrics for each keyword, helping you further refine your list for maximum impact.

Click Here To Read Traffic Secrets For Free!

5. Setup Your Blog

In this section, we’ll walk you through setting up your ClickFunnels account, customizing the look and feel of your blog section, and getting everything ready to write your first post.

And all this in just a few minutes!

No other platform makes it this quick and easy to get your blog up and running.

Follow along with the screenshots below as we guide you step-by-step through the setup process.

Sign Up for Your Free 14-Day Trial

The first step is to sign up for your free trial of the ClickFunnels platform.

You can do this by visiting clickfunnels.com.

Then enter your email address and you’ll be taken to the page below, where you need to introduce your personal details and a card – don’t forget you won’t be charged!

Navigate to Your New Blog Section

Within seconds you’ll receive a welcome email with a link to sign in to your new ClickFunnels account.

If you click it, you’ll be taken to the ClickFunnels dashboard.

From here, find the “Site” in the menu and then click “Blog”.

Click “Open in New Window”

Your account comes preloaded with two blog posts.

By clicking on the button that reads “Open in new window” you’ll be taken to your actual website and one of the pre-loaded blogs.

Edit Your Blog Design

The default blog template looks like the screenshot above.

But… customizing it to suit your preferences takes minutes!

Go back to the dashboard and under “Site” click the button reading “Overview”.

From here, you’ll see a button reading “Edit Site”.

Click it.

Welcome to the ClickFunnels Drag-and-Drop Editor

Now you’re inside the famous ClickFunnels drag-and-drop editor!

Later on, you can come back here to edit the homepage of your website and other elements like the header, logo, menu, products, funnels, and more.

But for now, we’re looking at the blog design.

Find the page called “Blog post” under “Blog home” in the left-hand menu and click it.

Starting Editing Elements

You’re now looking at your blog post template.

You can hover over any element to start editing it.

Just click the cog icon that appears in a colored box around the element, and you’ll find an editing window appears.

Welcome to the Editor

This new window will let you edit elements such as spacing, styling, sizing, colors, fonts, formatting, layout, and more.

For example, let’s look at editing fonts.

Just click the button reading “Edit Style”.

Editing Font Styles

You’ll now get a pop-up in the center of your screen.

This pop-up is called your “Style Guide”. You can edit the fonts for your headlines, subheadlines, and content here to any you like.

The changes will be reflected instantly across your website.

Editing Colors

To edit color schemes, simply hover over a colored element and click the cog icon.

You’ll find the side menu popping up again.

This time, click on “Edit style colors”.

Change the Color Scheme

Here you can change the colors of major elements in your site such as backgrounds, headings, content, icons, and more.

The changes will be reflected instantly across your site.

The theme colors will always come in handy when making quick changes in the future that you want to reflect the overall design and branding of your website.

A Peek at Monetizing Your Blog

The ClickFunnels blog template comes pre-loaded with a CTA to sell a product.

You can quickly edit the text and styling of this CTA box.

But here’s where the magic happens.

If you hover over the button element and click the cog icon, you’ll see the option to change the button actions.

To start selling your own product or services, all you’d need to do is create a product in the ClickFunnels dashboard and link to it here – and you’re done!

That’s the beauty of ClickFunnels.

You get a blog, drag-and-drop website builder, sales funnel, online store, payment processor, CRM, customer center, email marketing platform, and more all in one place.

Try ClickFunnels For 14 Days For Free!

6. Write Your First Blog

At this stage, you’ve already laid a solid foundation by defining your niche, understanding your audience, planning your monetization strategies, and brainstorming topics.

Now, it’s time to create your first compelling blog post.

So, how do you do it?

How to Create an “Instructional” Blog Post

Most people search on Google with the goal of solving a specific problem, answering a question, or learning something new.

BuzzSumo, after analyzing over 100 million article titles online, found that “instructional” headlines generated the highest engagement and shares on Facebook.

In other words, these are headlines that suggest action or provide essential information.

BuzzSumo found that:

• Instructional phrases like “how to” “you need to” and “why you should” were among the top-performing headlines.
• These types of headlines communicate urgency and clarity, offering readers a direct “need to know” approach that implies important or exclusive information.

For example, popular articles included headlines like:

• “What You Need to Know About Toxic Plants”
• “What You Need to Know About the COVID-19 Vaccine”
• “Why You Should Stop Using Plastic Bags Immediately”

The key? 

These headlines use “you” to speak directly to the reader, emphasizing the essential nature of the information. 

They also tap into FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), implying that readers could miss out if they don’t read the article.

An Instructional Blog Post Headline

BuzzSumo also discovered that some of the most popular blog headlines use numbers.

These headlines promise specific, actionable information, which makes them highly clickable.

Out of the top-performing headlines, six out of the first twenty started with a number, with phrases like “X things to,” “everything you need,” or “X reasons why” also ranking high.

Here’s why numbers work:

• Clarity and specificity: Numbers in headlines tell readers exactly what to expect, and a “listicle” format makes information easy to digest.
• Curiosity and FOMO: Headlines with phrases like “X reasons why” or “everything you need” spark curiosity by promising useful or exclusive insights.

The type of blog post that includes a number in the headline is often called a “listicle”.

Listicles are perfect for creating actionable steps – like “7 Steps to Start a Blog” – and also happens to be easy to follow and retain.

For inspiration, check out popular blogs in your niche and see how they structure their posts.

Find examples you enjoy or that are already engaging readers and consider recreating their style to fit your own topic.

Finally, remember that blogging is all about practice.

Your first posts may not be perfect, and that’s okay – the goal is to keep writing, publishing, and improving.

And with ClickFunnels, it’s easy to edit your posts anytime, so you can update your content as you learn more and grow your blog.

7. Promote Your Products or Services

The strategy we covered above is all about writing content that ranks on Google.

Many successful bloggers generate six-figure incomes relying solely on Google traffic, making it an excellent starting point.

Of course, there are many other ways to promote your blog posts (social media, paid ads, email marketing, influencer partnerships, video marketing, and more).

But we’re not going to get into that here.

Instead, we’ll focus on how to use your blog as a tool to promote the products or services you’re monetizing.

By strategically placing promotions within your content, you can drive conversions and revenue directly from your blog.

Here are a few ideas that you can set up within minutes using ClickFunnels.

5 Ways to Monetize Your Blog

ClickFunnels is the ideal platform for monetizing your blog thanks to its features for turning readers into leads and sales. 

Below, we explore five ways to leverage ClickFunnels’ tools to monetize your content.

Each of these features is included in your 14-day free trial.

They are:

1. Selling a digital product with a sales funnel: ClickFunnels makes it simple to create a sales funnel tailored to a digital product, such as an eBook, templates, or downloadable guides. Relevant calls-to-action in your blog can guide readers seamlessly into your sales funnel for conversions.
2. Selling an online course: If you’re an expert in your niche, consider creating a course. With ClickFunnels, you can direct readers from blog posts into an online course funnel. Offering a free introductory lesson or mini-course as a lead magnet can be especially effective.
3. Selling a membership: For ongoing value, a membership or subscription service can be a great choice. ClickFunnels enables you to set up a members-only area with exclusive content. Just ensure the membership content aligns with the topics you’re already blogging about to attract the right subscribers.
4. Using landing pages to generate leads: Not every reader will be ready to purchase immediately. Capture leads by directing traffic from your blog to a targeted landing page with a lead magnet, such as a checklist or mini-guide related to your post’s topic.
5. Generating leads and selling through email marketing: With ClickFunnels’ email marketing features, you can collect email addresses from blog readers and nurture them with relevant offers. Create an email series that builds trust and highlights the benefits of your products or services.

Final Thoughts: Make Money Blogging With ClickFunnels

Starting a blog requires strategy, dedication, and the right tools.

In this guide, we’ve covered essential steps – from selecting a niche and monetization strategies to setting up and promoting your blog.

But one factor stands out:

To turn a blog into a source of income, you need a platform built for monetization.

ClickFunnels is uniquely designed to help bloggers not only create compelling content but also seamlessly monetize it through funnels, lead capture, and more.

With its 14-day free trial, you can start building your blog with powerful tools that drive real results – without needing a tech background.

Ready to start a blog that works for you?

Try ClickFunnels today and take the first step toward a profitable blogging journey.

Try ClickFunnels For 14 Days For Free!

Thanks for reading How To Start A Blog And Earn Money which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Want to build a side hustle but aren’t sure where to start?

Today we are going to share seven ways to make extra money from home!

#1: Pick Up Work on Microtask Platforms

Businesses, academic institutions, and independent labs use microtask platforms to gather data for product research, market research, and scientific research purposes.

You can make some money on these platforms by doing simple, low-paid work like answering quizzes, filling out surveys, and tagging AI training data.

The vast majority of these tasks only take a few minutes to an hour to complete. If you have random chunks of downtime in your schedule that you’d otherwise spend doomscrolling, this might be a good way to put that time to better use.

However, if you are looking to establish a source of income equivalent to a part-time or a full-time job, the viability of making that much money on microtask platforms will depend on where you live.

Realistically, if you work across several platforms and put in eight hours a day, five days per week, you might be able to make $15-20 per day, which works out to $300 to $400 per month.

If you are based in a low-cost-of-living country, that might equal or surpass the national minimum wage, in which case doing microtasks full-time might be a pretty sweet gig considering that you get to work from home.

However, if you are living in a medium or a high cost of living country, you’d likely make more money working a minimum-wage job at McDonald’s, so it may not be worth it.

The most popular microtask platform is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk – MTurk for short – so it’s probably best to start there.

However, there seems to be a consensus among MTurk veterans that it has been going downhill for at least half a decade now and that a newcomer working full-time on it is unlikely to make more than $5-10 per day.

That’s why you should also register on Prolific and CloudResearch, which can help you reach the aforementioned $15-$20 per day.

Just keep in mind that the approval process might take a while and that once you get approved, your access to gigs will be limited so you won’t be able to reach those numbers immediately.

Also, the pay for completing microtasks will likely continue trending downward. It’s best to see this work as something temporary. Don’t get too comfortable and keep looking for better opportunities!

#2: Start Freelancing

Freelancing can be a great way to make money from home if you have a marketable skill that allows you to work remotely.

Such skills include:

• Writing
• Coding
• Design
• Marketing
• Sales

The process of building a freelance business is going to be more or less the same regardless of the service that you decide to offer:

Niche Down

Start by niching down in terms of:

1. Your Service – For example, instead of being a “freelance writer” who writes about everything under the sun, you might niche down to “email copywriter” and specialize in that.
2. Your Target Audience – For example, instead of writing email copy for anyone and everyone, you might niche down to writing email copy for B2B SaaS businesses.

This may seem limiting at first glance but it will actually make everything else much easier!

Acquire Social Proof

Your next step should be working for free to acquire social proof.

For example, if you decide to become an email copywriter and target B2B SaaS businesses, start writing copy for companies like that for free so that you can get some testimonials. 

In fact, you don’t even need anyone’s permission to do that, you can simply identify B2B SaaS businesses with subpar email marketing, write welcome sequences for them, put them into Google Docs, and share them with the founders. 

Tell them that they are free to use these welcome sequences if they like them, all you ask for in exchange is a testimonial.

This approach to getting social proof can work well for any kind of freelance business!

Use Cold Outreach to Get Clients

Once you have a few solid testimonials, create a business website to display them.

Then, go on Fiverr, find a lead generation expert who has good reviews, and order a spreadsheet with 100 leads.

(You can order 1,000 leads straight away but it’s better to start with just 100 to check the lead quality).

Then, start reaching out to these leads. In your cold emails, you want to:

1. Offer them a free, clearly defined service (e.g. a free welcome sequence).
2. Back up your pitch with your strongest testimonial (e.g. here’s a testimonial from a founder of a B2B SaaS company).
3. Provide a link to your website if they want to see more social proof (e.g. here are three more testimonials from B2B Saas founders).

End the email by asking them if they are interested and invite them to schedule a Zoom call. Provide a link to your appointment calendar.

Follow up one week later and continue following up until you get a clear yes or no answer from them.

In your follow-up emails, include a “P.S.” section like the one below. Hopefully, this will dissuade people from flagging them as spam.

Whenever someone takes you up on your free offer, do a good job and then pitch them a productized service package.

For example, if someone took you up on your free welcome sequence offer, you can pitch them a weekly email newsletter package for a fixed monthly price. 

Also, make sure to ask every happy client for a testimonial so that you can continue building your stack of social proof.

The more social proof you have and the more impressive it is, the easier it will be for you to land new clients!

Streamline Your Business Processes

Create a list of everything that you are currently doing to run your business. Ideally, it should be based on time-tracking data as opposed to your memory. Then, go through that list item-by-item and automate everything that can be automated.

You can probably eliminate a lot of busy work by integrating the apps into your workflow, setting up a solid customer relationship management system, and using good invoicing software.

Scale Your Business With a Sales Funnel

For an online service business like yours, a webinar funnel is probably the best bet.

Create a 45-minute presentation designed to teach your dream customers how to do what you do step-by-step so that they can do it themselves. Don’t worry, if they can afford it, they’ll probably want to hire you instead!

Then, create a 15-minute pitch for your service where you explain what it’s all about, present a ton of social proof, and encourage the attendees to book a free call with you.

These 60 minutes are your webinar script. But how can you get people to show up for the event?

Build a webinar funnel that consists of these three pages:

1. Registration page where you encourage people to register for your webinar.
2. Registration confirmation page where you confirm that they have successfully registered for the event.
3. Event page where they can attend your webinar live or watch the replay.

(You can easily set this up with our software, ClickFunnels. Check out our free 14-day trial!)

Then, use paid advertising to promote your webinar and drive traffic to its registration page.

We recommend hosting at least one webinar per week, every week, live for at least a year. That will help you get good at it, optimize your script, and maximize your conversion rates.

After that, you can consider automating this funnel by replacing the live event with a pre-recorded webinar!

#3: Make Money on Twitter

Twitter has a creator revenue sharing program that has been dubbed “elonbuxx” by the platform’s users.

At the time of writing, if you want to monetize your account, you need to:

1. Have an active Premium or Verified Organization subscription
2. Have at least 5M organic impressions within the last 3 months
3. Have at least 500 Premium followers
4. Be in a supported country
5. Be compliant with the X User Agreement

It’s worth noting that you only get paid for premium user engagement on your tweets. The payouts are processed every two weeks and made via Stripe. The minimum payout amount is $10.

So how can you build and monetize a Twitter following? Here are the two most viable options:

Option #1: Become a “Poaster”

It’s possible to build a following and generate a decent income from it by simply sharing your thoughts with the world.

If you are intellectually inclined and good at expressing yourself in writing, this is probably the best way to go.

See if you can make a name for yourself in what’s known as “tpot”, which is a loosely defined Twitter community that revolves around discussing various intellectual topics.

If getting into online arguments about the existential risk of artificial intelligence sounds like fun to you, the chances are that you will fit right in!

Note that you can either post under your real name or under a pseudonym. There are plenty of “anons” who are making money on Twitter!

Option #2: Create a Themed Account

That theme can be anything, from aesthetics to popular culture to niche hobbies.

For example, if you are a history buff with a special interest in the Middle Ages, you can create an account that is exclusively focused on that period and start posting book excerpts, interesting articles, photos and paintings, etc.

Generally speaking, the more high-brow the theme of your account, the easier it will be for you to build a following where premium users are over-represented. However, the content itself will have less viral potential.

You can also make money with a gimmick account focused on low-brow content such as Reddit screenshots, memes, or cute animal videos. Premium users will likely be under-represented among your followers but the content itself will have more viral potential.

Ultimately, both the high-brow and the low-brow approaches can work, so it boils down to what resonates more with you. It’s probably best to choose a theme that you have a personal interest in because that will make it more enjoyable!

