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!

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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 Customer Acquisition Guide For Startups which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Looking to scale your startup?

Then you’re about to discover the most important element in every business’ success: the business model.

A business plan outlines a company’s goals and strategies. But a business model is how they’re going to monetize their products or services.

Arguably, the business model is more important.

How will you achieve your goals if you don’t know how you’ll make money?

By the end of this article, you’ll understand how to create a simple but effective business model for your startup.

And you’ll also know what to fix when it’s not working.

Why Startups Die Without a Business Model

A business model is the way a company makes money.

It explains who you’re selling to, what you’re offering, and how you’re getting paid.

The business model is one of the most crucial elements in any startup. Without a business model, you can’t make money. And without a good business model, you can’t scale.

For example, let’s say you’ve built a shiny new app.

You decide your main goal is to get to 1 million users without worrying about how you’ll actually make money. You hit your target but soon when you try to monetize the app you aren’t generating enough revenue to stay afloat.

This is not just a thought experiment.

Take a look at three startups that went viral but couldn’t find a good business model:

• Yo (2014-2016)

• Yo was a viral app that let users send the word “yo” to friends. It quickly gained popularity on Product Hunt, but the founder, Or Arbel, admitted his biggest mistake was “not charging customers from day one.” Once investors saw there was no revenue, funding dried up, and the app shut down.

• HQ Trivia (2017-2020)

• It attracted over 2.3 million players with live trivia games, but the founder, Rus Yusupov, admitted they were still “solidifying their business model” when investors pulled out. Despite its viral success, HQ Trivia couldn’t figure out how to make money and eventually had to close.

• Vine (2013-2016)

• The popular short-form video app, saw similar issues. Vine allowed users to create 6-second looping videos and grew quickly – it attracted popular creators like Logan Paul and Daniel Dobrik. But without a strong business model, it couldn’t monetize its user base. Twitter, which acquired Vine in 2012, shut it down in 2017 due to increasing competition and the inability to generate sustainable revenue.

In all of these cases, the lack of a well-defined business model led to failure.

No business model = no business.

Below, we’ll walk you through a simple business model framework to help you avoid this fate.

An Effective Business Model Template

Scaling a startup to millions of dollars in revenue is exciting, but it’s not easy. Managing that money flow can be complex.

But the essence of a business model is simple.

Here’s a proven business model template from The Value Engineers, incorporating elements from academic research on the topic. It breaks down into four key elements:

1. The value proposition: What are you offering? Who is it for? What makes your offer unique?
2. The value network: Who are the key partners involved in delivering this value?
3. The revenue model: How does the business make money? What cash flows are involved?
4. The delivery model: How is your product or service delivered to customers?

You don’t need to write a long business plan to answer these. Short, clear sentences will do the job.

At its core, these are the four main factors that determine the strength of your business model.

Below, we’ll look at how some of the world’s top companies have their business models condensed into this simple template.

10 of the Most Profitable Business Models for Startups

Now that we’ve seen the template, let’s put it into action.

Below, we’ll dive into some of the most profitable business models by looking at real-world examples of successful startups.

Although a business model is more than just a revenue model we’ll categorize the following examples based on how they charge customers.

Remember, there are always more factors at play.

1. ClickFunnels (Tiered Subscription Fee)

The Value Proposition:

• ClickFunnels offers an all-in-one platform for creating marketing funnels, websites, and sales pages.
• ClickFunnels offers tools for businesses to increase conversions and sales.
• ClickFunnels is part of an ecosystem that includes live seminars, resources, training, and niche-specific funnels to help users grow their businesses.
• ClickFunnels is constantly adding new features to help users stay ahead.

The Value Network:

• Entrepreneurs, marketers, and online businesses
• Payment processors
• Third-party integrations (e.g., email marketing tools, CRM platforms)
• Developers and tech partners

The Revenue Model:

• Tiered subscription fee: ClickFunnels offers a basic subscription for startups and a higher-priced tier with additional features for larger businesses.

The Delivery Model:

• Cloud-based platform accessible through the web, with integrations and tools for building and managing online sales funnels.

2. Netflix (Flat Subscription Fee)

The Value Proposition:

• Netflix offers global on-demand video streaming at any place, any time, on any device
• Netflix has a large content library with original high–quality content
• Netflix provides personalized recommendations

The Value Network:

• Content producers
• UP holders
• Rights clearing organizations
• Investors
• Competitors

The Revenue Model:

• Flat monthly subscription fee: Netflix originally charged a flat monthly fee, though they introduced a tiered structure that includes ad-free viewing and the ability to share the subscription with extra members. This was to cut down on password sharing.

The Delivery Model:

• Streaming

3. Amazon Web Services (AWS) (Pay-Per-Use)

The Value Proposition:

• AWS offers cloud computing services like storage, databases, and machine learning on a pay-as-you-go basis
• Flexible, scalable, and cost-effective for businesses of all sizes
• High reliability and security for critical infrastructure

The Value Network:

• Developers and tech companies
• Hardware and software vendors
• Data centers
• Service integrators and consulting partners
• Global regulatory authorities (for data compliance)

The Revenue Model:

• Pay-per-use model: customers are charged based on their usage of computing resources (e.g., storage, processing power, data transfers).

The Delivery Model:

• Cloud-based delivery through a web-based platform, accessible globally

4. Facebook (Advertising-Based)

The Value Proposition:

• Facebook offers a free social media platform for connecting with friends, family and communities.
• Tools for businesses to reach and engage with their target audience through targeted advertising.
• Personalized user experience based on interests, activities, and behaviors.

The Value Network:

• Users
• Advertisers (businesses targeting specific demographics)
• Content creators (media companies, influencers)
• Developers (third-party apps and services integrated with Facebook)

The Revenue Model:

• Free for users: Facebook generates revenue through advertisers who pay for targeted ads.

The Delivery Model:

• Social media platform accessible via apps and web browsers

5. Airbnb (Commission-Based)

The Value Proposition:

• Airbnb provides a platform for people to list, discover, and book accommodations globally.
• Unique and personalized stays are often cheaper than hotels.
• Hosts can earn money by renting out their homes or spare rooms.

The Value Network:

• Hosts (property owners)
• Guests (travelers)
• Local governments (compliance and regulations)
• Insurance companies
• Payment processors

The Revenue Model:

• Commission-based: Airbnb takes a percentage from both the host and the guest for each booking.

The Delivery Model:

• Marketplace platform available via apps and the web, facilitating bookings and payments.

6. PayPal (Transaction Fee)

The Value Proposition:

• PayPal offers a secure and easy way for individuals and businesses to send and receive payments online.
• International payment transfers with currency conversion.
• Fraud protection and buyer/seller security guarantees.

The Value Network:

• Banks and financial institutions
• Merchants (e-commerce platforms, individual sellers)
• Consumers
• Regulatory bodies
• Developers (for PayPal integrations in websites and apps)

The Revenue Model:

• PayPal charges a percentage-based transaction fee to merchants for each sale processed through its platform.

The Delivery Model:

• Online payment platform integrated into e-commerce sites and apps, with a web and mobile interface for users.

7. Etsy (Marketplace/Platform Fee)

The Value Proposition:

• Etsy offers a marketplace for creative entrepreneurs to sell handmade, vintage, and unique items globally.
• Easy-to-use platform for small businesses to reach a large audience.
• Buyers get access to one-of-a-kind products with a personal touch.

The Value Network:

• Sellers (artists, craftsmen, vintage item collectors)
• Buyers
• Payment processors
• Logistics companies (shipping and delivery)
• Community of creators and buyers

The Revenue Model:

• Etsy charges a listing fee to sellers and takes a commission (transaction fee) when an item is sold.

The Delivery Model:

• Marketplace platform available via website and apps, with integrated payment and shipping solutions.

8. Microsoft (Licensing)

The Value Proposition:

• Microsoft offers software and tools, like Windows and Microsoft Office, to businesses and individuals.
• Productivity software for personal, educational, and business use.
• Frequent updates and support for users, ensuring security and new features.

The Value Network:

• Corporate customers and consumers
• Software developers and hardware manufacturers (PC and device makers)
• Channel partners (resellers, system integrators)
• Competitors (Google, Apple, etc.)

The Revenue Model:

• Licensing model: Microsoft charges per-user or per-device licensing fees for its software.

The Delivery Model:

• Software is delivered as downloads or pre-installed on devices, with subscriptions available for cloud-based versions like Microsoft 365.

9. Amazon Associates (Affiliate Marketing)

The Value Proposition:

• Amazon Associates offers a way for individuals and businesses to earn money by promoting Amazon products through affiliate links.
• Affiliates earn a commission on every sale generated through their unique referral links.
• Access to a vast product catalog and easy-to-use link-building tools.

The Value Network:

• Affiliates (bloggers, websites, social media influencers)
• Amazon (retailer)
• Consumers (those purchasing products)
• Merchants (selling products on Amazon)

The Revenue Model:

• Commission-based: Amazon pays affiliates a percentage of sales made through their referral links.

The Delivery Model:

• Affiliate programs are managed online through Amazon’s dashboard, with tracking and reporting tools available for affiliates.

10. Spotify (Freemium)

The Value Proposition:

• Spotify offers music streaming anytime, anywhere on any device.
• Free access to a vast library of music with ads.
• Premium subscribers get ad-free listening, offline playback, and better sound quality.
• Personalized playlists and recommendations based on user preferences.

The Value Network:

• Music creators and record labels
• Advertisers (for free users)
• Payment processors (for premium subscriptions)
• Hardware partners (e.g., smart speakers, mobile devices)
• Competitors (Apple Music, Tidal, YouTube Music)

The Revenue Model:

• Freemium model: free users with ads and premium users with a monthly subscription fee.

The Delivery Model:

• Streaming through apps on mobile, desktop, smart speakers, and other connected devices.

How Flexible Should You Be With Your Business Model?

If you’re reading this, you’re likely still figuring out your business model.

So, here’s the big question: After creating your business model, how strictly should you stick to it?

There are strong opinions on both sides of this debate.

• Flexible Business Models – Some argue that a business model will “figure itself out” as you grow. If you get too caught up in the details, you might never get to making actual revenue. For example, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams admitted that he didn’t know how to make money from Twitter even three years after its launch. Yet, he didn’t seem too worried. He focused more on user engagement and satisfaction. Despite struggling with its revenue model, Twitter was still bought by Elon Musk for $44 billion in 2022.
• Fixed Business Models – On the other hand, some insist that having a rock-solid business model is essential from day one. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, famously sketched out Amazon’s business plan and model during a road trip. He planned out every detail, including the decision to sell books via a marketplace model. This structure was used in Amazon’s early days and even during its IPO. Only after validating that business model did Bezos begin expanding Amazon’s offerings.

So, which approach is right? 

The truth is, that the best strategy is to have a business model but stay flexible. 

Be prepared to pivot if it’s not working. Some of the world’s most successful startups pivoted – even after getting funding and investment.

How ClickFunnels Helps Startups Like You Stay Flexible

ClickFunnels is an ideal tool for startups that need flexibility.

It allows you to test different business models without needing expensive developers or infrastructure changes.

Here’s how:

1. Rapid Funnel Creation: Quickly set up different sales funnels to test various revenue models.
2. A/B Testing: Easily run A/B tests to see what type of offers or pricing models work best.
3. Customizable Payment Options: You can easily switch between subscription, one-time payments, or pay-per-use models.
4. Integrated Email Marketing: Seamlessly update your marketing based on changes to your model and funnel.
5. Analytics Dashboard: Track real-time data to measure how successful each business model experiment is.

With ClickFunnels, startups can adjust, tweak, and refine their approach without major disruptions, making it perfect for testing new business models.

Not sure if it’s for you yet?

Don’t worry, you can take advantage of our introductory offer to try ClickFunnels free for 14 days.

Try ClickFunnels for Free!

Final Thoughts

Building a startup without a business model is like driving blindfolded. You might get somewhere, but it’s not likely where you want to be.

A business model gives you direction, focus, and, most importantly, a way to make money.

We’ve walked you through the TVE business model template, which is simple but powerful. 

We also explored examples of how companies like Spotify, Airbnb, and PayPal fit into this template. Each business model was tailored to fit their revenue strategies and delivery methods.

Finally, we made a compelling case for using ClickFunnels to help your startup remain flexible and adaptive. 

It offers tools like rapid funnel creation, A/B testing, and a customizable payment system, which are essential when pivoting your business model.

Remember, a business model isn’t set in stone. 

The most successful businesses adjust and refine their models until they find what works. And with tools like ClickFunnels, you can easily make those adjustments without losing momentum.

Try ClickFunnels for Free!

Thanks for reading How To Build An Effective Business Model For Startups which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Want to launch a startup?

It can be helpful to think about it in terms of the skill stack that you will need in order to get it off the ground. 

That’s why today we want to discuss the three most crucial skills: creating products, marketing them and selling them. If you can master them, you’ll have a much better chance of success. 

Of course, you don’t necessarily need to have all three skills yourself. You can also bring in a co-founder. Alternatively, you can raise funding and use that money to build a team. Or you can do both!

However, navigating all that may prove to be more headache than it’s worth, especially if you don’t have any previous business experience and therefore don’t know what you’re doing.

Frankly, it’s probably best to learn how to do everything yourself so that you could maintain 100% equity in your business. 

That’s why in this article we are going to assume that it’s just you in the beginning and focus on what you need to make it work as a solopreneur. 

Once you start generating revenue, you can reinvest that money in your startup by hiring employees, outsourcing to freelancers, and working with agencies!

Skill #1: Creating Products

Hardware Startups vs. Software Startups

Startups tend to fall into one of these two categories:

1. Hardware startups
2. Software startups

Focusing on hardware is probably out of the question unless you are either independently wealthy or able to raise funding.

This means that you are left with software. Fortunately, it’s possible to build software products entirely on your own, in your free time, with very little money.

Meet Indie Hackers

We would argue that bootstrapping software startups is the best path for aspiring entrepreneurs because the downside is limited but the upside isn’t. 

This is known as “indie hacking” and the indie hacker scene has produced countless success stories over the last decade or so.

Its superstar is the Dutch entrepreneur Pieter Levels.

He started out back in 2014 with his “12 Startups in 12 Months” challenge. 

His 4th product, Nomad List, took off and his 7th product, Remote OK, was also a success. It appears that he stopped the challenge at that point to focus on growing these two startups.

Since then, he has shipped more than 70 products, the vast majority of which have failed.

However, the ones that succeeded are generating more than $400k in total monthly revenue at the time of writing. That adds up to more than $4.8M in total annual revenue!

Meanwhile, the most impressive recent story in this scene is arguably that of Marc Louvion, a French entrepreneur who:

• Got fired in 2021
• Built 21 products in 2 years
• Went from zero to $65k in monthly revenue in those same 2 years

In August 2024, Marc crossed the $1M in total revenue milestone!

Then there’s the story of Andrey Azimov, a Ukrainian entrepreneur who quit his job in 2018 and moved to Southeast Asia to build software products. His goal was to reach $1,000 in monthly recurring revenue in one year.

The reason he chose that number as his target was that $1k per month was enough to pay for his living expenses.

He knew that if he could consistently make that much money with his software, he would be able to continue pursuing his entrepreneurial dreams. Meanwhile, failure meant having to go home and get a job.

Andrey called this challenge his “Hardcore Year”. Throughout that year, he built 7 apps, one of which was acquired. He reached his goal in 14 months and has been a full-time solopreneur ever since!

We shared these three success stories to show you what’s possible. You can find more inspiration on the Indie Hackers podcast!

What Skills do You Need to Create SaaS Products?

