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.

As any savvy digital marketer will tell you, Facebook advertising is a great tool to grow your audience and conversion rates.

First off, there are over 2.38 billion monthly active users on Facebook, and of that number, 1.56 billion use Facebook daily. 

So, how can you best engage and grow your customer base through Facebook ads, all while not breaking the bank?

In this article, we will discuss what Facebook ads are, why they are important to your sales funnels, and seven ways to lower the cost of your Facebook ads.

What are Facebook Ads?

A Facebook ad is a paid social post that businesses create to market a product and/or their services.

Facebook offers various types of ads to engage specific audience members. 

These types include ads with photos, ads with videos, slideshow ads, carousel ads, collection ads, and instant experience ads. Each offers a unique way to engage your target audience and expand your reach.

These ads can appear on desktop as well as mobile. They can appear directly within a person’s Facebook newsfeed or on the right-hand side of their newsfeed. They can also appear in Instagram (owned by Facebook) and on select apps through their audience network.

How Much Do Facebook Ads Cost?

The short answer? It depends.

There are various factors that play a role in how much a single ad costs. These include your ad objective, your target audience and industry, quality of the ad, and how much you are willing to budget for the ad (bidding strategy).

Facebook determines which ads to show to Facebook users through an ad auction.

Facebook charges you either based on your campaign budget or your ad set budget. Facebook will use the budget and spend it based on the time frame you set for your campaign.

Your budget is the amount you want to spend on the campaign or ad set, and Facebook will never charge you more than the amount you set. What you spend within that budget is the cost of the ad.

Because of this, you are in control of how much you spend on your campaign.

There are two types of budgets you can create with Facebook ads — daily budgets and lifetime budgets. 

If you set a lifetime budget on a campaign level, you’ll be charged no more than the amount in the given time period your ads are set to run.

Conversely, if you create a daily budget on an ad set level, you have more control over how much you’re spending daily on each audience.

According to Hootsuite, the average cost per click (CPC) in 2016 Q3 was 27.40 cents and the cost per 1000 impressions (CPM) was $7.19. That being said, much of those stats are skewed due to large brands running “brand awareness” ads. If you are running ads to a sales funnel with the intention of collecting a lead or making a sale, expect costs per click to be between one and two dollars and cost per 1000 impressions to be in the teens or twenties.

Knowing that, how much should you spend on Facebook ads?

The best practice, especially if you are asking Facebook to optimize your ads for leads or sales, is to spend enough to make a minimum of five conversions per day. This gives the Facebook engine enough data to ‘chew’ on and optimize its efforts in your favor.

For more info about billing and other Facebook ad information, Facebook offers multiple Facebook ad guides for those that are new to the process, including how to create, edit and schedule an ad. 

Why are Facebook Ads Important to Your Sales Funnels? 

As mentioned above, the majority of internet users have a Facebook account, and it’s an easy way to target and reach them, and setting your ad objective specifically to conversions is your best bet for getting leads and sales.

Facebook ads can help drive immediate results to your funnels if you are careful and do it right.

The minute you publish an ad on Facebook, it will start targeting your audience and you can easily measure the results. 

Facebook compiles the data for you – including impression, clicks, and conversion numbers — so you can see what is working and what you can improve on. 

Lastly, using a variety of Facebook ad options such as graphics and video can help engage your audience and motivate them to not only visit your funnel, but to convert into leads, sales, and even brand advocates.

7 Ways to Lower Your Facebook Ad Costs 

Now that you know what Facebook ads are, what they look like, and why they’re important, below are seven ways on how to lower Facebook ad costs while increasing your conversion rates. 

1.  Gain a Higher Relevance Score With Your Ads

A relevance score is based on feedback, both positive and negative, Facebook expects from the target audience. 

The more positive interactions expected, the higher the score on a scale from 1-10. When scores are low, 1-3, Facebook tends to charge you more for your impressions.

The score is continually updated as the audience provides feedback and interacts with your ad. 

Therefore, it’s vital that you check your ad relevance score to make sure it’s not only relevant for your audience, but doesn’t end up costing you more to display on Facebook. 

Good relevance scores increase efficiency when it comes to Facebook ads. 

2. Eliminate Overlapping Audiences 

By using the Facebook audience overlap tool, you can see if your ads are targeting similar audiences. 

When overlap happens, it can increase your ad cost as your ads compete against each other and thus, lead to less engagement and conversions. 

Based on your advertisement goals and customer data, refine your targeting and choose the audience within the overlap that is closely aligned to your customers and will bring in the most sales. 

3. Increase Click-Through-Rate With Optimized Content

A higher click-through-rate (CTR) means better engagement and conversions for your funnel, and as such, will increase your relevance score. 

Plus, it will lower your CPC. 

A quick way to increase your CTR and lower your CPC is to revisit your ad copy and call to action.

See if you can optimize your headline or lead sentence. Look for ways to entice your audience and how they can learn more by clicking on your funnel. 

Also, look at your current media and consider doing an A/B test to see if you can improve performance. 

4. Optimize Facebook Pixel

The Facebook Pixel is a tool that helps with two specific things. First, it tracks the conversions which not only lets you know how effective your ads are but also lets Facebook optimize your ads for maximum results.

Second, the Facebook pixel allows you to build audiences based on visitors to your sales funnel. This becomes vital to your retargeting efforts. Also, by collecting these visitors into audiences, Facebook can look at those audiences and suggest new people that are similar who would also likely engage with your offer. These audiences are called “Lookalike” audiences and are simple to setup and can be very powerful in your advertising efforts.