Warning: Twitter is a Crazy Place!

Did you know that Twitter users often refer to the platform as “hell app” and “hellsite”?

That shouldn’t be surprising considering that:

• It’s designed to be addictive – If you know that you are predisposed to addiction, it’s probably best to stay away from it.
• It can wreck your attention span – If you already have problems with managing your attention, becoming a regular user will likely make them worse.
• People will say horrible things to you and you’ll be tempted to say horrible things to them – You might end up doing so and regretting it later!
• There’s a lot of interpersonal drama that revolves around conflicts with “mutuals” (people whom you follow and who follow you back) – If you are a sensitive person, getting blocked by a mutual might hurt!
• It’s pretty much impossible to escape negativity related to various controversies, politics, current events, etc – It’s gonna make it to your timeline somehow!

To summarize, while the negative effects that Twitter usage has on people’s mental health vary from person to person, the consensus seems to be that some damage is unavoidable.

It’s also worth noting that popular Twitter users, especially the ones posting under their real names, often end up attracting stalkers. That’s why it’s important to learn how to protect your privacy.

Ultimately, if you want to make extra money from home, we only recommend going the Twitter route if:

1. It sounds like something that you would enjoy.
2. You are confident that you can manage the potential downsides.
3. You are prepared to pull the plug if you realize that you cannot manage those downsides after all.

Don’t sacrifice your mental health for “elonbuxx”!

#4: Launch a Paid Newsletter

It has become common for Twitter “poasters” who have sizable followings to launch paid email newsletters.

Typically, they use Substack for this, add a sign-up link to their bios, and then promote their newsletters to their Twitter followers.

For example, an anonymous writer known as CartoonsHateHer has been “poasting” on Twitter since 2018 and has amassed 35k+ followers with her humorous takes and funny cartoons.

In early 2024, she launched her newsletter, which she then grew to more than 12,000 subscribers in less than a year. This helped her realize her lifelong dream of becoming a writer. Now she’s working on a book!

This approach can work really well because if people like reading your short-form content on Twitter, they might be interested in your long-form content as well. The transition from the former to the latter is pretty seamless!

That being said, you don’t need a Twitter following to grow a newsletter, you can also do it with paid advertising.

Also, your newsletter doesn’t need to revolve around personal essays. In fact, if you want to build something that you can sell later on, it’s probably best not to tie it to your personal brand.

For example, the Milk Road newsletter, which is rumored to have been acquired for eight figures, provides daily crypto news. This format seems to be really popular.

If you want to learn more about selling newsletters, you can check out the Duuce marketplace to see the current prices.

#5: Self-Publish a Non-Fiction eBook Independently

If you have a marketable skill that people are paying you for, you can package your knowledge into an eBook and create an extra source of income that way.

It’s probably best to publish it independently on your website because that will enable you to maximize its revenue.

For example, today Nathan Barry is best known as the founder of ConvertKit, but he used to be a designer and some of his early entrepreneurial projects were ebooks about design.

In fact, “Designing Web Applications” is still available on his website, with pricing tiers ranging from $39 (just the book) to $249 (the book + tutorials, interviews, and resources).

So how did Nathan make money with his eBooks? He would use a free chapter as a lead magnet, create a landing page for it, and then promote it to build a pre-launch email list, to which he would eventually launch the eBook.

His launches were wildly successful. For example, “Designing Web Applications” brought in $26,679 in just 24 hours!

Some of this success was due to his clever approach to pricing, in particular having several pricing tiers and arranging them from the most expensive to the least expensive.

This same methodology proved to work well for other people as well. For example, UX designer Samuel Hulick, who learned it from Nathan, used it to make $37,000 with his eBook about user onboarding.

It can probably work well for you, too!

#6: Self-Publish Fiction Books via Amazon KDP

You can also make extra money from home writing fiction and self-publishing it on Amazon via its Kindle Direct Publishing service.

However, if you want to succeed at it, you need to understand that it’s not about writing Nobel-prize-worthy literature, it’s about providing high-quality niche entertainment to an existing audience.

This means that you need to choose one of the popular genres, niche down to a popular subgenre, and then start churning out novels that give the readers what they want.

Popular genres include science fiction, fantasy, horror, thrillers, and romance, with the latter probably having the most demand.

Subgenres are things like “Amish romance”, “military science fiction”, “Scandinavian noir”, etc. You can browse Amazon’s best-seller lists for each genre to see which subgenres are dominating them.

If you want your books to sell well, they should conform to the genre and subgenre expectations, from the covers to the characters to the plotlines. Straying too far from those expectations will annoy readers, lead to bad reviews, and tank your sales!

Writing entertaining genre fiction is difficult so it’s probably best to limit yourself to one genre until you master it. But if you insist on writing across several genres, do it under different pen names, with one genre per pen name. Otherwise, you risk confusing and alienating your readers!

Also, in order to make decent money with this, you’ll need to put out at least 1 full-length novel a year, though once you go full-time you should start publishing 2-3 novels per year instead. Sounds like an insane pace?

Well, that’s the pace you will need to maintain if you want to make it as a self-published fiction author. There’s no way around it unless you write a mega best-seller like “Twilight”, which you shouldn’t bet on.

Maybe “How To Write A Novel In 6 Months: A published author’s guide to writing a 50,000-word book in 24 weeks” by Thomas Emson can provide some guidance here!

#7: Become an Indie Hacker

If you either know how to code already or are interested in learning it, you might want to consider becoming a software solopreneur (an “indie hacker”).

There’s a survivorship bias in the indie hacker scene where you constantly see people who have succeeded but rarely hear from those who failed.

We can’t know for sure but we believe that “Ask HN: Starting a business is way harder than Twitter-bros claim. Any advice?” is probably representative of the average aspiring indie hacker experience.

After all, 90% of startups fail, a statistic that can be helpful when it comes to managing your expectations.

However, having a full-time job that pays the bills and building software products in your spare time can enable you to limit the downside of entrepreneurship while retaining access to the upside.

Skills, experience, and luck all play a role in entrepreneurial success, with the latter being the most tricky component.

Indie hackers use a methodology that allows them to essentially roll the dice an unlimited number of times provided that they don’t burn out and give up on it.

They take the Lean Startup concept of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to its absolute extreme by building MVPs in a matter of weeks, days, or, in some crazy cases, hours.

The reasoning behind it is that you cannot predict which product will take off so it’s best to just keep building them until you stumble on one that does.

For example, the indie hacking superstar Pieter Levels has shared that more than 95% of all his projects have failed.

His <5% success rate may not seem particularly impressive until you realize that it has enabled him to become wealthy. At the time of writing, Levels’ apps are generating more than $4.2M per year!

Marc Louvion is another notable indie hacker who used this approach. He built 23 products in the last few years and made over $1M with the one that took off, ShipFast.

Meanwhile, Nico Jeannen built 17 products in just one year and sold two of them for $265,000.

There are no guarantees in entrepreneurship. However, the “ship more” advice does seem to work. After all, in theory at least, if 90% of startups fail, then if you launch 100 products, you’ll have a decent chance at success!

If you genuinely enjoy creating software and can see yourself doing that indefinitely in your free time, the indie hacker path might be the right choice for you. Read Pieter Levels’ book “Make” and start building!

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Imagine waking up each day knowing you’ll get a high-value lead or sale without doing anything.

That’s the power of a strong online presence.

But if you’re not currently investing any meaningful time into building your digital brand, you’re not the only one.

A lot of service providers get enough business via referrals that they neglect building out their online presence. Others selling info products or e-commerce products get enough sales via one of two marketing channels that they’re not investing into other channels either.

So why is building your online presence so important?

Relying on referrals or a single marketing channel is, frankly, a huge risk.

You’re often just one month or one technical issue away from watching your business collapse in front of your eyes.

Starting today, we’re not going to let that happen.

In this post we’ll look at 12 genius ways to build your online presence quickly and effectively, in a way that diversifies the sources of your leads and sales.

We’ll also give you key tips to use each method to get fast, short-term results.

Ready to start?

Let’s dive in!

Not convinced You Need an Online Presence? You’re Not alone

If you’re not completely convinced about investing in an online presence, you’re not alone.

Maybe your business has grown steadily through referrals, or maybe you’ve cracked a single channel (like Facebook ads or PPC) that brings in cash flow.

 If it works, it makes sense not to see online presence as a priority – why spend hours on social media, blog posts, or outreach when you’re already seeing results?

You’re in good company with this mindset.

Let’s look at some stats:

• 60% of small business owners don’t use social media at all (TBTech.co).
• 41% of small business owners feel their business doesn’t need a website (Moneyzine).
• 36% of small businesses don’t even have a website at all.
• 25% of small business websites get updated less than once a year.
• 40% of small businesses admit they don’t understand how websites or social media can help them attract new customers.

Mind-blowing, right?

Especially since we all know the internet’s reach: Over 3.1 billion people actively use Facebook, and 2.5 billion people actively use Google.

So why aren’t you taking advantage?

There are several common reasons that hold a lot of business owners back:

• It’s uncomfortable – You might feel uncomfortable putting yourself out there or promoting yourself on social media.
• You’ve been burned – You might have invested in social media or SEO services only to feel disappointed by lackluster results.
• No time – Delivering for clients might take so much time that there’s none left for online efforts.
• Operational overwhelm – Maybe the thought of where to begin feels overwhelming – so you put it off.
• No short-term gains – Maybe you feel the results will take too long to see, making it hard to justify the effort.

Despite these blocks, if you’re reading this there’s still a lingering thought that maybe it’s time to build your online presence.

So let’s look at some good reasons why.

5 Reasons Why You Need to Build an Online Presence

If you want a sustainable business or financial freedom, it’s essential to build your online presence starting today.

Think of online presence like having a storefront in a busy area: if potential customers can’t see you, they won’t come in.

Here are five reasons more reasons to convince you why building an online presence is so important:

1. Expand Your Reach Beyond Your Past Clients

• An online presence lets you reach a broader audience, connecting with people outside of your immediate network. Research shows over 50% of shoppers start their journey online, so building an accessible online presence is essential for stable growth and a steady flow of new customers.

2. Build Credibility and Trust

• Consumers tend to trust businesses they can research, and a solid online presence establishes brand credibility. Studies show that 81% of buyers research products online before buying; having a website and active social channels reassures potential clients and can make a difference in closing sales.

3. Unlock New Sales Opportunities 24/7

• With an SEO-optimized website or regular social media content, your services are available any time of day, making it easy for customers to convert when they’re ready. Businesses with consistent content marketing see six times higher conversion rates, allowing you to capture leads and clients without constant manual effort.

4. Resilience in a Changing Market

• An online presence provides resilience against market shifts, helping you connect with clients across multiple channels. If one source of leads dries up a diversified online strategy – using social media, organic search, or email – keeps you adaptable and keeps your income stable.

5. Scalability for Long-Term Success

• Unlike in-person efforts, your online presence can scale as your business grows, allowing you to expand your client base without a proportional increase in work. For digital service providers or info product sellers, this means reaching a global audience and gaining income stability as you scale.

Convinced?

Good.

Now let’s look at how you can start building your online presence, and see the results fast.

12 Genius Ways to Build a Strong Online Presence (And Get Results Fast)

Below we’ll go through 12 genius ways to build your online presence.

We’ll also give you some key tips to start using each of these methods to see short-term results and help you build momentum and motivation.

1. Get Clear on Your Target Audience

Why it works: Knowing your ideal customer’s pain points, motivations, and interests allows you to tailor your online presence specifically to them. You save time and resources by targeting the right audience from the start, enhancing your chances of engagement.

Who should consider it: Ideal for any business looking to grow its online presence, particularly if your offerings cater to a specific niche.

How to use it for quick wins: Create a one-page customer avatar that outlines your ideal client’s characteristics. Refer to it every time you create content or make an online connection, ensuring you always address their needs directly.

2. SEO

Why it works: SEO places your website in front of people actively searching for relevant products or services, making it a powerful organic tool for visibility.

Who should consider it: Essential for businesses selling products or services with high search demand.

How to use it for quick wins: Focus on low-competition, long-tail keywords. Rather than “weight loss products,” try “natural weight loss products for women over 50.” Targeting niche terms or highly localized markets can lead to faster results.

3. Google Business Profile

Why it works: Google Business Profile (GBP) is free and puts you in front of people searching for local services, giving you visibility in Google Maps above other search results.

Who should consider it: Especially beneficial for local service providers aiming to attract nearby customers.

How to use it for quick wins: Complete your profile thoroughly, including images and services. Gather reviews, as these contribute to rankings and attract customers, positioning your business as a trusted local option.

4. Build an Email List

Why it works: An email list gives you a direct line to potential customers without relying on social media algorithms, allowing you to reach out and convert leads at zero cost.

Who should consider it: Best suited for e-commerce, info-product businesses, or those with recurring launches.

How to use it for quick wins: Start with a CTA on your site or social media, offering a freebie or discount to new subscribers. Use an automated email sequence, like the “soap opera sequence,” to warm leads and guide them toward making a purchase within a week.

5. Social Media Platforms

Why it works: With billions of daily users, social media offers a vast reach for building awareness and trust with your target audience. Regular, relevant content lets you connect with potential customers personally.

Who should consider it: Any business—but it’s crucial to choose platforms aligning with your audience: LinkedIn for B2B, Instagram for e-commerce, TikTok for younger audiences, etc.

How to use it for quick wins: Use a “Dream 100” strategy to engage with key potential clients regularly. Comment, like, and share content to get noticed by your target audience and encourage reciprocal interest in your content.

6. Niche Sites

Why it works: Platforms like Behance, GitHub, Clutch, Upwork, and Fiverr attract users interested in specific professional services, helping you find a highly targeted audience.

Who should consider it: Perfect for creative professionals, tech specialists, or consultants whose audiences frequent these specialized sites.

How to use it for quick wins: Build a strong portfolio on relevant platforms, prioritizing positive reviews, ratings, and showcases of past work to establish authority quickly.

7. Build (Or Update) Your Website

Why it works: Your website acts as a digital storefront, showcasing your services or products while also providing valuable SEO potential and supporting credibility.

Who should consider it: Vital for any business building an online presence, especially those utilizing SEO or directing paid traffic to their site.

How to use it for quick wins: Emphasize social proof on your site. Showcase testimonials, reviews, and case studies that resonate with your target audience to foster trust and boost conversions.

8. Blog Content

Why it works: Blogging establishes authority by addressing your audience’s specific questions and pain points, drawing organic traffic, and encouraging social sharing.

Who should consider it: Valuable for any business whose customers research before buying, especially service-oriented or educational brands.

How to use it for quick wins: Focus on your audience’s biggest challenges. Create posts with actionable solutions, highlighting how your products or services provide essential support in their journey.

9. Video Content

Why it works: Many people prefer video for its accessible, engaging format. You can educate potential customers and demonstrate expertise, capturing interest quickly and effectively.

Who should consider it: Ideal for businesses needing to showcase product usage, provide educational insights, or explain complex topics.

How to use it for quick wins: Address common questions or problems with short, informative videos. Position yourself as an expert by solving viewer pain points, and upload to YouTube to capture SEO benefits.

10. Meta Ads

Why it works: With targeted ads, you can instantly reach your ideal audience on Facebook and Instagram, gaining traction without the lengthy process of organic growth.

Who should consider it: Especially effective for consumer-focused businesses with products or services suited to social platforms.

How to use it for quick wins: Promote a low-cost product or a lead magnet to gather emails and get people into a sales funnel. Lower-priced offers encourage impulse buys, helping you generate quick conversions while building a warm audience.

11. PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

Why it works: Like SEO, PPC puts you in front of high-intent customers, but without the extended wait. It’s an immediate way to drive traffic and sales with scalable results.

Who should consider it: Ideal for businesses with products or services people are actively searching for, particularly in competitive markets.

How to use it for quick wins: Set up targeted landing pages to capture leads efficiently. Optimize regularly to refine keywords, landing page copy, and conversion rates, creating a funnel that’s built to convert.

12. Influencer Marketing

Why it works: Influencers already have engaged audiences who trust them, making it easier to showcase your products to a receptive group, bypassing the need for gradual organic growth.

Who should consider it: Best for businesses with a strong visual element, such as lifestyle, fashion, beauty, or fitness, that can attract influencer partnerships.

How to use it for quick wins: Collaborate with influencers who share similar audience demographics. Look for those who have promoted products like yours successfully, as this indicates compatibility with your brand and customer profile.

Ignore This, and Your Online Presence Will be Worthless

Imagine you’ve just implemented one or more of the 12 strategies to build your online presence.

You’ve gained visibility and are attracting visitors to your website or social media profiles.

But as time goes on, you notice something troubling: the leads and sales you expected just aren’t materializing.

What’s the problem?

It’s likely your newfound traffic isn’t converting into tangible results. When this happens, it’s often because you lack an effective sales funnel.

Simply getting people to your site isn’t enough; you need a structured way to nurture them into becoming leads and ultimately customers.

This is where ClickFunnels comes in.

Designed specifically to address the issue of converting online traffic, ClickFunnels offers DIY funnel-building software that provides all the essential elements to turn visitors into leads and sales.

Here are five ways ClickFunnels can help implement the strategies we’ve discussed:

• Create Landing Pages for Lead Magnets: Attract email subscribers by offering valuable content that resonates with your audience.
• Add CTAs to Your Website: Direct traffic to custom landing pages, guiding potential customers through your sales process.
• Build Multi-Step Funnels: Seamlessly turn readers into leads, then nurture them into low-ticket sales before upselling to mid- and high-ticket items.
• Automate Email Sequences: Develop targeted email campaigns that sell products and keep your audience engaged over time.
• Design Without Developers: Easily create blog posts, embed video content, and customize design elements without needing extensive technical skills.

Don’t let your hard work go to waste.

With ClickFunnels, you can create a compelling online presence that effectively converts traffic into leads and sales.

Try ClickFunnels Free for 14 Days!

Final Thoughts: Turning Your Online Presence Into New Customers

Building a strong online presence is essential for success in today’s digital landscape.

Implementing strategies like optimizing your website, engaging on social media, and creating valuable content can significantly boost your visibility.

However, gaining traffic is only half the battle.

Converting that traffic into leads and sales is crucial. Without a structured funnel to guide potential customers through their journey, you risk wasting your efforts.

ClickFunnels is designed to address this exact challenge, providing user-friendly tools to create effective sales funnels.

By allowing you to build landing pages, automate email sequences, and design without needing technical expertise, ClickFunnels empowers you to transform your online presence into a powerful sales engine.

If you want to turn your traffic into real results, ClickFunnels is your go-to solution.

Start optimizing your conversion rates today!

Try ClickFunnels Free for 14 Days!

Thanks for reading How To Build A Strong Online Presence which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Throwing business events can be a great way to strengthen your brand.

However, they are notoriously difficult to organize, as anyone who has ever done it will surely attest.

That’s why today we want to go over the most important things that you need to know about planning your first business event…

Are You in This for the Long Haul?

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of event planning, we want to ask you if you see yourself organizing business events every year for the next decade. Why?

Because doing it just once probably isn’t worth it. It’s a recipe for experiencing the downside of throwing an event without benefiting from the upside.

Think about it: you’ll probably end up spending more time, energy, and money to put the event together than you have initially expected.

On top of that, you’ll have to deal with the stress of things going wrong, which they inevitably will at the most inopportune moments.

Finally, on the day of the event, you’ll have to keep everything on track, which is going to be exhausting.

However, realistically speaking, your first business event probably won’t be that great since you have never organized one before.

So you’d be going through all that hassle to throw an event that would most likely be mediocre at best. That’s not going to help you strengthen your brand if that’s what you are hoping for.

The brand-building benefits come from hosting the same event every year, making it better each time, and patiently growing your audience.

Nathan Barry, the founder of ConvertKit, wrote about this back in 2019 before the company’s third Craft + Commerce annual conference:

“The first year it was hard to convince people to try out a new event, in a new city, from a new company. The second year ticket sales were easier and we had momentum, but only about 20% more revenue from ticket sales.

But now in the third year selling tickets is noticeably easier. Because of the reputation built in previous years we sold 175 tickets before we even announced a single speaker. Then the next 75 tickets sold quickly with our next promotion.

If we had given up after fighting the massive up hill battle of creating the conference, or given up when year two wasn’t that much more successful, then we wouldn’t have endured until season 3 when the momentum kicked in.”

At the time of writing, ConvertKit is preparing for their 2024 annual Craft + Commerce conference, so they are still at it five years later!

It’s possible to go from zero to hosting one of the most prominent annual events in your industry but only if you have a long-term mindset from the start because it’s going to take time. 

So ask yourself: are you in this for the long haul?

Start Small if This is Your First Business Event

Don’t attempt to compete with the largest conferences in your industry because you are not going to win.

Instead, come up with the minimum viable product version of your business event that would enable you to create a positive experience for the attendees, deliver real value and leave a great first impression.

It might be best to start by planning a simple event that only lasts one evening. That will not only make it much easier for you to organize it but also to sell the idea to potential attendees.

People may be hesitant to go to an all-day or a multiple-day event that they have never heard of before, but they might be willing to attend it if it’s just one evening, assuming that they find the concept interesting.

You also want to keep it local because no one is going to travel to an unknown event that only lasts a few hours. This has several important implications that we are going to address later in this article.

Decide on the Concept for Your Business Event

Your business event needs to have a clear concept. What exactly is the value proposition?

Zero in on your most important customer segment and then design an event concept that would appeal to that demographic.

Identify a subject that your dream attendees want to learn more about and then create an event that would enable them to do that.

For example, let’s say that your company is an email marketing agency that serves small businesses.

In that case, you want to attract small business owners to your event. The more specific your value proposition, the easier it will be for you to do that.

So instead of focusing on “email marketing” in general, which is way too vague, you could create an event about growing a business email list from zero to 1,000 email subscribers and then give your attendees a step-by-step process for doing that.

We also recommend making the event free if at all possible so that there would be no financial risk associated with attending it. It’s going to be difficult enough to persuade people to come. Don’t make it even more challenging by asking them to give you their hard-earned money!

Pick a Date and Time for Your Business Event

When you are considering various dates and times for your business event, make sure to check what else will be happening in your area.

Ideally, you want to pick a date and time when there won’t be much else going on, at least in terms of industry events that might be in direct competition with yours.

Also, make sure to consider factors such as work schedules, commutes, rush hour, etc., if you decide to host your event on a workday evening.

Choose a Venue for Your Business Event

The best venues for small business events are:

• Private rooms in cafes and restaurants
• Conference rooms in coworking spaces
• Conference rooms in schools and universities

You probably don’t need a big auditorium since it’s unlikely that too many people will show up.

Also, smaller spaces can help you create a more casual and friendly atmosphere. You are not hosting a large conference so you might as well lean into the meetup vibe!

Figure Out the Catering for Your Business Event

Catering isn’t that big of a deal for events that only last one evening but it would be nice to have a few coffee stations with some snacks.

That can help facilitate interactions between the attendees: people will be more likely to chat with each other during breaks if they are gathered around coffee stations with drinks and pastries in their hands.

Look up local catering agencies and call them to inquire how much that would cost. If all you need is hot beverages, snacks and a few waiters to mind the coffee stations, it shouldn’t be too expensive, especially if the event itself is only going to last a few hours.

And if you rent a private room at a restaurant as a venue for your event, then that restaurant can handle the catering, which will make coordinating everything much easier.

Create a Schedule for Your Business Event

Schedule for an Event With One Speaker

You can make the event super short by being the only speaker and giving a lecture on your area of expertise.

You can structure it like this:

1. 45 minutes of content
2. 15-minute Q&A session

That way, the whole event will last just one hour, so you won’t need catering.

Schedule for an Event With Three Speakers

Alternatively, you can have three speakers and schedule the event like this:

1. Speaker #1: 30 minutes of content
2. Speaker #1: 15-minute Q&A session
3. 15-minute break
4. Speaker #2: 30 minutes of content
5. Speaker #2: 15-minute Q&A session
6. 15-minute break
7. Speaker #3: 30 minutes of content
8. Speaker #3: 15-minute Q&A session

In this case, the event will last 2 hours and 45 minutes.

What About More Than Three Speakers?

We don’t recommend having more than three speakers for your first event, even if one of those speakers is you.

Keep in mind that the more speakers you include in your event schedule, the more difficult it will be for you to coordinate with everyone!

Sort Out the Technology for Your Business Event

You don’t need a fancy setup for a small event.

That being said, you want to make sure that you have a laptop, speakers, microphone, projector and a projector screen.

Also, consider getting basic portable stage lights if you want to have an atmosphere where the event space itself is dim but the stage is lit.

Find Speakers for Your Business Event

If you want to go with the three-speaker model, depending on whether you intend to speak yourself, you’ll need to find either two or three speakers who can deliver real value with their presentations.

One way to go about it is to focus on a three-part framework that can help the attendees achieve a specific result and then find three speakers who are each an expert at one part of that framework.

For example, if the main focus of the event is teaching small business owners how to grow their businesses with sales funnels, you could structure it like this:

1. A funnel building expert presentation on building a sales funnel.
2. An email copywriting expert presentation on writing an email sequence designed to convert leads into paying customers.
3. A paid advertising expert presentation on using paid ads to drive traffic to your sales funnel.

That way, each presentation would cover a specific skill but the attendees would walk away from the event having learned the entire framework of designing, building, and launching a sales funnel.

As for the speaker compensation, there are two ways to go about it: either you let them pitch their own product or services at the end of their Q&As or you simply pay them a speaking fee. If you have the resources for it, the latter option is more straightforward!

Hire an MC for Your Business Event

If you intend to do a three-speaker event, you might want to consider hiring a professional master of ceremonies to host it.

A good MC can help you set the mood, deal with unexpected situations and just overall elevate the quality of the event.

It also makes sense to have someone else host the event if you are one of the speakers so that you can focus on your presentation.

Of course, this isn’t strictly necessary, especially for an event that’s only supposed to last a few hours. You can host it yourself if you want to!

Create a Checklist for Your Business Event

We recommend creating a checklist for your business event that covers everything that needs to happen before, during, and after the event.

It should include stuff like coffee station set up, tech set up, mic and sound checks, lights check, the event schedule, things you need to pack and take with you after the event, etc.

Make your checklist as detailed as possible because it’s easy to forget something seemingly minor and then run into unexpected problems during the event (e.g. you forget to check the mic and then it turns out that it doesn’t work).

Rehearse Your Business Event

It’s important to have at least one proper rehearsal with the tech setup, the speakers and the MC at the event venue. And yes, this applies even if it’s a single-speaker event and that speaker is you.

Having a rehearsal is going to significantly increase the cost of your event but it’s worth the expense because it will help you streamline everything and reduce the number of preventable mishaps during the actual event.

Promote Your Business Event

Okay, so now you know how to plan your first business event, but how do you get people to attend it?

Here are a few ideas:

Distributing Flyers

This might seem old school but if it’s a local event, you can print out a bunch of flyers and distribute them locally. 

Figure out where your dream attendees hang out and leave flyers there. You can put them on cars, post them on ad boards, leave them at reception desks, etc. 

Also, if you want to attract local business owners, you can simply walk into local businesses, ask to speak to the owners, and invite them to your event!

Cold Social Media Outreach

You can also do cold outreach via social media DMs.

LinkedIn is probably the most appropriate platform for that but depending on your target audience Facebook and Instagram can also work well. 

Sales Funnel

Finally, you can also build a sales funnel for your event:

1. Create a lead magnet – It can be a case study of how someone achieved a specific result that your dream attendees want to achieve using the framework that you are going to teach at your event.
2. Create a landing page for your lead magnet where you explain what this case study is about and encourage potential attendees to provide their email addresses so that they can get access to it.
3. Create a thank you page that features a video where you explain how potential attendees can download your case study and invite them to your event. End the video with a call to action where you direct them to the event registration page. Make sure to emphasize that your event is FREE.

Once your sales funnel is set up, start driving traffic to it with paid ads. Promote your case study, not your business event. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram ads can all work well here depending on your target audience.

This approach is likely to be more effective than using ads to promote your business event directly. It’s easier to get the attention of potential attendees with a case study that appeals to them.

Plus, it allows you to obtain their email addresses, which means that you can use email to hype up your event with speaker profiles and sneak peeks. Send one email per week leading up to the event to stay top of mind with potential attendees.

After the event, send them a highlight reel with attendee testimonials so that the people who didn’t go could see what they missed. Maybe they’ll attend next time!

Warning: You Need to Account for the Planning Fallacy!

The planning fallacy is a psychological phenomenon where people tend to underestimate how much time and money it’s going to take to complete a project.

If you have never organized a business event before, you are especially susceptible to this fallacy and need to account for that in your event planning.

At first glance, it may seem that organizing a few-hour event is not a big deal, but it’s likely going to be much more difficult than you initially assumed.

Whatever your current estimate of how much time it’s going to take to put your event together, you would probably benefit from doubling it because you will likely encounter all kinds of unexpected delays.

Same goes for the cost of the event. You’ll probably end up going over the budget because of various unexpected expenses.

As you get more experience with event organizing, you’ll learn to create more accurate project estimates.

But for now, it’s best to err on the side of caution and allocate way more resources to your event than you think you’ll need!

Something is Going to Go Wrong So Just Accept it!

No event ever goes according to plan.

It doesn’t matter how well you prepare for it, something is inevitably going to go wrong. That’s just part and parcel of event organizing.

The philosophy of stoicism, particularly its dichotomy of control, can come in handy here: focus on what you can control and accept what you can’t control.

Also, if this is the first time you are organizing a business event, know that you are bound to make a bunch of rookie mistakes that will seem obvious in retrospect. It would be unreasonable to expect anything else when you have never done it before.

So throw the best business event you can but also give yourself some grace once it’s over. It doesn’t matter what went wrong as long as you learn from it. You’ll do better next time!

Want to Learn How to Build Sales Funnels That CONVERT?

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He is now widely considered to be one of the top sales funnel experts in the world. Want to learn from him?

His best-selling book “DotCom Secrets” is the best place to start because it covers everything you need to know in order to build sales funnels that convert.

This book is available on Amazon where it has over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

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Thanks for reading Essential Tips For A Successful First Business Event which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Marketing a new business can feel overwhelming – especially when you’re just starting out.

You have so many other challenges that finding fresh, effective ways to promote your business feels like an impossible mountain to climb.

But here’s the good news.

With just a handful of genius ideas, creating a marketing strategy that drives leads and boosts online sales is possible… and even fun!

In this blog, we’ll explore innovative marketing strategies tailored for new business owners like you who are looking to build something sustainable, impactful, and ultimately profitable.

At least one of these tips will be just the thing you’re looking for.

Let’s get into it.

Is Marketing a New Business Harder Than Marketing an Existing One?

Marketing an established business has some obvious advantages.

One of the biggest is referrals.

Existing businesses often rely on referrals from satisfied customers, which provide trust and credibility.

In fact, studies show that leads generated via referrals have 3-5x higher conversion rates than leads generated via ads or content.

For online businesses, dedicated referral programs (i.e. leveraging past customers to create new customers) can account for 35% of total online purchases when implemented effectively.