If you want to build SaaS products that generate recurring monthly revenue, you will need to learn web development.

There are a ton of great resources out there, but if we had to choose one, it would probably be the online learning platform Udemy. 

We recommend waiting for one of Udemy’s sales and getting these web development courses, which should cost you less than $100 in total:

• “The Complete Web Development Bootcamp for 2024” by Angela Yu
• “The Web Developer Bootcamp 2024” by Colt Steele
• HTML and CSS course + Javascript course by Jonas Schmedtmann

Sometimes, people start a web development course, struggle to keep up with it, and then come to the conclusion that they must be terrible at coding and give up.

However, when that happens, it’s often because the teaching style of that particular instructor simply doesn’t work for them.

That’s why you want to check out several different courses that cover the basics of web development before committing to one of them.

Go through the first few lessons of each course, see which instructor’s teaching style resonates the most with you and then focus on completing their course.

You will also need to learn user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design. Here are some of the most popular Udemy courses:

• “Complete Web & Mobile Designer” by Andrei Neagoie and Daniel Schifano
• “Figma UI UX Design Essentials” by Daniel Walter Scott
• “DESIGN RULES: Principles + Practices for Great UI Design” by Joe Natoli

Again, we recommend getting all of them on sale, so that you could see which instructor’s teaching style works best for you.

Make sure to read Udemy’s refund policy if you intend to request a refund for some of the courses because there are some restrictions.

How to Ship Software Products FAST

Something that successful indie hackers tend to have in common is that they ship their software products extremely fast. 

For example, Pieter Levels has shipped more than 70 products in the last decade, Marc Louvion shipped 21 in 2 years and Andrey Azimov shipped 7 in 14 months. But how did they do it?

Ultimately, you need to learn to build minimum viable products (MVPs), which can be a challenge if you are a perfectionist.

Pieter Levels explains how to do it in his book “Make”. In our view, it’s the best resource for aspiring indie hackers!

Skill #2: Marketing Products

Marketing is how you let your dream customers know that your product exists. So where should you start?

First, we recommend reading Paul Graham’s essay “Do Things That Don’t Scale” because it will provide some perspective.

Graham is a co-founder of Y-Combinator, one of the best-known startup accelerators in the world. In his essay, he uses startups that he invested in as examples, but the same principles apply to indie startups as well.

His main point is that if you want to get your startup off the ground, you need to be prepared to do things that don’t scale.

This stands in stark contrast with the wantrepreneurial obsession with “systems”, “processes” and “SOPs”. Don’t waste time worrying about scaling when there’s nothing to scale yet!

With that out of the way, here are three marketing strategies that you might want to consider:

Cold Email

If you don’t have much money but do have a lot of free time, cold email can be a great way to acquire your first users, especially if you sell B2B software. 

You can learn the basics by reading this cold email overview by Justin McGill.

Justin, who is the founder of LeadFuze, used this marketing strategy to grow his startup from zero to $30k in monthly recurring revenue in just one year!

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is another great way to promote your product when you can’t afford to spend money on ads but have some free time. 

In the indie hacker scene, there’s a “build in public” trend where founders are documenting their entrepreneurial journeys on Twitter, revenue numbers included.

For example, Pieter Levels has over half a million followers at the time of writing. He built that following primarily by tweeting about the stuff he’s working on. 

However, it’s important to remember that he started ten years ago when this niche was less crowded. This strategy is not as effective as it used to be. 

Copycats are also a legitimate concern. Some people will shamelessly clone your product if they see that your startup is doing well. 

You would probably be better off creating content that is targeted towards your dream customers as opposed to fellow indie hackers.

Also, keep in mind that you don’t need a huge following to grow your business, you just need to get the attention of people who might be willing to pay for your product and earn their trust.

And if you regularly post content that provides value to those people, eventually the algorithm will start recommending your profile to them, which will make everything much easier. 

Consider watching this video by our friend Alex Hormozi where he shares a story about an entrepreneur who makes nearly $1M a year in profit with less than 6,000 Instagram followers:

Paid Advertising

Finally, if you have more money than time, marketing your product with paid advertising might be the way to go. 

Think about whether it makes the most sense to advertise on Google, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Then, wait for a Udemy sale and buy a course that teaches how to run ads on your chosen platform.

Go through that course to learn the basics and then start running, optimizing, and scaling ad campaigns. 

Just know that you’ll inevitably end up burning money until you figure out how to run ads profitably. Consider it a tuition fee!

Skill #3: Selling Products

Getting your dream customers’ attention is not enough. You will also need to persuade them to buy your product. 

That can be broken down into these two skills:

Sales

Sales are about talking to potential customers directly, whether in person, on the phone, or via Zoom calls. 

If you don’t have any previous sales experience, that will probably feel super awkward at first, especially if you are not a “people person”. 

It might be tempting to tell yourself that you don’t need to study sales because nowadays you can simply learn copywriting instead.

However, as Paul Graham explains in his aforementioned essay “Do Things That Don’t Scale”, startup founders often need to acquire their first users manually.

For example, Airbnb founders literally went door to door in New York to recruit hosts for their platform. 

So you probably do need to learn how to sell, especially if you want to give yourself the best chance at success.

 Patrick Dang’s videos are a good place to start. Here’s one on SaaS sales:

Also, you might want to check out “Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-to-Market Handbook” by Peter Kazanjy, the founder of Atrium. 

This book covers selling as a founder in the early stages of your startup, including going from zero to your first 30 users!

Copywriting

Copywriting is about persuasion via the written word.

Our co-founder Russell Brunson has used sales funnels to grow ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue. 

You’d think that he’d say that it was sales funnels that made him rich, right? Wrong!

“Copywriting is what made me rich…

It has more impact on how much money you make with your company than anything else,” explains Russell.

You can have the best product in the world but if you can’t convey its value to your dream customers, you will lose out to competitors with inferior products but better copy. Sad but true. 

That’s why, if you are serious about building a business, you need to learn copywriting. In fact, we would argue that it’s the most important entrepreneurial skill of them all!

Get “Copywriting Secrets” for FREE!

Want to Learn How to Write Copy That CONVERTS?

Our friend Jim Edwards wrote a best-selling book “Copywriting Secrets” for busy entrepreneurs just like you.

In this book, he covers everything you need to know in order to start writing copy that CONVERTS. 

“Copywriting Secrets” is available on Amazon where it has over 1,800 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

But you can also get it directly from Jim for free.

All he asks is that you cover the shipping!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Get “Copywriting Secrets” for FREE!

Thanks for reading Startup’s – Key Skills You Need To Master which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Have a business idea that you’re dying to get out into the world…

… but don’t know where to start? 

Russell Brunson’s Your First Funnel Challenge is a 5-day online boot camp where you’ll launch your first (or next) business idea side-by-side with real-world entrepreneurs… without taking on a mountain of debt or getting stuck in “analysis paralysis”. 

Here’s everything you need to know.

The Gameplan

Here’s the 5-day game plan…

Day 1 – Funnel Hacking

Each day is jam-packed with lessons to learn and actions to take.

Day 1 is no exception.

We’re going to unveil the most successful types of sales funnels in the online world today (this is changing all the time… so you’ll learn something new even if you’re uber familiar with sales funnels).

We’ll then help you determine which of these killer funnels is best for your specific business idea (whether it’s in finance, eComm, coaching, info products, biz opp, or some other niche) — and you’ll “ethically steal” the perfect funnel for your own purposes.

Additionally, you’re going to work with two superheroes in the funnel building world on Day 1.

Jamie Cross went from selling her soap at local farmer’s markets to building an online eCommerce empire, entirely bootstrapped — she even joined our Two Comma Club.

Stacey & Paul Martino are saving marriages with coaching funnels. And you’re going to learn exactly how they maintain a steady stream of high-paying clients (this is critical info for coaches).

Join The ‘Your First Funnel’ Challenge!

Day 2 – Your First Funnel

On Day 2, we’re going to show you the first funnel that every business (no matter your industry) should start with. And then we’re going to plug stuff into your funnels so it’s ready to go live ASAP.

We’re making it super simple… so you can take action and get real results.

We’ll also talk about how you can craft irresistible headlines and the five core follow-up emails that every funnel requires on the back end (you can write all of them in a single sitting).

Plus, you’re going to work with a few more amazing people on Day 2.

Garret J. White is a legend in the ClickFunnels community. He’s our most requested speaker by far because he spits fire whenever he takes the stage. On Day 2, Garret will teach you how he uses funnels to transform men’s lives all around the world.

Annie Grace has built an online empire helping people overcome their dependence on alcohol. On Day 2, she’s going to show the “hourglass funnel” she uses to attract her dream customers… so she doesn’t have to chase them.

Join The ‘Your First Funnel’ Challenge!

Day 3 – Hook, Story, Offer

Day 3 is a doozy.

We’re going to show you the secret behind how ClickFunnels went from a simple idea inside of Russell’s head… to the multi-million $$$ empire it is today.

It’s all about storytelling.

We’ll teach you how to find your unique hook, tell a compelling story that resonates with your core audience, and position your offer so that you can make as many sales as possible.

You’ll get to work with…

Stephen J. Larsen started as a freelance funnel builder learning the ropes. Now he’s got a massive funnel-building empire. He’s going to teach you how to transform your funnel-building skills(that you learned the previous days) into a massive profit-generating opportunity.

Kristine Mirelle (a.k.a. the “music hustler”) is a professional musician, 2-Comma Club Winner, and founder of Laugh My Ads Off. She teaches businesses how to create hilarious ads that grab attention and get conversions. And that’s what she’s going to show YOU how to do.

Join The ‘Your First Funnel’ Challenge!

Day 4 – Irresistible Ads

What’s a killer funnel without high-quality traffic?

On Day 4, we’re giving your our most closely held secrets about how to drive hordes of dream customers to your funnel.

You’ll unearth a “honey hole” of golden customers who are LOOKING for your offer, learn how to bring in customers like clockwork, and create high-converting, low-cost ads.

Plus, you’re going to work alongside…

Stephen J. Larsen started as a freelance funnel builder learning the ropes. Now he’s got a massive funnel-building empire. He’s going to teach you how to transform your funnel-building skills(that you learned the previous days) into a massive profit-generating opportunity.

Eileen Wilder had no idea what a funnel was just two years ago… and now she’s a multiple 2-Comma Club Winner! She’s going to teach you how ANYONE can add a virtual high ticket offer to their funnel for a MASSIVE boost in sales!

Join The ‘Your First Funnel’ Challenge!

Day 5 – DO it NOW!

Now we’re crossing the finish line.

On Day 5, we’ll help you eliminate your limiting beliefs, teach you how to stack your offer to increase your average order value, and tell you a story that will inspire you to keep taking action.

You’re going to hear from…

Daymond John, shark tank legend, is going to go LIVE and share his own story on how he “bootstrapped” his way to success!

Join The ‘Your First Funnel’ Challenge!

Here’s What to Expect From Your First Funnel Challenge 

So… what is this challenge going to require of you? What results can you expect to get from it?

Here’s what you can expect.

Your Mind is a Sponge…

You’re going to be taking in a LOT of information over these 5 days. You’ll be learning from some of the best minds in the entrepreneurial world… and it’s important to attend every session ready to take notes!

Take Massive Action…

You’ll need to put in the work to get results from this challenge. But don’t worry, we’ll be there with you every step of the way to help you take massive action and get results!

Get Everything You Need…

You’re going to get everything you need to build and bootstrap your business idea from scratch. The know-how, the mindset, the tools, and tactics — all of it, from real-world entrepreneurs who are living the life you want to live!

Funnel Hackers UNITE…

By signing up for this challenge, you’re going to be joining a community of entrepreneurs who are committed to taking their businesses to the next level.

Change Your Life…

It might sound cliche… but this challenge has the potential to change the trajectory of your life. More freedom. More impact. More fun making money the way you want to make money. We’ve seen it happen time and time again, and we know it can happen for you, too!

Who is Your First Funnel Challenge for? 

The Your First Funnel Challenge is for anyone who wants to build a business online.

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur with an idea for a business, but you don’t know how to get started… this challenge is for you.

If you’re struggling to get traction with your online business, and you’re looking for a way to get things moving in the right direction… this challenge is for you.

If you’re fed up with your 9-to-5 job and you’re ready to take control of your life and your income… this challenge is for you.

The Your First Funnel Challenge is for anyone who is ready to take their business (or sapling idea) to the next level. 

If that’s you, then sign up!

Who is Your First Funnel Challenge NOT for?

If you’re the type of person who likes to sit on the sidelines and watch others take action… this challenge is NOT for you. 

If you’re not willing to put in the work to see results… this challenge is NOT for you. 

The Your First Funnel Challenge is NOT for people who are not ready to change their lives. 

If you’re happy with where you’re at in life, and you don’t want to rock the boat… this challenge is NOT for you. 

But if you’re ready for a change, and you’re ready to take massive action to see results… then sign up for the challenge now!

How Long is Your First Funnel Challenge? 

5 days. 1 hour each day.

Why?

Because we didn’t leave any fat on the bone (most long challenges could easily be cut down to less if they focused on action and execution).

It’s going to be an exciting and thrilling five days.

Make sure you set aside the necessary time and energy to take action!

But Wait! There’s More…

You know us…

At ClickFunnels, we love to blow your socks off with mind-boggling bonuses. We want to make the Your First Funnel Challenge an absolute no-brainer, value bomb.

So…

Here’s the other cool stuff you’re going to get!

Bonus #1: The World’s Greatest Funnel Builders

What if you got to sit at the feet of some of the world’s greatest funnel builders as they told you their deepest secrets of success?

That alone would be worth tens of thousands of dollars!

Dean Graziosi

Dean Graziosi is a multiple New York Times bestselling author, entrepreneur, trainer, and infomercial legend! For over 25 years, Dean has dedicated his life to helping entrepreneurs create the life and freedom they crave.

Grant Cardone

Grant Cardone is a best-selling author of The 10X Rule and If You’re Not First, You’re Last, as well as a marketing trainer, entrepreneur, and real estate mogul.

Grant will show you how to apply the 10X Rule to every part of your life so you can live a life of freedom, happiness, and wealth!

Myron Golden

Myron Golden, Ph.D. is one of the most in-demand speakers and trainers in sales, marketing, and business development in the world— helping men and women get what they’re actually worth!

Todd Brown

One of the top funnel builders and marketing legends in the world, Todd Brown has worked and consulted with titans of direct response marketing, including businesses such as Agora. 

He’ll be teaching how to develop YOUR “big idea” so you, your brand, and your offer can stand out even in a saturated market!

Russell Brunson

Hey, that’s our founder! Now that you have a funnel live, Russell will show you the “One Funnel Away” process that can help take your funnel to the next level and potentially break through the 1 MM in sales and achieve a 2-Comma Club Award at Funnel Hacking LIVE!

Bonus #2: No Product? No Problem

Wish you could build a baller business… but don’t have a great product idea?

This bonus is going to solve that for you.

Attend this exclusive one-day event where you’ll learn the secrets behind how serial entrepreneurs come up with an endless stream of great business ideas. Specifically, you’ll learn from…

Keala Kanae & Anthony Morrison

Keala Kanae and Anthony Morrison are two of our top ClickFunnels super affiliates who have won multiple 2-Comma Club Awards and continue to generate thousands ClickFunnels trials per day.

They’ll show you how they use funnels to promote other people’s products for big, fat commissions, and how you can ethically steal their secrets for your own funnel and start producing sales practically overnight!

Bonus #3: Your Winning Funnel

Every industry is different. Every niche is different. Every offer is different.

So how would you like to get THE BEST funnel that works for your specific business idea?

