Many of us crowd around the television during the Olympics, in awe as we think “Man, I wish I could be that good at, well, just about anything!”

Why not take the motivation and drive of elite athletes and apply that passion to your marketing strategy?

With enough focus and intensity, you can make your next sales funnel worthy of a gold medal.

The Olympics represent the pinnacle of spectacle and athletic performance, with millions around the world tuning in to see the best of the best compete for the glory and the gold.

The blood, sweat, and tears that go into the training regimen of the most Olympic athletes is difficult for the average person to wrap their head around.

From training for six hours a day, six days a week year-round to insanely strict diets that we could never stomach ourselves, the dedication and intensity of those competing in the Olympics are absolutely staggering.

Okay, so what the heck does this have to do with building a sales funnel?

More than you might think.

While comparing your sales funnel to pole-vaulting or the 200-meter dash may seem like apples and oranges, consider the struggles that marketers face:

• Some days it just feels like we’re going nowhere, essentially spinning our wheels trying to support an underperforming sales funnel.
• Throwing in the towel can be incredibly tempting when we’re not seeing an ROI for our hard work and research.
• Overcoming that final financial hurdle into profitability can be like staring up at a giant, seemingly impossible to overcome.

Likewise, athletes face similar challenges in the midst physical and mental roadblocks as they spend four years preparing for events that could last mere seconds.

But do they give up?

No.

And neither should you.

It’s time to take your funnel out of the kiddie pool and get on Michael Phelps’ level.

How?

Practice Makes Perfect

Olympic athletes aren’t simply born: they’re made as a result of their years of fierce training and focus.

Likewise, killer sales funnels don’t fall from the sky: they’re created as a result of intense research and a fool-proof sales strategy.

If your first funnel falls flat, does that mean you should give up altogether?

Of course not. Instead, learn from the mistakes of your first funnel and understand what not to do the next time around.

Some common pitfalls that even seasoned funnel-builders make include:

• Ignoring the elements of conversion focused design, ultimately resulting in a funnel that fails to convert.
• Relying on a cheap or inexperienced team as a means of cutting corners which therefore cuts sales.
• Focusing too much on the front-end instead of implementing a back-end that grows the profit.

Think of fine-tuning your funnel as simply part of the process, much like athletes have to train for hours on end to recreate their best performances.

The more time you spend building and launching new funnels, the more opportunities you have to grow as a successful funnel-hacker.

Split Test Strategies

Dozens of world records have already been broken at the Rio Olympics.

In fact, it seems like records are constantly being broken the Olympics, year after year.

Why?

Athletes evolve. As researchers and trainers uncover new ways to train, athletes adapt accordingly to raise their own standards to match their competition.

On a similar note, you should constantly work to evolve your marketing and funnel-building to meet the expectations and best practices of your niche.

Funnel-builders should always be split testing to optimize the potential of their marketing strategy.

From the color scheme to copywriting, there are always tweaks that can be made to make your funnel smarter and stronger.

Sure, you can let your funnel sit in autopilot mode; however, that’s no way to grow your network for future funnels and stand toe-to-toe with your competition.

If you hope for your funnel to stay competitive, you can’t afford to test.

Play the Long-Game

It can take some athletes years of rigorous training before they make it to the Olympics: earning a medal requires extreme patience and perseverance.

You can’t always expect your funnels to kill it from the word “go.”

Remember: funnel-hacking represents a marathon and not a sprint.

Think about how long-distance runners kick it into high gear at the end of the race: they fact that were ever “behind” becomes irrelevant as long as they cross the finish line first.

For example, it’s okay to sacrifice some conversions on the front-end to create life-long customers on the back-end.

Many funnel-hackers get laser-focused on their launches that they ignore essential elements of their back-end such as retargeting and segmenting their lists.

In reality, ensuring that you build a base of customers and employ a strategy to turn them into life-long advocates of your business represents the difference between a killer and average funnel.

By focusing on the back-end of your funnel, you play the long-game to ensure more revenue for your business with less legwork.

There are No Shortcuts

Building.

Writing.

Testing.

Funnels represent a lot of hard work, and there are no shortcuts.

Similarly, Olympians train their entire lives to relish a few moments of glory; however, such glory can easily be stripped away from those caught cheating or attempting to undermine the integrity of the games.

On a similar note, funnel-builders attempting to rely on black-hat techniques can lose their funnels and organic search presence at little more than a moment’s notice.

Google is more than happy to punish any business looking to game their system, whether through duplicate content or black-hat link building.

Sure, it may take a while to get caught; however, punishment is usually always swift, sudden and severe.

When it comes to funnel-building, you’re on a relatively even playing field. In other words, there’s no need to “cheat.”

Therefore, use the best tools in your toolbox to outdo your competition rather than looking for the easy way out.

The risk simply isn’t worth it: plus, the energy spent digging for a shortcut could be spent optimizing your next funnel.

Knowing the in’s and out’s of your competition can take you much further than trying to undermine them.

Remain Consistent

Many Olympians live by the mantra of “never give up.”

You should treat your funnels the same way.

If you’re persistent, your funnel has nowhere to go but “up” over time.

Perhaps the biggest mistake a funnel-builder could make is dropping what they’re doing and simply giving up when the going gets tough.

Yes, it can be frustrating to see our traffic drop.

Yes, it sucks when we don’t see the conversion we want.

But that doesn’t mean you should let your funnel fail out of frustration.

Don’t expect your sales funnel to start turning a profit overnight.

Sure, we’re always hoping to become the next big success story; however, realistic expectations will keep you grounded and focused.

Keep going and keep testing. If something’s broken, figure out why and do what you can to fix it.

There’s No Single “Key” to Success

From optimal training and immaculate diet, there are many variables to an Olympian’s success one the day of an event.

There are so many pieces to what makes a successful sales funnel. For starters, let’s think about:

1. The design of your sales funnels, professional in appearance and pleasing to the eye.
2. The copywriting and marketing message of your funnel, designed to encourage visitors to click through rather than bounce.
3. The management of your various traffic streams, from paid ads to organic search and beyond, and how you continue to bring new visitors into your funnel.
4. The performance of your affiliates and referrals optimized to help you build new leads.
5. The strength of your back-end, including your email autoresponders that will help bring back any users who may have fallen out of your funnel.

Here’s a not-so-secret secret:

The success of your funnel doesn’t lie within one single element.

It’s the elements combined that determine the potential of your funnel.

Unfortunately, one weakness can hinder your funnel’s potential.

Similarly, many Olympic athletes train their entire lives for an event just to slip in a split-second of weakness and essentially lose their shot at glory.

Fortunately, you always have the opportunity to bounce back.

Stay organized. Stay diligent. Stay hungry.

Your efforts will pay off.

What Separates a Golden Funnel from the Rest of the Pack?

While funnel-hacking isn’t exactly an Olympic sport (yet), there are some parallels between the struggles of star athletes and the challenges faced by modern marketers.

The marketing world moves fast and is difficult to maneuver in the wake of evolving technologies, new faces and the promise of “the next big thing.”

Much like Olympians, funnel-builders should consider patience, focus and consistency as key virtues to help ensure their success.

So, what do you think separates a star funnel from the rest of the pack?

Thanks for reading Launching A High Converting Sales Funnel Out Of The Box which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

If there’s no demand for your product or service, you can have the best sales funnel in the world and you will still struggle to make money.

Unfortunately, we often see entrepreneurs spend months or even years working on business ideas that were doomed from the start.

That’s why today we want to share our step-by-step guide to determining whether your business idea has potential:

Step #1: Sell a Product or Service That has a Proven Demand

Entrepreneurship has come to be associated with innovation in our culture.

Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising considering that the most iconic entrepreneurs of our times are the tech billionaires of Silicon Valley.

However, if you want to start a business, you don’t need to have an innovative idea. In fact, pursuing one would decrease your likelihood of success. How so?

Well, if you go with a product or service that has proven demand, you’ll know for sure that people want it, you won’t have to waste time explaining to everyone what it is and you will be able to learn from the mistakes of your competitors.

Meanwhile, if you attempt to do something that has never been done before, you will be starting from absolute zero, without even knowing if anyone is interested in your product or service to begin with.

And sure, if you already have an innovative idea that you believe has incredible potential, then it might make sense to pursue it. Who are we to say that you shouldn’t?

However, if all you want is to create a better life for yourself and your loved ones by building a sustainable business, then going with something tried-and-true is a much better bet!

Step #2: Do Competitive Research

Competition is a good sign. Why?

Because if there already are a bunch of companies selling the same products or services that you intend to sell, it means that there’s money to be made doing that.

However, if you want to carve out a market share for yourself as a newcomer, you need to first learn everything you can about the main players in your niche:

• Purchase their products and services yourself to see what their entire buyer’s journey looks like from the customer’s perspective. Screenshot and save everything so that you can use it for reference later. We call this “funnel hacking”.
• Make sure to actually try the products and services that you bought. Do your competitors deliver what they promised or is the experience disappointing? Think about how you could do what they do but do it cheaper, faster, and better.
• Read customer reviews on your competitors’ websites, various third-party platforms, and online forums like Reddit.
• Watch YouTube reviews and read the comments. Just keep in mind that if it’s a sponsored review then it’s unlikely to be objective.
• Use text analytics software to uncover more insights. For example, you could use it to analyze all tweets that mention one of your competitors, which may not be possible to do manually.