Proper setup of the Facebook Pixel is vital to any long-term effective Facebook advertising and will likely have the biggest impact of all the things we’ve discussed in this article.

5. Learn From Past Results

If you’ve been using Facebook ads for a while, take a minute to look over your previous ads. 

Filter your posts by engagement rates and conversion rates to see what previous posts had the best results.

From those posts, see what messages and visuals you used that worked and use those same tactics in future posts. 

By using previous tactics to increase your engagement rates, your posts become more relevant on Facebook, helping increase your reach and not your spend amount. 

6. Retargeting

In addition to your prospecting ads, consider running retargeting ads. This is when you run ads to those who have visited your funnel but didn’t convert into a lead or a sale. Facebook will let you make an audience out of these people and put ads back in front of them with additional information, social proof, and even emotion to help close the sale.

Also, make sure to run specific campaigns that retarget (sometimes called cross-target) your existing leads and subscribers offering them other goods and services you provide. Since they are likely happy past customers they tend to have less resistance in buying more from you.

7. Use The Video Ad Option More Often

Did you know that video ads on Facebook cost less than image ads? 

CPC can be lower with good video ads because they often earn cheaper impressions than other types of Facebook ads, which keeps costs low. 

Look for ways to incorporate creative and strong call to action videos into your marketing strategy. 

With these tips in mind, you’re well on your way to optimizing your Facebook ads without having to break the bank. 

How ClickFunnels Can Help

ClickFunnels is a great tool to use for your business.

It’s simple for any entrepreneur to build their own sales funnels in just minutes, all without needing to rely on a team of techies.

With ClickFunnels, you’ll build high converting and clean sales funnels. 

Everything you need to build and launch your sales funnel is pre-developed and automatically pieced together for your company, so you have a seamless and fast set up.

If you want to give it a try, ClickFunnels offers a 14-day free trial. Test it out and see the growth you have with your customers.

What ways work best for you when lowering Facebook ad cost? Sound off in the comments below!

Thanks for reading 7 Ways to Lower Your Facebook Advertising Costs which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Want to grow your business with affiliate marketing?

Today we are going to share three simple strategies that you can use to get more people to promote your products and services…

Real Talk: How Generous is Your Affiliate Program?

Something that we see way too often is entrepreneurs launching subpar affiliate programs, then struggling to get affiliates and wondering what went wrong.

Here’s the harsh truth: if people aren’t interested in promoting your product or service, it’s probably because your commission structure isn’t generous enough. And until you fix that, no amount of outreach will help.

We would argue that in order to succeed with affiliate marketing, you need to offer commissions that are at least 30%.

And if you sell a subscription product or service, it’s best to make that commission recurring for the entire lifetime of that customer. That’s what we do here at ClickFunnels.

We currently have two pricing plans:

• The Startup plan costs $97/month. A 30% recurring commission would be $29.10/month.
• The Pro plan that costs $297/month. A 30% recurring commission would be $89.10/month.

So, for example:

If an affiliate gets 100 people to sign up for the Startup plan, that would create an income stream of $2,910/month.

They would continue to be paid a commission for each customer every month for as long as those customers stay with us.

As you can see, our affiliate program has a ton of earning potential. In fact, it’s possible to make five, six, or even seven figures with it!

Something that we have learned over the years is that the more generous your commission structure, the easier it will be for you to recruit affiliates and the harder those affiliates will work to promote your products and services.

So before you start doing any outreach, make sure that you have an amazing affiliate program that gives people an opportunity to make real money!

Affiliate Outreach Strategy #1: Cold Email

The most straightforward way to recruit affiliates is to cold email people who might be interested in joining your affiliate program.

Work Your Way Up the Influencer Hierarchy

We recommend starting with influencers who have less than 1,000 followers. Why?

Because they are more likely to open your cold email, read it, and reply to it. Plus, with an audience that size, they won’t be used to getting pitches like that, so they are probably going to be excited about the opportunity. 

The high response rate from these micro influencers can help you optimize your cold email and your follow-up email templates, your affiliate onboarding process, and your affiliate program itself.

Once you have streamlined everything, you can progress to influencers who have between 1,000 and 10,000 followers, then to those who have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers, and then finally to the ones who have 100,000+ followers.

Build Social Proof

As you work your way up this hierarchy, you want to create buzz around your affiliate program so that it will have some credibility by the time you start reaching out to influencers with 100,000+ followers.

Think about it: if someone with a large following opens and reads your cold email, they will likely want to see what other people have to say about your affiliate program. 

If they can’t find any information about it, they will probably get sketched out. But if they see a bunch of social media posts, articles, and video reviews, they might decide to give it a shot.

So encourage your affiliates to announce joining your program, review your products and services, and maybe even share their results with their followers if doing that makes sense in their niche.

We also recommend writing up case studies featuring your most successful affiliates and then using them as social proof in your cold emails.

Provide Guidance

If you want your affiliates to get great results, you need to provide them with as much guidance as possible.

So don’t be afraid to do things that don’t scale: get on calls with them, review their marketing campaigns, give them feedback, etc. 

Help them succeed so that you can then leverage that success to recruit more people to your affiliate program!

Book Recommendation: “Cold Email Manifesto” by Alex Berman and Robert Indries

This book includes advice on how to avoid getting blacklisted by email service providers, templates for both the initial cold email and the follow-up emails, strategies for scaling cold outreach, and more. 

While it was written with the purpose of helping entrepreneurs get more clients for their service businesses, its lessons can also be applied to recruiting affiliates!

Affiliate Outreach Strategy #2: Webinars

Another way to recruit affiliates is to use cold email to pitch webinars to influencers.