As a new business, you can’t tap into referrals.

Marketing a new business is like starting a race from a standstill, whereas established businesses begin with a running start.

4 Advantages in Marketing New Businesses

But established companies face their own hurdles too.

At least 65% of businesses cite generating leads and traffic as their biggest challenge, proving that consistent marketing remains essential for growth​.

So if you can master getting leads and sales right at the beginning you’re conquering one of the most challenging aspects of scaling any business.

And you have some advantages in your favor:

• Flexible Branding: You can experiment with bold, fresh branding and pivot based on early feedback.
• Focus on New Clients: With no need to appease an existing customer base, you can design offers and messaging that appeal directly to your target market.
• Time to Build Loyalty: With more flexibility to invest in client relationships, you can create a strong base for future referrals.
• Creative Freedom: No established brand guidelines mean you can be as innovative as needed to capture attention.

For ongoing success both new and established businesses leverage traditional channels like social media, SEO, email marketing, and even outdoor advertising or direct mail.

But in this post, we’ll focus on agile, guerrilla tactics that deliver immediate results.

We’re looking for rapid visibility, leads, and sales.

A new business may start from zero, but with the right approach, you’re setting the stage for long-term success.

23 Genius Ways to Market Any New Business

Genius Urban Marketing Ideas

1. Stickers

Stickers are a simple but highly versatile marketing tool that can quickly capture attention and create buzz for a new business. By designing bold, memorable stickers with your logo or an eye-catching slogan, you can make your brand visible in unexpected places: from laptops and water bottles to lampposts and community boards. Stickers work well for businesses targeting younger audiences, creatives, or anyone who values unique, shareable items.

NOTE: Be aware of the legal repercussions for where you place stickers in public places.

Bonus Tip: Distribute them in popular public spaces or add them to packaging to expand your reach naturally and encourage loyal customers to share your brand.

2. Chalk Writing

Chalk writing is a playful, cost-effective way to get your brand noticed, especially in high-foot-traffic areas. By creating colorful, eye-catching chalk messages on sidewalks or walls, you can turn everyday spaces into your advertising canvas. This strategy is ideal for businesses that want to reach local audiences, such as cafes, small retail shops, or service providers.

Bonus Tip: Use clever, memorable phrases or your website URL to leave a lasting impression and drive curious passersby to your online presence.

3. Paint a Mural

Creating a mural is a powerful way to build brand awareness and add value to your community. A vibrant mural featuring your brand’s name, logo, or unique messaging can turn any blank wall into a memorable visual experience, attracting social media shares and local attention. This approach is particularly effective for brands wanting to connect with their local community, as well as businesses in creative industries or visually-driven niches.

Bonus Tip: Work with a local artist to give the mural a unique, community-focused touch – boosting goodwill while also showcasing your brand’s creative side.

4. Leaflets and Flyers

Creative leaflets and flyers can be an effective way to capture interest, especially when they break from the traditional flyer format. With unique designs – like unusual shapes, bold colors, or interactive elements – flyers can become engaging pieces that people actually want to hold onto and share. This tactic works especially well for new businesses trying to build a local customer base or attract attention at events like markets and festivals.

Bonus Tip: Consider adding a QR code that links to a special offer or exclusive content, making your flyer a multi-dimensional tool that encourages immediate engagement.

Real-life example

The Crust Pizza restaurant in Pristina in Kosovo became famous for its innovative leaflet campaign. The business designed a leaflet that, when folded, looks like a wallet with euro bills sticking out of it. Passersby picked up the wallets and the campaign quickly entered news articles across the world for its ingenuity.

5. Poster Campaign

A poster campaign can be a high-impact, low-cost way to build brand awareness and intrigue, especially in targeted areas like busy streets, cafes, and community boards. By designing visually striking posters with bold messaging and a clear call to action, you can create a lasting impression that encourages people to engage with your brand. This tactic is especially effective for new businesses wanting to quickly capture local attention or for brands looking to drive event attendance.

Bonus Tip: Use QR codes or social media handles on the poster to drive traffic to your online channels and create a seamless offline-to-online journey for potential customers.

6. Billboards

Billboards offer bold, unmissable visibility that can create massive brand awareness in a short amount of time. Strategically placed along busy highways, popular streets, or in high-traffic urban areas, billboards can capture the attention of countless passersby and make a strong statement about your brand. This method works especially well for brands with eye-catching logos, memorable taglines, or creative visuals that stick in viewers’ minds long after they’ve driven by.

Bonus Tip: Use a short, punchy message and a simple design to ensure the message lands fast. Incorporating a QR code on digital billboards can make it easy for viewers to interact with your brand immediately.

7. Door Hangers

Door hanger adverts are an effective and direct way to reach customers right at their doorstep. By placing door hangers with engaging designs and clear messaging, you can make your brand memorable while bypassing crowded digital channels. This tactic works particularly well for local businesses or service providers looking to target specific neighborhoods, such as home service companies, real estate agents, or restaurants offering delivery.

NOTE: Be sensitive to homeowners and where you choose to place your door hangers, to avoid any angry repercussions.

Bonus Tip: Include a limited-time discount or special offer on the door hanger to motivate immediate action and make the most of this direct touchpoint.

Real-life example

Scotch Pools in Austin, Texas, used a door-hanger campaign that targeted only homes with swimming pools. The hanger offered the company’s weekly pool maintenance services. It was a success and helped the business pull in new clients who hadn’t heard of them before.

8. Business Cards

Business cards remain a timeless and highly personal marketing tool that can leave a lasting impression. Unlike digital messages, a well-designed card is a tangible reminder of your brand, especially effective for creating connections at events, networking meetups, or local businesses. Business cards are ideal for professionals and businesses looking to make a direct, personal connection with potential clients or collaborators, such as consultants, freelancers, and small business owners.

Bonus Tip: Consider adding a QR code linking to your website or portfolio to make it easy for recipients to connect with you online. A unique material or design, like a matte finish or embossed logo, can also make your card stand out.

9. Van Wrapping

Van wrapping is a powerful form of mobile advertising that turns your company vehicle into a traveling billboard. With eye-catching designs, branded logos, and memorable contact information, wrapped vehicles can build brand recognition and attract attention wherever they go. This approach is particularly effective for service-oriented businesses with local routes, like plumbers, landscapers, or food delivery companies, allowing them to maximize exposure while traveling to jobs or delivering goods.

Bonus Tip: Include a QR code or website URL on the van to encourage viewers to learn more about your services, even when they’re on the go. A bold, memorable color scheme can also help your vehicle stand out on the road.

10. Scavenger Hunts

Hosting a scavenger hunt is a creative way to engage your audience, build brand awareness, and encourage foot traffic to specific locations. By hiding clues, products, or branded items in various spots and sharing the hunt details on social media, you can spark excitement and generate buzz around your business. Scavenger hunts are ideal for brands with a local presence or those aiming to drive interaction and engagement, especially in the retail, entertainment, or hospitality industries.

Bonus Tip: Partner with other local businesses to expand the scavenger hunt footprint, adding value for participants and fostering community connections while boosting visibility.

Real-life example

The Old State Saloon bar in Eagle, Idaho, created a month-long scavenger hunt that brought in over 100 participants. The hunt asked people to find unique posters of legendary outlaws scattered around town. As a reward for finding all the posters first, one winner won a giant teddy bear – but you can customize your reward to promote your business.

Genius Lead Generation Ideas

11. Picture Contests

Picture upload contests are a fun and highly engaging way to encourage customer interaction while building brand visibility. By inviting users to send themed photos and offering a prize for the best entry, you can generate leads. This tactic is great for brands looking to grow leads fast – and you can choose your medium of distribution based on where your target audience is.

Bonus Tip: Offering a creative or valuable prize can encourage more participation and motivate people to share widely.

Real-life example

The marketer John Dwyer ran a picture contest in Australia that netted in three years’ worth of business for a new fencing company. The competition was called ‘The Ugliest Fence in Australia’. It was promoted via radio ads, and asked listeners to send in photos of their ugly fences with the worst example winning a free fence makeover. The business then followed up to make personalized offers for each participant who hadn’t won.

12. Tiny Challenges

Tiny Challenges are mini 5-day coaching sprints designed to deliver a valuable outcome in a short timeframe, making them highly effective for attracting clients to a service-based business. Pioneered by Richmond Dinh and used with great success by ClickFunnels co-founder Russell Brunson, Tiny Challenges offers prospective clients a taste of your coaching or services without the commitment of a long-term program. These mini-sprints work well because they focus on solving a specific pain point or achieving a quick win, giving participants immediate value and confidence in your expertise.

Bonus Tip: Offer a Tiny Challenge that directly addresses a pressing issue for your target audience, like increasing productivity or gaining clarity on a goal, and provides a meaningful result that leaves them wanting more.

13. MIFGE

The MIFGE, or “Most Incredible Free Gift Ever,” is an unforgettable lead magnet designed to grab attention by offering an irresistibly valuable, free gift to potential leads. This type of offer generates excitement and buzz, drawing in a large audience eager to claim the exclusive item and engage with your brand. The MIFGE is ideal for businesses looking to quickly grow their email list, promote a product, or make an upsell opportunity with future follow-ups to keep the audience engaged. The MIFGE concept was invented by veteran marketer Dan Kennedy, whose business Magnetic Marketing was acquired by ClickFunnels.

Bonus Tip: Make your MIFGE something truly valuable and relevant to your audience’s interests – whether it’s a tool, resource, or exclusive access – to boost conversion rates and maximize long-term engagement.

Real-life example

Click Funnels co-founder Russell Brunson is an expert in using squeeze pages and free offers to turn leads into sales via upsells and cross sells. One perfect example is how he bought Dan Kennedy’s company Magnetic Marketing and created $1 million in sales in the first 30 days with a MIFGE. You can watch the video of Russell’s MIFGE offer here.

Want to build a sales page just like this? It was built using ClickFunnels.

Try ClickFunnels for 14 Days for Free!

14. Gated Video

A gated video is a highly engaging way to capture leads by building curiosity and requesting an email address at a key moment in the content. Developed initially by Voomly (later acquired by ClickFunnels), this tool allows viewers to access the first part of a video for free and prompts them to enter their email to continue. This strategy works well because it creates suspense and leverages the viewer’s interest, making them more likely to subscribe. Gated videos are particularly effective for educational content, webinars, and demos, where your audience is eager to gain valuable insights.

Bonus Tip: Incentivize lead generation further by offering a free e-book, cheatsheet, or other valuable resource alongside the gated video. This doubles the perceived value and gives subscribers an extra reason to engage with your brand.

15. Lead Magnets 

Lead magnets are valuable, free resources you offer in exchange for a user’s contact information, such as an email address. By giving away something of real value – like an e-book, template, or exclusive guide – you can attract qualified leads who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. This strategy is particularly effective for online businesses, educational platforms, and service providers, as it encourages engagement and builds your email list for further marketing opportunities.

Bonus Tip: Ensure your lead magnet addresses a specific pain point for your target audience and delivers a quick win, making them more likely to see your brand as a go-to resource and continue engaging with your content.

Genius Social Media Marketing Ideas

16. Viral Content Upgrades

Viral content upgrades take the classic lead magnet to a new level by encouraging users not just to subscribe but to share your content to receive a valuable resource. Instead of simply asking for an email address, you request that the reader shares the post on social media in exchange for the lead magnet, turning every download into a potential new source of visibility for your brand. This strategy is especially effective for blog posts, guides, and how-to content, where readers are likely to find the lead magnet highly relevant and worth sharing.

Bonus Tip: Offer a lead magnet closely tied to the content’s main topic – such as a detailed checklist, cheat sheet, or template – so readers feel it’s a natural extension and worth sharing with their networks. This way, you increase both lead generation and reach simultaneously.

17. TikTok Trends

Leveraging TikTok trends is a powerful way to build brand visibility by tapping into popular content that’s already generating high engagement. By participating in trending challenges, audio clips, or hashtags and creatively weaving in your products or services, you can catch the attention of a massive audience in a way that feels natural and entertaining. This approach is particularly effective for brands targeting younger audiences or anyone looking to increase their social media following quickly, as TikTok’s algorithm favors fresh, engaging content that aligns with trending topics.

Bonus Tip: Choose trends that naturally connect with your brand’s message or personality, and use engaging captions or calls to action to encourage viewers to follow your account or visit your site for more.

Real-life example

South Florida repair shop Clancy’s Auto Body got 6.3 million likes, 156k followers, and interviews on NBC and Business Insider within a week of posting their first-ever video on TikTok. The video was a trending type of TikTok video with a cartoon cat and a caption reading: “Guys I lied on my resume and got a job doing the social media of this body shop, please blow this up so I don’t get fired.”

18. Contests to Grow Followers

Running a contest is a proven strategy to grow your social media following while creating excitement around your brand. By offering a prize in exchange for following your account, tagging friends, or sharing the post, you can quickly boost engagement and expand your audience. This approach is especially effective on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, where followers can easily spread the word through tagging and sharing, bringing in more potential followers with each entry.

Bonus Tip: Offer a prize that resonates with your target audience, such as a product sample or a service discount, to attract followers who are genuinely interested in your brand and more likely to engage long-term.

19. Leverage Influencers

Partnering with influencers is a powerful way to tap into a new, highly engaged audience that already trusts the voice behind the recommendation. By working with influencers who align with your brand’s values and appeal to your target market, you can quickly build credibility and awareness while reaching potential customers who may not be familiar with your business. This strategy works particularly well for lifestyle, fashion, beauty, and tech brands, where influencer recommendations can drive traffic and encourage purchases.

Bonus Tip: Look for micro-influencers (influencers with a smaller, highly engaged following) in your niche to gain authentic engagement at a lower cost and focus on building long-term relationships for consistent exposure.

Genius Content Marketing Ideas

20. Write a ‘How to’ Guide

Creating a “how-to” guide blog post is an effective way to showcase expertise while providing real value to your audience. By addressing a specific problem and breaking down a clear, step-by-step solution, you can attract readers who are actively searching for answers and build trust with them as an authority in your field. This strategy works particularly well for service-based businesses, educational sites, or any business targeting people interested in skill-building, as it engages a motivated audience looking for practical advice.

Bonus Tip: Use images, examples, and clear subheadings to make each step easy to follow, and consider adding a downloadable checklist or template for added value.

21. Repurpose an Interview as Content

Conducting an interview with an expert in your field allows you to gather unique insights and first-hand knowledge that can be repurposed into highly engaging content. By transforming the interview into an actionable article, podcast, or social media series, you can provide your audience with valuable tips or strategies while boosting your brand’s authority. This approach works especially well for businesses in consulting, coaching, or education, where expert perspectives resonate deeply with audiences.

Bonus Tip: Break the interview into multiple pieces of content, such as key takeaways, quotes, or “top tips,” and distribute them across platforms to maximize reach and engagement.

Real-life example

In the video below, ClickFunnels co-founder Russell Brunson tells the story of his first $1 million sales funnel. Russell interviewed Vince James, author of The 12 Month Millionaire, who packaged the recording up as a product, and sold it for $37. He also sold a physical copy of Vince James’ book as an upsell.

Want to build a sales funnel just like this? It was built using ClickFunnels.

Try ClickFunnels for 14 Days for Free!

22. Write a Case Study

Case studies are detailed accounts of your past successes, showing how you solved specific problems for clients and achieved measurable results. By demonstrating your expertise through real-world examples, case studies help potential clients understand the value of your services and envision similar success for themselves. This approach works particularly well for consultants, agencies, and service providers, as it builds credibility and offers concrete evidence of your impact.

Bonus Tip: Include visuals like charts or before-and-after comparisons to highlight key results, and focus on outcomes that address common challenges faced by your target audience.