Your aim here should be to get a good understanding of the general landscape of your niche and then look for a market gap that you can capitalize on.

Generally speaking, as businesses grow, they tend to expand the scope of their products, which typically leads to them gaining a broader appeal but becoming less suited for any particular use case.

This is something that you can exploit as a newcomer: instead of competing against the big players in your niche directly, you can steal a slice of their market share by creating a product that only has one use case but is perfect for it.

Keep in mind that there are plenty of people out there who have made their first million with a single eBook, online course, WordPress plugin, Shopify theme, e-commerce product, etc. so it is possible to become a millionaire by solving one problem exceptionally well!

Step #3: Create a Minimum Viable Version of Your Offer

The concept of the “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP) was popularized by Eric Ries, the author of the classic book “The Lean Startup”.

An MVP is an early, bare-bones version of the product that only has the core functionality required to solve the main problem that it aims to address.

We recommend creating a lead magnet – a freebie that you will offer to potential customers in exchange for their email addresses – that you can use as your MVP.

As our friend Alex Hormozi puts it, a lead magnet should provide a complete solution to a narrowly defined problem:

So think about what you can give away for free that would solve a narrowly defined problem related to the problem that your core product or service addresses.

Here are some ideas:

• Thinking about writing a non-fiction book? Write the introduction and the first chapter and use them as your lead magnet.
• Thinking about writing a novel? Write a short story or a novella in the same genre, ideally one that is a prequel for the novel, and use it as your lead magnet.
• Have an idea for a computer game? Create a 30-60 minute demo and use it as your lead magnet.
• Want to sell services? Offer the setup service for free as your lead magnet.
• Want to sell an online course? Create one lesson and use it as your lead magnet.
• Want to sell software? Create a free app that only has one feature and use it as your lead magnet.

Of course, this approach only works if the product or service already has proven demand.

If you have an innovative business idea, you should only consider it validated once you get enough people to pay you.

In that case, we recommend reading “The Lean Startup” and going with that strategy instead!

Step #4: Build a Simple Squeeze Page Funnel for Your Offer

The squeeze page funnel has two pages:

1. A squeeze page where you explain what your free offer is all about and encourage the potential customer to take advantage of it.
2.  A thank you page where you thank the potential customer and tell them what they need to do to redeem the free offer.

Our software, ClickFunnels, includes a proven squeeze page funnel template that has been optimized for conversions!

Step #5: Start Driving Traffic to Your Squeeze Page Funnel With Paid Ads

It doesn’t really matter which platform you advertise on, what’s important is that you put your free offer in front of your dream customers.

If you don’t have any previous experience with paid advertising, we recommend picking up a Facebook Ads course on Udemy and going through it to learn the basics.

Then, set up an ad campaign, start running it with a small daily budget, and see what happens. Are people giving you their email addresses?

If your free offer is related to something that has a proven demand, you should be able to get leads provided that your targeting, your ads, and your squeeze page copy are all on point.

If you aren’t able to get leads no matter what you do, it’s possible that your free offer isn’t appealing enough, in which case you need to either find a way to make it more valuable or come up with something new.

Ideally, you want to optimize everything to the point where your cost-per-lead is $2 or less.

We would say that if you can build an email list of 1,000 subscribers at that cost-per-lead, your business idea is probably worth pursuing!

Okay, But What if You Can’t Afford to Spend Money on Ads?

There are other ways to drive traffic to your squeeze page funnel such as building a following on social media and promoting your free offer there.

However, getting to that 1,000 subscriber milestone will probably take you at least a year with this approach.

If you want to reach it faster, it might make sense to simply pick up a part-time job so that you would have money to spend on ads.

That would also help you learn paid advertising, which is a skill that will likely prove to be extremely valuable in your entrepreneurial career.

Finally, if you want to sell a service that has a proven demand, you can always start with cold outreach and get some money coming in that way, then build a proper sales funnel later.

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 How To Validate A Market For Your Next Sales Funnel which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

We already know that Actionetics is a fantastic marketing automation platform when working in tandem with your sales funnel. Be that as it may, if you’re not making the most of Actionetics, then you’re missing out on a lot. If you are completely new to this, here is a comprehensive post about Getting Started with Actionetics.

To help you understand just how powerful an automation platform Actionetics is, you need to discover all the interesting features it offers and not just the obvious ones. While Actionetics is a powerful tool, in and of its own,  it wouldn’t hurt to know and leverage some of the most useful (but rarely used) features of Actionetics.

Here are 4 Actionetics features you probably don’t bother to discover or even use.

1. ACTION SCORE

If you’re already using Actionetics, then you must have already seen the Action Score displayed on every contact profile. A contact’s Action Score for recency, frequency, monetary value, and social scores. To be able to view each element of a contact’s Action Score, all you need to do is to hover your cursor on the display and move it around the rings of the Action Score display.

Some may think that this is negligible, but what makes this feature so important is that enables marketers to determine a contact’s lifetime value and, of course, a contact’s current value to your business. With this feature, you will be given insights on how your contacts behave, where you engage them the most and how to market to them better.

2. CUSTOM GROUPS

Most users new to Actionetics may tend to find custom groups in Action Funnels, a bit tricky. This is especially so when figuring out what custom group to use if you want a particular action, whether it’s external or internal, to trigger your action funnel. Custom group has seven rule groups.

1. SOCIAL

This lets you filter an action funnel step according to the number of social media followers or fans of any social network.

The social networks covered under this category are:

• Picasa
• Pinterest
• Placast
• SlideShare
• SoundCloud
• Tumblr
• Tungle Me
• Twitter
• Vimeo
• WordPress
• yahoo
• YouTube
• About.me
• Angellist
• Blogger
• Delicious
• Digg
• Facebook
• Flickr
• Foursquare
• Friendfeed
• Github
• Google Plus
• Gravatar
• Instagram
• Klout
• LinkedIn
• Myspace

2. CONTACT

This lets you trigger your action funnel step according to contact information

3. FUNNEL

This lets you trigger your action funnel step according to page visited or not visited by your contact.

4. PRODUCT

This trigger is quite similar to Funnel except that it lets you trigger your action funnel step according to whether a particular product is bought or not by a contact.

5. BROADCASTS

This lets you trigger your action funnel step according to particular actions on your email broadcasts (i.e. opened broadcast, never opened broadcast, clicked broadcast, did not click broadcast)

6. LISTS

This lets you trigger your action funnel step according to a particular email list.

7. EMAIL STEP

This lets you trigger your action funnel step according to email step action. (i.e. opened email step, never opened email step, clicked email step, never clicked email step)

Now, I’m pretty sure most of you have tried out Action Funnels, but what some do not realise is that you are not limited to just one custom group or that you’re not utilising the other categories! You can set multiple custom group to fully customise each step in your Action Funnels. Try it out and create and send targeted marketing messages!

3. TAGS

Tags are a quite new to Actionetics, which may explain why you haven’t utilised them yet if you haven’t. While email lists are used to segment your contacts (making it easier for you to send various different marketing messages), tags let you further segment these contacts according to specified actions in each step of your funnel.

You can use tags to segment your contacts, use them as triggers for particular steps in your Action Funnel, and they also let you analyse each contact according to tags added to their profiles. If you want to enable tags to be added to your contacts, all you have to do is to go to your page editor >  go to Settings > Integrations> Select Actionetics as an Integration > Add Tag and add the your tag.

TIP: You can also opt to add “Remove Tag” as an option in your email integration settings.

4. CONTACT PROFILE

It’s not exactly a secret, but I’m pretty sure you haven’t taken the time to see each individual contact in your list’s profile. You’d be surprised to discover a treasure trove of valuable data you can use in planning your next marketing campaign.

Among the information you discover is, of course, your contact’s Action score which has already been discussed earlier. Aside from that, you’ll be able to see their purchase history, their recent activities, memberships you offered that they have subscribed to, etc. If you want to learn more about the Actionetics Contact Profile Dashboard, be sure to check out this post I wrote previously.

What’s next with Actionetics Features?

While you may have read (or heard) of most of the features mentioned above, chances are you haven’t used these features and leveraged them to improve your marketing. You’ll notice that the common denominator about these features is their ability to let you in on valuable data about your contacts.

What’s so important about them, you ask? These data lets you in on your contacts behaviour and how they engage with your marketing. Insights from these data allows you to create personalised and targeted marketing messages to your contacts which is a better approach than some cookie-cutter marketing communications strategy. Always remember that the customers engage better when they relate to your marketing messages. You’ll find that they are more compelled to convert.

If you haven’t tried out Actionetics, then these not-so-obvious features might convince you into subscribing. But if you’re already using Actionetics, but haven’t tried out all these awesome features, then you’re missing out. It’s high time you take your marketing communications to the next level by leveraging these features.