You want to offer them this deal: they promote your webinar to their audience and get people to register for it, you host the webinar and pitch your product or service at the end of it, and then the two of you split the proceeds.

This approach requires very little work on the part of the influencer while giving them an opportunity to make some money, which makes it more appealing than regular affiliate marketing.

Consequently, you can use it to get your foot in the door so to speak: if you can persuade an influencer to promote your webinar and they make some money that way, they will likely be open to joining your affiliate program after that.

What is a Webinar Funnel?

You can use our software, ClickFunnels, to build a webinar funnel for your business.

Here’s what this funnel looks like:

1. A webinar registration page where you explain what your webinar is all about and encourage potential customers to register for the event.
2. A registration confirmation page where you confirm that the potential customer has successfully registered for the webinar and let them know what they should expect next.
3. A webinar page where the potential customer can either attend your webinar live or watch the replay.

Our template library includes a proven webinar funnel template so all you need to do is customize it with our drag-and-drop page editor!

How to Structure Your Webinar?

Your webinar is supposed to serve as your lead magnet.

It should provide a complete solution to a narrowly defined problem that is related to the problem that your product or service addresses.

As for the webinar structure, we recommend using the “Hook, Story, Offer” copywriting framework:

1. Hook the attendees with a compelling premise. What is the number one benefit that they are going to get from this event? Lead with that.
2. Tell the attendees a captivating story that resonates with them on a deep emotional level. Ideally, it should be either about how you overcame the same challenge that they are struggling with or about how you helped someone else do that.
3. Transition from your story to your sales pitch and then end the webinar with a call to action encouraging the attendees to buy your product or service. You can add an element of urgency by offering special bonuses to people who make the purchase within the next 72 hours.

While it is possible to automate your webinar funnel entirely, we recommend doing it live at least once a week for a year. Why?

Because that will enable you to optimize your webinar script for maximum conversions based on the audience’s feedback!

Book Recommendation: “Expert Secrets” by Russell Brunson

Our co-founder Russell Brunson used this approach to get ClickFunnels off the ground during our first year in business.

Back then, he would aim to do 5-7 webinars a week. Sometimes, he would end up doing 2-3 webinars on the same day. 

And it paid off: we went from zero to $10M in annual revenue in just one year (it’s at $100M+ now)!

Doing so many webinars helped Russell develop his high-converting “Perfect Webinar” framework. 

He discusses this framework in detail in one of his best-selling books, “Expert Secrets”.

This book is available on Amazon where it has a 4.7-star rating but you can also get it directly from us for FREE. 

All we ask is that you cover the shipping!

Get “Expert Secrets” for FREE!

Affiliate Outreach Strategy #3: Paid Advertising

If you want to scale affiliate recruitment, you can build a squeeze page funnel for your affiliate program and then drive traffic to it with paid ads.

What is a Squeeze Page Funnel?

A squeeze page funnel has two pages:

1. A lead magnet landing page where you present your free offer and encourage the potential affiliate to get it.
2. A thank you page where you thank the potential affiliate, provide instructions for redeeming your free offer and tell them what they should expect next.

What Should You Use as Your Lead Magnet?

We recommend writing up a case study about your most successful affiliate and then using it as your lead magnet.

How to Convert Leads Into Affiliates With Email Marketing

Once a potential affiliate gives you their email address, you should send them an automated welcome email where you introduce yourself, explain what your product or service is about, and provide social proof in the form of testimonials from happy customers.

Then, you want to start regularly sending them affiliate case studies, ideally one case study per week if you have enough of them.

These case studies don’t have to be super impressive, they just need to demonstrate that people are making money with your affiliate program.

We recommend using the aforementioned “Hook, Story, Offer” framework for your case studies:

1. Hook the potential affiliate with a subject line that describes a specific result.
2. Tell a story about how one of your affiliates made money by promoting your products and services and how that money helped them improve their lives.
3. Transition from the story to the pitch for your affiliate program and end the email by encouraging the potential affiliate to join it.

Also, it might be a good idea to add a “P.S.” section to your emails where you encourage the potential affiliate to set up a 30-minute call with you if they have questions and direct them to your appointment calendar.

Note that you can easily do all this with ClickFunnels’ email marketing functionality!

How to Drive Traffic to Your Squeeze Page Funnel With Paid Ads

You want to create an ad campaign designed to promote your case study and start running it with a small daily budget.

We recommend using ClickFunnels’ A/B testing functionality to optimize your squeeze page funnel for conversions.

Ideally, you want to get to the point where you are happy with your conversion rates, cost-per-lead, and profit margins before you begin scaling your ad campaign. 

If you can’t decide what platform to advertise on, Facebook is probably your best bet because it has the largest user base and the most powerful ad targeting capabilities. 

And if you have never run Facebook ads before, you can simply pick up a course on Udemy to learn the basics (wait for a sale!).

Book Recommendation: “Copywriting Secrets” by Jim Edwards

Ultimately, if you want to build an army of affiliates, you need to master persuasion. And what is copywriting? It’s persuasion via the written word. 

Improving your copywriting skills will help you get more people to click on your ads, convert those visitors into leads, and then convert those leads into affiliates that will promote your products and services for you. 

Our friend Jim Edwards, a world-class copywriter, wrote a book for busy entrepreneurs just like you that covers everything that you need to know in order to write persuasive copy. 

“Copywriting Secrets” is available on Amazon where it has a 4.7-star rating but you can get it directly from us for FREE. 

All we ask is that you cover the shipping!

Get “Copywriting Secrets for FREE!”

Try ClickFunnels Risk-Free!

You can use ClickFunnels to build a webinar funnel for your product or service and a squeeze page funnel for your affiliate program. 