That’s what we’re going to give you — all you have to do is plug in your copy and offer, then flip the switch.

We invited the TOP EXPERTS of their field to show us the exact funnel that CRUSHES it for them.

And the crazy part is, they’re going to GIVE YOU their highest performing funnels.

Here’s the line-up of funnel experts coming to teach…

Jeff Walker

Jeff Walker is the KING of the product launch funnel. He’ll show you the “dos and don’ts” of this type of funnel, and how to win big every time you launch a new product.

Trey Lewellyn

Trey Lewellyn is a Jedi Master when it comes to high-converting eComm funnels… and he rarely allows anyone to see what goes on behind closed doors. He’ll show us how he uses advertorials to test and find winning offers… and when it’s time to scale scale scale!

Pedro Adao

Pedro Adao is an 8-figure business owner and the #1 go-to industry expert when it comes to “challenge funnels.” He’ll show you how to “niche down” and create a challenge funnel that attracts YOUR TARGET BUYERS to your offer!

Dan Henry

Dan Henry is a multiple 2-Comma Club Award winner and 8-figure business owner that has helped THOUSANDS of everyday entrepreneurs charge more!!! He’ll be showing you how to easily create high-converting webinar funnels.

Gabe Schillinger

Gabe Schillinger is a 2-Comma Club Award winner and music producer that’s worked with names like Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar. He’ll show you how to expertly craft contest funnels to grow your business, no matter the type of business you’re in!

Stephen J. Larsen

Stephen Larsen will join us once again, but this time, he’ll show you how to build an affiliate/networking marketing funnel that can help scale your business to the moon! (THIS type of funnel is level 10 critical to learn if you want to go from 0 to FAT STACKS OF GREEN in as little time as possible!!)

Perry Belcher

Perry Belcher is an 8-figure business owner, investor, coach, trainer, consultant, and marketing LEGEND! He’ll show you how to use “trip-wire funnels” to gain an AVALANCHE of ready-to-buy customers!

How Much Does the Your First Funnel Challenge Cost?

The Your First Funnel Challenge is only $47. We don’t want anything to stand in your way of having a successful funnel business, so we’re giving you access to everything you need to get started.

What’s the catch? 

Well, you are going to have to put in the work to watch the lessons and do the homework if you want to see results — there’s no way around it. 

Also, there’s an add-on option where you can buy a VIP seat for $29. This gives you recordings, a coach to help you implement, answer your questions, and NOT procrastinate. It’s a fantastic deal if you want the upgrade… (usually coaching like this costs hundreds)… we probably should have charged more. But, hey, we’re here to see you succeed! And we know that this will give you your best shot.

Awesome results require awesome action. 

But we’ll be there with you every step of the way, cheering you on and supporting you as you build the business (and life) of your dreams. 

So what are you waiting for?

Join The ‘Your First Funnel’ Challenge!

Thanks for reading What Is The Your First Funnel Challenge? which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Thinking about trying your hand at entrepreneurship?

Today we are going to share a ten-step process that you can follow to get your first business off the ground!

Planning is Procrastination!

Look:

Some planning can be helpful. 

However, aspiring entrepreneurs often end up stuck in analysis paralysis and waste weeks, months, or even years trying to come up with a perfect business strategy. 

Moreover, they tend to feel that they are being productive by doing research, reading books, and watching YouTube videos when in reality they haven’t moved even one step closer to realizing their entrepreneurial dreams. 

We believe that the main difference between “wantrepreneurs” and entrepreneurs is that the latter group has an action bias, which is a tendency to favor action over inaction. And the more successful the entrepreneur, the stronger their action bias. 

The truth is that building a business is not that complicated. You need an offer, a way to reach your target audience, and a persuasive sales pitch. That’s it.

So don’t fall into this trap of endless planning because it’s just a form of procrastination. 

Sure, do a little bit of research, maybe over the weekend. Then start selling something and see what happens!

Now, with all that out of the way, here’s a ten-step process that you can follow:

Step #1: Sort Out the Legal Stuff

Before you do anything else, make sure that you can legally operate a business in your area. 

For example, if you want to open a business in the United States, check out the U.S. Small Business Administration website, your state and local government websites, and the IRS website. 

These resources should provide all the information that you need. However, if you can afford it, it might also be a good idea to consult a lawyer just in case.

Also, while you can do your own books, it’s better to outsource them to a professional, so don’t hesitate to hire an accountant if you have the money for it. 

If you intend to serve an international audience, you should also research the laws in the regions that you want to target and make sure that your company is compliant with them.

For example, if you are based in the United States but want to sell your products and services in Europe, your business will need to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation.

Step #2: Limit Your Losses

Survivorship Bias

In popular culture, successful entrepreneurs are often portrayed as mad geniuses who take crazy risks and win big. And sure, there are some famous people who fit that description, but they are the exception, not the rule.

Something to keep in mind here is the survivorship bias: when it comes to risk-taking, we hear the stories of people whose wild gambles paid off, while the stories of those who crashed and burned fade into oblivion.

This can severely distort our perception of the role that risk-taking plays in business success and lead to making bad decisions.

Are Entrepreneurs Risk-Tolerant or Risk-Averse?

According to our observations, entrepreneurs who manage to build successful businesses tend to be more risk-tolerant than the average person, but they are also way more risk-averse than the popular culture would have you believe. 

They don’t quit their jobs, they don’t take out massive loans and they don’t bet the farm. Instead, they live below their means, put some money into savings every month, and work on their businesses on the side. 

Then, once they reach the point where the income from their businesses can cover their living expenses, they switch to working on their companies full-time. Typically, they build up a substantial emergency fund before taking the leap. 

Sometimes, they even do freelancing here and there or get gig economy jobs like delivering food just to have a source of income that will remain unaffected should the business revenue dry up for some reason!

Be Prepared for the Worst Case Scenario

We recommend taking an approach similar to what we just described because it will enable you to limit your losses.

Remember that in the United States, approximately 1 in 5 small businesses fail within a year. You need to be prepared for that possibility because delusional optimism can get you in serious trouble.

If you keep your job and start a side hustle that requires minimal upfront investment and has low maintenance expenses, the main risk is the opportunity costs related to the time that you put into it.

For example, if you work on your business in the evenings and during the weekends for an entire year, that’s a lot of time that you could have otherwise spent with your family and friends, pursuing hobbies or investing in your career.

Consequently, if your company fails despite your efforts, you might feel that you missed out on all that for nothing. That can be depressing.

However, it’s still a much better outcome than making a big gamble, losing everything, and then having to somehow rebuild your life from the ruins while also potentially dealing with serious mental health problems which are a common side effect of catastrophic business failures. 

Keep in mind that if you are prudent about risk management and make sure to limit your losses, you can continue building businesses indefinitely until hopefully one of them takes off. 

After all, just because your first attempt at it didn’t work out, it doesn’t mean that you need to give up on your dreams. Successful entrepreneurs often have entire graveyards of failed businesses behind them!

Step #3: Use What You Have

We have noticed that first-time entrepreneurs have a tendency to worry about what they lack: time, money, skills, whatever it may be. 

However, as our friend Alex Hormozi loves to say, the first rule of entrepreneurship is “use what you have”.

So examine the resources at your disposal:

1. How much time can you allocate to working on your business?
2. How much money can you spend on growing your business?
3. What domain knowledge, skills, and connections can you leverage?

You want to figure out how to make the most out of what you have instead of attempting to copy people who are in completely different circumstances than you.

Remember, regardless of what situation you are in, you can find ways to leverage it as long as you are resourceful!

Step #4: Choose a Business Model

First-time entrepreneurs also tend to put too much emphasis on coming up with innovative business ideas. 

We recommend being pragmatic about it instead: look at the business models that have low startup and maintenance costs, figure out which of these models is best-suited for leveraging the resources that you have, and then just go with it. 

Here are some of the business models that you might want to consider:

• Services – Low startup costs and immediate cash flow but it can be difficult to scale. Suitable for pretty much anyone.
• Coaching and consulting – Low startup costs and immediate cash flow. Best suited for those who have social proof that demonstrates that they know what they are talking about.
• Info products – Low startup costs and easy to scale. Best suited for people who have domain expertise that they can package into an eBook or an online course.
• SaaS – Low startup costs but can take ages to get off the ground. Best suited for software engineers and web developers. That being said, if you are willing to teach yourself how to code, you can make it work even if you don’t have a technical background. Check out Pieter Levels’ book “Make” if you want to learn more.
• Ecommerce – Low startup costs if you go the dropshipping route but the industry is extremely competitive and the learning curve is steep. Best suited for people who have a high-stress tolerance because it can be a crazy emotional rollercoaster!

Keep in mind that choosing a business model isn’t an irreversible decision. Simply pick something from the list above and start selling. If you realize that you don’t like it, you can always move on to something else!

Step #5: Decide on Your Target Audience

You want to go after a demographic that:

1. Has a problem that you can solve with your products and services
2. Can afford to pay for your products and services
3. Is willing to pay for your products and services

Know that your target audience is going to be one of the most important determining factors when it comes to how much money you will be able to make. 

For example, let’s say that you want to become a personal trainer and build a business around helping people lose weight. 

Both broke college students and affluent professionals could probably use your help. However, you will make way more money if you target the latter demographic!

Step #6: Pick One Core Product or Service to Sell

We recommend starting with just one core product or service to sell because that will simplify things a lot. 

Write down all the problems that your dream customers are struggling with and think about which one of them is the most painful. 

Then sell something that can help them solve that problem!

Step #7: Create an Irresistible Offer

Now that you have a product or service to sell, you need to package it into an irresistible offer.

Here’s a formula that can help you with that:

High Value + Low Price + Low Risk = Irresistible Offer

Let’s take a look at each of these three variables:

• High value – You can make your offer more valuable by throwing in various extras that don’t cost much to you but significantly increase its perceived value.
• Low price – This is about the price relative to the perceived value. If you want to increase the former, you need to first increase the latter.
• Low risk – Remove all financial risk from the buying decision process by offering a money-back guarantee. It can either be an unconditional one for 30 days after the purchase or a results-based one where if you fail to deliver specific results within a specific timeframe, the customer will get a refund.

Here’s a real story that illustrates the power of creating an irresistible offer:

Our co-founder Russell Brunson has sold all kinds of stuff throughout his entrepreneurial journey, from potato guns to supplements. 

At one point, he was selling supplements for $67 per bottle while his competitors were selling the exact same supplements for $19.95 per bottle. Pretty crazy, right?

Needless to say, Russell was making way more money than them. But what allowed him to charge so much?

Well, instead of merely selling a product, he was selling an offer. 

You see, he bundled that supplement bottle with a weight loss guide, a calorie tracker, and some other extras that didn’t cost much to produce but drastically increased the perceived value!

Step #8: Create an Upsell and a Cross Sell

Adding an upsell and a cross sell to your core offer can be a great way to increase your customer lifetime value.

This will enable you to spend more on customer acquisition and grow your business faster!

What is an Upsell?

An upsell is an offer that you present to the potential customer once they have accepted your core offer. It’s supposed to be an upgrade on it. 

McDonald’s “Would you like to supersize that?” is a classic example of an upsell. 

You can upsell:

• A larger quantity of the same product
• A higher-quality version of the same product or service
• A monthly subscription for that product or service

..etc.

What’s important here is making sure that your upsell is a better deal than your core offer so that the potential customer would feel inclined to upgrade.

What is a Cross Sell?

A cross sell is also an offer that you present to the potential customer once they have accepted your core offer but it’s supposed to be complementary to it as opposed to being an upgrade on it.

McDonald’s “Would you like fries with that?” is a classic example of a cross sell.

You can cross sell:

• Physical products
• Digital products
• Related services
• Coaching
• Consulting

What’s important here is making sure that your core offer and your cross sell are a great combination, just like burgers and fries!

Step #9: Build a Sales Funnel for Your Offer

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a system for converting visitors into leads, leads into customers, and customers into repeat customers.

Building a sales funnel for your core offer and driving traffic to it is the best way to grow your business!

What is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to the potential customer in exchange for their email address. 

It serves three purposes:

1. Helps you get the attention of your dream customers because everyone loves free stuff.
2. Makes it easier to convert them into leads because you are offering them something that they want instead of just asking them to subscribe to your email list.
3. Gives you an opportunity to prove yourself by providing free value before you pitch them your core offer.

If you want to learn how to create an effective lead magnet, we recommend watching this video by our friend Alex Hormozi:

How to Build a Squeeze Page Funnel

We recommend starting with a squeeze page funnel that looks like this:

1. A squeeze page where you explain what your free offer is all about and ask the potential customer for their email address in exchange for your lead magnet.
2. A thank you page where you thank the potential customer, provide instructions on how to access your lead magnet, and explain what they should expect next.
3. A sales page for your core offer where you pitch them your main product or service.
4. An upsell page where you pitch them your upsell.
5. A cross sell page where you pitch them your cross sell.

It’s super easy to build with our software because ClickFunnels includes a proven squeeze page funnel template. 

You can customize it with our drag-and-drop editor and then add a sales page, an upsell page, and a cross sell page to it. We have templates for all those pages as well!

How to Convert Leads Into Paying Customers With Email Marketing

We recommend setting up this welcome sequence and automatically sending it to every new email subscriber:

Send one email per day so that the entire sequence would take six days to complete. It’s super easy to set it all up with our email marketing functionality.

Step #10: Start Driving Traffic to Your Sales Funnel!

Here are three marketing strategies that you can use to do that:

Social Media Marketing

Create a social media profile on your favorite platform, put a link to your squeeze page in your bio, and start publishing one high-quality post per day.

Make sure to always encourage discussion in the comment section and reply to every comment that you get.

Network with popular influencers and fellow up-and-comers in your niche by leaving thoughtful comments under their posts and regularly sharing their content with your audience. 

If you want to learn more about social media marketing, we recommend watching this video:

Video Marketing

Start a YouTube channel and add a link to your squeeze page to your homepage, your channel description, and your video descriptions. 

Upload one high-quality video per week. Focus on the content instead of production value. End each video by encouraging the viewer to check out the free offer in the description. 

Use OpusClip to cut up your regular videos into shorts and then publish those shorts both on YouTube and on TikTok. Also, share them on your social media. 

If you want to learn more about building a YouTube channel, we recommend watching this video:

Paid Advertising

Wait until a Udemy sale, buy a reputable Facebook ads course, and go through it to learn the basics.

Then, create an ad campaign designed to promote your free offer, start running it with a small daily budget, and use A/B testing to optimize it for conversions. Make sure that your campaign is profitable before scaling it. 

Once you get the hang of running ads on Facebook, you can begin expanding to other platforms by repeating the same process. 

Consider experimenting with Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Google Search ads. You never know what will work best for your business!

Which Marketing Strategy Should You Use?

It depends on your budget.

If you can afford to run ads then it makes sense to use all three marketing strategies we just discussed.

This approach will help you get your business off the ground faster because paid advertising enables you to get immediate traffic. 

However, if you can’t afford to run ads then you will be limited to social media marketing and video marketing. 

This approach is going to be slower because it takes time to build an audience. But you can make it work if you commit to consistently publishing high-quality content!

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 Steps For Starting Your First Business As An Entrepreneur which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Some people are saying that dropshipping is dead but we would argue that it’s still a viable way to get into ecommerce.

Here’s our complete guide to starting a dropshipping business in 2024…

Introduction to Dropshipping

What is Dropshipping?

E-commerce is a business model where you sell products online.

Dropshipping is an e-commerce fulfillment method where you don’t carry the inventory yourself.

Instead, when a customer places an order on your website, that order is forwarded to the product supplier who then ships the product to the customer.