Try them out today. If you enjoyed this post, I am sure you would love these 5 Automation Tricks for Actionetics!

How do you make the most of Actionetics?

Share with us by commenting below!

Thanks for reading 4 Hidden Actionetics Features You Didn’t Know About which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

ClickFunnel’s hosts a powerful suite of tools that can kickstart your online marketing efforts.

Let’s talk about Actionetics.

Actionetics is ClickFunnel’s automation platform that does not only cater to emails alone, but also to SMS with the Twilio integration. What makes this platform possible is that it takes automation into a new level with its roster of features that help you know more about your market, communicate with your market, automate your communication with your market, etc.

If you’re already using Actionetics, then you know how fantastic this tool is. If you haven’t, then allow me to say that you’re missing out on a lot. You can do away with the clutter of using different tools to communicate with your market with Actionetics.

Importing Your Contacts with Actionetics

With Actionetics, adding your existing contacts to the platform is made easy. All you need to do is to go to Actionetics > Contact Profiles > click Import Contacts > upload your file > map out your columns > review your entries > click Upload.

This features makes adding your contacts from your old email marketing application easier as compared to other platforms where procedures are either complicated or there is a tendency for data to be missing.

Creating New Tags

ClickFunnels recently introduced tags into their powerful automation arsenal. What makes tags perfectly awesome is that they let marketers hyper-segment their email list even further beyond email list segmentation.

What are tags, you ask? Tags let you classify your contacts further according to their actions in your funnel. By adding tags to your customer’s profile, you get to store critical information about your customers interests, purchases, or actions which you can use in the future to send them targeted marketing messages.

To get the tag feature rolling into your funnels, you need to set it into specific steps in your action funnels where you want a respective tag to be added into your contact. To do this, in your page editor, go to Settings > Integrations> Select Actionetics as an Integration > Add Tag and add the your tag.

From here, you can use tags as triggers in your Action Funnels. All you have to do is go to Action Funnels > Select which Action Funnel you want to edit > Select the Step you want to add tags as criteria > Select Contacts > Choose Has Tag.

This feature is particularly useful if you want a particular action or behaviour based on the tags you set in your funnel steps to trigger an action funnel step.

Setting Up Your First Action Funnel

If you’re already familiar with Actionetics, then you know how powerful action funnels can be. Action funnels allows you to dig deeper and be as technical as you’d like to be with your email list. Through Action Funnels, you can create custom groups and set them as triggers in order for an action to be done.

What Are Custom Groups?

Custom groups act as triggers to begin a certain action funnel (internal or external actions) when the criteria has been met by a contact. As of now, there are 7 custom group categories:

1. Social. This lets you filter and set your custom group according to a specific number of following or followers of any social network.

2. Contact. This custom group lets you filter your action steps according to country, zip code or state.

3. Funnel. This custom group lets you filter your step according to page visited or not visited.

4. Product. This custom group lets you filter triggers for action steps according to those who bought or did not buy a product to inform them of new offers.

5. Broadcasts. This custom group lets you filter triggers for your action steps according to your email list who opened, did not open, click or never clicked a broadcast.

6. Lists. This custom group filters a particular step in your action funnel according to whether the contact belongs or does not belong to a list.

7. Email Step. This custom group lets you trigger a step on any action funnel according to whether an email step on an action funnel was opened, not opened, clicked or not clicked.

Note: The number of custom groups you can for any step of your action funnel is not limited to just you. You can choose to set multiple triggers.

Click here to read 7 Powerful Action Funnels You Didn’t Know About Using Actionetics to know more about each category.

To create a new action funnel, all you have to do is to Login to your ClickFunnels account > Go to Actionetics > Action Funnels > Create a New Funnel > Add action funnel name > Click Create New Action Funnel > Add New Step OR populate the existing email template > Clickc Add Rule Group to set the trigger of a particular action funnel step.

Building Your First Autoresponder

Autoresponders are a great way for marketers to automatically connect and send messages to their customers as soon as they perform an action that triggers sending the autoresponse. It can be anything as simple as an order confirmation or a signup confirmation, to a more complex series of emails when a visitor signs up to a particular email list.

Setting up your email lists is the first step to get your autoresponders going. The next is to craft your emails to go as autoresponders.

To do this, all you have to do is to Go to Actionetics > Broadcasts > New Email Broadcast.

Enter the information needed.

Choose from the available templates and edit accordingly. Click “Save and Send Test” afterwards to see what your autoresponder looks like when it’s sent as an email.

What’s Next?

As soon as you’ve gotten the hang of these Actionetics features, you’ll find how it adds value to your marketing communications. These features are particularly useful for targeted messages, letting you send out personalized messages to any segment of your market.

Of course, a good marketing or sales copy is also essential to your marketing communications. If you’re already used to creating marketing copy, then good! You’re well on your way to mastering Actionetics. But if you feel that you’re not up to copywriting, there are always various ways to go about it.

Funnel Scripts is ClickFunnel’s copywriting application that lets you create well-written and personalised marketing and sales copies! If you haven’t got a copy of Funnel Scripts yet, then click here to register.

Have you tried out these Action Funnel features yet?

Try them out and tell us your experience by commenting below!

Thanks for reading Getting Started with Actionetics Step By Step which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Stunning. Effective. Magnetic. Definitely conversion-boosting.

These are the words we want to hear when people talk about our landing pages.

Well, and we can probably also add totally awesome to that list too.

Because your landing pages are such an indispensable part of your funnels, we don’t just want to hit and run when it comes to learning more about them.

In previous articles, we’ve dug deeper into making our landing pages action-focused.

We’ve also learned more about how a well-chosen backgrounds can “wow” your audience.

But I’m never one to also pass up the fundamentals.

The truth is… an overwhelming number of businesses are not using landing pages effectively or to the full extent possible.

Even pros report that building good landing pages is one of the top 5 challenges that they face.

But we’re going to break out of that mold to make sure every last piece of our landing page, from the biggest to the smallest, is optimized for one thing… converting.

An Engaging Headline and Subtitle

When you’re browsing examples of high-converting landing pages, you’ll notice that there are almost none without a headline.

In fact, about 100% of them will have a headline, and many will have a subtitle to go with it.

And while it’s perfectly fine to think outside the box, headlines that draw in an audience have a bit of a formula.

Of course, it’s not hard to see how those big, bold words get your attention.

Still, there are a few more points to consider when crafting your own.

• Short, Sweet, and to the Point

The size of your headline and subtitle aren’t the only reason that they work so well. Because they rely on short, easily consumable content, you’re able to orient yourself on the page in a flash. And that’s a big deal. Most of your audience isn’t going to be speed readers, and with the average adult only being able to read a few hundred words in a minute, you want a headline and subtitle that are pretty short. This way, your audience is on the right path within seconds of landing on your page.

• The Perfect Placement

Your headline and subtitle are also one of the first things that your audience will see. What good will these key ingredients be if they’re stuffed in the bottom right-hand corner or in some other odd spot? Instead, think about how your audience naturally consumes information. We read top to bottom and left to right, don’t we? So when we place these elements on the left or center, toward the top of the page, we guarantee that our leads can process them faster. This general principle is: placement is primary.

• Focus on Creating an Impact

You probably don’t have to guess that you’ll also want to choose words that make an impact. Yet, time and time again, I see landing pages with dry, boring content. Instead, get creative. Ask a question or make a promise. Try alliteration or give a compelling reason. Whatever you do, don’t forget to consider adjectives that spice up your content and give it that extra special punch.

Protip: Use your headline to ensure your audience has a lightning fast connection with your brand by imagining things from their perspective.

Create a high-impact headline and subtitle with the help of Funnel Scripts. Click here to register for a copy if you haven’t got one yet.

A Story with an Authentic Purpose

In addition to your headline and subtitle, you’ll also see another core element that’s often used. And that’s a story. This content should also still be incredibly short (you’ll even see some content that’s only a sentence or two). Feel out what’s right for your landing page, but here are a few must-haves for including content that’s authentic. This way, your audience gets more context and the full purpose of your page.

• Illustrate the Need

What’s product or service without a need to fulfill? Using a small amount of body copy to remind your audience of their need helps to set the page up for success. It also shows how, through every step of your funnel, you’re in tune with what they’re thinking and feeling.

• Your Value Proposition

Chances are, you’ve heard of value propositions. You’ve created the need, now you also want to provide the solution. For brands, value propositions laser in how you’re able to solve their issue or improve their lives uniquely. It also gives the customer the “why” for choosing your product or service. Working it into your body content should be considered at the very least.

• Giving Them Social Proof

This space is also a good time to provide social proof if you haven’t done so already elsewhere. And it’s a powerful motivator for lead conversion. Whether you mention the growing movement behind your offering or mention the satisfied customers who love your product, you’ll be nudging them in the right direction.

Protip: To circle back around, I can’t reiterate enough that this section can also be very short. Although it probably won’t be as short as your headline or subtitle, it’s not a place to go on for too long. A handful of sentences at most should do.