But let’s be real here: we are biased in favor of our software. Of course, we think it’s the best. We are the ones who made it!

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

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

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

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Start Your Free Trial Today

Thanks for reading 3 Simple Strategies For Outreach To Affiliates which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

What is probably one of the most important part of your sales funnel?

If you guessed traffic, you’re exactly right.

Although there are many core elements to your funnel that we can’t live without, traffic remains high on our priority list.

In other words, we should always have a list of traffic sources at our fingertips.

Additionally, these should be trusted, reliable sources that we can turn to whenever we need.

This lets us push eyes into our funnel, spread the word of our brand, and, convert, convert, and convert.

Yet, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how important traffic is.

It also doesn’t take a long list of data or statistics either.

In reality, the bottom line stays the same: traffic is the fuel for our funnel.

So why shouldn’t we pause for a moment and ensure that we have that list laid out in front of us?

Then we can keep coming back to it again and again, ramping up our funnels to max potential.

Well, never fear, I have exactly what you’re looking for.

Let’s cut to the chase, and look at your ultimate list of traffic sources for your funnel.

Search-Based Ads

Even if you’re new to funneling, you’re probably pretty familiar with text-driven advertising.

Simply put: when a person punches in a keyword, they’re shown ads that correspond to that term.

Interest is primarily driven by their active need related to the keywords, and this remains a popular way of getting eyes to your brand.

• Google Adwords – The heavyweight in the room is, of course, owned by the largest search engine in the world. Bidding has become more competitive, but it’s still one of the best resources out there by far.
• Bing Ads – Still, Bing’s network, owned by tech giant Microsoft, shouldn’t be discounted. And because it helps serve to new, alternative search engines like DuckDuckGo, it’s worth taking a look at for certain demographics.
• Looksmart – This one is a different approach to search-based advertising. Here’s how it works: Looksmart serves search-based ads, but also accompanying ads that pertain to the users interested. This helps truly maximize the experience.
• Affinity – While Affinity isn’t confined to just search, they provide some excellent solutions in this realm. From search engine to toolbar search and even search suggestions, this one is worth looking at if you’re already using Google Adwords or Bing Ads.
• 7Search – This lesser known resource is also good for certain niches. With over 700 English-speaking search engines within their network, they have a unique research that other choices may lack.

Social Media Ads

Of course, what’s an award-winning funnel without social media ads?

In recent years, several new social media marketing opportunities have arisen.

And in reality, these networks cater more toward certain demographics and content mediums, making them perfect for certain situations.

• Facebook Ads – What I love best about advertising on Facebook is that there is such a degree of control for targeting and retargeting. It also has a huge user-base and an easy to set up conversion pixel for your site.
• Twitter for Business – Once a more niche player in the business, Twitter has been getting more and more attention. It’s ads business is also attracting more attention at the same time. On the one hand, you can go for smaller promoted posts or if you need, a more expensive trends campaign that will generate huge results.
• Reddit Advertising – Reddit is a little different regarding advertising. Because the site gives people a place to gather for just about every niche under the sun, your ads might take on a different feel than other social media networks. But at the end of the day, it’s a wonderful avenue for engagement and conversions.
• LinkedIn Ads – This choice is especially good for B2B marketing or if you have a funnel aimed at professionals. In recent years, we’ve seen the sites advertising branch mature and begin to offer some decent choices for your sales funnel.
• Pinterest Ads – And finally, Pinterest. The site skews very heavily toward certain demographics, notably female and DIYers. Yet, there’s big potential here in presenting your brand in an easily shareable way.

ClickFunnels lest you set your retargeting/tracking pixels with ease. All you need to do is to Login to your ClickFunnels account > Go to your funnel > Go to the funnel step you want to add retargeting/tracking pixels to > Open Editor > Settings > Tracking Code > Paste your retargeting/tracking pixel > Save.

Pop-Up and Pop-Under Ads

Okay, this resource is going to be a little different.

These are called PPV and CPV based ads, and they can be somewhat confusing for newcomers.

These type of ads reside on a user’s computer and are served throughout their everyday use.

These are not spyware but are installed onto a machine willingly by users, often as part of another service.

Many brands use them for great impact.

• AdOnNetwork – This choice offers a few different formats, including separate window ads, but also in-text hyperlinking. They’ve also been around for a good deal of time and offer a good value for your funnel efforts.
• LeadImpact – This marketing service also offers a few other channels, but they really excel in the pop-ups category. Plus, once you add in geo-targeting and some other features, and you’ll be able to rock your funnel’s traffic quickly and effectively.
• Clicksor – With 196 countries covered, Clicksor does not mess around. I also love that they have customer service support at every hour of every day for the entire year. That’s right! Any time you have a question or concern, you’ve got a source. They’ve also been in the business for over a decade, so they’re a good route to take as well.

Photo Credits: AdRoll

Self-Serve and Site-Driven Ads

And we can’t leave out self-serve ads that are promoted on sites across the internet.

From banner ads to display exchanges, these resources are all about skipping a sales rep and setting up your campaign easily.

As you browse this list, you’ll be looking at some of the names that display ads across many of the popular sites you visit.

• SiteScout – For our choices today, this one stands out as a leader. While they excel at display campaigns, they also have the market cornered on mobile as well. Some of the other pros include real-time bidding for a range of delivery methods, truly granular reports, and some excellent targeting for your campaigns.
• AdReady – This choice has several other formats and options; however, they’re known for their display network. The best part is that a campaign can be set up in as little as a few minutes and without a ton of tech knowledge.
• AdRoll – AdRoll loves to say that you’re getting “ads that work.” And this is surely true. Over 25,000 across the globe use their services. One area is worth mentioning, though, and that’s the company is willing to work with any sized business. For us funnelers, this is welcome news, since we may just be launching a shorter lifespan funnel today, but a longer one next month or vice versa.
• Blogads – This one is exactly what it sounds like. With it, you can get impressions on some of the biggest blogs in the entire world. While many of the choices are somewhat niche, they are the perfect buy in for the right funnel looking to capture those eyes.