23. Leverage the Public Domain

Utilizing public domain works is a creative way to offer valuable content without creating it from scratch. Since the copyright has expired on books, stories, and even some historical guides, you can repurpose these texts into lead magnets, like downloadable e-books or free guides, for your squeeze page. This approach is especially effective for education, literature, and self-help brands looking to attract a readership interested in classic insights, wisdom, or foundational knowledge.

Bonus Tip: Customize or update the content with modern commentary or additional resources, making it more relevant and attractive to your target audience while preserving the original value.

Real-life example

In 2023, ClickFunnels co-founder Russell Brunson launched a membership site focused on republishing works from the New Thought movement. These are authors like Napoleon Hill, Charles F. Haanel, Orison Swett Marden, and more. Most of these works are no longer under copyright so there is no cost to re-use them. The Secrets of Success membership starts at $97/ month. You can check out the sales page here.

Want to build a sales page just like this? It was built using ClickFunnels.

Try ClickFunnels for 14 Days for Free!

Final Thoughts: Experiment With High-Impact Tactics to Grow Your Business

Each of these marketing ideas offers a creative way to generate leads or boost sales quickly.

They’re especially useful for a quick impact.

By experimenting with these tactics, you can discover what resonates most with your audience and keeps them coming back for more.

But what if you get clicks, shares, and visibility but no real results?

For turning eyeballs into engaged leads and sales, ClickFunnels is the ultimate platform.

With powerful tools to capture leads, create upsells, cross sells, and nurture customers all in one place, ClickFunnels is built to help you grow your business efficiently.

Take your best ideas from visibility to conversion in our free 14-day trial.

Try ClickFunnels for 14 Days for Free!

Thanks for reading Smart Strategies To Market Your New Business which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Have a great business idea but don’t know how to turn it into real sales?

You’re not alone.

Many aspiring entrepreneurs see the potential of their vision, but without design or coding skills they struggle to bring it to life. Over time, these dreams often get left behind due to limited time, tech frustrations, or the high cost of setting up an online business.

That’s why we created ClickFunnels.

With our intuitive drag-and-drop builder and proven templates, ClickFunnels makes it simple to build a professional website or store that’s ready to launch within minutes.

Since 2014, we’ve helped hundreds of thousands of people turn their ideas into income – 2,000 of whom have even made over $1M directly on the platform.

But our journey hasn’t ended yet.

As ClickFunnels keeps growing, we update our offerings every year to ensure we remain the most seamless, powerful way to start and scale an online business.

Keep reading to see the many benefits of ClickFunnels in 2024 and see how we can help you take control of your ideas and make them profitable.

Try ClickFunnels Free for 14 Days!

20 Ways to Build Your Online Business With ClickFunnels

1. Build a Sales Funnel

What is it?

A sales funnel is a streamlined online process that guides visitors from platforms like Facebook, Google, and Instagram into your online store with a strong intent to buy. By effectively directing potential customers down this “funnel,” you can increase the chances of converting visitors into buyers. ClickFunnels has helped over 100,000 businesses build these funnels, with over 2,000 earning a spot in the “Two Comma Club” by generating over $1 million in revenue through ClickFunnels.

Why do I need it?

If you’re looking to grow your leads and sales, a funnel is essential. ClickFunnels simplifies this by helping you build customer journeys designed to boost conversions. With high-converting pages like upsells and downsells, your sales can reach new heights.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels offers pre-designed, conversion-optimized funnel templates. Simply drag and drop elements, add your branding, and publish. Plus, with 24/7 support, you’ll have expert guidance to optimize your funnel whenever you need it.

Learn More About Sales Funnels

2. Create Your Own Website

What is it?

ClickFunnels allows anyone to build a professional, fully customizable website without needing to code. With a simple drag-and-drop interface, you can adjust any element to fit your vision. You can also dive into the code editor to add custom functionality or make finer adjustments if you know what you’re doing.

Why do I need it?

A website is essential to establishing your digital footprint and becoming the go-to authority in your field. It’s where potential clients come to know, like, and trust you. Plus, with ClickFunnels, you can use your website to guide visitors to all your products and services, generating interest and conversions with minimal effort. Typically, creating a website and covering hosting could cost thousands, but ClickFunnels includes it as part of your membership.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

It’s designed to be simple and fast. Choose a theme, drag in your images, stories, and content, and within hours, your site is live. The themes are mobile-optimized by default, ensuring your site looks polished on any screen. A mobile page editor lets you fine-tune the mobile experience, so you have complete control over how your website appears to visitors on smaller devices.

Learn More About Websites

3. Online Course Platform

What is it?

With ClickFunnels, you can package and sell your knowledge through online courses without needing third-party programs. Choose from various course templates or create a custom course to fit your teaching style and needs.

Why do I need it?

Creating an online course is a direct path to expanding your reach and income. With ClickFunnels, launching a profitable course is easier than ever, helping you scale quickly and connect with a global audience.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

The course builder is intuitive, using a drag-and-drop interface so you don’t need technical expertise. Pre-built templates let you create and customize courses quickly, while advanced options allow for user enrollment management, lesson tracking, and custom templates to sell. Plus, 24/7 support is available if you ever need assistance.

Learn More About Online Courses

4. Email Marketing Platform

What is it?

ClickFunnels simplifies email marketing by allowing you to design, schedule, and send emails directly from the platform. With its in-house SMTP, you can cancel other email subscriptions, making it a single end-to-end solution for email campaigns.

Why do I need it?

Email marketing is one of the most effective channels for nurturing leads, building relationships, and increasing conversions. Automation allows for timely follow-ups and engagement without the hassle, making it a critical tool for business growth.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

Creating emails is fast and flexible. Use ClickFunnels’ custom email templates, or design your own to fit specific campaigns. Send live broadcasts for immediate connection or set up automated sequences to nurture your leads over time. The platform’s segmentation tools ensure you reach each contact with messages tailored to their needs and interests.

Learn More About Email Marketing

5. Analytics Dashboards

What is it?

ClickFunnels provides an all-in-one dashboard to track key metrics for your online business. It offers real-time data on sales, conversions, page views, and email performance to ensure you’re making data-informed decisions.

Why do I need it?

Understanding your data is essential to optimizing performance. With analytics on your pages and funnels, you can see what’s working, diagnose problem areas, and adjust strategies to improve your results. Track metrics like conversion rates, opt-ins, and cart values in one place for streamlined insights.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

With ClickFunnels’ analytics dashboard, you can monitor essential data from one easy-to-access location. See how campaigns are performing, identify improvement areas, and stay on top of your business’s key indicators with ease.

Learn More About Analytics

6. Build Landing Pages

What is it?

ClickFunnels enables you to create professional landing pages designed to convert prospects into customers. Whether for organic or paid traffic, these pages provide a distraction-free space to drive specific actions.

Why do I need it?

Landing pages capture leads and focus visitors on a single goal, which can significantly improve conversion rates compared to traditional websites. ClickFunnels lets you create unlimited landing pages, so you can test and refine them to maximize effectiveness.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

Creating landing pages is intuitive and flexible. Choose from a range of templates or build your page from scratch using the drag-and-drop editor. Customize landing pages for specific campaigns, use them for lead capture, event registration, sales, and more – all within a single platform.

Learn More About Landing Pages

7. Create Membership Sites

What is it?

With ClickFunnels, you can launch a membership site to provide exclusive, paid content, creating a recurring revenue stream. Membership sites are a valuable way to share ongoing resources, exclusive training, and valuable insights with subscribers.

Why do I need it?

Membership sites build loyalty, drive recurring revenue, and allow you to test new ideas with a trusted audience. Members-only access adds value and keeps users engaged, helping you retain customers and grow their lifetime value.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels’ membership site builder is straightforward and requires no technical expertise. It’s as simple as setting up your course and granting access to paying members, with a secure login to keep content private. Add new materials and update content easily to keep members engaged and coming back for more.

Learn More About Membership Sites

8. Create Global Products

What is it?

With ClickFunnels, you can create a product once and seamlessly embed it across your website, funnels, and email marketing campaigns. Whether it’s an online course, a membership site, or even physical products, ClickFunnels makes it easy to manage all of your products from a single platform.

Why do I need it?

Managing your product catalog shouldn’t be a headache. With ClickFunnels, you can streamline everything: you add product information once, and it’s available for use across your funnels, emails, and even landing pages. This consistency saves time and ensures a cohesive brand experience across every interaction with your audience.

This feature is particularly useful if you sell a range of products – like courses, ebooks, or subscription services. With ClickFunnels, you can control where and how each product is featured, creating a more organized and effective product strategy that meets your business needs.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

Creating a product with ClickFunnels is as simple as clicking a button. Select the type of product—like an online course or a digital download—and ClickFunnels guides you through each step. Add descriptions, pricing, and images, and then choose where it will appear. With intuitive tagging, collection options, and layout flexibility, ClickFunnels makes product management both fast and flexible, even if you don’t have technical expertise.

Learn More About Global Products

9. Keep Track of Customers

What is it?

A Customer Center functions as an all-in-one area where users log in to access courses, digital resources, or membership sites, all within a secure, branded space. It’s like a personalized ‘hub’ that remembers each customer’s purchase history, making it easy to deliver exactly what they bought – no more manual access updates or separate logins for different products.

Why do I need it?

A streamlined Customer Center enhances your customers’ experience by providing them with a “home base” to access everything they’ve purchased from you. Instead of juggling separate logins or downloads, your customers can find all of their content in one place. This organized approach keeps customers happy and reduces support inquiries, ensuring they always get what they’ve paid for.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels makes setting up a Customer Center incredibly simple. Its drag-and-drop editor means you don’t need to be a coder or tech wizard to create a branded, professional dashboard. Customize layouts, colors, and themes to match your brand, and use built-in tutorials or 24/7 support for additional guidance.

Learn More About Customer Center

10. Have Your Own Blog

What is it?

A blog on ClickFunnels serves as more than just a space for content—it’s a tool for driving traffic to your funnels, online store, or website. With ClickFunnels, you can create and manage a blog that combines beautiful design with practical features like SEO optimization, content sharing and lead generation tools.

Why do I need it?

A blog is essential for reaching your audience organically through valuable content. ClickFunnels takes traditional blogging to the next level by making your blog an integral part of your business growth strategy. Every post drives more traffic to your funnels and sales pages, helping you turn readers into leads and then customers.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

Setting up a blog is fast and intuitive. Just pick a theme, add your content, images, and stories, and your blog is live within hours. With the drag-and-drop editor, you have full creative control to customize or even clone themes, making your blog feel unique to your brand.

Learn More About Blogs

11. Drag-and-Drop Page Builder

What is it? 

The ClickFunnels Editor is a “drag-and-drop” editor that allows you to create high-converting pages without needing to hire designers or programmers. Imagine being able to create and edit your own web pages and funnels exactly how you envision them—all without needing a single line of code.

Why do I need it? 

You need an easy way to build landing pages, and ClickFunnels’ drag-and-drop editor makes it all possible, whether building or editing your site, making funnels, or creating blogs or landing pages. The ClickFunnels Editor simplifies funnel-building, eliminating the need to rely on designers or programmers.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

With ClickFunnels, even a 5-year-old could drag and drop professional sales funnels, websites, and more. Collaborate in real-time with your team on funnels, web pages, or projects, and every change you make on one page updates universally throughout your funnel, store, or site. This editor allows you to express your unique personality across all your digital assets—no coding required!

Learn More About Our Editor

12. Automate Workflows

What is it? 

Workflows in the context of funnels and marketing refer to automated processes that manage repetitive tasks, keeping your business running smoothly without manual intervention.

Why do I need it? 

Workflows allow you to deliver the right message to the right customer based on previous actions, collecting sales, leads, and conversions on autopilot. This means you can focus on what’s truly important while your business is nurtured automatically. Automate your marketing with customized workflows to capture leads and generate sales around the clock.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

Automate segments to deliver personalized follow-ups with dynamic content, A/B testing, and more effective drip campaigns. Integrate effortlessly with third-party platforms to maximize conversions and lead generation. Use split-testing to fine-tune campaigns, web pages, and promotional offers with ease.

Learn More About Workflows

13. Set Up A/B Tests

What is it? 

A/B testing (or split testing) compares two versions of the same asset to determine which performs better.

Why do I need it?

 A/B testing is a powerful tool for optimizing your marketing. It can turn a campaign from a potential loss into a profitable investment, creating a virtuous cycle that drives growth. Without A/B testing, you’re left guessing, often missing out on valuable insights that can improve conversion rates. But with ClickFunnels, A/B testing is included.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

Running A/B tests is easy and can be applied to landing pages, funnels, emails, and more. Quickly test different elements like copy, images, and layout. ClickFunnels automates winning versions to optimize campaigns in real-time.

Learn More About A/B Testing

14. Add Countdown Timers to Funnels

What is it?

Countdown timers are a key component in funnels that drive urgency, moving potential customers from “interested” to “I need this NOW.”

Why do I need it? 

Even if an audience is interested, without a reason to buy now, many will hesitate. A Countdown Funnel uses timers to encourage timely decisions, helping your leads move off the fence and into buyers.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

Most timers are easily dismissed by consumers, but ClickFunnels’ Countdown Funnel offers a “sticky” countdown that continues, even if a visitor leaves and returns. It can even sync with follow-up emails to maintain urgency, and is fully customizable to individual customer journeys, making it easy to set up recurring or hybrid countdowns.

Learn More About Countdown Funnels

15. Build an Online Store

What is it? 

With ClickFunnels, you can create an all-in-one eCommerce store without needing an external platform. Store Funnels provide dynamic carts, “Buy Now” buttons, and custom themes for a seamless online shopping experience.

Why do I need it? 

ClickFunnels Store Funnels streamline the sales process, from product display to order fulfillment. Selling physical products becomes easy with integrated marketing, sales, shipping, and fulfillment in one platform.

Instead of using separate tools for each part of the customer journey, you can keep it all in ClickFunnels. The Store Funnels feature automatically assigns each buyer to custom funnels based on their purchasing behavior, using upsells and cross-sells to maximize sales.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels Store Funnels help you categorize products, add upsells and cross-sells, and automate fulfillment with integrated tools like Shippo for shipping labels. Simply set up your store, configure dynamic collections, and watch your sales take off, all without lifting a finger.

Learn More About Online Stores

16. Build Checkout Processes With Smart Checkout

What is it?

The Smart Checkout feature offers various ways to optimize the customer journey, including “One-Click Checkout,” upgrades and downgrades, One-Time Offers (OTOs), and customizable checkout styling. Smart Checkout recognizes returning customers by email or phone number, autofilling their details (like payment info and previous addresses) for a seamless one-click experience.

Why do I need it?

Smart Checkout transforms the final purchase phase into an opportunity to maximize sales and cart value. Add “One-Click” Upsells: Prompt customers to add products, increasing the cart total in seconds. Flexible Upgrades/Downgrades: Offer customizable subscriptions or tiered options that match each customer’s needs.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

You can design checkout pages to match your brand or pick from ready-made templates, and set up profiles for shipping rates. Create a checkout experience that’s simple for customers, with automated shipping costs for OTOs to keep fees manageable.

Learn More About Smart Checkout

17. Create an Online Community

What is it?

Build an engaging community site directly on ClickFunnels, where members can connect, share, and inspire each other in a focused environment free from distractions!

Why do I need it?

Online communities are excellent for customer engagement, loyalty, and content organization through groups and topics. Unlike Facebook or Discord, ClickFunnels offers ownership & control of your audience and platform. You can also integrate your online community platform with ClickFunnels’ monetization tools.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

Members benefit from video playback, media embeds, and customizable feeds. Admins can organize posts by groups and topics, moderate content, and set privacy settings, creating a safe, structured community.