Making the distinction between the business model (e-commerce) and the fulfillment method (dropshipping) is important.

If your goal is to build a successful ecommerce business then it doesn’t make sense to get attached to any particular fulfillment method!

What are the Dropshipping Pros and Cons?

There are a lot of business gurus on YouTube who promote dropshipping.

They present it as the be-all-end-all solution for aspiring entrepreneurs who want to build a location-independent business that would allow them to leave their 9-5, work from anywhere, and have a luxurious lifestyle.

The problem is that these gurus are painting a rosy picture of dropshipping in order to sell their expensive online courses.

The truth is that dropshipping, like any other e-commerce fulfillment method, has its pros and cons.

Dropshipping Pros

The main pro of dropshipping is that you don’t have to invest money in inventory upfront: you only pay for each product once someone buys it.

This means that if you don’t make any sales, you don’t have to pay anything to the suppliers. That drastically reduces the financial risk.

In addition to that, since the suppliers are handling manufacturing, warehousing and shipping, you don’t need to worry about any of that.

The suppliers can handle returns as well but it’s advisable to do it yourself. After all, if a customer has bought something from you, they will go to you for a refund.

But other than returns, all the logistics are taken care of, which means that you can focus on branding, marketing, and sales.

This combination of low financial risk and logistical support from the suppliers makes dropshipping the ideal fulfillment method for entrepreneurs who don’t have any previous e-commerce experience.

Dropshipping Cons

The main con of dropshipping is the lack of an economic moat.

An economic moat is a set of competitive advantages that protects your business from rivals that want to steal your market share.

Since pretty much anyone can launch an online store with dropshipping, you will always have to deal with competitors that are selling the exact same products that you do.

In fact, you might find that there are literally thousands of stores selling the exact same products as you.

Because it’s so difficult to differentiate yourself from the competition under those conditions, drop shippers often find themselves in a race to the bottom where they are competing on price alone.

Moreover, consumers are becoming increasingly tech-savvy, which means that more and more of them are running reverse image searches to see if they can buy the same products directly from the supplier.

So you might end up in competition not just with other dropshippers but also with the suppliers of your products. This is especially true if you are using AliExpress.

In addition to that, since the supplier is handling all the logistics, it means that you don’t have any control over the products, the packaging, or the customer experience.

However, the customers who bought these products from you are going to blame you if they are unhappy with their purchases.

Finally, since dropshipping suppliers tend to be based in Asia, the shipping times can be a problem if you are targeting European and North American markets.

Consider that consumers in these markets are used to shopping on Amazon and local online stores where they can expect their products to be delivered within a few days.

They might be put off if they order something from your store and then have to wait for a month to get it!

How Much Money Do You Need to Get Started With Dropshipping?

Can You Start a Dropshipping Business With $0?

There are a lot of business gurus on YouTube claiming that you can start dropshipping with $0.

In theory, that may be possible, but in practice, you’d likely struggle to make any sales if your budget is literally $0.

Also, realistically speaking, it will probably take you at least 6-12 months until you get the hang of this whole dropshipping thing and start making some profit.

If you are in a desperate situation and need money NOW, dropshipping is not a viable solution for that. Getting a job is a much better way to stabilize your finances.

How to Set Up Your Life So That You Could Win at Dropshipping

The truth is that e-commerce is a long game so if you are serious about it, you need to set up your life in a way that will enable you to pursue your entrepreneurial dreams regardless of how long it will take to turn them into reality.

What we recommend is cutting your living expenses to the bone, getting a job so that you would have a stable source of income, and saving up enough money so that you could survive for at least three months in case you lose that job.

Ideally, once all that is done, you want to have at least $500/month left over after paying all your bills. That’s your dropshipping money.

If you can’t get a job that pays you enough to have $500/month left over, consider working overtime or picking up an additional part-time job and saving up $6,000. That will cover 12 months of dropshipping expenses at the $500/month rate.

With this setup where you have a job, an emergency fund, and discretionary income that you can allocate to dropshipping, you should be able to stay in the e-commerce game indefinitely.

Financial stability will also help you think clearly, make good decisions, and focus on the long-term growth of your business.

Don’t Fall for the Hype: Setting Realistic Expectations

There’s a lot of selective honesty, questionable storytelling and outright lying in the dropshipping space because the real business model of the YouTube gurus is selling you their online courses.

It’s important to have realistic expectations. No, you probably won’t become a millionaire by age 19, go from homeless to rich in 27 days, build a seven-figure business in 3 months, or whatever the latest clickbait is.

In all likelihood, it will probably take you a few years to get to the point where you can quit your job and focus on your e-commerce business full-time without sacrificing your financial stability.

But once you achieve that, you will be able to be your own boss, set your own schedule, and work from anywhere, hopefully while also making enough money to have the lifestyle you want!

How Much Money Can You Make With Dropshipping?

Dropshipping profit margins typically range between 10% and 30%.

This means that if you generate $1,000,000 in annual revenue, you will probably be making between $100,000 and $300,000 in profit.

Realistically speaking, your profit margins are probably going to be closer to 10% than to 30% because of the aforementioned lack of the economic moat.

After all, it’s extremely difficult to charge premium prices when customers can get the exact same product elsewhere for less.

That being said, you can definitely build an e-commerce business that brings in six or even seven figures in profit by using dropshipping as your fulfillment method!

Why Successful Dropshippers Eventually Move Away from Dropshipping

Dropshipping can be a great way to get into e-commerce.

However, as we already explained, this fulfillment method has some serious problems, most notably the lack of economic moat.

That’s why successful dropshippers tend to eventually move away from dropshipping:

They start working with industrial designers to create unique products, find reliable manufacturers who can produce them, and then gradually switch out their dropshipped offers with their private label ones.

All that gives them much more control over their businesses and enables them to widen their economic moats by offering unique, high-quality products at premium prices with fast shipping.

We would argue that building a private label e-commerce brand that you can then sell for at least seven figures should be your goal right from the start!

How to Start a Dropshipping Business

Step #1: Choose an Industry

The approach to dropshipping that you see on YouTube isn’t sustainable because it revolves around “winning products” aka trend hopping.

While you can certainly make money that way, it’s important to understand the difference between capitalizing on temporary arbitrage opportunities and building a real business.

For example, back in the spring of 2017 fidget spinners were the hottest ecommerce trend, and dropshippers who caught that wave early made a ton of money.

However, since it was just a temporary arbitrage opportunity, that revenue quickly dried up because consumers lost interest and moved on.

We would argue that if you want to build a real e-commerce brand that you can eventually sell, trend hopping is a waste of resources.

After all, just like the fidget spinner craze, most of these trends only last a few months, so you’d probably be better off ignoring them entirely.

Instead, we recommend choosing an industry that you are already familiar with, launching an e-commerce store that sells products that have proven demand, and committing to making it work no matter what.

For example, if you love hiking and camping, going into the outdoor clothing and gear industry might be a good idea. Why?

Because:

• You are already familiar with this industry as a consumer so you won’t have to learn everything from scratch.
• You belong to your target audience which will make it much easier for you to create offers, copy and marketing campaigns that resonate with potential customers.
• You are passionate about the outdoors which will help you stay consistent when building traffic-generating assets.

In theory, you could start an e-commerce business in some random industry that seems lucrative but you have no familiarity with.

In practice, though, why would you do that when you can instead go into an industry where you already have a bunch of advantages?

Keep in mind that building an e-commerce brand is going to be a long and arduous journey regardless of the industry that you choose.

However, if you have a genuine interest in something, it can help you endure the grind.

Ask yourself: am I okay with my entire life revolving around this industry for the next ten years?

That might help you put things in perspective!

Step #2: Niche Down

Okay, so now that you have decided on the industry, you want to niche down. What does that mean?

Choose a specific demographic that you are going to cater to initially. Ideally, it should be a demographic that you belong to yourself.

For example, if you are a female outdoor enthusiast, you could niche down to selling outdoor clothing and gear to women.

Generally speaking, the narrower your target audience, the easier it will be to get your business off the ground because you will be able to tailor everything to that particular demographic.

That’s why we recommend starting with the narrowest possible target audience and then gradually expanding from there!

Step #3: Build Your Online Store

You can easily build an online store with our software even if you don’t know how to code. Simply choose a store template and customize it with our drag-and-drop website editor.

Jakob’s Law is something to consider here. It’s a UX design principle which states that:

“Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.”

For example, if you are building an online store that sells outdoor clothing and gear, you want it to look similar to other online stores that sell outdoor clothing and gear because that’s what your target audience will expect.

Of course, we aren’t saying that you should straight up copy REI’s or Patagonia’s web design, but drawing inspiration from brands like that might be a good idea!

Step #4: Add Products to Your Store

We decided to partner with the dropshipping platform Zendrop to make it as easy as possible for you to find the right products and add them to your store.

Here’s how it works:

If you want to build a successful e-commerce business, it’s important to think in terms of offering solutions to problems as opposed to selling products.

For example, you can create a list of everything that a newbie hiker should take with them on an easy few-hour hike, go to Zendrop, find these products, and add them to your store.

Then you can use them to create a day hike bundle and market it to women who want to get into hiking but don’t know where to start.

That way, instead of selling a bunch of related products, you will be selling a solution to a specific problem that a subset of your target audience has.

You can do the same with clothing and equipment for longer hikes, camping trips, various weather conditions, etc.

Ideally, you want to order the various products that you are considering and test them so that you can pick the best ones.

Step #5: Build a Cart Funnel and Start Driving Traffic to It!

Now that you have added products to your store and created bundles that offer solutions to various problems, it’s time to build a cart funnel. What’s that?

It’s an e-commerce sales funnel designed to convert people in your target audience into paying customers by promoting your most popular offer.

Of course, since you just built your store, you don’t know which offer will be most popular, so choose the bundle that you believe is the most promising.

Once you have your cart funnel, start driving traffic to it with paid ads. Facebook, Instagram and TikTok ads can all work well.

In all likelihood, it will probably take a lot of experimenting to find the winning offer, optimize your cart funnel and figure out how to run ads profitably.

So don’t give up if it doesn’t work right away!

How to Grow Your Dropshipping Business

Okay, so how can you grow your business now that you are making some money with your dropshipping store?

Step #1: Do More of What’s Already Working

The easiest way to make more money is to do more of what’s already working. It’s the obvious solution but entrepreneurs often overlook it because it’s kind of boring.

Say, if you are driving traffic to your cart funnel with paid ads, can you 2x, 5x, or 10x your ad spend while remaining profitable?

In addition to that, you want to not just drive more traffic, but also optimize your cart funnel with A/B testing, which you can do with our software.

Max out your current customer acquisition channel first before worrying about adding more channels!

Step #2: Expand to Other Paid Advertising Platforms

All major social media platforms allow you to run ads so once you have mastered paid advertising on one of them, you can start expanding to others.

After all, you already know that your cart funnel is working. All you need to do now is figure out how to profitably drive traffic to it from several different platforms.

Step #3: Start Building Traffic-Generating Assets

Finally, you want to start allocating resources to building traffic-generating assets such as:

• A social media following
• An email newsletter
• A YouTube channel
• A TikTok channel
• A company blog

We recommend building a social media following first, then leveraging it to launch and grow a weekly newsletter and then finally starting YouTube and TikTok channels.

As for the company blog, SEO has become extremely competitive, so generating organic traffic with it may be difficult.

However, you can write up comprehensive guides on various topics related to your niche, publish them on your blog, and promote them on your social media, newsletter, YouTube, and TikTok channels when appropriate.

Building these traffic-generating assets will take time, probably several years but eventually they will enable you to become less reliant on paid advertising.

Also, out of all these traffic-generating assets, an email newsletter is the most valuable one so growing it should be your priority!

How to Move Away From Dropshipping

Okay, so now that you have an established online store that’s doing well, it’s time to start moving away from dropshipping and into private-label e-commerce.

Step #1: Hire an Industrial Designer to Help You Create Your Products

Obviously, if you want to go from dropshipping to private label, you can’t just steal the designs of your dropshipped products and then sell them as your own.

You will need to hire an industrial designer to help you create similar but unique products that are better than the dropshipped ones.

It probably makes the most sense to start with your bestselling product. Say, if your bestselling product is a dropshipped hiking daypack, hire an industrial designer to help you create your own hiking daypack that’s better than the one you are selling right now.

Getting the design right will probably be a difficult process that will require a lot of product testing.

Fortunately, you have the contact details of the customers who have bought the dropshipped backpack so you can ask them for help.

Tell them that they will get to keep the test backpacks that you send them as well as the final version of your private label backpack in exchange for candid feedback.

People love free stuff so you should have no problem finding beta testers!

Step #2: Find a Reliable Manufacturer That Can Produce Your Products

First, you will need to decide between domestic and overseas manufacturing since both have their pros and cons.

Either way, you want to go and visit promising manufacturers in person, talk to the people in charge, and order samples to see whether they can follow the designs that you provided.

Look for manufacturers that have a relatively low minimum order quantity. If you are still in the testing phase, you don’t want to order more than a few hundred products at a time.

Also, be wary of manufacturers that offer extremely low prices because they are likely to engage in various unethical practices. You don’t want your brand to be associated with exploitation!

Step #3: Gradually Switch Out All of Your Dropshipped Products With the Private Label Ones

It will likely take you at least several years to move away from dropshipping by switching out all of your products one by one.

But once you are done with that, you will own a “real” e-commerce brand that you have complete control over!

Ecommerce Secret Sauce: Digital Products

We highly recommend reading our guide to customer acquisition because you need to make sure that your math is on point if you want to succeed with dropshipping.

There’s the obvious stuff that’s just basic common sense: your customer acquisition cost (CAC) cannot exceed your customer lifetime value (CLV) if you want to remain profitable.

And then there’s the principle that few understand: the one that can afford to spend the most to acquire a customer wins.

That’s something that our co-founder Russell Brunson learned from Dan Kennedy. Here’s how Kennedy explains it:

But how can you outspend your rivals on customer acquisition when you are all dropshippers selling the same products by running ads?

Simple: if your competitors are only selling physical products, you can get ahead by selling both physical and digital ones.

For example, why not create an eBook guide for newbie hikers, price it at $7, and then add it to your day hike bundle cart funnel as a cross sell?

You can also do the reverse: build a book funnel for the eBook and then cross sell the day hike bundle.

That can help you increase your customer lifetime value. And the higher your customer lifetime value, the more money you can spend on customer acquisition!

A Word of Caution: Be Careful About Lifestyle Inflation Because Dropshipping Can be Extremely Unpredictable!

Lifestyle inflation is a common trap that successful dropshippers fall into as they start making good money with their e-commerce businesses.

It seems that the ones who luck out and hit it big in less than a year are the most vulnerable to this temptation.

And it’s understandable: if you suddenly find yourself making more in a month than you used to make in a year when you were working a minimum-wage job, of course, you will want to upgrade your lifestyle!

Add to that all the dropshipping gurus who are flexing their homes, cars, and vacations on social media and you might even start feeling that you are missing out if you aren’t keeping up with them.

But the problem is that the world of dropshipping is a kind of Wild West of e-commerce where you can feel like you are printing money one month and then find yourself in the red the next month. It’s extremely unpredictable.

Consider that you might get scammed by a supplier, banned from social media, undercut by one of your myriad competitors, etc. These are all common occurrences. Something like that is bound to happen sooner or later.

Even entrepreneurs who have been dropshipping for years aren’t immune to all this. There are plenty of horror stories on YouTube where experienced dropshippers lost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That’s why it’s unwise to inflate your lifestyle under the assumption that the gravy train is going to continue. It can stop at any time.