Photo Credits: Digital Warrior

Served Ads

Served advertising is almost exactly like our above choices, except for one minor difference.

Instead of self-serving your campaign, you’ll work with a more dedicated representative.

They also often cover a broader range of options for bigger projects.

Although this choice won’t be right for every Clickfunneler, there’s plenty of opportunity here to push a lot of traffic into your funnel.

Just like our self-serve options, these site-driven ads are powerful and wide-reaching.

• One by AOL – You might remember AOL as that internet provided from way back in the day, but today, they serve ads to people across the world. We’re talking TV, site-based, Internet video, and the list goes on and on. Their platform aims to be a one-stop-shop of marketing traffic for everyone.
• DoubleClick by Google – You thought AdWords was Google’s only venture into marketing traffic? Not a chance. If you’re part of a larger agency, this very well could be the choice you want to go with.
• Exponential – This company’s Deep Dive dashboard is excellent. With it, you can go beyond catch phrases like “big data” to refined and insightful measurements of your campaigns. This leads to marketing that’s modeled for highly-specific consumer behaviors and actions.
• Rubicon Project – Okay, one more served a resource for you. This one boasts a 1 billion person reach worldwide. That’s right… 1 billion people with 5 million requests a second. From algos to cloud-based solutions, Rubicon Project offers some novel ideas.

Mobile and App-based Ads

We all know how powerful mobile and app advertising has become.

So I wanted to ensure that you had some specific marketing choices for this area.

It seems like this part of the marketing world is still getting its wings and that not everyone is aware of which traffic sources to turn to.

But don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.

• AdMob by Google – Another lesser-known Google offering, AdMob gives you the ability to monetize apps. Many developers are already using it, but for us funnelers, it’s a prime opportunity in the waiting too.
• Inmobi – From remarketing to micro moments, this service has several choices for getting to mobile users. They take advantage of everything from location history to user app categorization, making the company truly remarkable.
• BuzzCity – Leveraging the power of mobile and globe, BuzzCity has some robust options. Their sign up process is quick and easy, and you’ll also find that they offer some affordable plans as well.

Protip: Which traffic source is right for your funnel? It all depends on, but do yourself a favor. At the very least, check out one of the sources from each category. This way, you’ll have a broader understanding of the market. It’ll come in handy for future funnels. Plus, check out our traffic strategy articles here and here for more ideas.

This list is pretty ultimate, but I love to hear about up-and-comers for traffic as well.

Add your favorite traffic source in the comments, and let’s get this list growing, growing, growing!

Thanks for reading Ultimate Traffic Sources For Your Sales Funnel which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Are you looking for ways to improve your sales funnel performance?

Today we are going to share ten simple tips that can help you increase conversion rates, revenue, and profitability!

Tip #1: Simplify Your Landing Page and Sales Page Design

When the visitor lands on your page, you only have a few seconds to convey the value of your offer so that they would want to stay and learn more about it.

If their senses are assaulted by a cacophony of clashing colors, crazy animations, and jarring autoplay sounds, they will probably feel overwhelmed. That can prompt them to leave and never come back.

That’s why it’s so important to keep your landing page and sales page design simple. Avoid bells and whistles that look cool but ultimately act as distractions and lower your conversion rates!

Tip #2: Add More Curiosity to Your Landing Page and Sales Page Copy

While it’s important to explain what your offer is all about, you don’t want to give everything away in your landing page and sales page copy.

Instead, you should provide just enough information to pique the visitor’s curiosity, so that they would feel inclined to get your lead magnet or buy your product. If you provide too much information, they might lose interest and leave.

This is especially important when it comes to info products like eBooks, online courses, and webinars. If the visitor feels like they already know what you are going to say, there’s no reason for them to proceed with your call to action, is there?

Curiosity – or lack thereof – can have serious implications for your business and be the difference between losing money and turning a profit. 

For example, our co-founder Russell Brunson once helped a friend decrease his cost-per-lead from $24.85 to $5.84, increase his webinar show-up rate from 22.4% to 31.7%, and make his sales funnel profitable. So how did he do it?

He added more curiosity to his friend’s landing page headline.

Here’s the original headline:

“How to Add 6 Figures to Your Web Design Business by Copying My Secret Method for Helping Companies Get More (Real!) 5-Star Reviews WITHOUT Selling, Spending Lots of Time or Money”

Here’s the improved headline:

“How I Added 6 Figures to My Web Company by Adding This One Easy to Offer Service THAT DOESN’T Require Cold Calling, Spending Lots of Time, Money or Require Extra Resources”

See how the new headline didn’t give away what the method that allowed Russell’s friend to add 6 figures to his business was? The only way to learn that was to attend the webinar. So that’s what people did!

This was the only change Russell made and it saved that entire sales funnel. That’s how powerful curiosity can be!

Tip #3: Add More Social Proof to Your Landing Page and Sales Page Copy

We live in a digital age where anyone can say anything on the Internet and there’s no way to verify it.

That’s why social proof is becoming increasingly important for businesses that sell their products and services online.

Displaying social proof can help you:

• Position yourself as a trustworthy subject matter expert.
• Reassure potential customers that you can deliver what you promised.
• Reassure the potential customers that they can get the results that they want because people just like them have done so in the past with your help.