Learn More About Communities

18. Use API and Webhooks

What is it?

APIs enable apps to work together, and with ClickFunnels’ public API, the most popular software – from CRMs and eCommerce platforms to social media – can seamlessly integrate. Webhooks trigger specific automated actions, ensuring smooth workflows.

Why do I need it?

With an open API, ClickFunnels eliminates data transfer hassles and integrates: Payment processors, ERPs, CRMs, social media, email automation, accounting software, and more. Webhooks notify your tech stack instantly, enabling real-time actions like inventory adjustments, automated support, or triggered communications.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

With Zapier, ClickFunnels simplifies integration, offering prebuilt “Zaps” that handle nearly every business process – perfect for automating without coding.

Learn More About API & Webhooks

19. Set Up Integrations

What is it?

Easily connect all your business software through ClickFunnels, including popular tools like ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, MailChimp, Slack, WebinarFuel, Zapier, and more!

Why do I need it?

Integrations are crucial for tasks like managing leads, automating emails, and connecting webinars. If you’re using other platforms (like those above) you can benefit from directly sending new leads from your ClickFunnels landing page to your Mailchimp email campaigns, for example. 

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

In just a few clicks, set up integrations directly in ClickFunnels to streamline operations and automate recurring tasks effortlessly.

Learn More About Integrations

20. Organize Customers in Your Own CRM

What is it?

With a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system in ClickFunnels, manage customer relationships from acquisition to support.

Why do I need it?

Build lasting relationships by managing the entire customer journey with ease, from sales pipelines to automated communications. ClickFunnels’ MessageHub feature, for example, helps you to manage SMS, email, and social messages in one place. You can also build out your automated workflows within the CRM, and use calendar integraitons to set appointments.

How Easy is it With ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels’ CRM tools make it simple to track and nurture leads. MessageHub enables ongoing engagement, while Appointments and Opportunities streamline lead conversion through each sales stage.

Learn More About CRMs

Want to Try ClickFunnels Before Buying?

As you’ve seen, ClickFunnels offers a comprehensive suite of features designed to help you take your business from idea to profit – fast.

From intuitive design tools to proven templates, ClickFunnels makes it possible to launch your online funnel seamlessly and start converting visitors into loyal customers.

But don’t just take our word for it.

ClickFunnels lets you try it for yourself, risk-free, with a 14-day free trial.

There’s no catch, no long-term contract and no commitment if it doesn’t feel right.

We’re offering this trial because we believe in the transformative power of ClickFunnels, and we want you to experience how it can simplify your business journey and fuel your growth firsthand.

If you’re ready to unlock financial security and freedom with a tool trusted by hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs, the next step is simple:

Sign up now and get started in less than a minute.

This is your opportunity to turn dreams into reality. 

With nothing to lose and everything to gain, there’s never been a better time to take action. 

Sign up for your free trial today and join the many who’ve already found success with ClickFunnels!

Try ClickFunnels Free for 14 Days!

Thanks for reading Top Benefits Of Using ClickFunnels For Your Business which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

There’s no denying that you can use artificial intelligence to make money.

However, it’s important to differentiate between legitimate business opportunities and temporary arbitrage plays.

Way too many people are pursuing the latter without realizing that those income streams might vanish overnight.

That’s why today we want to share five ways to make money with AI that you can leverage to build a real, sustainable business.

This is a long article so feel free to skip around using the table of contents. We do recommend reading it in its entirety, though!

What You Need to Know About AI

What is AI?

“Artificial intelligence” – AI for short – is an umbrella term.

It encompasses technologies that enable machines to perform cognitive tasks that are associated with human intelligence.

Examples of such cognitive tasks include decision-making, problem solving, learning from previous experience, data analysis, content creation, and visual perception.

What is Generative AI?

Nowadays, when people talk about artificial intelligence, they are typically talking about generative AI.

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can be used to generate novel data based on user input.

Do you know how there are all these AI apps that you can use to create text, images, and videos? That’s generative AI!

What are Large Language Models (LLMs)?

Large language models are a type of generative AI that can understand the text in user queries and generate novel, relevant text in response.

They are trained on vast quantities of textual data which enables them to mimic human speech and writing patterns.

This is the technology behind chatbots like ChatGPT that can have unstructured conversations with their users.

What are the Most Popular Large Language Models?

At the time of writing, the three most popular large language models are:

• OpenAI’s ChatGPT
• Anthropic’s Claude
• Google’s Gemini

These chatbots appear to be quite similar so we recommend trying out all of them to see which one you like the best.

You can experiment by giving them the exact same prompts and then comparing their outputs.

What is the Black Box Problem?

This might sound weird but…

It seems that computer scientists at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google don’t know how their own large language models work.

In fact, to the best of our knowledge, no one does. Scientists cannot see what is happening inside LLMs. All they can observe is the data that goes in and the data that comes out.

This is known as “the black box problem” and it’s arguably the greatest bottleneck in artificial intelligence research. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that it’s going to be solved anytime soon.

What are “Hallucinations”?

Since scientists don’t know what is happening inside large language models, they cannot ensure consistently accurate output.

The issue is that sometimes LLMs just make things up. This is known as “hallucinations”.

So far, no one has been able to figure out how to get rid of them. In all likelihood, large language models will continue hallucinating for the foreseeable future.

In practice, this means that you should never blindly trust their output because there is no guarantee that it’s accurate.

For example, if you use ChatGPT to write social media posts, make sure to manually fact-check everything before you publish them.

This problem isn’t limited to LLMs, though. Generative AI models designed to produce images also hallucinate.

Say, one common tell that a photorealistic image generated with AI is too many fingers on people’s hands. Seems obvious but it’s easy to miss if you aren’t paying attention.

If you want to use AI to produce images, make sure to closely examine them before publishing.

Finally, generative AI models designed to produce video content aren’t immune to hallucinations either.

For example, here’s a screenshot from a video that was created with OpenAI’s Sora:

Here’s the prompt that was used to generate this video:

“The Glenfinnan Viaduct is a historic railway bridge in Scotland, UK, that crosses over the west highland line between the towns of Mallaig and Fort William”.

The problem is that Glenfinnan Viaduct only has one railway track. There are more inaccuracies in the video but this is the most noticeable one!

Just like with AI-generated images, if you want to use AI-generated videos, you need to examine them closely before publishing. Does everything look right?

What is Prompt Engineering?

The quality of your prompts is arguably the main factor that determines the quality of generative AI output.

Prompt engineering is the practice of crafting effective prompts that produce the type of output that you want.

Everyone who uses generative AI on a regular basis eventually develops their own prompt engineering style.

However, if you are new to this, we recommend starting with Jeff Su’s prompt formula which consists of these six components:

1. Task: mandatory
2. Context: important
3. Exemplar: important
4. Persona: nice-to-have
5. Format: nice-to-have
6. Tone: nice-to-have

As you can see, the components are listed in descending order, the “task” component being the most important and the “tone” component being the least important.

Here’s how Jeff Su explains it:

Where Can You Learn More About AI?

If you are serious about harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to make money, consider taking Google’s “AI Essentials” course that is available on Coursera.

It consists of five modules:

1. Introduction to AI (1 hour)
2. Maximize productivity with AI tools (2 hours)
3. Discover the art of prompting (2 hours)
4. Use AI responsibly (1 hour)
5. Stay ahead of the AI curve (2 hours)

If you want to get a feel for what this course is like, you can watch the first module for free on YouTube:

“AI Essentials” focuses on teaching people how to effectively use Google’s large language model Gemini.

However, a lot of what you’ll learn will also apply to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and other LLMs!

Legitimate Business Opportunities vs. Temporary Arbitrage Plays

How to Recognize Legitimate Business Opportunities

Understanding the Lindy effect can be helpful here.

It states that the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things is proportional to their current age. To put it simply, the longer something has been around, the more likely it is to stay around.

That’s why we believe that the safest bet is to start a business that provides a service that already has proven demand and then use artificial intelligence to increase your company’s output.

This approach is Lindy because it enables you to capitalize on business opportunities that have been around for quite a while and are therefore unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

Meanwhile, pursuing novel business opportunities that have popped up since the release of ChatGPT in 2022 is not Lindy. Why?

Because something that has only been around for a few years is unlikely to still be around a decade from now. Who knows, maybe it will. But we wouldn’t bet on it!

What is the Problem With Temporary Arbitrage Plays?

The problem with temporary arbitrage plays is that they tend to go against the interests of the platforms that they are leveraging.

For example, Amazon has become a go-to place for buying books, both paper and digital. It’s in its best interest to keep its customers happy.

On top of that, the company also needs to keep the book authors happy, including the self-published ones who are using its Kindle Direct Publishing service.

Once generative AI became widely available, Amazon got flooded with low-quality books produced with it.

Needless to say, customers who accidentally bought such books were not happy about it.

Meanwhile, authors were not amused by the fact that their books were being crowded out by AI slop.

There have also been several high-profile incidents when immediately after the release of a long-anticipated book a bunch of AI copycats popped up trying to steal its sales.

Prominent tech journalist Kara Swisher event sent an email to Amazon CEO Andy Jessy asking “’What the f***?’ You’re costing me money” when this happened to her.

Do you think Amazon is going to allow this AI mess to continue when it’s making both the customers and the authors angry, not to mention all the negative publicity the company has received due to this?

Questionable ethics aside, some people have made a lot of money with low-quality AI-generated books, but it’s probably just a matter of time until Amazon develops software for automatically detecting and removing AI slop.

This is the lifecycle of temporary arbitrage plays: hustlers see an opportunity and jump on it, and some of them even make good money with it, but eventually, the platform cracks down on them and everyone gets banned.

Resist the Siren Song of Get-Rich-Quick Schemes!

If you go on YouTube and search “how to make money with AI”, you are going to see a bunch of videos promoting temporary arbitrage plays as a way to get rich quick.

It can be very tempting to pursue these opportunities when you see all these content creators talking about how much money they are supposedly making.

However, as we explained in the previous section, income sources like that might be here today and then be gone tomorrow with no warning.

Some people waste years of their lives chasing quick money without building anything lasting. Don’t fall into this trap because you are going to regret it.

Instead, resist the siren song of get-rich-quick schemes and focus on building a legitimate business. The future you is going to thank you for that!

Best Ways to Make Money With AI

Okay, so with all that out of the way, let’s get to the practical stuff. How can you make money with AI?

#1: Social Media Marketing Service

Social media marketing can be a great way to attract customers.

However, many small businesses, especially local ones, are underutilizing this marketing strategy.

Typically, the owners of these businesses know that they should be posting regularly on social media, they just never get around to it. But they might be willing to pay you to do it!

Consider using:

• ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini to brainstorm ideas
• Jasper to turn those ideas into social media posts
• Adobe’s Firefly to generate social media images
• Buffer or MeetEdgar to schedule your posts
• Hootsuite to manage everything in one place

This software stack makes it easy to consistently produce high-quality content. And that’s what success on social media is all about!

#2: Podcast Editing Service

Everyone wants to have a podcast these days but no one wants to spend countless hours editing raw audio files. So why not offer a podcast editing service?

With the AI tool Descript, you can edit audio by editing its transcript so it’s much less tedious than it used to be. Basically, if you know how to edit text documents in Google Docs, you will be able to edit podcasts with this app.

It also has a bunch of neat podcast-specific features that will surely come in handy during the editing process!

#3: Video Editing Service

Video is becoming the dominant medium of the Internet, which means that video editing skills are more prized than ever.

There’s also a growing demand for producing short-form content where the editing needs to be really tight in order to provide value to the viewer.

Video editing used to require mastering complex software like Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro. And if you want to be good at it, you still need to learn how to use these tools.

But you can get started with the aforementioned AI app Descript which allows you to edit videos by editing their transcripts.

Moreover, you can run long-form videos through OpusClip and its AI is going to automatically identify the best moments and turn them into shorts!

#4: Video Thumbnail Design Service

The thumbnail of a video is arguably the most important factor that determines how many views it’s going to get on YouTube.

With generative AI tools like Adobe’s Firefly, you don’t need to be a graphic designer to create attention-grabbing thumbnails that people can’t help but click.

There are a lot of YouTubers out there that have great content but their boring video thumbnails are sabotaging their growth.

So why not help them revamp their channels with amazing thumbnails?

#5: Website Design Service

Some businesses have websites that look so outdated that they can make you feel like you time-traveled back to the early 2000s.

It’s another one of those problems that business owners tend to be aware of but never get around to fixing.

If you are a tech-savvy person, you can offer them a complete website makeover where you set up hosting for them, redesign their website, and rewrite its copy.

Popular website builders like Squarespace and Wix now include AI editors so you don’t need to be a web designer to create beautiful custom websites.

As for the copy, we recommend reading our friend Jim Edward’s book “Copywriting Secrets” where he explains how to write copy that converts.

Once everything is done and the website is live, you can pitch the client a maintenance retainer where you will update their website for them.

This might be appealing to people who don’t want to deal with tech stuff!

How to Build an Online Service Business

Clearly Define Your Dream Clients

Your dream clients must:

1. Need your service
2. Be able to pay for your service
3. Be willing to pay for your service

Your target audience will be the main determining factor when it comes to the revenue potential of your company. Go after established businesses if you want to maximize it!

Start by Acquiring Social Proof

Social proof is the evidence that other people trust you. In the business context, it primarily means customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies.

The more social proof you have, the easier it will be for you to get clients, which is why you should focus on acquiring it first. So how can you do that?

You’re probably not going to like the answer: the easiest way to get social proof is to do free work in exchange for testimonials.

For example, if you want to acquire social proof for your podcast editing business, identify podcasts that could use your help.

Then, edit their most recent episodes and send the hosts sound files. Tell them that you can edit 12 more episodes for free in exchange for a testimonial.

Start at the bottom of the hierarchy by reaching out to up-and-comers who probably need your service but may be hesitant to pay for it.

Remember, right now the focus is getting social proof, not making money!

See if You Can Turn Free Work Into Paid Work

Okay, so you completed the free work and have your testimonial. Now what?

Let that potential client know that they can hire you if they want to and name the lowest price possible.

If they are happy with your free work and can afford to pay you, they will probably end up hiring you.

And if they don’t want to hire you now for whatever reason, tell them to feel free to reach out to you if they ever need your service in the future!

Use Cold Outreach to Grow Your Client Base

Start reaching out to your dream clients via email and social media DMs.

Make sure to optimize every cold message by referencing something about that particular potential client.

Then, pitch them a clearly defined package of free work that they can use if they like, with no strings attached.

Follow up that pitch with your most powerful piece of social proof and then provide a link to your business website if they want to read more testimonials.

Finally, end the message with a call to action. Ask them if they are interested, invite them to schedule a Zoom call with you, and share your appointment booking calendar link.

If you don’t get a response, send them a follow-up message one week later and then continue following up once a week until you get a yes or no answer from them.

In your follow-ups, include a P.S. section similar to this one that the founder of LeadFuze Justin McGill used in his cold email campaign:

Get Good at What You Do Before Scaling Your Business

Entrepreneurs often attempt to scale their businesses too early, which leads to negative word-of-mouth.

Realistically speaking, if you just started providing a particular service, you are probably not that great at it.

If you offer to do free work for someone, they likely won’t be expecting much. That gives you an opportunity to learn.

However, once you start charging for your service, the stakes get higher. If people pay you and you disappoint them, they will be unhappy about it and might complain to others. And if enough clients do that, it can ruin your reputation.

That’s why it’s best to focus on getting good at what you do before you worry about scaling. Otherwise, you might end up accidentally scaling brand damage!

Scale Your Business With a Webinar Funnel

Once you are ready to scale your business, you can do that with a webinar funnel.