Of course, we aren’t saying that you should live like a pauper despite making a ton of money from your e-commerce store. It’s okay to go on a nice vacation now and then.

But you might want to hold off on taking on financial commitments that would significantly increase your living expenses: moving to a luxury apartment, buying an expensive car, etc.

Keep in mind that as your e-commerce business matures, the revenue is going to become much more predictable, especially once you move away from dropshipping to private label. You can always upgrade your lifestyle then!

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Let’s be real:

We are biased in favor of our software.

So we understand if you take what we say about it with a grain of salt.

Fortunately, we have a free 14-day trial, so you don’t have to take our word for it.

You can go and see ClickFunnels for yourself without any risk!

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Thanks for reading Your Guide to Launching a Dropshipping Business which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

So you launched a business.

Now you need to start generating leads.

Today we are going to share seven ways to do that!

Introduction to Lead Generation

Okay, so before we get into the main subject of this article, let’s review the basics of lead generation to make sure that we are all on the same page.

What is a Lead?

A lead is a potential customer who has:

1. Indicated an interest in your product or service
2. Provided their contact information

In the online marketing context, a potential customer becomes a lead once they give you their email address.

What is Lead Generation?

Lead generation is the process of converting potential customers into leads by persuading them to give you their contact details.

In the online marketing context, that typically means offering them some sort of a freebie in exchange for their email addresses.

What is a Lead Generation Funnel?

A lead generation funnel is a system designed to convert potential customers into leads.

It’s the first stage of the Value Ladder sales funnel that we call the Bait stage:

Here’s how our co-founder Russell Brunson explains it:

What is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to the potential customer in exchange for their email address.

As our friend Alex Hormozi explains, it should be a complete solution to a narrowly defined problem that the potential customer is struggling with.

The reason why offering a complete solution, as opposed to a partial one, is so important is that it allows you to build trust that you can then capitalize on to sell your frontend offer (the next stage of the Value Ladder).

What exactly you should use as your lead magnet will depend on your business model but generally speaking, it should serve as a free sample of your Frontend offer:

• If you run a restaurant, offer free food
• If you provide services, offer a free service
• If you sell a book, offer a free chapter
• If you sell online courses, offer a free online course
• If you sell software, offer a free trial

…etc. 

Keep in mind that the more valuable your lead magnet is, the easier it will be to convert potential customers into leads and then into paying customers!

What Visitor-to-Lead Conversion Rate Can You Expect?

Your visitor-to-lead conversion rate is going to depend on how good you are at creating free offers, building lead generation funnels, and driving targeted traffic to those funnels.

If you don’t have any previous experience with that, you can probably expect to see a visitor-to-lead conversion rate of around 10%.

Meaning, that out of every 100 people that visit your lead magnet landing page, 10 of them will give you their email addresses.

If your lead-to-customer conversion rate is also 10%, it means that out of those 10 leads, 1 of them will buy your product or service:

100 visitors -> 10 leads -> 1 customer. 

These numbers are not great but it’s a start.

As you get better at creating free offers, building funnels, and driving targeted traffic to those funnels, you should see your conversion rates increase. 

Hopefully, you’ll be able to double or triple them eventually!

What is the Easiest Way to Increase Sales?

If you have a sales funnel that is profitable, the easiest way to increase sales is to drive more traffic to it from the same source.

Assuming that the conversion rates remain the same, more traffic means more leads means more sales. It’s just simple math.

Alex Hormozi recommends asking yourself this question: what’s stopping you from doing 10x more of what’s already working?

New entrepreneurs often have a misguided belief that they need to come up with some crazy innovative stuff in order to grow their businesses.

But there’s a reason why seasoned entrepreneurs keep repeating the adage of “Do more of what’s already working”: it may be boring but it’s the easiest way to increase sales!

How to Generate Leads for Your Brand New Business

The best way to generate leads is to build a lead generation funnel and start driving traffic to it.

Here are the seven most popular lead generation funnels:

#1: Homepage Funnel

You probably already have a business website so it makes sense to start by optimizing it for lead generation.

And that’s what the homepage funnel is all about.

It consists of three pages:

1. Your homepage where you promote your lead magnet above the fold so that it would be the first thing that the potential customer sees when they come to your website.
2. An email pop-up where you ask the potential customer to provide their email address in order to get access to your lead magnet. 
3. A thank you page where you thank potential customers and let them know what they should expect next.

This funnel can work well for any business that has a website!

#2: Squeeze Page Funnel

The squeeze page funnel is the most popular lead generation funnel out there.

It consists of two pages:

1. A simple landing page is known as a squeeze page where you pitch your lead magnet.
2. A thank you page where you thank potential customers and let them know what they should expect next.

This lead generation funnel is incredibly versatile: it can be a standalone website, a section on your website or just an email pop-up.

Once you have built a homepage funnel for your business, we recommend building a squeeze page funnel next. 

#3: Reverse Squeeze Page Funnel

The reverse squeeze page funnel has the exact same structure as the regular squeeze page funnel. So what’s the difference between them?

With the reverse squeeze page funnel, you provide some free value upfront, without requiring the potential customer to give you their email address.

Typically, that is done with a free video that they can play right there on the squeeze page. 

This funnel works especially well for online course lead magnets because you can let the potential customer watch the first lesson on the squeeze page without having to opt in.

Then, if they want to get access to the rest of your free course, they can provide their email address.

Another way to go about it is to explain how to do something in your squeeze page video, then direct the potential customer to your lead magnet that can help them implement your advice (e.g. a meal plan, an exercise program, a printable workbook, etc).

Finally, you can explain how to do something in your squeeze page video and then use a free consultation with you as a lead magnet!

#4: Survey Funnel

The survey funnel is a lead generation funnel designed to pre-qualify leads.

It has two pages:

1. A survey page where you ask the potential customer questions that will help you determine whether they are a good match for your business.
2. A thank you page where you thank the potential customer for taking the survey and let them know what they should expect next.

This funnel can help you save a ton of time if you are selling a high-touch product or service that requires you to manually reach out to leads, set up discovery calls and close sales on those calls. 

Consider including a multiple-choice question about the potential customer’s budget. That way, people who can’t afford your product or service will realize it and drop out of the survey.

Alternatively, if you are working on custom projects with variable, per-project pricing, you can ask the potential customer to describe the project that they have in mind and then input their budget for it. This will make it easy for you to determine whether you can help them.

#5: Webinar Funnel

The webinar funnel is a lead generation funnel where you use a free webinar as a lead magnet and then pitch your product or service at the end of it.

It works best for selling consulting, productized services, and online courses but it can also work well for selling software. 

In fact, our co-founder Russell Brunson used the webinar funnel to get our software company off the ground and still swears by it to this day:

This funnel consists of three pages:

1. A webinar registration page where the potential customer can sign up for your webinar.
2. A registration confirmation page where you confirm that the potential customer has successfully registered for the event.
3. A webinar page where the potential customer can either attend your webinar live or watch the replay.

Depending on what you are selling, you will also need either a sales page where the potential customer can buy your product or service or an appointment booking page where the potential customer can schedule a free consultation.

We would like to emphasize that if you want your webinar to convert, you will have to provide genuinely valuable information so that the attendees will walk away feeling like they have learned something useful. 

Remember, just like any other lead magnet, your webinar needs to offer a complete solution to a narrowly defined problem.

Also, while it’s possible to automate this funnel, we recommend doing webinars live once a week for at least a year.

That will give you time to experiment, learn from the audience feedback and optimize your webinar script.

Once you are able to consistently convert at least 20% of your webinar attendees into paying customers, you can begin automating your funnel.

#6: Product Launch Funnel

The product launch funnel is designed to help you build anticipation for your upcoming product.

It has four pages:

1. Video page #1: In this video, you want to tell a story about how you were struggling with the same problem as the potential customer and how you overcame it. Then, introduce your upcoming product as a solution to that problem. End the video by bringing up potential objections to buying and promise to address them in the next video.
2. Video page #2: In this video, you want to address the potential objections just as you promised. Ideally, you should back up your claims with testimonials and case studies. End the video by hinting at how your product can help make the potential customer’s life better and promise to explain it in the next video.
3. Video page #3: In this video, you want to explain how your product can help make the potential customer’s life better just as you promised. Encourage them to take a step back and look at the big picture. Help them visualize what your product can do for them. Ideally, you should back up your claims with testimonials and case studies. End the video by telling them that the product will become available for sale tomorrow and mention the exclusive launch bonuses that they won’t want to miss out on.
4. Video page #4: In this video, you want to announce the launch of your product, make your sales pitch, and explain what’s included in the price. Make sure to emphasize the launch bonuses and encourage potential customers to buy your product now if they want to get all the extra stuff. Right below the video, you should have the order form so that they can make the purchase immediately without having to go anywhere.

If you want to launch a product to kickstart your brand new business, we recommend combining the squeeze page funnel with the product launch funnel.

First, create a lead magnet that is related to your upcoming product and use the squeeze page funnel to build your pre-launch email list.

If you are writing a book, you can use a free chapter as your lead magnet, build a squeeze page funnel for it, and then drive traffic to it. 

Then, email your subscribers at least once a week with updates, sneak peeks, etc. That will help you stay top of mind with them. 

Finally, once you are ready to launch your book, build a product launch funnel for it and start sending your subscribers one video per day so that the whole sequence would take four days to complete.

This approach works best for launching books, info products, and software but it can also work well for launching innovative physical products!

#7: Free Plus Shipping Funnel

The free plus shipping funnel is an advanced lead generation funnel where you use a physical product as your lead magnet and ask the potential customer to cover the shipping costs.

It has three pages:

1. A sales page where you pitch your free product.
2. A 2-step order form where the potential customer can make the purchase.
3. A thank you page where you thank the customer and explain what they should expect next.

For example, our co-founder Russell Brunson wrote three best-selling books about online marketing:

• “DotCom Secrets” (4.7 stars on Amazon with over 2,600 global ratings)
• “Traffic Secrets” (4.7 stars on Amazon with over 2,500 global ratings)
• “Expert Secrets” (4.7 stars on Amazon with over 2,000 global ratings)

You can get these books directly from us for free. All we ask is that you cover the shipping!

Here’s what the “DotCom Secrets” Value Ladder looks like:

We want to emphasize that our free plus shipping funnels are designed to generate leads for our software, info products, and masterminds. This is not about selling books.

In fact, if you are a writer and your book is your core product, then building a free plus shipping funnel for it doesn’t make sense. You’d be better off going with a simple squeeze page funnel where you use a free chapter as your lead magnet. 

However, if you are an entrepreneur, you might want to consider writing a book specifically for the purpose of generating leads for your business.

Ideally, you want to publish it on Amazon, send out review copies, and do a proper book launch with a product launch funnel.

Once you have a 4+ star rating and a bunch of reviews on Amazon, you can build a free plus shipping funnel for your book.

The reason why we advocate for publishing your book and getting reviews before building your funnel is because you want it to be a “real” book.

That way, the potential customers will feel like they are getting a great deal when you offer it to them for free.

Just make sure to find a reliable print-on-demand publisher so that you won’t have to order a bunch of copies in bulk and then store them and ship them yourself.

Needless to say, doing all that will take time, so perhaps this section is somewhat of a departure from our main subject of generating leads for a brand new business.

However, publishing a book can have outsized returns and help you establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. 

That’s what Russell did with “DotCom Secrets” which he published 2 years after launching ClickFunnels. 

So it might make sense to set aside 30 to 60 minutes every day to work on your book. At that pace, it should be ready for publishing in 2-3 years. Then you can use it to take your business to the next level!

Build Lead Generation Funnels for Your Business With ClickFunnels!

Our software, ClickFunnels, includes a template library where you can find lead generation templates and more to get up and running faster.

We also have an email marketing functionality that you can use to start, manage, and grow your email list.

All you need to do to build a lead generation funnel for your business is choose a template, customize it with our drag-and-drop page editor, and set up email marketing for it.

Once all that is done and your funnel is live, it’s time to start generating leads!

How to Drive Traffic to Your Lead Generation Funnels

#1: Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is the best option for entrepreneurs who don’t have much spare time or disposable income but still want to build a side hustle without having to pay for advertising.

Getting started with it doesn’t require any money: you can simply pick a social media platform, create a profile, and start posting.

However, you might want to consider investing in a social media scheduling tool like Buffer or MeetEdgar because planning, creating, and scheduling content in advance can help you stay consistent.

Consistency is the secret to success on social media. If you can commit to publishing high-quality content every day for at least 36 months, you will probably manage to build a substantial following. But how can you turn those followers into leads?

Simple: promote your lead magnet in your bio with a short description and a call to action. As your following grows, more and more people are going to click on that link to check out your free offer.

Consider watching this video if you want to learn more about building an audience on social media;

#2: Video Marketing

Video marketing is the best option for entrepreneurs who don’t have much money but do have a lot of free time and are comfortable with the idea of being on camera.

It’s a resource-intensive endeavor: to create a single YouTube video, you will need to find a promising keyword, do competitive research, write the script, shoot the video, edit it, create a thumbnail, upload it and then promote it as much as you can.

Consider watching this video if you want to learn more about starting a YouTube channel:

In terms of filming equipment, all you need is a smartphone with a decent camera, a good microphone, and a camera light.

As for the video production, we recommend Descript for video editing and Firefly for creating thumbnails.

Also, you can use Opus Clip to repurpose your YouTube videos into YouTube and TikTok shorts and Instagram reels.

You can generate leads by promoting your lead magnet in your channel description, your video descriptions, and the videos themselves. 

Building a following will probably take at least 36 months, assuming that you upload high-quality long-form videos once a week to YouTube and engaging shorts every day to TikTok.

#3: Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is best suited for entrepreneurs who don’t have much time but do have money that they are willing to invest in ads.

Something to consider here is that running ads is a skill that has a steep learning curve. Realistically, you’ll be losing money until you figure out how to make your ad campaigns work.

We recommend choosing a platform that makes the most sense for your business, finding a reputable course on how to run ads on it on Udemy, and going through that course. That will give you a basic understanding of how it all works.

Then, create an ad campaign designed to promote your lead magnet and start running it with a small daily budget. Experiment with different concepts, visuals and copy until your campaign is profitable.

And if you realize that your potential customers simply aren’t interested in your lead magnet, go back to the drawing board and come up with something better. You need a free offer that resonates with your target audience. 

In theory, paid advertising allows you to get immediate traffic, but in practice, it will probably take quite a while until you get the hang of it. However, once you do, generating leads will become much easier!

Try ClickFunnels Risk-Free!

Let’s be real:

We are biased in favor of our software. 

So we understand if you take what we say about it with a grain of salt.

Fortunately, we have a free 14-day trial, so you don’t have to take our word for it.

You can go and see ClickFunnels for yourself without any risk!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Start Your Free Trial Today

Thanks for reading Most Effective Ways to Get Leads for New Businesses which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

You have heard about dropshipping. But how exactly does it work?

That’s what we are going to discuss in today’s article…

What is Dropshipping?

E-commerce is a business model where you sell physical products online.

Dropshipping is an e-commerce fulfillment method where you don’t hold any inventory yourself.

How Does Dropshipping Work?

So how is it possible to sell physical products online without holding any inventory yourself?

Here’s how it works:

1. Customers place orders on your online store
2. Those orders are then forwarded to your suppliers
3. Your suppliers ship the products to the customers

You only pay your suppliers for the products once the customers buy them. If you don’t make any sales, you don’t owe them anything!

How to Create a Dropshipping Store With ClickFunnels + Zendrop

Step #1: Choose an Industry

Ideally, you want to go into an industry that you have not just familiarity with, but also an active interest in. Why?