Generally speaking, the more social proof you can provide, the higher your conversion rates are going to be.

The most powerful form of social proof is testimonials from happy customers but you need to make sure that these testimonials not only are real but also look real.

The best way to present testimonials is to include the customer’s photo, full name, and job title, which makes it easy for the skeptics to look them up and verify that they are indeed a real person.

Testimonial walls like this can work really well:

Tip #4: Make Your Lead Magnet Irresistible

Your lead magnet is the foundation of your entire sales funnel.

Improving your lead magnet can help you increase your ad-impression-to-click, visitor-to-lead, and lead-to-customer conversion rates.

We recommend applying the Lean Startup methodology here. First, create the minimum viable version of your lead magnet and see if potential customers are interested in it.

Then, once you are sure that there’s demand for it, start investing resources in making it more valuable.

You can do that by improving its production value, making it more comprehensive, and adding various helpful bonuses to it.

That is going to make your lead magnet more appealing to potential customers!

Tip #5: Make Your Paid Offer Irresistible

Here’s our irresistible offer formula:

Irresistible Offer = High Value + Low Price – Financial Risk

Increase the Value of Your Offer

You can do that by bundling your core product with several bonus products to create a complete package designed to help the customer solve a specific problem.

Digital products like printable sheets, eBooks, video classes, webinars, and online courses work best as bonuses because of their high-profit margins.

You can also drastically increase the value of your offer by throwing in a one-on-one consultation with you. It’s not scalable but it can help you make more sales if you are just starting out.

Reduce the Price of Your Offer

If your sales funnel follows the Value Ladder structure, you shouldn’t be charging much for your frontend offer anyway. Why?

Because the purpose of your frontend offer isn’t to make you a ton of money, it’s to convert leads into paying customers. That’s why we recommend charging as little as possible for it.

In fact, some businesses go as far as selling their frontend offer at a loss, which is known as the loss leader strategy and can be an effective way to acquire new customers.

Of course, in that case, it’s important to make sure that the revenue from your middle offer and your backend offer make up for that frontend loss so that your sales funnel can remain profitable!

Eliminate Financial Risk

The most obvious way to eliminate financial risk from the purchase decision is to offer an unconditional, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee for a specific time frame.

30-day guarantees are the most popular but you might also want to experiment with 60-day and 90-day guarantees to see what works best for your target audience.

And if you are selling a service, see if there’s any way to switch to performance-based pricing where the client doesn’t have to pay you if you fail to deliver results.

This can work especially well if you are just starting out and don’t have any social proof yet. Getting clients is still going to be an uphill battle but performance-based pricing can make it much easier.

Meanwhile, if you are already established, this pricing model can help you charge more for your service, but you’ll need to be selective and only work with clients that you are confident you can help.

Tip #6: Add an Order Bump to Your Core Offer

An order bump is an inexpensive, straightforward offer that you present to the potential customer on the order form of your core offer.

You know how grocery stores display all these small items like packs of chewing gum and candy bars in their checkout areas?

They do that because customers who are about to check out might grab a KitKat and throw it in their cart without a second thought. Impulse purchases like that increase the average order value and can have a significant impact on the bottom line of that store.

Order bumps are a digital equivalent of that KitKat. For example, if you are selling physical products, you can offer expedited shipping as an order bump. It doesn’t require any explanation. All the customer needs to do is check the tick box. They might do it on an impulse!

Tip #7: Add an Upsell to Your Core Offer

Upsells are another way to increase your average order value.

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

It typically means either pitching a higher quantity of that product at a better price per unit or a subscription for that product at a better price per unit.

Alternatively, you can upsell a package that includes the product from the original offer plus a few additional products that the potential customer might be interested in.

For example, if the potential customer is about to buy a winter hat, why not upsell them a package that includes that same hat but with a matching scarf and matching gloves?

You can use this approach when simply pitching more of the same product wouldn’t make sense.

Tip #8: Add a Cross Sell to Your Offer

You can also increase your average order value with cross sells.

A cross sell is also an offer that you present to the potential customer after they have accepted your core offer. 

However, instead of being an upgrade on it, it should be complementary to it. What would go well with the product that they already decided to buy?

For example, if the potential customer is about to buy a travel backpack, why not cross sell them a set of packing cubes and a tech toolcase for their electronics?

Tip #9: Add a Downsell to Your Core Offer

You can also use downsells to increase your average order value.

A downsell is an offer that you present to the potential customer after they have rejected your core offer. It’s supposed to be a downgrade on it. Downsells are the opposite of upsells.

For example, if your core offer is a $257 online course on dating, you can downsell a $7 eBook where you explain how to optimize one’s profile on the most popular dating apps.

Worst case scenario, the potential customer is going to leave without buying, which they would have done anyway. You have nothing to lose by pitching them a downsell!

Tip #10: Improve Your Traffic Quality

Do you already have an established business?

Then you can use your sales data to improve your traffic quality and thus boost your sales funnel performance.

Look at your existing customers, figure out what they tend to have in common, and then use those common traits in your ad targeting to attract more people like them.

You might also want to look at what leads that don’t convert into customers tend to have in common and then use those common traits to exclude people like that from your ad targeting.

We recommend reviewing your sales data and calibrating your ad targeting every quarter. Zero in on your dream customers as much as possible!

Make Sure to A/B Test Everything!

Everything that we discussed in this article is just general guidelines that shouldn’t be taken as gospel.

A/B testing is the only way to learn what works and what doesn’t work for your business.

When you have an idea for something that you want to change on your landing page or sales page, don’t just implement it blindly and hope for the best.