You can try your hand at creating the story yourself or you can try using Funnel Scripts which lets you create origin story scripts.

A Bullet List for Your Audience

Now it’s time to hit them with a list of amazing points. If they only read our headline and then skim our bullet list, they’ll still be exposed to some strong marketing.

This is especially true when we choose from some of the items below when creating our list.

But the strategy is pretty simple: a short list presents an organized menu of reasons to convert your audience right now.

• Some of Your Biggest Benefits

If you’re new to the sales funnel or marketing sphere, you’ll want to ensure you know the difference between features and benefits. As the saying goes, “features tell and benefits sell.” So they’re going to be a huge part of our landing page. While your value proposition might include a benefit or two, breaking out a list takes your page to the next level. They’re some of your strongest selling points after all, right?

• Positive Testimonials

We may have mentioned some social proof in our story, but this core element proves what we were saying. In fact, our audience sees that we aren’t joking… people are raving! You can’t argue with the facts either. Adding extra social proof, concrete social proof from real people will always win the day.

• Hard-hitting Facts, Stats, or Data

And of course, a list can be the perfect place for these three. This is because, when you try to weave facts, stats, or data into other copy, it tends to be… well, a little bland. Using a bullet list to show your audience how 99% of people cherish your product or service or how your brand has helped boost profits by 45%… those numbers convince people. Use them.

Protip: If you haven’t gotten the idea yet, we’re focusing on short, short, and short. For most landing pages, a bullet list between 3 and 6 points long will do nicely.

Be it copy for asking your customers for testimonials or bullet scripts, there’s an available generator for that if you use Funnel Scripts.

A Dynamic Video or Image

When I show off examples of unbelievably good landing pages to new funnels, there’s one core element they all pick up on right away. And that’s the images (and of course, videos). Dynamic, impressive, bold, intense. Those are some of the words that you’ll often hear. There’s also plenty of research and data to confirm how important these elements are to a well-crafted landing page. Once we add in a few concepts to guide our image or video selection, we’ll see higher conversions for sure.

• Use People and Landscapes

This strategy is a true award-winner. The numbers show that using images like these can turn a regular sales funnel into a supercharged, high-powered converting machine. And it’s not hard to figure out why this is the case. On the one hand, we want to see other people enjoying themselves. And on the other hand, landscapes offer a soothing, yet awe-inspiring vista that engages us.

• Choose Correct Sizes and High-Quality Versions

You’ve probably seen this mistake before. Maybe an image was pixeled a little. Or a video was just too small to really get a sense of what was going on. You’ll still want to keep your loading times in mind when choosing your images or videos, but balance that factor against presenting a clean, big impact landing page.

• Tie in the Feeling

The final consideration when choosing your images or videos is to think about the experience you’re trying to create. And yes, even if a landing page is a single-use, narrowly-focused type of site, it can still convey a feeling and offer a voice that your audience will hear loud and clear.

Protip: Today, you’ll see many marketers just grabbing images or even videos from the web, without consideration of copyright. There are plenty of services out there that can provide you with quality content if you need but without the risk.

Video Scripts, you say? Funnel Scripts has you covered.

One Single Call-to-Action

Finally, this one is probably one of our most important core elements.

If you have multiple calls-to-action, it’s almost like you’re competing against yourself.

Plus, you’ll also find it’s more difficult to crunch your numbers and assess your true conversion data.

If that wasn’t enough, your audience could easily get confused. It’s not that they’re not intelligent; in fact, just the opposite.

They have a limited amount of time and effort. Why complicate the process for them?

• Decide If You’ll Use a Form or Not

Forms are one popular part of the call-to-action process. You’ll see landing pages that capture an email and name before a lead can download an ebook. Or maybe a form will even ask a lead to answer some psychological type questions before they request a consultation. There’s no right or wrong answer here. Just remember, the more questions, the fewer chances of converting (which might be fine with higher ticket funnels with specific purposes). But for us, we want to keep them in mind at least, so we can retarget later.

• Make Sure Your Buttons Contrast

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a call-to-action button that wasn’t the correct color. Or wasn’t even a button! In those cases, think about what that landing page is missing. If we’re aiming to get our audience to complete a single action, driving everything home to that one action… doesn’t it make sense to highlight that action? Definitely, consider some contrast to your call-to-action.

• Put in Extra Effort with the Prompt

Click here. Shop now. Sign up. Is this the best we can do with our calls-to-action? The core elements of our landing pages can be so very much better. Browse these examples of totally creative calls-to-action, and you’ll see exactly what I mean about kicking it up a notch or two.

Protip: If you’re a little hesitant to go with one single call-to-action, consider this example. Just like adding way too much exclamation marks to your emails has the opposite effect that you want, putting in too many call-to-action cheapens all of them.

Generate high-converting CTA scripts with Funnel Scripts!

I’m sending it back your way: what are some examples of the best (and maybe even worst) landing pages you’ve ever seen?

Thanks for reading 5 Core Elements of A Winning Landing Page which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

While CRM systems and marketing automation relate and complement each other, they do have their differences and I’m going to give you a complete guide as to what they are.

I have been asked this question many times and so I think it is time to put it down in writing for all to see.

I am going to go through everything including what each of them is, the differences between them, their goals and their benefits.

By the end of this article, you will be able to understand better which one your business could greatly benefit.

What Are They?

To be able to determine whether your business can benefit from a CRM system, marketing automation or both, you need to understand what each of them is.

Marketing automation is a newer concept than CRM and there is still a lot of confusion as to how the two differentiate from each other.

The heart and soul of both of these are for you to be able to manage better your client relationships and will give you deeper insights into your sales funnel.

Let’s go into each one in a bit more detail.

CRM

Image Source: ZOHO

CRMs, otherwise known as customer relationship manager systems started to grow when businesses realised just how much information they can gather from clients.

This information can be entered into a CRM system to trigger them notifications for follow-up phone calls with prospects, schedule quarterly meetings with clients and to stay in regular contact with prospects and clients.

These notifications will help your sales team and customer relationship team stop leaks from your sales funnel by managing the workflow better.

There are many features with CRM systems including sales and client relationship management, lead scoring so as not to waste time on unqualified leads, task tracking so as to not miss proposals or reporting deadlines and many more.

Marketing Automation

Image Source: Marketo

Marketing automation grew when online businesses realised the great detail in information that can be collected from landings pages and lead capture forms.

Information such as birthdays, recent purchases and content they’re interested in can help us send personalised and automated emails to our clients.

Gathering this information and managing it would traditionally be very time-consuming but marketing automation allows for this process to be fully automated by using your online marketing efforts to combine with your marketing automation system.

Having marketing automation will customise communications with prospects based on their behaviours as seen in the below image.

Surface Level Differences

Upon first glance at the two systems, you can certainly see the similarities and surface level differences; however it doesn’t fully tell us the purpose of each system and their benefits.

I will carry on going into further details into the goals and benefits but for now, I want to give you an idea of how they both look from different viewpoints.

Overall Business Viewpoint

From an overall business point of view, CRM systems are great for managing relationships with existing clients as well building relationships with prospects in your sales funnel.

On the other hand, marketing automation is great for making one-on-one communication with prospects in the early stages of the sales funnel and for determining which leads are qualified.

As you can see, both systems are useful for different stages of the sales funnel; from scoring them when leads first enter the funnel so time can be better spent on qualified leads to managing client relationships to retain their customer.

Sales and Marketing Viewpoint

From a sales point of view, the CRM system is more suitable as it helps them stay on top of prospect communication and continue to build relationships with existing clients to reduce the churn rate.

From a marketing point of view, marketing automation is more suitable as it helps them tailor their marketing messages in order to determine which leads are prospects to pass through to the sales team.

As you can see, both of these systems can work in perfect harmony and keep communications between your marketing team and sales team clear and consistent.

This can result in a more effective and efficient sales funnel.

Technical Viewpoint

From a technical point of view, a CRM is more of a database that holds the information you have gathered from your clients and sends your sales team notifications to contact prospects or clients for the sales team to execute.

With marketing automation, however, the system itself performs the communication while the marketing team feeds it information and rules.

It can also hold information about prospects but mainly how they engage with the emails, you send them.

The two systems are similar but you can see that they both have their differences in their purpose that I will go into more detail now.

Their Goals

Now that we have had a look at the different viewpoints from your business, it is time to look at the viewpoint of the CRM and marketing automation systems themselves to find out what their goals are.

Knowing this will help you sync these objectives with your business goals.

CRM

The goal of a CRM system is to help client relationship managers keep track of their communications with clients and target opportunities that will keep clients with them for longer.

It was also designed to help the sales team keep track of their prospect communication so they can thoroughly nurture prospects into paying customers.

Overall, the system is there to free up time otherwise spent doing administration tasks so your sales and client relationship teams can be more efficient.

Having a CRM system in place can also give you great insights into how your sales and client relationship teams are performing; what is the loss rate and win rate?