Because e-commerce is not a get-rich-quick scheme. If you want to build a sustainable business that you can eventually sell for a life-changing amount of money, it will probably take you 5-10 years to get there.

In theory, it’s possible to succeed in an industry that you have zero interest in, but in practice, that is extremely unlikely.

After all, very few people are capable of staying focused on something that they don’t care about for a long period of time.

That’s why we recommend looking at your current interests, figuring out which one has the most business potential and then going into that industry.

Unless you are into something extremely obscure like collecting 19th-century Norwegian post stamps, you can probably build a successful e-commerce business that revolves around one of your hobbies.

Say, if you are into fitness, there’s a ton of stuff that you could sell that’s related to it: clothes, accessories, equipment, etc. 

Step #2: Niche Down

You also need to niche down to a specific demographic. Why?

Because if you attempt to sell everything to everyone, you will find yourself competing with the largest brands in your industry.

Say, if you decided to launch a general fitness store, you would have to compete with companies like the French giant Decathlon.

That’s not a battle that you can win given that Decathlon has over 1,700 stores around the world. 

However, if you launched an online store that sold workout clothes to women who lift weights, you would have a much better chance at building a successful e-commerce business.

Think about it: with such a clear focus, you would be able to tailor everything – from products to sales copy to marketing – to that particular demographic.

That would help you carve out a market share for yourself. Maybe your store would even become the go-to online store for female weightlifters looking for gym wear.

Generally speaking, the narrower the niche, the better, but you need to make sure it’s large enough to sustain your business.

One of the most reliable ways to determine that is by looking at the competition. Are there any established companies in that niche that appear to be growing consistently?

We understand that the presence of competition may seem intimidating, but it’s actually a good sign: it means that there’s money to be made there!

Ideally, you want to target a demographic that you belong to yourself. That way, you’ll have the best insight into what’s important to your dream customers.

If you are a woman who is into weightlifting, then all else being equal, you’d probably have an advantage over a man who’s into weightlifting if both of you were to launch online stores that sold workout clothes for women who lift. You would understand what aspects of your product speak best to the women you are targeting firsthand.

That being said if you don’t belong to a particular demographic yourself but have access to people who do, then you might still be able to capitalize on the opportunity if you spot a gap in the market.

For example, if you are a male personal trainer who primarily coaches female weightlifters, launching an online store that sells workout clothes to women who lift might make sense. After all, you should have a pretty good understanding of what’s important to your target audience given that you work with that demographic as a coach.

In theory, it’s possible to build an e-commerce business by targeting an audience that you don’t belong to yourself, aren’t familiar with, and don’t have access to through your personal network.

In practice, though, that would be a terrible idea because you’d have to start completely from scratch, do comprehensive market research, and deal with all kinds of unknown unknowns. 

So why would you want to do that when you could make your life easier by capitalizing on all the advantages that you already have?

Step #3: Build Your Online Store

Our software, ClickFunnels, has an e-commerce functionality that you can use to build your online store.

All you need to do is pick a store template from our template library and customize it according to your needs with our drag-and-drop website editor!

Step #4: Add Products to Your Online Store

We decided to collaborate with one of the leading dropshipping apps Zendrop to make it as easy as possible for our users to dropship.

Zendrop gives you access to a network of US-based suppliers which is perfect if you intend to focus on the American market.

Sourcing your products locally ensures the fast shipping speed that your target audience is accustomed to: the products in the Zendrop catalog ship within 3-5 business days.

That’s a huge improvement over AliExpress’ dreaded 15 to 60 business days. Can you imagine ordering something online and then having to wait two months for it?

Anyway, once you have built your online store, you can integrate ClickFunnels with Zendrop and start adding products to it!

Step #5: Build a Cart Funnel for Your Most Promising Product

There’s a UX design principle called Jakob’s Law which states that:

“Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.”

In other words, you want your online store to look similar to other online stores in your niche because that’s what your target audience expects.

The problem is that online stores are designed to serve as digital catalogs that people can browse to find what they want.

That type of website layout works well for existing customers who are already familiar with the inventory but it can be overwhelming to potential customers who look at it and don’t even know where to start.

And that’s why you need a cart funnel if you are serious about growing your e-commerce business. It’s designed to convert people in your target audience into paying customers.

This funnel has four pages:

1. A sales page for your most popular product.
2. An upsell is an upgrade on your most popular product.
3. A cross sell that is complementary to your most popular product.
4. A thank you page where you thank the customer for purchasing and let them know what they should expect next.

Ideally, your thank you page should also feature an “offer wall”, meaning, a display of your other popular products. That way, if the customer wants to shop some more, they can easily do so.

Of course, if you just launched your online store, you probably don’t know what your most popular product will be. At this point, all you can do is give it your best guess.

Realistically speaking, you will probably have to build and test cart funnels for several different products until you find a winning one. 

Fortunately, ClickFunnels includes a cart funnel template that you can customize with our drag-and-drop page editor so building cart funnels with our software is a breeze!

How to Drive Traffic to Your Cart Funnel

Once you have your cart funnel, it’s time to start driving traffic to it. But what is the best way to do that?

It depends on the resources that you have at your disposal. Here’s a quick overview of the three most popular traffic generation options:

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a great option if you want to build a dropshipping side hustle without having to spend money on promoting your products.

You can simply create a profile on the social media platform of your choice and start posting high-quality content that your dream customers might find interesting.

We recommend a publishing frequency of one post per day for the first 365 days. It might seem low but consider that it’s also easy to maintain. You can always increase it later.

You should also make an effort to reply to every single comment that you get in order to encourage discussion under your posts. One exception here is trolls. Ignore and block them.

Finally, you want to network with the social media influencers in your niche, which you can do by leaving thoughtful comments under their posts and sharing their content when they publish something that your followers might find interesting.

If you can keep that up for several years, you will probably build a sizable social media following!

Video Marketing

Video marketing is a great option if you want to build a dropshipping side hustle without having to spend too much money and are willing to invest a ton of time into making video content.

You don’t need fancy equipment to get started: your smartphone, a good quality microphone, and a camera light should be enough. 

There’s an AI tool called Descript that you can use to edit your videos. Basically, it allows you to edit the video by editing the transcript.

You can use another AI tool, Adobe’s Firefly, to create video thumbnails.

We recommend shooting long videos for YouTube and then repurposing them into YouTube and TikTok shorts, which is easy to do with an AI tool called Opus Clip. 

As for the publishing frequency, you want to upload at least once a week on YouTube and at least once a day on TikTok. Just make sure to maintain high content quality.

Your primary focus should probably be YouTube because long-form videos have more staying power, which makes a YouTube channel more valuable than a TikTok channel. 

However, it’s much easier to go viral on TikTok so neglecting that platform would be unwise. 

In fact, there’s a trend of drop shippers driving organic traffic to their stores with TikTok shorts that showcase their products. 

Consider creating several TikTok shorts like that for each of your products. You can use the “Hook, Story, Offer” copywriting framework to script them:

1. Grab the viewer’s attention with a compelling hook.
2. Tell them a captivating story that resonates with them on a deep emotional level.
3. End with a call to action encouraging the viewer to visit your online store and get the product. Direct them to the link in your bio.

While virality is not something that you can predict, one big hit might be enough to get your store off the ground.

Your video marketing strategy shouldn’t depend on lucky breaks, though. It will probably take you several years to build audiences on YouTube and TikTok, so plan accordingly and go into it with realistic expectations.

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is a great option if you want to grow your e-commerce business as quickly as possible and have money to spend on ads.

The best places to advertise dropshipped products are Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, so we recommend starting with one of these platforms.

If you don’t know how to run ads on your chosen platform, Udemy has online courses on that.

You can simply pick the course that has the highest number of reviews. If you wait for one of Udemy’s sales, you should be able to buy it for less than $20.

Once you have learned the basics, you want to create an ad campaign designed to promote your most promising product. That’s how you will drive traffic to your cart funnel.

Start running your campaign with a small daily budget. Once the sales start coming in, do the math to see if it’s profitable. If you are making money with it, you can begin gradually increasing your daily budget.

Alternatively, if your campaign is not profitable, you can use A/B testing to optimize it. More on that in the next section.

Also, if you aren’t making any sales at all, then there are three possibilities: your targeting is off, your ads aren’t compelling or there’s no demand for your product.

If it’s the product that’s the problem then you will need to pick a new one, build a cart funnel for it, and start running ads. Repeat this process until you find a winning product!

How to Optimize Your Cart Funnel With A/B Testing

Our software has an A/B testing functionality that you can use to optimize your cart funnel for conversions once you are generating enough traffic. 

The idea behind A/B testing is simple: you create two variants of the same page that are identical except for the element that you are testing, drive the same amount of traffic to both variants, and see which variant converts better.

For example, when it comes to your cart funnel sales page, you might want to A/B test the headline, the subheadline, the product photo, the product description, the price, etc.

You can also A/B test the cart funnel itself by creating two variants of it that are identical except for the upsell or the cross sell. That can help you figure out which offers work best.

You should see the cart funnel that you built as a starting point for the conversion rate optimization process. Keep in mind that A/B testing can help you 2x, 5x, or even 10x your funnel profits!

Try ClickFunnels Risk-Free!

Let’s be real:

We are biased in favor of our software.

So we understand if you take what we say about it with a grain of salt.

Fortunately, we have a free 14-day trial, so you don’t have to take our word for it.

You can go and see ClickFunnels for yourself without any risk!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Start Your Free Trial Today

Thanks for reading Dropshipping Explained: How It Works which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Did you know that dropshipping actually started back in the late 19th century?

The roots of dropshipping can be traced back to mail-order businesses.

Companies like Sears, Roebuck & Co. in the United States used catalogs to sell products to customers who lived in rural areas. These companies didn’t always stock all items but would fulfill orders by sourcing from suppliers after receiving a customer’s order.

Now? 

Dropshipping is a way for you to find, source, and send awesome products to your customers — all without leaving the comfort of your sofa.

Let’s talk about what dropshipping is — and exactly how you can use it to build a successful e-commerce business. 

What is Dropshipping?

Here’s our “official” definition: Dropshipping is a retail fulfillment method where a store doesn’t keep the products it sells in stock. Instead, when the store sells a product, it purchases the item from a third party and has it shipped directly to the customer. As a result, the merchant never sees or handles the product.

And yes, it’s just as awesome as it sounds. 

You don’t have to create the product or ship the product. All you have to do is sell the product.

In fact, you might be surprised to learn that 27% of online retailers use dropshipping in their business model.

Now you’re probably thinking, “That sounds too good to be true.” Is it really possible to just throw up an online store, sell, and let someone else take care of fulfillment? 

Yes. Yes it is. 

But as with anything, there are pros and cons. So let’s talk about them.

Pros & Cons of Dropshipping

Here are some of the main pros and cons you should be aware of with a dropshipping business.

Pros of Dropshipping

Low Startup Costs:

• No need for a physical storefront or warehouse.
• Minimal upfront investment as you don’t need to purchase inventory in advance.

Reduced Overhead:

• No costs associated with managing or maintaining inventory.
• Lower ongoing expenses like rent, utilities, and storage fees.

Wide Product Selection:

• Ability to offer a wide range of products without the need to stock them.
• Easier to test and add new products to your store.

Scalability:

• Easier to scale your business as you don’t need to worry about inventory management.
• Suppliers handle the shipping logistics, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your business.

Location Independence:

• Operate your business from anywhere with an internet connection.
• Flexibility to manage your business remotely.

Reduced Risk:

• Lower financial risk as you only purchase products after making a sale.
• Less risk of unsold inventory or overstock.

Focus on Marketing and Sales:

• More time and resources to focus on marketing, customer service, and optimizing your online store.

Cons of Dropshipping

Lower Profit Margins:

• Higher competition and reliance on suppliers can lead to lower profit margins.
• May need to sell a high volume of products to achieve significant profits.

Inventory Issues:

• No control over stock levels, leading to potential stockouts or backorders.
• Difficulty in managing multiple suppliers’ inventory levels and availability.

Shipping Complexities:

• Complex shipping logistics when dealing with multiple suppliers.
• Potential higher shipping costs and longer delivery times can impact customer satisfaction.

Quality Control:

• Less control over product quality and packaging.
• Increased risk of receiving defective products or poor-quality items from suppliers.

Supplier Errors:

• Mistakes made by suppliers, such as incorrect shipments or delays, can reflect poorly on your business.
• Challenges in managing customer service issues related to supplier errors.

Branding Limitations:

• Limited ability to brand products as your own.
• Difficulty in creating a unique and memorable brand identity.

Customer Service Challenges:

• Handling returns, exchanges, and refunds can be more complex and time-consuming.
• Potential for dissatisfied customers if issues arise with suppliers.

Dependence on Suppliers:

• Reliance on third-party suppliers for product availability, quality, and fulfillment.
• Risk of suppliers changing terms, prices, or going out of business.

Build Your Dropshipping Store Now (FREE)!

How to Create an Ecommerce Store With Dropshipping

Now that you have a grasp of what dropshipping is… and the pros and cons of creating your own dropshipping store, I should mention that you can click here to build your dropping store for free — using ClickFunnels and Zendrop.

Pretty cool, huh?

Now let’s walk through the steps of how you can build a successful e-commerce store with dropshipping (learn how to build a dropshipping funnel).

Step #1: Find Your “Blue Ocean”

This is the critical first step when you’re building any type of business — whether e-commerce, informational, or something else. 

You need to identify your “blue ocean”.

What is that? 

It’s an idea that Russell Brunson explained in his book, Expert Secrets (you can get a free copy at that link). 

You can think of a “red ocean” as one infested by sharks (i.e. competitors). There are already a lot of people in that spot and they are competing for food. 

But a “blue ocean” is a place where there’s not too much competition, a place with opportunity that is relatively unexploited. 

When you find your blue ocean, you make it 100 times easier to succeed! 

Here’s how you do it. 

Start by choosing a market: health, wealth, or relationship.

Then, choose a submarket, for which there are many — here are some examples…

• Health —> Weight Loss, Strength Training, Nutrition
• Wealth —> Investing, Real Estate, Finance
• Relationships —> Dating Advice, Marriage Advice, Love

Once you’ve selected a submarket, go one layer deeper to find your niche (or your “blue ocean”).

This can be anything — here’s one example for each market path…

• Health —> Weight Loss —> Personalized Meal Planning
• Wealth —> Finance —> Paying Off Debt
• Relationships —> Love —> Going Through Divorce

See how this works?

When you go a bit deeper, you’re able to identify a niche where you can operate without too much competition. 

There are a TON of people competing in the health niche, fewer people specifically in the weight loss niche, and even fewer in the personalized meal planning niche. 

It might be difficult to choose just one niche, but the more that you can do that… the easier it’s going to be when it comes to actually selling your e-commerce products.

Step #2: Create Your Branding & Messaging

The next step is to create your brand and your messaging. 

Why is this important? 

Because one of the things that make a product or e-commerce store POP is the brand or its vibe. Think of Liquid Death. 

That is literally just a can of water.

Heck — if I told you you should start a brand selling water in a can, you’d think I was crazy. There are already so many water brands that it’s ridiculous. To imagine that there might be more market share would seem nuts.

But there was. And there is.

Liquid Death has experienced significant growth since its inception. Recently, the company closed a $67 million funding round, bringing its valuation to $1.4 billion. This is a notable increase from its previous valuation of $700 million in October 2022​.

Pretty wild. 

But the question is WHY.

And the answer is that, although they’re just selling water, they’re doing it in a way no one else is — with “death metal” branding that a lot of people identify with.