Instead, test two versions of the same page – the original one (version A) and the new one (version B) – against each other.

There should be only one difference between these two versions: the element that you want to change.

Say, if you want to change the headline, that should be the only difference between version A and version B, everything except for the headlines should be identical.

Drive the same amount of traffic to both versions. This will enable you to see which version converts better. Why guess when you can just look at the data?

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 Easy Ways To Improve Your Sales Funnel Performance which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Funnel-hackers are always bragging about how much action they get through Facebook ads; however, how can you make sure you’re getting in on more clicks and better conversions via the social network?

Thankfully, we’ve uncovered the four steps you can take today to supercharge your future Facebook campaigns.

Describing Facebook’s dominance in the social sphere would be like saying “the sky is blue” or “water is wet.”

In other words, you’ve heard it all before, right?

However, many marketers are still sleeping on Facebook’s robust ad platform, either due to their own negligence or fear of getting involved with paid social traffic.

Here’s the thing: Facebook’s ad platform eliminates many of the “what-if’s” that normally hold us back when it comes to paid ads.

How so?

• Your users are already on Facebook: third only to Google and YouTube regarding traffic according to Alexa, there’s little doubt that your audience is already active and has engaged with paid ads in the past
• Facebook absolutely dominates referral traffic: if users are landing on your site or sales funnel, chances are they’re coming from Zuckerberg’s platform
• Facebook is smart about the way they treat ads: to combat ad-blockers, Facebook boasts fewer, non-interruptive ads which mean more targeting for publishers and less irritation on behalf of users

While sometimes it may feel like paid advertising can be akin to flushing money down the toilet, Facebook does everything it can for publishers to customize and tailor their ads to a hyper-specific audience.

For example, features such as re-targeting and Facebook’s Ad pixel are perfect for funnel-builders looking to get the most bang for their buck through social ads.

Likewise, the numbers done lie regarding Facebook’s advertising potential, including:

• Over $12 billion in annual ad revenue (2014)
• 92% of businesses already marketing on Facebook as means of driving traffic (in other words, if you aren’t hopping on the bandwagon of paid social traffic, chances are your neighbors already have)
• Facebook ads are resulting in an insane ROI; therefore, the platform’s CPM and CPCs are the rises as the result of increased CTR

The writing is on the wall. Sleeping on Facebook ads simply isn’t an option for those of us looking to take our funnels to the next level now.

Here’s the issue: what are we to do if we’re stuck with an underperforming campaign or are simply overwhelmed by what Facebook has to offer?

Fear not.

If you aren’t seeing the numbers you want, either clicks, conversions or both, chance are there are some relatively simple tweaks you can make ASAP to get back in the black.

Consider our four-pronged approach to increasing your Facebook campaign results sooner rather than later.

Customize Your Audiences

When it comes to Facebook ads, the name of the game is customization.

Just as you might segment your email lists, Facebook is prime for customizing your audience lists based on some factors, including whether or not you’ve interacted with your users before.

As Facebook notes themselves: “it’s easier to sell to current customers than look for new ones.”

The custom audience feature is incredibly useful for targeting warm leads, previous customers and current subscribers such as those who have opted-in to your newsletter or email list.

Facebook allows you to tailor ads specifically to these users who are familiar with your brand but perhaps need a specific “push” to seal the deal.

The benefits of a custom audience for opt-ins is three-fold:

• The trust barrier has already been broken down as users are familiar with your brand and marketing message (for example, the classic “rule of seven” notes that you need to make seven meaningful interactions with a user before they buy)
• Users respond well to personalization: a blanket ad campaign for first-time users won’t resonate as much as a specific deal for a previous opt-in
• You have a built-in audience for split-testing different ads; by working with a warm list, you can get a better idea of what design, deals, and copy speaks to your base

The question remains: what types of ads should you specifically run to such users?

Consider running ads that accomplish a combination of the following:

• Encourage new “likes” to your Facebook page, as opt-ins may not necessarily follow you on social media; however, such users are much, much more likely to buy from you
• Incentive to visit a certain page or call-to-action on your site, such as a killer case study or blog post, which will ultimately bring them back into your sales funnel
• Provide value in the form of a deal or discount exclusive to email subscribers (a prime example of exclusivity marketing), such as slashing a fee or a 20% subscriber discount

Custom audiences can be a powerful tool for marketing to warm leads versus those who’ve never interacted with you before.

By customizing your ads for specific audiences, you can ensure that your message and deals resonate with the right crowd.

Once you’ve set-up your ads, you can add your ad pixels to your website or your sales funnel. Adding your ad pixels to your sales funnel is a straightforward process in ClickFunnels.

Build a Lookalike Audience

Take a moment and think about who your most qualified leads are.

The ones are commenting on your blog, day after day.

The ones who’ve already “liked” your Facebook page and give every post a “thumbs up.”

The ones driving the needle in the “traffic” column of Google Analytics

And of course, the ones who’ve purchased from you in the past.

Now, how do you keep them coming back? How do you turn them into lifelong evangelists of your business?

Much like custom audiences, lookalike audiences on Facebook allow you take your targeting a step further by getting insanely specific when it comes to the demographics of your ads (including previous customers).

What sort of demographics are we talking about?

For starters, you can build your lookalike audience based on the following:

• Location (which can be incredibly useful if you’re targeting local customers or have an international reach)
• Age (for example, an affiliate for a weight loss product can run two ad campaigns targeting older men or younger women simultaneously)
• Users who have previously liked your page (which again, provides opportunities to market exclusive deals)
• Email opt-ins (as noted earlier; however, if you’ve already segmented your email list, you can segment your ads to hyper-target the same users)
• Previous visitors, including users who are similar to your current customer base

Crazy, right?