How long does it take for a prospect to become a paying client?

If you know exactly which stages in the sales funnel are losing sales, you will be able to plug that leak more quickly.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is a communication platform that makes the lead nurturing process more efficient by automating personalised emails to qualified leads.

Think of it as sending one-to-one emails but in bulk.

You may be thinking what the difference between email marketing is and marketing automation?

Marketing automation is behavioural, where as email marketing is just sending campaigns to your list.

Make sense?

When you send mass emails to your email list, it is usually with the same message.

With marketing automation, the content of emails sent to your email list will depend on their behaviour.

This is the best solution for the middle stages of your sales funnel to nurture better leads into prospects.

The sales team that those prospects are then sent to will have a history of behaviour insights to better understand how to convert prospects into paying clients.

Their Benefits

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of the differences between CRM systems and marketing automation and their goals.

To put it bluntly, though; CRM is mainly for the sales team and marketing automation is mainly for the marketing team.

They can, however, complement each other to create a seamless sales funnel.

Salesforce, a CRM provider, says it is “a strategy for managing all your company’s interactions with current and prospective customers”.

While Marketo, a marketing automation provider says it “allows companies to streamline, automate, and measure marketing tasks and workflows”.

Let’s take a closer look into the specific benefits of these two very clever systems.

CRM

Some of the main benefits of having a CRM system in place are:

1. You and your sales team can clearly see which stages prospects are at in the sales funnel that can help your sales team close deals.
2. Having a history of communication with prospects will help your sales team alter communication methods and target pain points to each prospect.
3. Having a history of communication from paying clients can help your client relationship team build stronger relationships with clients to boost retention rates.
4. Both your sales team and client relationship team will never forget about prospects and clients with notifications to call.

Marketing Automation

Some of the benefits of having a marketing automation system in place include:

1. Your marketing team will be able to segment easily email lists based on behaviours, interests, purchases and more.
2. More of an efficient and effective lead nurturing process with personalised emails being sent to contacts based on triggers when they are most engaged with your brand.
3. Detailed insights into how leads engage with your emails for your marketing team to score which leads qualify as prospects.

Which One to Choose

Infographic Source: Pardot

Asking what are the differences between CRM and marketing automation is like asking what is different between your sales team and marketing team.

These two systems have different purposes, goals and benefits and complement different stages of your sales funnel.

For this reason, consider having both systems in place to create a sales funnel that is streamlined.

Do you need help determining which system will most help your sales funnel at this current time?

Let me know by leaving your comments below and I’ll do my best to answer them all.

Thanks for reading Beginners Guide To Marketing Automation & CRM which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Create a winning sales funnel by deconstructing the sales funnels of those that are doing it right and learning from them.

I know many businesses and marketers who get themselves all tied up when it comes to planning a winning sales funnel and while it is no easy feat, you shouldn’t be getting tied up about it.

I have found 3 SaaS companies who have winning sales funnels which I am going to deconstruct so you can see how they have built them and why they work.

CrazyEgg

First up is CrazyEgg which is a SaaS company that provides heat mapping tools for online businesses.

It was founded by Neil Patel who left the company to start KISSMetrics but is still somewhat involved in CrazyEgg.

I have watched them optimize their marketing and website over the last few years and I’m sure they will continue to optimize well into the future… I would.

Stages in the Funnel

I am deconstructing their sales funnel based on their current strategy, but I am sure this will change again in time as they continue to optimize.

Essentially their sales funnel is in two stages; to get a user to click on their website and to convert that user into a sale.

However, I have broken their sales funnel down into five stages to get into it in a lot more detail.

1. Awareness – The first stage in the sales funnel is awareness.This means they will use the likes of paid search ads, organic search, content, organic social media and paid social media ads to get their brand out there. I saw one of their Facebook ads which captured my attention because of its simplicity and to-the-point message.The images showed exactly what their product is and they told how they could help in the first 8 words.

2. Homepage – The second stage in the sales funnel is the homepage. When a user sees the CrazyEgg Ad on Facebook and it piques their interest, they will click on it to find out more. Once they do that, they will land on the homepage where they will see a box where they can enter their website URL to get a heat map report.

3. Pricing – Once the user has filled in their website URL, and clicked “Show Me My Heatmap”, they will be directed to a Google Accounts screen that will ask them if CrazyEgg can view their email address and Google Analytics. Once the user has clicked “Accept” they will be taken to the Pricing page where they are asked to choose from one of the four price plans.

4. Nurturing – If a user leaves the website at the pricing page because they are not ready to buy, CrazyEgg has a number of autoresponders that will be sent to that user. These autoresponders aren’t pushy or sales focused, they are nurturing.For example they have an FAQ email that will be sent to educate the user about them and their product and a “How Can I Help You” email for reassurance and to build rapport.

5. Purchase – If a user returns to purchase after the nurturing process or straight after landing on the pricing page for the first time, they will be greeted with indications of further reassurance and trust. CrazyEgg displays recognised brands that use their product on the purchase form and also highlights that there will be no charge for the first 30 days.

Why it Works

The CrazyEgg sales funnel works so well because they have kept things simple and all the stages relevant to each other.

They offer something of value that will help resolve pain points of their target audience and also offer a lengthy free trial period which shows they are confident in their product.

They also use a smart sales funnel by setting cookies on the user browser so that when they do revisit, they can pick up right where they left off.

Basecamp

The second SaaS company on my list is Basecamp which is a project management tool that is used online.

It is great for companies who have employees or freelancers around the world, for companies who want to share project management tasks with their clients, or companies who want to use it so they don’t have to worry about losing information if systems crash.

Stages in the Funnel

Just like with the CrazyEgg sales funnel, Basecamp has kept their sales funnel simply by having just 3 simple stages; creating awareness about their product, attracting traffic to the website and converting that traffic into sales.

I have broken down their sales funnel into these 3 stages so as to explain more about each one and how it links onto the next.

1. Awareness – Basecamp aren’t as active on paid search or paid social Ads as the other two SaaS companies. They use their blog to share content and updates on social media and are very active with PR. They use more of an inbound marketing approach when it comes to generating awareness for their brand and product rather than outreaching using paid Ads.
2. Homepage – Once a user has either seen a social media post, a referral link on an article or a word-of-mouth referral that has piqued their interest they will then proceed to either click on the link or do an organic search with the brand term. They will then land on the homepage where they will be greeting straight away with a signup form.
3. Trial – After the user has submitted their details, they will be sent an email where they are prompted to start their free trial. When they click on that button, they will be taken back to Basecamp where they have the choice to start with a dashboard Basecamp have set up for them or to create their own.

Why it Works

This is one of the simplest sales funnels out there.

They have created a strategy that takes the user to a lead within 2 clicks; when they click on the link to land on the homepage and when they click the submit button on the free trial form that is in the centre of the homepage.

They have made it unbelievably easy for the user to convert while shutting out all noise.

Grasshopper

The last SaaS company on our list is Grasshopper which is a virtual phone system that businesses or freelancers can use to set up toll-free numbers and manage them online or by their phone.

They are known for their unique and brilliant marketing tactics and their sales funnel has certainly not failed them bringing in over $30 million annually.

Stages in the Funnel

Grasshopper has continually optimized their sales funnel like CrazyEgg has and actually removed a stage out of their sales funnel to make it simpler.

They used to have a Features page after the Pricing page but soon came to realise that they were putting an obstacle in front of the last stage in the funnel.

• Awareness – Just like the first two SaaS companies, they need to start the sales funnel by creating awareness about their brand and product. They use all possible channels you can think of to create this awareness such as paid search, blog, YouTube and Facebook. They create some very unique and creative content to generate traffic which you can see for yourself in the below YouTube video.

• Homepage – Once a user has seen their Ad, their video or their content, they will then click through to the homepage where they will find a short video that will explain how they can help and a stand-out CTA button that asks them to find out how it works. They have also bullet pointed key unique selling points.

• How It Works – Once the user clicks on the “See How It Works” button, they are then taken to a page where they can find all the information they need to make a decision as to whether they want to continue to the pricing page which is directed through by a CTA at the top and bottom of the page.

• Pricing – If the user does decide to continue, they are presented with a choice of 4 price plans with what each one includes and also which price plan is the most popular. Just like CrazyEgg, they have also placed recognised brands on this page to instil trust and reassurance into users.

Why it Works

Their product is clearly explained throughout sales funnel so as to weed out many unqualified leads.

By displaying videos and having a whole page dedicated to how their product works, the leads they will generate will mostly be qualified.

Because they display their most recognised brands on both the How It Works page and Pricing Page, users will believe this is a company that can be relied on.

How to Apply This to Your Sales Funnel

There are a few common denominators with these three sales funnels that you can implement into your own sales funnel:

1. Keep your sales funnel simple with two to three stages.
2. Make the journey as easy as possible for users by minimising clicks and having only one clear path.
3. Display any trust signals such as recognised brands, testimonials, case studies and awards.
4. Clearly explain what your product is and how it can help solve their problems.