This is a great example of how you can differentiate yourself with your branding — and create your own blue ocean that might not even exist yet.

Here are some questions to ask yourself…

1. What is your unique selling proposition (USP)?

What makes your product different from the competition? This could be the quality, the price, the customer service, or the branding itself. For Liquid Death, the USP is their unique, edgy branding.

2. Who is your target audience?

Who are you trying to reach? Understanding your audience helps tailor your branding and messaging to their preferences and needs. Liquid Death targets a specific demographic that appreciates unconventional and rebellious branding.

3. What is your brand’s story?

Every great brand has a story. What’s yours? How did your business come to be, and what are its core values? Liquid Death’s story revolves around breaking the mold of traditional bottled water brands and creating something that stands out in a crowded market.

4. How will you visually represent your brand?

What colors, logos, and design elements will you use? Your visual identity should align with your brand’s personality and appeal to your target audience. Liquid Death uses dark, bold imagery to match its “death metal” theme.

5. What tone and voice will you use in your messaging?

The way you communicate with your audience should be consistent and reflect your brand’s personality. Liquid Death’s tone is irreverent and bold, which resonates with its audience.

6. What platforms will you use to reach your audience?

Different platforms serve different purposes. Social media, websites, email marketing, and more all play a role in how you connect with your customers. Liquid Death has effectively used social media to amplify its unique voice and engage with its audience.

7. How will you build a community around your brand?

Community building is crucial for brand loyalty. How will you engage with your customers and make them feel like part of your brand’s journey? Liquid Death has fostered a strong community by aligning its brand with a lifestyle and culture.

When you’re creating your brand image, try to nail down…

• Your slogan — Your slogan is a concise statement that captures the essence of your brand and what it stands for. It should be memorable, catchy, and convey the core message of your business. A good slogan differentiates your brand from competitors and leaves a lasting impression on your audience. For example, Nike’s “Just Do It” encapsulates the brand’s ethos of empowerment and action.
• Your values — Your values define what your brand stands for and guide your business practices. They should reflect your company’s mission and ethical standards, influencing every decision you make. Clearly, articulated values help build trust with your audience and foster a loyal customer base. For instance, Patagonia’s commitment to environmental sustainability is a core value that resonates strongly with its customers.
• Your name — Your brand name is the first thing people will notice about your business, so it should be unique, easy to remember, and reflective of your brand’s identity. A well-chosen name can set the tone for your brand and make it stand out in a crowded marketplace. Think of names like “Apple” or “Amazon” which are simple yet powerful, and evoke a sense of innovation and vastness respectively.
• Your visual identity — Your visual identity includes your logo, color scheme, typography, and overall design aesthetic. It is the visual representation of your brand and should be consistent across all platforms and materials. A strong visual identity helps create a recognizable and professional image, making it easier for customers to connect with and remember your brand. For example, Coca-Cola’s red and white color scheme and distinctive script logo are instantly recognizable worldwide.

… and make it all align so that when people arrive on your website, it feels like something truly special and unique. 

The last thing you want is to feel like every other storefront in your niche! 

Step #3: Build Your Storefront

Just like you used to have to build and source your own products, you also used to have to design and code your own online storefront. 

But now it’s easy as pie. 

With ClickFunnels, you can use our AI Smart Funnels to create a funnel from scratch in less than 10 minutes — just answer a few questions. 

Even better, you can then use our AI assistant to help you with any changes you want to make to your funnel or website. 

We have an AI chatbot named Napoleon. Click on any element on the page, and the bot will recognize that section. Then you can ask the bot to rewrite the copy, expand it, shorten it, or change it in any particular way you like… 

So not only can you build your funnel with AI — you can also refine it with AI!

Amazing, huh? 

And when it comes to dropshipping, ClickFunnels now fully integrates with Zendrop — one of the best dropshipping companies on the planet, that will give you access to list and sell literally millions of products on your e-commerce store. 

In other words, you don’t need to hire an expensive web developer or even go hunting for different dropshipping or website-building companies. 

With ClickFunnels & Zendrop, you’re taken care of 🙂

Just click below to sign up and get started — then come back here and we’ll finish up!

Build Your Dropshipping Store Now (FREE)!

By the way, if you feel a little confused and don’t know where to start, then go sign up for our One Funnel Away Challenge, where you can now take the “e-commerce” path to learn exactly how to sell one product with one traffic source and make (literally) millions of dollars. Learn more here.

Step #4: Drive Traffic

So you’ve got your storefront built and you’re ready to sell products!

Thing is… you need people to visit your store and buy. 

That’s called “traffic”. 

And there are a seemingly endless number of ways you can drive traffic to your e-commerce store. All of which are effective. 

But here are the main ways to learn about and consider!

Content Marketing — Social media is a great place to tell people about your products. If you post consistently on, say, Instagram and build a following… people will naturally want to learn more, they’ll visit your storefront, and they’ll even buy your products. The key is providing genuine value or entertainment for your audience, putting a link in your bio, and posting at least 1-2 times per day. You can learn more about Instagram marketing here. 

SEO — SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization” and it’s all about optimizing your content to rank in search engines like Google. The more you rank, the more traffic you drive organically (for free) to your website and storefront. If you sell tennis rackets, you’d want to rank for phrases like “best tennis rackets” in Google. Then you’re getting relevant traffic. You can learn more about SEO here. 

Advertisements — If you’ve got some money to spend, then you can get results a lot faster by running ads. The easiest places to do this are on Facebook or Google. They have easy-to-use platforms that allow you to get ads up and running in as little as 10 minutes. The key here is to make sure you’re targeting the right audience with your ads, that you have a good hook, and that your funnel is dialed in so you’re not wasting money. You can learn more about advertising here. 

Sponsorships — Sponsorships are like a more “rogue” version of advertising. Instead of just running ads on the big platforms, you can find your own platforms where you want to run ads.

These could be email newsletters, blogs, specific websites, or even podcasts. It takes a bit more research because you have to find these places yourself… but you can get a lot more bang for your buck if you do it right. 

Influencers — You’ve probably seen influencers promoting products on Instagram or TikTok before… that’s because it works! You can find influencers using our “Dream 100” strategy and then reach out to them and ask them what it’d cost for them to promote your products to their audience. 

Affiliate Marketing — Did you know you can get people to sell your products for you… and you only have to pay them a percentage when they make sales? This is called affiliate marketing. You can build your very own “affiliate army” to promote your products.

Step #5: Test Different Products

Once your store is up and running, it’s crucial to continually test different products to find what resonates most with your audience. Here’s how to approach this:

Start with a Small Selection:

Begin by offering a small variety of products related to your niche. This allows you to manage inventory better and understand customer preferences without overwhelming yourself.

Analyze Sales Data:

Use tools to track which products are selling and which aren’t. Pay attention to customer feedback, reviews, and return rates to gauge product success.

Run A/B Tests:

Experiment with different product descriptions, images, pricing, and promotional strategies. A/B testing can help you determine what variations lead to higher conversions.

Leverage Customer Feedback:

Engage with your customers through surveys or direct feedback channels to understand their needs and preferences. This can provide insights into potential product improvements or new offerings.

Rotate Products:

Regularly introduce new products and phase out underperforming ones. This keeps your inventory fresh and exciting for repeat customers while allowing you to find top sellers.

Utilize Social Media and Ads:

Promote different products through social media and paid advertising to see which items gain the most traction. Track engagement metrics to refine your marketing strategy.

Final Thoughts on Dropshipping

Dropshipping presents a fantastic entry point for new entrepreneurs due to its low startup costs and scalability. By focusing on marketing and sales while leveraging third-party suppliers for fulfillment, you can quickly set up and grow your business from anywhere.

However, it’s essential to be aware of the challenges, such as lower profit margins and reliance on suppliers. Success in dropshipping requires finding a unique niche (your “blue ocean”), creating a distinctive brand, and continually optimizing your strategies.

Drive traffic using a combination of content marketing, SEO, ads, and influencer partnerships. Tools like ClickFunnels and Zendrop can simplify the process, allowing you to concentrate on growing your business.

Stay adaptable, keep learning, and focus on building strong customer relationships to thrive in the dropshipping world.

Build Your Dropshipping Store Now (FREE)!

Thanks for reading Beginners – Your Guide to Dropshipping which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Wondering what is the best way to get your business off the ground?

Today we are going to share the top five marketing strategies for new entrepreneurs!

Marketing Strategy #1: Cold Email

What is Cold Email?

Cold email is the practice of manually reaching out to potential customers via email to let them know about your product or service.

How to Use Cold Email to Grow Your Business

When it comes to cold email, one of the best resources out there is “The Cold Email Manifesto” by Alex Berman and Robert Indries.

We highly recommend reading the entire book but here’s a quick overview of the approach that the authors recommend:

1. Register a new domain name that is similar to your main domain name and create a new email account associated with it.
2. Use an email warm-up tool like Lemwarm to “warm up” your new email account by simulating back-and-forth messaging.
3. Create a lead spreadsheet. You can compile it yourself but it probably makes more sense to pay someone on Fiverr to do it for you.
4. Use proven cold email templates. The authors share their own templates in the book but we also recommend checking out Justin McGill’s templates that he used to grow his company from zero to $30k in recurring monthly revenue in just one year.
5. Start with just 10 cold emails per day and then gradually increase that number until you are sending 100 cold emails per day. You can track it all in your lead spreadsheet but it probably makes more sense to invest in software that was designed for that such as Lemlist.

Once you get good at cold outreach, you should be able to schedule 10 discovery calls and close 1 sale for every 100 cold emails that you send.

What are the Advantages of Using Cold Email?

Cold email is super affordable.

It’s also relatively easy to master because you already know how to send emails, all you need to do is figure out how to get the attention of potential customers. 

Finally, it’s the fastest way to get paying customers if you can’t afford to spend money on marketing.

What are the Disadvantages of Using Cold Email?

Cold email is extremely time-consuming: sending 100 personalized emails will probably take you at least four hours. Assuming a 5-day workweek, that’s 20 hours spent on cold outreach alone.

Moreover, cold email is hard to scale. 100 cold emails per day is probably the upper limit of how many messages you can send per day without crossing into the spam territory. Some email service providers might start flagging your emails as spam way before that.

Keep in mind that while cold email is legal in most jurisdictions, spam is illegal in a lot of them, including the United States where each separate email is in violation of the CAN-SPAM and can result in penalties of up to $51,744.

Summary

Cold email is super affordable and relatively easy to master but it requires a ton of time and is hard to scale.

Consequently, this marketing strategy makes the most sense for new entrepreneurs who don’t have much money but do have a lot of free time, especially if they need to start generating revenue ASAP to pay the bills.

Marketing Strategy #2: Social Media Marketing

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is the practice of building a social media following and then leveraging it to sell your products and services.

How to Use Social Media Marketing to Grow Your Business

Here’s the approach that we recommend:

1. Choose a social media platform that makes the most sense for your business.
2. Create a content calendar that you can keep up with indefinitely. When it comes to content creation, quality is more important than quantity. The ideal publishing frequency varies from platform to platform but you should probably post at least one new piece of content every day. 
3. Set aside time every month for batch-creating social media content for the next month. You can use AI tools like Jasper and Firefly to speed up the process. 
4. Once you have the social media content for the next month, schedule it using tools like Buffer, MeetEdgar, or Flick.
5. Set aside time every day for replying to comments. If you reply to each comment that you get, that will not only increase the engagement for that particular piece of content but also incentivize your followers to comment on your posts in the future.
6. Set aside time every day for networking with other people in your niche. Share their content if you believe that it can benefit your followers, leave thoughtful comments under their posts, and eventually reach out to them via DMs to establish a more personal connection.
7. Put a link to your lead magnet landing page in your bio with a one-sentence call to action. You don’t need to promote your free offer directly. Instead, simply focus on consistently publishing high-quality content. People who find your content valuable will probably decide to check out your lead magnet eventually. 

Consider watching this video if you want to learn more about building an audience on social media:

What are the Advantages of Using Social Media Marketing to Grow Your Business?

Social media marketing is free: no matter how broke you are, you can create a social media profile and start posting.

Also, if you focus on consistently publishing high-quality content and interacting with your followers, the algorithm will give you more and more exposure as time goes on because social media algorithms are designed to maximize engagement.

What are the Disadvantages of Using Social Media Marketing to Grow Your Business?

Building a social media following takes time.

You can probably do it in 2-3 years if you remain consistent. 

However, that first year can be pretty brutal. It’s challenging to stay optimistic when you have been posting high-quality content every day for several months but only managed to gain 136 followers. That’s why most people give up!

Summary

Social media marketing is super affordable, relatively easy to master, and doesn’t require that much time but you will need to consistently post high-quality content for several years in order to build a following.

Consequently, this marketing strategy makes the most sense for new entrepreneurs who have a job that pays the bills and some spare time that they can dedicate to growing their social media presence.

Marketing Strategy #3: Email Marketing

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is the practice of building an email list and then leveraging it to sell your products and services. 

How to Use Email Marketing to Grow Your Business

Here’s the approach we recommend:

1. Come up with a concept for a weekly email newsletter. It should be something that your target audience would find interesting.
2. Choose email marketing software for your weekly email newsletter. ConvertKit, Ghost, and Substack are all great options.
3. Create a landing page for your weekly email newsletter. Carrd is a solid and affordable option.
4. Set up a confirmation and deliverability welcome email where you confirm the subscription and tell the new subscriber what they should expect next.
5. Set aside time every week to prepare the next newsletter issue. You don’t want to do this last minute so make sure that it’s ready to go at least one day in advance. 
6. Leverage your social media following by promoting your newsletter in your bio and sharing a sneak peek of each issue one day before you send it out. 
7. Focus on consistency. Your goal should be to never skip a single newsletter issue no matter what.
8. Promote your products and services in the “P.S.” section of your newsletter. If you have a special announcement, you can make it in the body copy but that should be a once-in-a-blue-moon type of thing, not a weekly occurrence.

Consider watching this video if you want to learn more about building an email newsletter:

What are the Advantages of Using Email Marketing to Grow Your Business?

We would argue that email marketing is the best way to decrease your customer acquisition cost (CAC), increase customer lifetime value (LTV), and improve your profit margins.

What are the Disadvantages of Using Email Marketing to Grow Your Business?

You will need a marketing strategy for the newsletter itself. How do you intend to promote it?

Also, remember how we said that the first year on social media can be brutal due to extremely slow growth?

Well, it’s much easier to grow a social media following than it is to grow an email list so that’s something to keep in mind!

Summary

Email marketing is affordable, doesn’t take that much time, and is relatively easy to master but in order to grow your email list you will need a way to promote your newsletter.

Also, it will probably take you a few years to get to the point where your email list is large enough to generate substantial revenue.

Consequently, this marketing strategy makes the most sense for new entrepreneurs who have a job that pays the bills, some spare time to dedicate to their newsletter, and a marketing channel that they can use to promote it.

Generally speaking, if you are starting completely from scratch, it’s probably best to build a social media following first and then leverage it to launch a weekly newsletter!

Marketing Strategy #4: Video Marketing

What is Video Marketing?

Video marketing is the practice of using video content to build a following on platforms like YouTube and TikTok and then leveraging it to sell your products and services. 