It should have three pages:

1. The registration page is where you introduce your webinar and encourage potential clients to register for it.
2. The registration confirmation page is where you reassure potential clients that they have successfully registered for your webinar.
3. The webinar page where the potential clients can attend your webinar live or watch the replay.

As for the webinar itself, we recommend structuring it like this:

• A 45-minute presentation on a topic related to your service.
• A 15-minute pitch for your service where you explain what it’s all about, provide social proof, and invite the attendees to book a free consultation with you.

You can use paid advertising on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to drive traffic to your webinar registration page.

Although it’s possible to automate this funnel by using a pre-recorded webinar, we recommend doing it live once a week for at least a year.

That will help you learn what resonates with your target audience and enable you to optimize your webinar script for conversions!

Want to Learn How to Build Sales Funnels That CONVERT?

Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade.

He is now widely considered to be one of the top sales funnel experts in the world. Want to learn from him?

His best-selling book “DotCom Secrets” is the best place to start because it covers everything you need to know in order to build sales funnels that convert.

This book is available on Amazon where it has over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

But you can also get it directly from us for free…

All we ask is that you pay for shipping!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Get “DotCom Secrets” for FREE!

Thanks for reading Guide To Making Money With AI which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

As Gabriel Weinberg, the founder of DuckDuckGo, put it in his book “Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth”:

“Almost every failed startup has a product. What failed startups don’t have are enough customers.”

According to him, the number one cause of failure isn’t the product, it’s the poor distribution. 

He argues that many entrepreneurs who build great products simply don’t have a good distribution strategy. 

In his view, when it comes to startup success, the only essential thing is growth. Everything else follows from that.

We agree with this perspective because you can have the best product in the world but it won’t matter if you can’t get enough customers to keep your business afloat.

That’s why today we want to share our complete guide to customer acquisition for startups…

Niche Down as Much as Possible

Founders often make the mistake of going after the largest possible target audience when they should be doing the opposite and zeroing in on the smallest possible niche.

For example, Facebook, which had over 3 billion monthly active users in the last quarter of 2023, started out as a social network for Harvard University students in 2004.

It then gradually expanded to other Ivy League universities, then to all universities in the United States, and then finally became available to the general public in 2006, two years after its launch.

Facebook almost certainly wouldn’t have been able to gain traction if the company had gone after everyone in the world who had Internet access right from the get-go.

So figure out the smallest possible niche that you could target that is still large enough for you to generate enough revenue to keep the lights on. Once you dominate that initial niche, you can start gradually expanding your target audience!

Conduct Extensive Customer Research

We’ll be blunt:

You probably don’t understand your dream customers as well as you think you do. And the further removed you are from your target audience, the more likely that is to be the case.

That’s why we recommend conducting extensive customer research before you start thinking about customer acquisition:

1. Figure out where your dream customers are hanging out online and join those spaces.
2. Figure out who your dream customers are following and start following the same influencers, thought leaders, and content creators.
3. Figure out what content your dream customers are consuming and start consuming it yourself.

You want to immerse yourself in the online world of your dream customers as much as possible because that will give you the context you need to create effective marketing campaigns and write persuasive sales copy.

Pay special attention to the exact words, phrases, and metaphors that your dream customers use to describe the problem that your product can help them solve. You want to use the same language when selling your product!

Take Stock of the Resources at Your Disposal

As our friend Alex Hormozi loves to say, the first rule of entrepreneurship is “Use what you have”. 

That’s why we want you to take stock of the resources that you have at your disposal. 

Marketing strategies that we are going to discuss in the next section all involve a trade-off between time and money to some extent: the less money you are willing to spend, the more time you will need to invest.

Choose a strategy that will allow you to capitalize on the resource that you have more of, whether that’s money or time. 

Beyond that, you want to look at everything else that you have that you could use to your advantage, including your talents, skills, and connections.

Ideally, you want to go with a marketing strategy that will allow you to play to your strengths and won’t require learning completely new skills from scratch because that will enable you to hit the ground running.

Of course, that isn’t always possible, but try to make the most of what you already have!

Choose a Marketing Strategy

We recommend choosing one of these marketing strategies and focusing on it exclusively until you hit the point of diminishing returns:

Marketing Strategy #1: Cold Email

Cold email is the most accessible marketing strategy but it is also extremely time-consuming and best suited for B2B as opposed to B2C.

It’s impossible to predict conversion rates in advance but you should be prepared to send 100 cold emails per day to schedule 10 sales calls and make 1 sale. 

And just to be clear: we are talking about personalized cold emails where each message is customized for that particular recipient.

Don’t send potential customers low-effort copy-paste spam. Not only does it not work, it can also get you in legal trouble!

Set Up a New Domain Name and Email Address

Start by setting up a new domain name that is similar to the main domain name of your startup and then create a new email account associated with that new domain name.

This is a precautionary measure in case your cold emails get marked as spam and you end up getting blacklisted by email service providers like Gmail. It’s best not to put your main domain name and your main email address at risk.

Also, before you start your cold email campaign, use a service like lemwarm to simulate back-and-forth email activity. That should make you look more legit in the eyes of email service providers and hopefully help you avoid spam filters.

Find a Lead Generation Expert and Buy 100 Leads

After that, go on Fiverr, find a B2B lead generation expert, and order a spreadsheet with 100 leads based on your dream customer criteria.

That spreadsheet should include a list of target companies, a contact person for each of them, and their full name, job title, and email address.

If that lead generation expert does a good job compiling leads, you can order a spreadsheet with 1,000 leads the next time.

Start Cold Emailing Leads

It’s best to start slow – perhaps with just 3 cold emails per day – because a sudden spike in your email activity can seem suspicious and might get you blacklisted by email service providers.

Gradually increase the cold email volume until you are sending 100 cold emails per day. Don’t go beyond that because that may be crossing into the spam territory.

Use Justin McGill’s QVC Framework

We recommend following the QVC framework that Justin McGill, the founder of LeadFuze, used to go from zero to $30k in monthly recurring revenue in just one year:

• Question – In your subject line, ask a question related to the problem that your product addresses. Ideally, it should hit the key pain point. That will help you get the potential customer’s attention and hopefully prompt them to open your email.
  
  In the body copy, ask a similar question that hits the same pain point, but use a more detailed phrasing. That will hopefully get them interested enough to continue reading.
• Value proposition – The intro question should be followed by a few value proposition sentences that explain what your product is about. You want to present it as a solution to their problem.
• Call to action – End the email by asking the potential customer if they would be interested in a demo. Make sure to phrase it as a yes or no question!

Here’s a sample template that follows this framework:

Continue Following Up Until You Get a Response

The odds are that the people you are reaching out to are pretty busy so you may not get a response straight away.

That’s why it’s so important to follow up with them. Justin McGill said that he has seen a lot of success with this four-email email sequence:

1. QVC cold email that we just discussed.
2. Case study email – It should showcase how your product helped someone just like them.
3. Value add email – This can be another case study but it can also be a blog post link, a relevant news article, or something else that they might find interesting.
4. Break-up email – Let them know that you won’t be following up anymore and encourage them to reach out to you in the future if they ever want to learn more about your product.

McGill would also add this “P.S.” section to all his emails, starting with the initial QVC one:

This is a great idea because it enables you to continue following up while also being respectful and providing that person with a way out if they don’t want to hear from you anymore. 

Make Sure to Stay Organized!

When you are only sending a few cold emails per day, keeping track of everything is easy.

But once you start increasing the volume, it can get out of hand really quickly as the replies, the back-and-forth, and the scheduled demo calls start piling up.

That’s why we recommend setting up some sort of customer relationship management (CRM) system right from the start.

Our software includes a CRM functionality that can be really helpful here!

Marketing Strategy #2: Cold Calling

Cold calling is similar to cold email in that it’s an accessible but time-consuming marketing strategy that works best for B2B businesses.

All you need to get started is a list of leads that meet your dream customer criteria, your phone and a cold call script.

We recommend using Patrick Dang’s five-step cold calling framework:

1. Research the prospect because that will make everything else much easier.
2. Build rapport with the prospect by bringing their attention to something that you have in common.
3. Explain why you are calling, set the agenda for the call, and ask them for permission to get started.
4. Ask questions to uncover the pain points related to the problem that your product addresses.
5. Leverage the pain points you uncovered to position your product as a solution to their problem and ask them if they would be interested in a product demo.

If they say yes, ask them for their email address and tell them that you are going to send them a calendar link with available times, then thank them for their time and end the call.

Once you hang up, send them that calendar link immediately and then continue following up once a week, the same way you would if it was a cold email instead of a cold call.

Factors like energy level, tonality, and cadence of speech matter a lot in cold calling. You might want to record your cold calls and then listen to how you sound so that you’d have a better understanding of how you are coming across.

Just make sure to check whether that’s legal where you live because the laws regarding recording phone calls vary between jurisdictions.

Also, just as with cold email, it’s important to stay organized when you are making a lot of cold calls every day, which you can do with our customer relationship management (CRM) system!

Marketing Strategy #3: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is about getting other people to promote your product to their audiences and then paying them a commission from each sale.

It’s another affordable but time-consuming marketing strategy, though a big difference between affiliate marketing and cold outreach is that affiliate marketing can work well for B2C as well.

If you do enough customer research, you should already know who your dream customers are following online. Make a list of these influencers, thought leaders, and content creators, find their email addresses, and start cold emailing them.

For example, you can create a webinar funnel for your product, reach out to potential affiliates, and pitch them a partnership that looks like this:

1. They promote your webinar to their followers
2. You organize and host the event
3. You split the sales proceeds with them

That’s what our co-founder Russell Brunson did during our first year in business and it worked really well!

Also, once you have success with one affiliate partnership, you can use it as social proof in your cold emails and leverage it to get more affiliates on board!

Marketing Strategy #4: Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is super affordable and less time-consuming than cold outreach. However, it will likely take you a few years to gain momentum.

As such, this marketing strategy is perhaps best suited for people who have full-time jobs and are working on their startups on the side.

Pick a social media platform that allows you to play to your strengths, which is going to boil down to the choice between the text medium and the visual medium.

Then, create a content schedule that you can keep up with indefinitely. Ideally, you want to post at least once a day, but quality is more important than quantity.

You should also incentivize engagement by rewarding it. If someone leaves a comment under your post, like it and reply to it. That will serve as positive reinforcement.

Be warned that social media marketing can be demoralizing because, in the beginning, your follower growth is likely going to be extremely slow.

However, if you stick with your content schedule, keep the content quality high, and reward engagement, eventually, it will start accelerating!

Marketing Strategy #5: Video Marketing

Video marketing is similar to social media marketing in the sense that it will likely take you a few years to gain momentum. However, it is also both more time-consuming and more expensive.

That being said, a YouTube channel has more staying power than a social media following, which makes it a more valuable asset from a business perspective.

This marketing strategy is best suited for people who not only have full-time jobs and are working on their startups on the side but who also either have video production skills already or are genuinely interested in learning them.

You want to publish one YouTube video per week, target a keyword that your dream customers are searching for, and make sure that your video is better than all the other videos that are currently ranking for that keyword.

Production quality doesn’t matter much as long as the audio is decent so no need to overthink it. What’s important is content quality. Your video needs to meet the search intent of its target keyword.

Once you publish your video on YouTube, cut it up into shorts and then publish those shorts both on YouTube and on TikTok.

Video marketing can be demoralizing at first due to slow channel growth, but if you continue publishing one video per week and make sure that it’s good, your channel will eventually start gaining momentum.

Also, if you want to grow your channel faster, we recommend watching this video by Vanessa Lau where she shares a bunch of tips and tricks that can help you accelerate growth:

Marketing Strategy #6: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization can still work well in 2024.

However, we wouldn’t recommend this marketing strategy unless you either have previous experience with it or are targeting a niche where your competition is clueless about SEO. Why?

Because getting organic traffic from Google Search is becoming increasingly difficult and this trend is likely going to continue in the foreseeable future.

Here are some factors that you might want to consider:

• There are only 10 spots on the first page of search results.
• The top search result has an average click-through rate of 27.6% and is 10x more likely to get a click than the tenth search result.
• The top three search results get 54.4% of all clicks.

Realistically speaking, this means that in order to get organic search traffic, you need to not only reach the first page but also rank in the top three search results.

It’s unlikely that you will be able to do it by creating high-quality content alone since backlinks play an important role in search rankings. And link building can be difficult if you don’t have any connections.

Also, now that anyone can use large language models like ChatGPT to produce content at scale, the Internet is getting flooded with “AI slop”. This has sparked a lot of discussion on whether SEO as we know it is dead.

All this makes search engine optimization an uphill battle that may not be worth it, especially considering that you could be investing those resources into growing a social media following or building a YouTube channel instead!

Marketing Strategy #7: Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is the best marketing strategy for those who have more money than time.

It can work really well for startups that have a substantial war chest as well as for solopreneurs who have high-paying jobs and don’t mind spending money on growing their side hustles.

Of course, it’s still a skill: you’ll need to invest time in learning how to run ads on your platform of choice, testing various campaign ideas, optimizing your campaigns, etc.

The learning curve can be pretty steep but the feedback loop is fast. You’ll know whether your campaign is working or not within a few days.

Mastering paid advertising is empowering because it gives you the ability to drive traffic wherever you want, whenever you want, which you can then use to promote anything.

If you have no previous experience with it, Udemy is probably the best resource for learning the basics because it has paid advertising courses for all major social media platforms.

Wait until the next sale and you should be able to get a course for less than $20!

All of These Marketing Strategies Can Work Well!

First-time founders often spend too much time obsessing over which marketing strategy they should choose.

The truth is that all of the strategies listed above can work well if you are willing to put in the time to master them and have the patience to play the long game.

So pick one that makes the most sense considering the resources that you have and get to work!

Build a Sales Funnel

We believe that the best way to grow a startup is to build a sales funnel for it and then drive traffic to it with your marketing campaigns.

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a system designed to convert visitors into leads, leads into customers, and customers into repeat customers.

How to Build a Lead Magnet Funnel

A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to the potential customer in exchange for their email address.

The most straightforward sales funnel that you can build is the lead magnet funnel which consists of just two pages:

1. A squeeze page where you present your lead magnet and encourage the potential customer to type in their email address to get it.
2. A thank you page where you thank the potential customer and explain how to get access to your lead magnet.

Once you have their email address, you can use email marketing to pitch them your product.

For example, you could have a lead magnet that teaches them how to solve a specific problem and then use email marketing to pitch them your product as the best tool for implementing that solution.

This is what we do: we use our lead magnets to teach people how to build sales funnels and then pitch them our funnel builder software!

Once you have your sales funnel set up and ready to go, you can start driving traffic to it by using the aforementioned marketing strategies to promote your lead magnet.

Launch a Weekly Email Newsletter

Just because someone gave you their email address doesn’t necessarily mean that they are ready to buy your product. And that’s okay!

Continue building trust by providing free value via email and make sure that you stay top of mind with them.

The best way to do it is to launch a weekly newsletter. Send your subscribers an email that follows the same template every week on the same day at the same time.

Link roundup newsletter format can work really well for this. Share links to interesting content from around the web: blog articles, YouTube videos, podcast episodes, etc.

You can model it on Tim Ferriss’ “5-Bullet Friday” newsletter. Obviously, don’t copy his exact template. Instead, come up with something similar that makes sense for your industry.

Add a “P.S.” section at the end of every newsletter issue and use it to promote your product. Say, if you run a software startup, you can encourage people to sign up for your free trial.

Once you launch your newsletter, you can use it as a lead magnet and create a marketing campaign for it.

Follow the 50% Rule!