How do you make sure your sales funnel is as clear and effective as possible? Do you use some of the strategies the SAAS companies we’ve looked at today use? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Thanks for reading Deconstructing Sales Funnels of 3 SAAS Companies which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

If you travel a lot and are never in the same place for a long period of time, it can be hard to stay on top of your online marketing.

This is why most online marketing tools now have mobile apps so you can stay productive when travelling.

There are now mobile apps available that can let you do everything from your mobile device, from approving blog posts, sending email blasts, reviewing website stats and more.

Gone are the days of you having to phone the office to ask how sales are today, whether someone can send you an email with attached documents, and to check what is on your diary for the day.

All of this information is now just a couple of clicks away.

1. Email Marketing App

The first app we have on our list is whoever you use for your autoresponders.

Check with your autoresponder whether they have an app and if they do, download it.

They are great for if you are out and about and think of something that you want to announce to your email list or if you want to track how a recent email has performed.

Some email marketing apps will let you even segment your email list, add new contacts or delete contacts right from the device you are holding in the palm of your hand.

Of course, the different providers will have different features on their apps.

Aweber

If you use Aweber, they have an app that will let you review your email list stats including open rates, unsubscribes and click through rate.

This data is on a dashboard that is very visual so, in a glimpse, you will know exactly how your email list is performing.

You can also preview emails that have been sent and those that are scheduled to give feedback or your approval to the team back at the office.

For each email sent, you will be able to see the stats on its open rate, click through rate, bounce rate and complaint rates for each email and recipient of that email.

GetResponse

With the GetResponse App, you will be able to review your email campaign performance while on the move and can even forward email reports on to members of the team or whoever you wish.

You can turn those traffic jams into something productive with this clever autoresponder app.

You can also add new contacts to the email list or import straight from your mobile address book.

The dashboard is light, clean and uncluttered so you can easily find the information and do what you need to do quickly.

You can even pin the important data that you want to know to the dashboard so you don’t have to go looking for it every time.

2. Google Analytics App for Website Stats

You can have most of the data and uses from Google Analytics on their app.

You’ll be able to monitor real-time data as well as look at goal completions, user behaviours, source traffic acquisition, audience data and more.

The app was released for iPhones in July 2014 and was welcomed with open arms by all marketers as trying to zoom in and navigate around the website was leaving a lot of us with grey hair.

The dashboard of the app shows real-time data in a simplistic way using colours to highlight the different traffic sources etc. the graphs are the same as on the website so you should easily be able to identify the data you need.

Image Source: eConsultancy

Pros

The Google Analytics app will allow you to save both your time and your staff’s time by allowing you to review the analytics you want without having to call up the office to ask them.

If you have tried reviewing the data on the website using a mobile device, you already know how difficult a task that can turn out to be.

By easily having all your website data to hand, you will be able to answer questions quickly and also if you think of something in the spare of the moment, can find out instantly.

3. Communicate Using Voxer

The very smart app, Voxer, will make communication between you and your team a lot more efficient and effective.

It is used by many businesses and online marketers and can now even be used with the Apple Watch.

It is free to download and allows you to send voice messages to your team or whoever it is you need to send a message to.

It acts as a walkie-talkie and makes communicating a lot more efficient and personal than emails.

If you want to have group communications, then you will need to purchase the Voxer upgrade that is $3.99 a month.

Fun Fact: This is one of the main tools for communication on the ClickFunnels team!

Image Source: TCTechCrunch

Pros

Phone calls can take up too much time from both your end and the recipient end.

Voice messages will save time by getting your message over to the recipient by using instant voice messaging.

It will save time dialing a person’s number, or waiting for someone to pick up your call and being passed to however it is you want to speak to; it will also save money on phone bills.

Instant voice messaging is a lot easier in group messages rather than text too and can be something you can participate in while stuck in a traffic jam.

4. Trello for Project Management

Trello is great for organizing not only your workload but your teams too.

If you are already using the Trello website, you will know how useful this tool is to keep project management organized.

If you are on the road a lot, though, you are best downloading the very handy app that will allow you to manage lists and who is doing what straight from your mobile device.

You can create cards for different projects with each having checklists, comments, attachments and completion dates.

Image Source: Trello

Pros

If you want to stay on top of project management but are on the road a lot, instead of calling up the office or emailing team members every 10 minutes asking for updates, you can simply have a look at where everything is at using Trello app.

You can create a board for each team member or project and set up three lists for “To Do”, “Doing” and “Done”.

Each task will have its card with comments, attachments and what team members are working on it.

These cards can be moved under each of the three lists so you can easily see the progress of tasks.

5. WorkFlowy For Keeping A To-Do List

Workflowy is a simplistic and very useful app for you to jot down to-do lists as and when you think of them.

It is such an easy app to use but will help you stay on top of things and always stay productive.

This simple app can help you manage your entire life!

It has had rave reviews from the New York Times Technology saying “This app is the easiest, best-designed, and most flexible note-taker I’ve ever come across.”

Image Source: TechHive

Pros

We’ve all done it, when we think of something that we need to do but will then forget later on… I know I have.

If you have this app, you can add a new to-do as soon as you think of it so you won’t forget.

It is also a good way to see what you have planned for the day if you are out on the road as you can view your to-do lists offline.

It is a must-have app that will keep you productive and efficient.

6. Dropbox for Managing Documents

Dropbox isn’t something that is new, many business and marketers have been using it for quite some time now to share documents quickly with everyone in the team.

For those of you who spend a lot of time traveling, however, will find the Dropbox app very useful.

From the app, you will be able to create and edit Microsoft Office files as well as share links to documents instead of adding them as email attachments.

Image Source: Dribble

Pros

The great thing about the Dropbox app is that you will be able to view all documents offline too which is great for when you are on the train or road and have an intermittent connection.

You will be able to approve documents, images and videos done by your team while out of the office to speed up project times and create a more productive and efficient working environment.

Another bonus which I really enjoy is you can upload photos you’ve taken directly from your camera reel to Dropbox and then grab them on your laptop or desktop with ease.

A very nifty feature!

Mobile is Now…

Forget about mobile being the future, mobile is now.

Mobile apps, such as the ones I have mentioned in this blog post, keep us up to date and organized when traveling.

They will help speed up projects and campaigns that will result in a more productive environment and save your time (therefore money).

What apps do you use to help make marketing easy when on the move?

Share your thoughts and ideas by leaving your comments below.

Thanks for reading Best Phone Apps To Make Your Marketing Easy On The Move which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

What if your blog crashes and you lose all your content?

What if you lose your email list? What if your main source of traffic fails?

What if you had an influx of bad PR?

Without contingency plans, these issues could very well turn into an online zombie apocalypse.

I bet you have a contingency plan for things such as a fire in the office or if management is on long-term sick leave?

What many online businesses fail to do is to prepare for online disasters such as dropping from organic search listings or your website crashing.

I have compiled a list of disasters that could potentially happen and plans to put in place, so your world does not end.

1. Backup Content

If you have been blogging for some years, then you are bound to have hundreds of blog posts on your blog.

The worst thing that could ever possibly happen is your website crashes, and all those blog posts disappear forever leaving you to start all over again.

That’s if you could start again and not go into a state of catatonic shock which I think I would probably do.

To avoid this downright terrifying ordeal, I regularly backup my blog so that if something like this ever does happen, I will be able to recover from it without going into a state of catatonic shock.

I would recommend backing up your blog at least every week but every day is better, depending on how often you blog.

How to Backup Blog Content

Now that you know why it is important to back up your blog; let me explain how to do it.

Before you get started, get yourself organised by creating a folder on your computer with the same name as your website.

I like to create folders in the cloud with tools such as Dropbox in case I ever spill my coffee on my laptop (which has happened before).

Each time you run a backup, you will create a subfolder that has the date of the backup for easy future reference.

WordPress

1. If your blog is hosted on WordPress, log into it and click “My Blogs” if you have more than one blog.
2. Once you are on the dashboard of the blog you wish to backup, click on “Tools” in the left column.
3. You should see a submenu appear with the option to “Export”; click on this.
4. When the page loads, simply click on export and save to your subfolder.

You can also install the WP-db-Backup Plugin that will back up your blog automatically every day, week or month.

One more WordPress blog backup I like is Backup Buddy.

It’s one of my favourites while it’s a paid tool, it just works.

2. Backup Your Email List

As the same with your blog, if you have been running an online business for years and have built up an email list made up of tens of thousands of contacts, how infuriated would you be if you lost every single one of them?

I would most likely consider retirement and living the rest of my days in a tent.

Just like a zombie apocalypse, you wake up to find that the email provider you use to collect your email contacts and send emails has had a meltdown and everyone’s email lists, performance history and templates are gone forever.

This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if you regularly backup your email list so you can load it up to another email provider.

How to Backup Email Lists

You will be pleased to hear that backing up your email lists is very easy and quick to do so it is no big deal doing it every day or ever week, depending on how much your list generates new contacts.

You can download an app called Zapier which will automatically copy every contact into your chosen storage folder; again I would recommend using a cloud-based storage solution like Dropbox.