How to Use Video Marketing to Grow Your Business

Here’s the approach we recommend:

1. Take a look at the popular YouTube channels in your niche. What are their strengths and weaknesses? You want to find a way to bring something unique to the table.
2. Invest in filming equipment. You can get away with shooting videos with your smartphone but a high-quality microphone is an absolute must. Also, get some camera lights because proper lighting makes a huge difference when it comes to production quality. 
3. Invest in video editing software. We recommend going with AI tools like Descript and Opus Clip if you don’t have any prior video editing experience.
4. Invest in an AI text-to-image generator. You are going to use it to create video thumbnails. We recommend Adobe Firefly
5. Create a content schedule that you can keep up with indefinitely. Ideally, you want to post one video per week, on the same day every week.
6. Set aside time for creating video content every week. Keep in mind that if you have never made videos before, you are probably severely underestimating how time-consuming it is. 
7. Make sure to target a popular keyword with each video. You can find popular keywords by typing a generic keyword related to your niche into the YouTube search and looking at the search suggestions that come up.
8. Do competitive research for your target keyword. Watch the top 3-5 videos that are ranking for it and read the comments. You want to find a way to make your video better.
9. Shoot the video. Make sure to end each video with a call to action encouraging the viewer to check out your lead magnet or subscribe to your weekly email newsletter. 
10. Edit the video with AI video editing software and create a thumbnail for it with an AI text-to-image generator. Ideally, your thumbnails should have a consistent aesthetic so that your subscribers would immediately recognize your videos in their subscription feeds.
11. Upload the video. Don’t forget to take care of the boring technical stuff like adding tags.
12. Publish the video. You want to reply to every comment that you get. This will help you create engagement. 
13. Use Opus Clip to repurpose your video into short clips. Upload them to YouTube and TikTok. 
14. Promote your new video on social media and in your weekly email newsletter!

Consider watching this video if you want to learn more about starting a YouTube channel:

What are the Advantages of Using Video Marketing to Grow Your Business?

It’s becoming clear that video is the preferred medium for people all around the world so we can probably safely assume that its relevance is only going to increase in the foreseeable future.

What are the Disadvantages of Using Video Marketing to Grow Your Business?

It will likely take you at least 2-3 years to amass a substantial following on YouTube.

Moreover, you are probably severely underestimating the amount of time, energy, and money required to build a popular YouTube channel!

Summary

Video marketing can enable you to capitalize on the ever-increasing popularity of this medium.

However, building a YouTube channel is not just a long-term project but also a resource-intensive endeavor.

Consequently, this marketing strategy makes the most sense for new entrepreneurs who have a job that pays the bills and are willing to invest a ton of time, energy and money in their YouTube channel.

Marketing Strategy #5: Paid Advertising

What is Paid Advertising?

Paid advertising is the practice of promoting your offers with paid ads. In the online marketing context, that typically means running ads on Google Search and various social media platforms. 

How to Use Paid Advertising to Grow Your Business

Here’s what we recommend:

1. Build a sales funnel for your business.
2. Choose one social media platform to advertise on.
3. Create an ad campaign designed to promote your lead magnet.
4. Start running that ad campaign with a small daily budget.
5. Optimize the campaign with split testing (also known as A/B testing). 
6. Once you figure out how to run that campaign profitably, begin gradually increasing your daily budget. 
7. Continue gradually increasing your campaign’s daily budget until you reach the point where you cannot scale it anymore.
8. Once you have mastered paid advertising on one social media platform, you can start expanding to other platforms.

So to reiterate, you want to use paid advertising to drive traffic to your lead magnet landing page, not to the sales pages of your products and services. You can learn more about the reasoning behind this approach in our guide to customer acquisition. 

Also, if you want to learn how to run ads on your platform of choice, there are a lot of free videos on YouTube but we recommend waiting for the next Udemy’s sale and buying a course that has the best reviews. That should cost you around $10-$20.

What are the Advantages of Using Paid Advertising to Grow Your Business?

The main advantage of paid advertising is speed: it enables you to get traffic immediately, assuming that people click on your ads. 

Another advantage is targeting. Social media platforms have not just massive user bases but also incredible targeting functionalities. That enables you to reach potential customers regardless of who your target audience is.

Finally, there’s scalability. Ad campaigns are relatively easy to scale as long as you have the money for it. Want to double your sales? Simply double your ad spend!

Of course, at some point, this linear relationship is going to break down, but you can get pretty far by just throwing more money at a profitable ad campaign. 

What are the Disadvantages of Using Paid Advertising to Grow Your Business?

Paid advertising has a steep learning curve so you need to be okay with burning money until you get the hang of it. And that might take a while.

Also, if you want to use paid advertising to grow your business, you need to make sure that your math is on point. Otherwise, you might find yourself in the red really fast.

The most important number that you need to pay attention to is the customer acquisition cost (CAC) to customer lifetime value (LTV) ratio.

Consider watching this video if you want to learn more about the CAC: LTV metric:

Summary

Paid advertising can be a great way to get your business off the ground quickly but you need to know what you’re doing and have the budget for it.

Consequently, this marketing strategy makes the most sense for new entrepreneurs who have a lucrative job, want to invest some of that money into growing their side hustle, and don’t mind burning cash in order to learn how to run ads.

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Thanks for reading New Entrepreneurs – Use These Simple Marketing Tips which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Artificial intelligence can help you create more effective marketing campaigns, increase your content output, and make better, data-driven decisions.

But there are so many AI marketing platforms out there. So how can you choose the right software for your company?

Today we are going to take a look at the top 10 AI tools and discuss how you can use them to take your business to the next level!

What is AI?

“AI” stands for “artificial intelligence”.

It’s an umbrella term that refers to the machine’s ability to perform complex cognitive tasks.

At the time of writing, we are at what appears to be the peak of the most recent AI hype cycle that was kicked off by the astonishing success of Open AI’s ChatGPT.

If you are familiar with technological hype cycles, you probably know that the terms describing the overhyped technologies tend to gradually lose their meaning and turn into nebulous buzzwords.

In the last decade, this has happened with the terms “blockchain”, “crypto” and “Web3”. Now it’s happening with the term “AI”.

That’s why we recommend getting into the habit of using more precise terms to refer to specific technologies that fall under the “AI” umbrella. 

For example, if you are considering adding ChatGPT to your business workflow, don’t think about it as “AI”, think about it as a “large language model”.

This approach can help you see past the hype, accurately assess the capabilities and limitations of the technology in question, and make good business decisions. 

What are the Main Benefits of Using AI in Your Business?

Benefit #1: Increased Speed

You can use AI, more specifically generative AI such as large language models and text-to-image generators, to get more done in less time.

These technologies can help you:

• Develop a comprehensive marketing strategy and turn it into a step-by-step action plan that tells you what you need to do every day, every week, and every month in order to reach your business goals. 
• Produce written marketing content such as social media posts, blog articles, video scripts, ad copy, email copy, landing page copy, sales page copy, website copy and more.
• Produce visual marketing assets such as social media images, blog images, video thumbnails, ad images, landing page images, sales page images, product images and more.
• Analyze your long-form videos, identify the most interesting moments, and turn them into short clips that you can then post on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. 

At the time of writing, these tasks cannot be completely automated due to the current limitations of generative AI.

However, if you learn to use these technologies effectively, you could potentially 10x your marketing content output. 

This can give you a competitive advantage over rival companies that haven’t incorporated AI in their business workflows yet.

Benefit #2: Decreased Expenses

Another benefit of using generative AI in your business is that it allows you to decrease your expenses by reducing your reliance on creative professionals.

For example, large language models and text-to-image generators can enable you to write articles, create images, and edit videos all by yourself, without having to hire writers, graphic designers or video editors.

At the time of writing, large language models and text-to-image generators can’t outperform creative professionals in terms of quality yet, but they can produce written content, visual content and video content that is “good enough” for business purposes.

This can be especially helpful for solopreneurs who are just starting out, can’t afford to hire anyone and therefore need to do everything themselves whether they want to or not. 

We recommend educating yourself on the phenomenon known as “hallucinations” so that you can better understand the limitations of large language models like ChatgPT. 

In short, they are inherently unreliable in terms of factual accuracy because sometimes they just make things up. This is a well-known problem in the field of artificial intelligence.

That means that if you are using these technologies to create written content, you shouldn’t publish it without manually fact-checking everything. If you don’t have the subject matter expertise to do so, you will need to hire someone who does.

Note that publishing inaccurate information can damage your brand image, attract negative media attention, and even get you in trouble with the law!

Benefit #3: Better Data Analysis 

You can also use AI, more specifically various machine learning techniques that were developed in the context of data science, to analyze vast quantities of data and extract actionable insights from it. 

For example, a machine learning technique known as text analysis can help you analyze all customer messages, emails, and support tickets that you have ever received and extract actionable insights that you can then implement in your business. 

Generative AI is getting all the media attention right now but it can be argued that improving the efficiency of business operations is where machine learning truly shines!

Reality Check: You Need to Understand Business Fundamentals to Use AI Tools Effectively!

One of the problems with the AI hype is that “AI” is being presented as a miracle solution that can solve all your problems. 

But while AI tools are indeed powerful, ultimately they are just that: tools.

And if you don’t understand business fundamentals, you won’t be able to use these tools effectively.

That’s why it’s so important to educate yourself on subjects like sales funnels, marketing, and copywriting. 

AI is not a replacement for business knowledge!

The Top 10 AI Tools That Can Help You Take Your Business to the Next Level

Another problem with the AI hype is that it can give you this vague feeling that you should start using “AI” in your business in order to not get left behind. That can lead to making bad decisions due to the fear of missing out. 

Instead, you want to be pragmatic about it: look at your existing workflow, see what tasks could be done more efficiently with AI, and then choose AI tools that are the most suitable for those tasks. 

That way, you will be using these tools to solve real problems, not just mindlessly hopping on the hype train!

Best for Developing a Marketing Strategy: ChatGPT

ChatGPT is a large language model with extremely broad capabilities.

One of the best ways to use it in the business context is to ask it to create a marketing strategy for your company based on your target audience, offer, resources, timeframe, and goals.

Once you have the high-level strategy, you can ask it to create an action plan with the tasks that you need to complete every day, every week, and every month in order to achieve your goals.

As we explained previously, large language models are prone to hallucinations, so you should take everything they say with a grain of salt.

But if you understand business fundamentals, you will be able to evaluate the suggested marketing strategy, make some adjustments, and use it to grow your business!

Best for Producing Marketing Content: Jasper

Jasper is an AI “copilot” that can help you produce marketing content and visuals.

It will give you access to 12 large language models, including the previously mentioned ChatGPT.

In case you are wondering why not just use these large language models directly, the answer is that Jasper was specifically designed for marketers.

If you aren’t that interested in playing around with AI, can’t be bothered to invest time in mastering prompt engineering, and just want to get things done, this is the right tool for you.

It offers prompt templates, content templates, team collaboration features, and more. In fact, you can use Jasper to generate an entire marketing campaign, the first drafts of all marketing assets included, with a single brief!

It’s also worth noting that this AI tool offers extensions for Chrome and Edge web browsers which can enable you to access its capabilities everywhere!

Best for Producing Marketing Visuals: Firefly

Adobe Firefly is an incredible text-to-image generator that you can use to produce marketing visuals. 

All you need to do is type in a prompt that describes what you have in mind and Firefly will generate an image based on those instructions. 

This tool also includes various image editing features. For example, you can easily expand the image, add or remove details, change the background, etc.

Firefly is easy to integrate with other apps in Adobe’s software suite. In fact, it powers some of the new features in Illustrator, Photoshop, and Lightroom. 

Finally, Adobe has made it clear that Firefly was trained on licensed data. This is important because there have already been several class-action lawsuits against software companies that trained their text-to-image generators on unlicensed data. 

At the time of writing, we are still in the “Wild West” phase of AI development where software companies are pushing the frontier of this technology and lawmakers are struggling to keep up with the latest advancements. That will inevitably come to an end eventually. 

We would argue that it’s best to play it safe and only use text-to-image generators that have been trained on licensed data. That way, once the laws governing AI use are put in place, you won’t have to worry about getting sued for copyright infringement!

Best for Social Media Marketing: Flick

Flick is an AI social media marketing platform.

It enables you to use AI to generate content ideas, produce the content itself, and then schedule that content to be published on your chosen social media platforms. 

It works best for growing an Instagram following because it includes Instagram hashtag tools and detailed Instagram analytics that provide real-time reporting and actionable insights.

But it can also work well for promoting your brand on Facebook, LinkedIn and TikTok!

Best for Social Listening: Brand24

Brand24 is an AI social listening tool that you can use to manage your brand. 

It allows you to monitor brand mentions across various platforms and see them in one unified feed.

It also enables you to sort these mentions by positive, neutral, and negative sentiments and observe the changes in conversation volume.

You can even set custom alerts if you want to get notified about brand mentions!

Best for Producing Short-Form Videos: Opus Clip

Opus Clip is an AI video tool that you can use to repurpose video content into short clips. 

It works like this: you either upload a video or link to a video that you want to repurpose, set the parameters and then let AI produce the clips. 

This tool can be incredibly helpful for brands that primarily focus on long-form video content such as podcast interviews, video essays, documentaries and so on.

Manually going over a 90-minute interview, identifying the most interesting moments, cutting them out, repurposing them into short clips, adding captions and subtitles, coming up with a title, etc. can take ages.

But Opus Clip can produce a bunch of shorts in less than 10 minutes. Sure, they probably won’t be perfect and might require a little bit of editing, but you will still save an insane amount of time!

Best for Optimizing Ad Campaigns: Lemon AI

LemonAI is an AI tool designed to help you optimize your Google, Facebook, and Instagram advertising campaigns. 

First, you integrate it with your business analytics software, create prediction goals, and wait for the AI model to be trained on your data.

Then, you launch an ad campaign with smart ad optimization that is based on predictive analytics. 

The longer you use this AI model, the more data it will have to learn from and the more effective it will become.

This tool can help you improve some of the most important business metrics such as your customer acquisition cost (CAC), your customer lifetime value (CLV) and your churn rate.

Best for Analyzing Customer Feedback: MonkeyLearn

MonkeyLearn is a text analytics app that makes it easy to collect all customer feedback in one place, analyze it, and extract actionable insights from it.

Data visualizations can help you understand the distribution of feedback by topic, the sentiment for each topic, changes in sentiment over time, and more.

You can then use that knowledge to improve customer service, prioritize the most important issues, and create a business development roadmap that is based on what your customers want the most. 

Best for Business Analytics: Tableau

Tableau is an AI-powered business analytics platform that belongs to the Salesforce software suite.

It enables you to collect business data from various sources, analyze it, extract actionable insights from it and create beautiful visualizations that instantly convey the most important information to the stakeholders.

You can even ask Tableu’s AI chatbot questions such as “What caused the sudden increase in sales in the last weekend of July?” and you’ll get an answer that will help you better understand the data in question. 

This tool does have a steep learning curve but the interface is simple enough to navigate even if you don’t have a background in data science!

Best for Building Sales Funnels: ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is an all-in-one marketing platform that has everything you need to launch, manage, and grow your online business. We have recently added an AI sales funnel builder to it!

You can use our AI sales funnel builder to create a sales funnel for your business extremely fast, even if you have never built one before. It typically takes around 10-15 minutes. 

Once you have your sales funnel, you can import it to your ClickFunnels account, edit it with our page editor and set up an automated welcome sequence with our email marketing functionality.

Then, once your sales funnel is live and you start driving traffic to it, you can optimize it with our A/B testing functionality.

A/B testing can help you maximize your sales, revenue, and profit!

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Let’s be real:

We are biased in favor of our software.

So we understand if you take what we say about it with a grain of salt.

Fortunately, we have a free 14-day trial, so you don’t have to take our word for it. 

You can go and see ClickFunnels for yourself without any risk!

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Thanks for reading How The Right AI Marketing Platform Can Help Your Business In 2024 which appeared first on ClickFunnels.