In his book “Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth”, Gabriel Weinberg discusses what he calls “The 50% Rule”.

The idea is simple: you should spend 50% of your time working on your product and the other 50% of your time working on customer acquisition.

We highly recommend adopting this approach, especially if you are someone who is great at creating products but not so great at marketing and selling them.

Otherwise, it’s easy to fall into a trap where you stay in your comfort zone, endlessly tinkering with your product, and then have to shut down your startup because it isn’t making any money!

Want to Learn How to Build Sales Funnels That CONVERT?

Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade.

He is now widely considered to be one of the top sales funnel experts in the world. Want to learn from him?

His best-selling book “DotCom Secrets” is the best place to start because it covers everything you need to know in order to build sales funnels that convert.

This book is available on Amazon where it has over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

But you can also get it directly from us for free…

All we ask is that you pay for shipping!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Get “DotCom Secrets” for FREE!

Thanks for reading Customer Acquisition Guide For Startups which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Imagine stepping away from the daily grind for a day, a week, or even a month… meanwhile, your website keeps generating revenue.

No more pausing paid ads and watching your income plummet to zero. 

Sounds like a dream, right?

But, let’s face it – that’s not where you are right now.

Many ClickFunnels users focus all their time on paid ads, increasing budgets, and hoping for increased profits. 

However, buying traffic is only one part of building an online business. If you focus only on ads, the constant need to manage campaigns keeps you stuck in the grind you hoped to escape.

This is where SEO comes in.

In this blog post, I’m going to show you how properly optimizing your website for organic traffic through SEO can be the key to unlocking a new stream of automated, passive income.

And the best part? 

We’ll go through 10 steps to help you see results within just three months.

Ready to dive in? Let’s go!

Why Paid Ads Take So Much of Your Time

It’s been challenging, hasn’t it? 

You’ve poured hours, days, and weeks into building a profitable business. If you’re like most people on ClickFunnels, growing your passion or side hustle to profitability has let you quit your regular 9-5 job.

It took relentless work to get everything right.

And yet, when you’ve got a profitable funnel and you try to scale it, something isn’t working like you expected. 

The need to constantly monitor your paid ads takes up all your time and energy. You thought that more ad spend, combined with your finely-tuned funnel, would finally be the moment when you could step off the gas.

But it feels like you’re back at square one.

Is it your funnel that’s the problem? Or is it something else?

You’re Not the Only One!

You’re not alone. 

This is a problem many online entrepreneurs face when relying solely on paid traffic. 

ClickFunnels co-founder Russell Brunson writes about this problem in his book Traffic Secrets. The introduction is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs like you avoid relying on one way of getting traffic to your funnels and offers.

At first, it seems like the answer is quick, predictable traffic. 

But breaking free of this cycle is what leads to what you’re looking for consistent, scalable passive income.

5 Reasons Why You Can’t Afford to Rely Only on Paid Traffic

The root issue here is a lack of diversified traffic sources. 

When all your traffic comes from paid ads, you’re at the mercy of rising ad costs, competition, and ad fatigue. 

You can’t rest for a minute when this is your sole source of income.

And without an alternative source – like organic traffic – you’ll always need to reinvest in ads just to keep your sales flowing. 

Here are 5 more reasons why relying on paid ads as your sole traffic source keeps you stuck:

• You’re competing for the same space: It’s very rare for a business to have no competitors online. But sometimes your product or message is so unique, that it’s easy for you to make sales at first. But sooner or later competition is going to come and you’ll be fighting to survive.
• Ad fatigue sets in: As people see your ads over and over, they’re less likely to engage, reducing your conversions. This forces you to constantly build new sales funnels and campaigns.
• Managing campaigns is a full-time job: Paid ads need ongoing attention. Whether it’s monitoring performance, tweaking bids, or updating creatives, paid traffic demands continuous input. Instead of focusing on growing your business or exploring other revenue streams, you’re trapped in a cycle of campaign management, taking up hours every day.
• No spend, no sales: With paid traffic, the moment you stop paying, the traffic dries up. This means there’s no residual benefit – each new sale comes at a direct cost. You’re stuck in a hamster wheel, where maintaining the same level of traffic requires ongoing investment, leaving no time to focus on more sustainable, organic growth strategies.
• You’re missing out on 53% of all trackable website traffic: According to Fit Small Business, 53% of all trackable website traffic comes from organic and unpaid traffic from search engines. If you’re only focusing on paid traffic, you’re never going to reach everyone in your market.

But there’s hope.

In the next section, we’ll explore how SEO can solve this problem and help you achieve the scalable, passive income you’re aiming for.

How SEO Unlocks Passive Income for Your Business

You’ve already experienced how relying on paid ads alone can drain your time and resources. 

But what if you could grow traffic and sales without constantly throwing more money into paid channels?

There are a number of alternatives you might consider:

• Rely on word-of-mouth marketing
• Boost your social media efforts
• Strengthen your email marketing game

These are all valid options, but there’s one approach that stands out as particularly powerful and scalable: SEO.

In fact, a SearchEngine Journal poll found that 49% of marketers say SEO provides the highest ROI of any marketing channel. This makes SEO not just another option, but one of the most reliable ways to drive long-term results.

Why Does SEO Work So Well?

Here are 5 main reasons why SEO is a game-changer for online businesses:

• Sustainable, long-term traffic: Unlike paid ads, which stop driving traffic the moment you turn them off, SEO allows you to build a consistent stream of visitors for years. According to Ahrefs, 60% of the pages in the top 10 search results are over 3 years old. This means you can create content once, rank well, and let it generate leads or sales for years to come.
• Intent-driven traffic: Unlike paid channels like Facebook Ads, where you’re interrupting users as they scroll, people come to Google because they have a problem to solve. They’re actively searching for solutions. Organic traffic is generally more qualified, leading to higher-quality clients and better conversions.
• Less need for constant funnel creation: With a well-optimized SEO strategy, you don’t need to keep reinventing the wheel with new funnels every month. Instead, you can create a strong, evergreen funnel that consistently pulls in organic traffic and continues working for you, month after month, without ongoing effort.
• Retargeting opportunities: Organic visitors from SEO can fuel highly effective retargeting campaigns. These visitors can be fed into new lookalike audiences on platforms like Facebook, cutting costs and improving ad performance by targeting people who’ve already shown interest in your business.
• Gain a competitive edge: Unlike paid ads, where bidding wars determine who’s seen first, SEO gives you more control. If you optimize correctly, you can secure top positions on search engines and get in front of potential clients without constantly outspending your competitors.

Now, imagine what your life would be like with a steady stream of passive traffic. 

Leads or sales come in regularly without you having to spend thousands more on ads. Your time is freed up to focus on growing your business, not just maintaining it.

Of course, the common objection is that SEO takes too long to work. 

That’s why we’ll break down below how to implement this SEO strategy effectively – within 3 months – so you can start seeing results sooner rather than later.

10 Steps to Optimize Your Website for SEO – and See Results in 3 Months

1. Manually Index Your Website On Google

Indexing your website on Google is the first step toward getting organic traffic. This process tells Google that your site exists, so it can start appearing in search results. Although Google can automatically crawl sites, manually indexing ensures that your new or updated pages are picked up quickly. Without this, even the best SEO strategies won’t help if Google doesn’t know about your site.

Key Tip

Create your account on Google Search Console and verify your website domain as soon as possible. The easiest way to do this is to set up a Google Analytics account first and connect that account to your website.

If adding a piece of code to your website doesn’t sound scary, then you can also verify using a meta tag.

2. Create a Coherent Site Structure

A clear site structure is vital for both users and search engines. It refers to how your content is organized, like arranging pages into categories and subcategories that make sense. If your site is confusing to navigate, search engines will struggle to rank your content. A well-structured site boosts user experience and helps Google understand which pages are most important.

Key Tip

Create a hierarchy where your homepage links to category pages, and those category pages link to detailed subpages.

3. Make Your Website Easily Crawlable

Crawlability is about making your website accessible to search engine bots so they can analyze and index your content. If search engines struggle to crawl your site, your rankings will suffer. Blocked pages or overly complex URLs can prevent crawlers from doing their job. The easier it is for bots to navigate your site, the better your chances of ranking higher.

Key Tip

Create a sitemap.xml file and submit this file to Google. Most website builders and platforms will auto-generate a sitemap file for you. With a little research, you should be able to find this file and submit it to Google Search Console.

4. Keyword Research

Keywords are the backbone of SEO. They’re the phrases people type into search engines when looking for information. Effective keyword research involves finding terms your target audience uses and incorporating them naturally into your content. Without proper keywords, your pages won’t show up for relevant searches, no matter how good the content is.

Key Tip

Focus on keywords that have high intent (i.e. the people searching for these terms are likely to buy your services) but have low competition. Usually, this means you’re looking for ‘long-tail keywords’. These terms are called ‘long tail’ because they’re over 3 words long.

For example, a ‘short tail’ keyword might be protein powder. This is a highly competitive keyword that will take years or a huge investment into SEO to rank high.

But… if you type into Google ‘protein powder for’ you find a range of long tail keywords like:

• protein powder for women
• protein powder for weight loss
• protein powder for kids

You can get even more specific by finding even longer tail keywords.

For example… if you type into Google ‘protein powder for women’ you find a range of longer long tail keywords like:

• protein powder for women weight loss
• protein powder for women over 50
• protein powder for women weight gain

The trade-off is this.

The longer the tail on your target keyword, the fewer the number of people searching for it. But you’ll find it much quicker to rank for these long-tail keywords – and if it’s very relevant to your products or services, you’ll be making sales within 3 months.

5. Meta Info

Meta information includes meta titles and descriptions, which show up in search results. These snippets play a big role in whether users click through to your site. Optimized meta info with relevant keywords can improve your click-through rate (CTR) and signal to search engines what your page is about, which can help you rank higher.

Key Tip

Keep your meta titles under 60 characters, and keep your meta descriptions between 150-160 characters. Aim to create a compelling message in the copy you write for these sections. The meta info exists to get people to click.

6. On-Page SEO

On-page SEO refers to optimizing individual pages on your website to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic. This includes elements like title tags, header tags, images, and internal linking. It’s essential because search engines use this information to understand what your page is about and rank it accordingly.

Key Tip

Let’s imagine you decided on targeting a long-tail keyword like ‘protein powder for women over 50’. You’d need to include this keyword in your meta info. But also include it in the main title of your webpage, and throughout the text. Make sure your main featured images are of protein powder. 

7. Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals measure the overall performance of your website, including load speed, interactivity, and visual stability. Google has made these metrics a ranking factor, so websites that offer a better user experience will rank higher. Ignoring this can lead to slower rankings despite good content.

Key Tip

Regularly test your Core Web Vitals using Google’s PageSpeed Insights and aim to improve any metrics flagged as poor. If you’re DIYing your website, you may need to recruit a developer to help you improve these metrics – it will be worth the investment.

8. Create Backlinks

Backlinks are links from other websites that point to yours. They are one of the strongest ranking factors in SEO because they signal trust and authority. High-quality backlinks can boost your domain authority and improve your overall rankings. The more backlinks you have from reputable sites, the better.

Key Tip

Focus on earning backlinks from relevant, high-authority websites, and avoid spammy link-building tactics. One of the best ways to do this is by collaborating with authorities in your space – think podcast hosts, influencers, suppliers of your products, news websites, and more. 

9. Create Topic Authority

Topic authority means that your site is recognized as an expert on a particular subject. This is achieved by consistently creating in-depth, valuable content that covers your niche comprehensively. Search engines prioritize websites that demonstrate expertise and authority in their field.

Key Tip

Remember the long tail keyword we looked at earlier about ‘protein powder for women over 50’? This kind of keyword is what’s called a ‘commercial’ keyword as the person searching for it is likely to buy something. 

A good way to create topic authority is to look for ‘informational’ keywords. You can find these in the ‘People Also Ask’ section on Google.

For example… you might consider writing blog posts on topics like:

• Should women over 50 take protein supplements?
• What is the best source of protein for women over 50?
• Should menopausal women use protein powder?

10. Create Brand Authority

Brand authority refers to how well-known and trusted your brand is within your industry. The more people trust your brand, the more search engines are likely to rank your website higher. Building brand authority involves creating high-quality content, engaging with your audience, and maintaining a strong online presence across multiple channels.

Key Tip

This last tip is probably the most important to consider. SEO is a long-term game. Although you can get short-term benefits, we’re building up your SEO game in order to create passive income for years to come.

So here’s the key tip: only invest in SEO when you’re certain about growing your specific business for the next 5 or more years.

If you spend 6 months on SEO only to change industries or product offerings, you’re not going to build the kind of brand authority that will keep you ranking high for the long run. If you’re not sure, then keep testing out your funnels with paid ads and save this article for the future.

But what if you’re ready to scale now?

Then implement all these 10 steps and you will begin to see traffic and, ideally, sales within three months!

Why ClickFunnels is the Critical Tool for Making Your SEO Strategy Work

Imagine this: you’ve implemented the entire SEO strategy outlined above – your site is indexed, the structure is solid, and traffic is finally rolling in.

Your content is attracting visitors.

Things are falling into place.

But, despite all the benefits of proper SEO optimization, you’re still not hitting the kinds of revenue figures that would sustain your business.

Organic traffic is flowing, yet you’re not making the sales you expected.

What’s happening?

The problem is that while SEO is great for driving traffic it doesn’t guarantee conversions.

This is where ClickFunnels steps in.

ClickFunnels was designed to solve this problem by converting traffic into sales in the most effective way: a funnel.

Here are five ways ClickFunnels works to ensure your organic traffic becomes paying customers:

1. Optimized Sales Funnels

• ClickFunnels helps you create optimized, step-by-step sales funnels that guide users from interest to purchase. It’s designed to maximize conversions, which is the missing piece when traffic alone isn’t enough.

2. Built-In A/B Testing

• With ClickFunnels, you can easily test different versions of landing pages and funnels to see what converts best, ensuring you’re constantly optimizing for results.

3. Automation

• ClickFunnels integrates with your email marketing and CRM tools, enabling you to automate follow-ups and nurture leads that don’t convert immediately, ensuring you’re capturing every potential sale.

4. Templates Designed for Conversion

• ClickFunnels offers pre-built templates that are specifically crafted to convert traffic into sales, taking the guesswork out of creating effective landing pages.

5. Upsell and Cross Sell Capabilities

• After a customer makes a purchase, ClickFunnels makes it easy to offer additional products or services through upsells and cross sells, increasing your average transaction value.

By using ClickFunnels, you ensure that all the benefits of your SEO strategy lead to real, tangible results.

Try Clickfunnels Free for 14 Days!

Final Thoughts: Build a Business That Works for You – Not the Other Way Around

Throughout this article, we’ve explored how SEO can be the key to sustainable, passive income. 

SEO lets you get higher-quality traffic to your site without any ongoing ad spend. 

We broke down a 10-step strategy for optimizing your website including site structure, keyword research, and building authority – all of which create a solid foundation for long-term success.

But even with a fully optimized SEO strategy, traffic alone isn’t enough. 

You need to convert those visitors into paying customers – and that’s where ClickFunnels comes in. 

By providing optimized sales funnels, built-in A/B testing, and automation features, ClickFunnels ensures that the traffic generated by SEO turns into real revenue. It’s designed to work with your SEO efforts, filling the critical gap between visitors and conversions.

Ultimately, the goal is to build a business that works for you in a way that’s scalable, automated and works without a daily grind.

Your business is supposed to free up your time – not drain it.

ClickFunnels provides the tools to make this possible, helping you build a funnel that converts and unlocks the passive income you’ve been working towards.

Try Clickfunnels Free for 14 Days!

Thanks for reading A Guide To SEO Optimization which appeared first on ClickFunnels.