If you prefer to take matters into your own hands, you could export the email list and do the same as with the blog and create a folder named “Email List” and export your email list each day or each week and save it as a subfolder with the date you have done it.

Most autoresponders make it very easy to export your email list onto your computer so you can use it for Facebook Advertising and other custom audiences.

3. Avoid Facebook Ad Account Being Shut Down

If your main source of traffic or one of your main sources of traffic comes from Facebook ads, it would be a nasty surprise if you logged in one day to find out that your ad account has been shut down.

In fact, according to PageFair, it is estimated that ad blocking cost businesses $22 billion in 2015.

Facebook is notorious for having extremely strict compliance rules and don’t take no messing from anyone… unless you’re spending over $1 million a month of advertising that is.

This Might Help…

How to Avoid Being Shut Down

If you follow these tips to help prevent a Facebook ad account shut down, you should be on Facebook’s safe side:

1. Keep up to date with Facebook’s official guidelines and Ad Policy Center. It may be a boring read, but it is certainly more enjoyable than having your ad account shut down and losing traffic and sales.
2. Use ads for blog posts and webinars and not just for products and service pages. Facebook’s number 1 priority is the end user, not you. If you’re promoting valuable content, then this will result in positive signals.
3. Do not have pop-ups on your landing page and videos that have auto-play. The user should always have control of what they want to read and/or watch.
4. Ad text and images must not be misleading in any way nor must it use deceptive claims such as “click here for immediate access” when on the landing page the user actually has to sign up to gain access.
5. Always try and log in to the Facebook account from the same computer and the same location so as to not flag warning signals.

4. Plan For A Bad PR Crisis

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”?

While all publicity is good for business, positive publicity is the type of publicity you really want.

You don’t want your first interaction with potential new customers to start off with a negative, and so it is important to have a plan in place if this bad press day ever comes.

How To Deal With Bad PR

If you have seen an influx of bad press for whatever reason, one of the best things you can do is counteract it with positive stories.

The worst thing you could ever do is go on the defensive as this will just draw in more negative comments and could lead to the ruin of your business.

If you have done some great community work in the past, remind everyone about it and ask your social following and customers whether they’d like to join in and do another one.

Also, look to improve on the product, service or customer service that was the origin of the bad press, so it does not happen again.

Listen to the feedback and action on it rather than being defensive or believing that you know better.

Many of the success stories I’ve heard from software companies, include CEOs and founders getting into thick of support tickets and finding out what issues are causing grief for their users.

5. Plan For Google Search Issues

I always tell marketers and online businesses never to have all their eggs in one basket, i.e. never rely on one source of traffic to keep your business running.

We all know how temperamental Google algorithms can be and so if one day all is going well with your online business because you are on page 1 for all your target keywords and 90% of your online sales originates from organic search results, and then one day it’s all gone!

A new algorithm has hit and now you are nowhere to be found in the organic listings, and all those sales have gone.

I have been a bit extreme with this example, but it still surprises me how many online businesses rely on one source of traffic for the survival of their business.

How To Plan For Google Search Issues

The contingency plan for this scenario is to build up your presence on other marketing channels, so if your organic traffic did significantly drop one day, you would still have sales coming in while you work on fixing the issue.

A great way of doing this is to build your social media following; they can be very loyal to a brand if you interact and build rapport with them.

No traffic source should amount to 90% of your sales or even 80%.

Even the ratio out by increasing activities on other channels so if disaster strikes on any of them, you are not left with a huge hole in your online revenue.

Zombie Apocalypse Survived

It’s not in the imagination that these things will happen they can happen in real life to anyone of us.

If you believe that “this will never happen to me” and, therefore, won’t need a contingency plan, then that is your choice but it’s an avoidable risk.

It’s always best to be safe than sorry isn’t it?

I believe so, which is why I have a plan for most types of online apocalypses.

Have you ever experienced a disaster such as any of these?

How did you overcome it? I want to hear all your stories by leaving your comments below.

Thanks for reading Zombie Apocalypse Online Business Survival Guide which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

In a world where there are over 4.3 billion email accounts and more than 205 billion sent and received emails each day, you’d expect it to be rather difficult to separate yourself from the masses when marketing your products and services via email.

And you’d be right about that.

When looking at the statistics provided by the Radicati group in their latest email statistics report, we can see a steady growth of 6 or 7% each year from now until 2019, which means you better find something you can do to get your reader’s’ attention.

Enter autoresponder.

Known by marketers around the world by many different names, such as drip marketing, drip campaigns, auto email campaigns, automated email marketing campaigns and so forth, autoresponders have become a hit in the recent years.

Why is that you might ask, and I shall tell you.

It’s because they just work.

There are many different tools you can use to create autoresponders (and no, Gmail is not one of them) and you should compare your options carefully.

ClickFunnels recently released Actionetics which allows you to build out your autoresponder too, you can find more details about Actionetics here.

Other options include tools like Emma, Mailchimp, Aweber and GetResponse and many, many more.

All of these tools can be used in creating an efficient and well converting email marketing campaign that is automated from start to finish.

Forget the age old problem that comes with newsletters not promoting your past content to new subscribers automatically, because you can take care of the problem with autoresponders.

Create any types of drip feeding campaigns that automatically get sent to your new subscribers and keep running for the pre-determined amount of time until it ends.

With proper tools you can have the autoresponder series behave differently depending on the actions of the subscriber, which is an excellent way to separate quality leads from the guy who just subscribed because other people think he should.

But, without further delay, let’s get started on those frequently asked questions you want to know the answers to!

Q1 – What type of content should my autoresponder include?
A1 – There are no limits as long as the content type fits your niche.

Anything goes from blog posts, cheat sheets and whitepapers to full blown eBooks. There’s really no limits to what you offer in those emails, but do keep a few things in mind.

First I want to remind you that the average adult’s attention span is eight seconds, less than that of a goldfish.

And I’m not joking.

What makes things even worse is the culture of multitasking in today’s world where you should be able to work efficiently on multiple things at the same time.

But, the truth is that only around 2% of us are good at it. That means your readers most likely only quickly scan through your emails, if you’re lucky they might read the first paragraph.

So what should you do with your autoresponder then, at least content wise?

Keep it short and sweet.

Sure, you can include a full eBook in the series, but make sure the subscriber has opened at least one of your autoresponders before sending them an eBook that they won’t even bother reading.

Instead, you should send them something nice and light, like a video intro or a link to an interview with an expert from your niche.

Whatever you do, don’t make the first email a novel like reading experience, because no one will bother with it.

The second point, which I almost covered in my first post due to my excitement about this topic, is to match the content types to your audience and their actions toward your emails.

If they open your first email, then send them something more immersive, but if they don’t open it you should try with something easy, quick and useful. So no eBooks when you’re trying to get them to open at least that one email.

Basically this question can be summed up like this:

Make sure you give enough value to your customer in the autoresponders, while packaging the content in an easy to access form that is specific to their actions.

Q2 – Do I need to write new content for the autoresponder series?
A2 – No, you do not.

Most readers and subscribers haven’t gone through everything you’ve ever written (sorry to burst your bubble if you weren’t aware of that), so you can easily use some of your blog posts that you’ve already published as part of the autoresponder and have them repurposed.

If you’re brave you can use already posted content for the whole campaign, but a more sensible option would be to pick ‘n mix some new and some old content and put together an autoresponder series with a little bit of both in it.

Q3 – How do you choose the topic of your autoresponder?
A3 – There are tons of different ways to choose a topic, just make sure it’s a fit for your niche.

Basically you have two options.

Either you decide it yourself or you listen to what your audience wants.

The first one is simple enough on its own, just write about what you think is awesome and relevant.

The second one can be executed in many ways and I don’t mean just different types of surveys, I mean analytics, social media and surveys.

By studying your most popular posts in your blog you can come up with a pretty narrow selection of topics that would be best suited as a topic for the autoresponder series.

And hey, why limit yourself to only one topic, make a course out of it!

That’s what Brian Dean does with his SEO That Works course, which is a collection of all his knowledge and teachings in one package, and that course was very smartly promoted before it was even opened to the public.

I received multiple emails that took me from an occasional reader to an addict for his wisdom, and before you know it, the autoresponder series ended and the course was opened officially.

Now that’s a proper email marketing campaign that gets people into your sales funnel.

Q4 – How long should an autoresponder series be?
A4 – Depends entirely on your niche and audience, as well as the type of autoresponder series

If you are looking to educate the subscriber with a course about your chosen topic, I would expect them to prefer something a bit longer than two emails, wouldn’t you?

When it comes to the attention span that I mentioned earlier, it might even be smarter to divide your content up into short emails that can educate and convince your subscribers quickly and efficiently, instead of sending out just a couple of thick and depressing looking emails.

Naturally, the only certain knowledge as far as the optimal length of an autoresponder series is only found out one way: Split testing.

Conclusion

Autoresponders are definitely a worthwhile addition to your marketing toolbox as you can see.

This was a very quick and light dive into the world of autoresponders and I tried answering the basic questions that many people wanted to ask, but it isn’t even meant to teach you everything about the topic.

Now that you’re thirsty for more information about autoresponders and how to actually go from not having any to having multiple different autoresponder series and everything in between, you should definitely checkout this excellent and extremely thorough guide from the folks at Zapier about drip marketing.

As always comments, questions and experiences are more than welcome in the comments section below!

Thanks for reading The Autoresponder FAQ: Questions To Ask which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Email marketing has been around nearly as long as email itself, and for good reason.

To date, nearly 2.6 billion people are using email, and this number is set to increase to nearly 2.9 billion by 2019. The potential for marketing and selling your services via email is extremely high, but without the proper implementation and use of email marketing strategy in your business, the success is likely to be insignificant.

The competition with email marketing is higher than ever before, and you should arm yourself with the best possible tools and tips now, and build success for yourself and your business with the help of email marketing done right.

What do I mean by email marketing done right?

Let’s take a look.

1. Building A Familiar and Personal Touch

I am going to be upfront with you and give it to you straight: I really hate general and tacky email senders.

I just really hate them.

You know the ones?

“Free Webinar Run Once In A Lifetime Which If You Miss You’ll Regret, By The Way Just Buy My $997 Product At The End Of It, Oh Yeah Limited Seating Too, So Get In Quick Only Available Till This Timer Runs Out, Never Seen Again Offer…”

Sound familiar?

If I signed up to your list for one reason or the other, I would prefer you being excited to start a new relationship with me.

And what’s the best way to build a relationship?

Well let’s think about it like going on a date with someone for the first time. You don’t just turn up and tell them you’re only single for a limited time until someone else snaps you up.

You start with an ice breaker and start paying attention to what your date has to say. Let them talk about themselves and get to know them.

There are literally dozens of email marketing tools and programs that automate and manage your email lists to make it so easy to get specific and send your subscribers a specific message.

So start a two way conversation with your new pal.

When they send you back a reply, don’t be afraid to reply back and build a conversation with a greeting and use the name they gave to you when they subscribed to your email list.

It’s all really that simple to begin with, but there’s a lot more you can do.

For example, you should use a tool for your email marketing purposes that allows you to see who opened that latest newsletter of yours, who visited your site as a result of it and who just deleted it straight off the bat.

Insights like these can be more valuable to you than you could ever imagine.

By building a strong personal connection with your readers you have them feeling more at ease with you and over time beginning to trust you (just like any relationship).

The Fox School of Business professor led a study into what makes your email subscribers relate to you and start to like you on a personal level, and the answer sure as hell wasn’t “Dear Sir or Madam” to begin with.

Oh, and don’t forget a personal reply address or the unsubscribe button, you don’t want your subscribers feeling abandoned or imprisoned!

Actionetics lets you see in on the key metrics you need to look out for when analysing your email’s performance.

How to View Your Email Performance

Step 1: Log in to your ClickFunnels account

Step 2: Go to Actionetics > Email Broadcasts

Step 3: The analytics can be viewed in the dashboard.

2. Content Truly Is the King

Have you ever heard of the saying “Content is king”?

Maybe you have, maybe you haven’t, but you should still respect the fact that content indeed is king.

Over the recent years, people working in the SEO and marketing industries have become accustomed to providing their companies and clients with the best content possible, and why is that?

Because Google’s search algorithms are favouring original and quality content over poor quality content in its rankings and recommendations, hence it’s absolutely vital that the content produced and used is top notch.

But it’s not only the SEO specialists that are raving about high quality content these days, the marketers are also going crazy with it, and that has nothing to do with the search engine side of business.

In fact, the more you think about things, the less you should be concerned about SEO when writing or outsourcing your content. Your aim should be to please your readers and followers, not Google.

By having a happy crowd read and follow all your communications to the world will mean a lot more to Google than you trying too hard to please their algorithm, because the algorithm understands that superb content will get traction all over the internet.

If yours is not getting any, then it’s not going to rank.

After you’ve gotten those precious subscribers to sign up for your email list, whether it’s due to a blog post or a promise of a discount, you need to keep them interested and hooked to your emails, and the way you do this is by respecting their time.

Your readers spend time reading through your emails, so focus your effort on creating absolutely gorgeous content that inspires and encourages your readers.

That way they will always be more than happy to spend some of their hard earned money when you publish a new book, start a promotion on your newest sales funnel or decide to have a good old sale at your local yard store.

Whatever your niche or market, you as a business owner need to respect your clients reading your emails by providing them with the top content each time.

Now you’re probably wondering, what does Stephen mean by “top content”?

That’s a good question. Top content isn’t just a free ebook or a blog post.

Top content is what makes your readers go “wow” and makes them want to share the article with their friends.

The first hurdle I put my content through is “Would I bookmark this blog post and share it with at least 2 other people because it’s so awesome?”.

I call it the “Awesome Hurdle”. If your content doesn’t pass your awesome hurdle, then you’ve got a problem.

If you’re feeling a bit iffy about your content or if you’re looking to hire copywriters, I suggest you try Funnel Scripts first. It’s got content generators for ad copy, email subject lines, video scripts, sales letters, you name it.

Here’s a guide as an example of how you can use Funnel Scripts to create your content.

Step 1: Log in to your FunnelScripts account. Pick up a copy here if you’re not using it yet.

Step 2: Head to the dashboard

Step 3: Click any of the scripts in the menu depending on the content you need.

Step 4: Fill in the information needed in the generator.

Step 5: Click “Save” or “Submit”

After clicking “Save”, a text file will be downloaded immediately.

After Clicking “Submit”, you will be given several ad copy samples based on the information you entered. Check out some of the samples below!

Step 6: Select from the choices, then copy and paste your content.

3. AFTW (Automation for the Win)

I’ve already mentioned that there are plenty of tools out there to automate your email marketing processes with (one of them being Actionetics which you’ll hear more about in the coming months) and now I’d like to point out why you should do exactly that.

Think of the moment someone subscribes to your email list as a similar moment to when a new colleague or neighbour rings your doorbell for the first time.

They really want to meet you and be friends with you, but that’s rather difficult if you leave them hanging outside your door.

Open the door with a big smile and welcome the person into your house to at least have the chance of turning him or her into your most trusted and loyal friend.

Are you starting to see the picture?

Being greeted by an email, regardless of everyone knowing it was an automated email, makes your subscribers feel good about their decision to sign up for your email list, and that’s why you need to have a warm and welcoming email to greet your new subscribers.

Find that balance between a friend and a family member. That’s how I like to treat the subscribers on my email list.

Actionetics lets you create and automate your emails for autoresponders, follow-ups, reminders, sales, etc.

4. Using The Tools of the Trade

Last, but not least, you need to be equipped with the proper tools for the job.

This might not fall into the strategy side of email marketing for some people, but I personally think that the right tools are at the core of your email marketing strategy, and hence I’ve put it on this list.

There are a number of email marketing autoresponder tools out there. Just some of them include:

• MailChimp
• Aweber
• Constant Contact
• GetResponse
• ActiveCampaign
• Ontraport
• Infusionsoft
• Mad Mimi
• MaroPost
• Actionetics

…just to name a few, and I could talk you to sleep by discussing each and every one of them in detail, so I’ll try my best to avoid that part.

Instead, I’ll talk a little about the overall features found in just about every one of the email marketing tools, which hopefully helps you out in finding the best solution for yourself.

Most importantly the tools will act as a database of your subscribers, often called ‘a list’.

From there you can easily see how many subscribers you have, their activity levels and much more.

When it comes to the emails themselves, most tools offer you a wide range of templates to choose from, and some include a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) builder to build and tweak your own templates without a single line of code.

How sweet is that?

Apart from these basic features you have many individual and unique features implemented into each one of them and all sorts of different pricing plans.

Just make sure you sign up for something which works for you and delivers amazing value to your audience day in day out.

There’s always going to be positives and negatives to each product, but if your core and fundamental areas of use are taken care of, you’ll be doing pretty well.

Equipped with these four strategies, you can now head into battle and build yourself an amazing email list that both converses and converts.

Tell me in the comments below, what does your email marketing strategy look like when someone joins your email list? What does the first email say and do for your users?

ClickFunnels Action Steps

How to Create Emails with Actionetics Email Builder

Step 1: Log in to your ClickFunnels account

Step 2: Click Actionetics.

Step 3: Go to Email Broadcasts and click on the “+ New Email Broadcast” button.

Step 4: Design your email! You can choose from several templates.

Step 5: Add the information needed

1. The subject of your email
2. Add the email lists. In this case, those who signed up for your webinar
3. Your SMTP Configuration which will be used to send emails.

Step 6: Open Email Editor

Step 7: Add and remove elements to your email according to your preference

Step 8: Click Save

Step 9: You can opt to send your emails upon creation or schedule them to be sent at a future time. Simply click “Send Later” and set the time and date.

Thanks for reading 4 Email Marketing Strategies For Businesses which appeared first on ClickFunnels.