The amount of audience segmentation allowed by Facebook represents endless opportunities to hone our calls-to-action and boost conversions accordingly.

Vary Your Visuals

With Facebook, you have a world of customization at your fingertips; however, you are still tasked with reaching users and grabbing their attention.

The elements of design are easy to overlook, but can easily make or break our ads.

Therefore, with a talented designer on deck, consider crafting ten (yes, ten) completely different visual variations of your ads to split test with multiple audiences.

The benefits of split testing are well-documented, but what elements of your ads should you switch up to ensure the most mileage out of your tests?

Start with the following:

• Your message and call-to-action (think: urgency vs. scarcity vs. exclusivity)
• Imagery that establishes trust and encourages users to click (while still remaining congruent with your previous marketing efforts)
• Color schemes that don’t signal your ad as spam (think: the psychology of color)
• Crystal clear copy that makes sense and doesn’t mislead the reader

You can use previous on-site ads for inspiration, taking into consideration what’s worked in the past.

Although split-tests may seem like a lot of initial legwork, such research has the potential to transform your future marketing efforts.

Create landing page variations and do a split-test with ClickFunnels. Designing your landing page is simplified whether you choose to make use of the available templates or design your landing pages from scratch!

Divvy Up Your Deals

Once you’ve sorted out your list and have decided on which ads to implement, consider testing different offers on the same list on a weekly basis to nail down what converts best.

In short, you’re trying to find the best of the best when it comes to your ads and offers.

Keep in mind that different messages and offers will impact your CTR and conversions, even if used on the same list of loyal buyers.

Therefore, don’t be afraid to experiment with different marketing messages including:

• Time-sensitive offers and deals that about to expire (using language such as “hurry”)
• Products that have a limited quantity driving users to act “now” versus later
• Flash sales (combining the points above, including 24-hour sales and “ends at midnight” deals)
• An offer that includes a free item or eliminates a subscription fee
• A steep discount, such as 50% off for a limited time, to catch the eyes of readers

Whatever you decide, make sure that your deals are short, sweet and to the point.

Remember, you have a relatively limited real estate to work with on Facebook and must fight tooth and nail to grab your readers’ attention in today’s crowded news feeds.

If you’re looking to create effective marketing messages, Funnel Scripts is your best bet. Create email marketing copy, ad copy and everything you need for that killer content.

ClickFunnels Action Steps

Adding your Facebook Re-targeting pixels into your sales funnels is easy with ClickFunnels! To show you just how easy it is to do, check out this walkthrough:

Step 1: Prepare your Facebook Ad pixel

Step 2: Log in to your ClickFunnels account

Step 3: Head on over to your funnel you want to market on Facebook

Step 4: Click “Edit Page” on your page

Step 5: Click Settings > Tracking Codes

Step 6: Enter your Facebook Ad pixels and click Save.

How Do You Feel About Facebook Ads?

Facebook provides marketers with plenty of breathing room with advertising, which ultimately results in highly-targeted messages for extremely specific users.

Those looking to bring more users into their funnel should consider Facebook as the prime place to find new leads, re-ignite old ones and test the effectiveness of their current marketing efforts.

If you haven’t seen the numbers, you’re looking for or are perhaps new to the platform, start with segmentation and then get onto testing.

How’s your experience been with Facebook ads and your sales funnel?

Is it your favorite source of paid traffic today?

Thanks for reading 4 Actions To Boost Your Facebook Ads Campaign Results which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

In a world where we’re told to “always be testing,” finding the ideal starting point to experiment on your funnel can be a bit of a headache.

Thankfully, we’ve uncovered five funnel elements for unconventional funnel-hackers to test.

Test, test and test some more.

Testing has been the name of the game since the dawn of modern marketing: from copy to deals and beyond, you can’t afford to be split testing.

Likewise, failure to test could mean that you’re needlessly throwing money away.

The numbers don’t lie regarding the importance of which elements to test, either.

For Example:

• 75% of marketers A/B test offers on a regular basis: you better hope that you’re part of that number, right?
• Most optimization and abandonment issues happen at the shopping cart: do you know whether or not your users are bouncing instead of dying to buy?
• Video and email marketing are perhaps the secret weapons of optimizing and converting traffic: have you implemented them on your funnel yet? Since they integrate so easily with ClickFunnels, why not?

The point is this: if you’re not testing, you’re essentially guessing.

You can’t build a business on a guess, can you?

Now, here’s the problem that often arises when it comes time to run a test: with so many moving pieces of any given sales funnel, what can we test?

How can we effectively test without interrupting our current traffic?

Fear not.

We’ve uncovered some rather unconventional means of testing that won’t break the flow of your funnel.

In fact, our five mad scientist tests will more than likely ramp up your traffic and result in more conversions with some patience.

Whether you’re tired of the “same old” tests or simply want to make sure there’s nothing you’re missing regarding optimizing your sales funnel, consider the following five testing points for your future funnel-hacking efforts.

Exit Pops

Simply put, you need to do absolutely everything in your power to keep users glued to your shopping cart when it comes time to buy.

The reasons why most users bounce during a purchase are subtle yet clear, including:

• Unexpected shipping costs.
• The need to create an additional account to complete a purchase.
• A lack of testimonials or authenticity during the checkout process (which again stresses the need for funnels to leverage social proof).

The question remains: how can you win those visitors back or simply keep them from abandoning in the first place?

Accordingly to the study above, 54% of shoppers are willing to purchase the items abandoned in their shopping carts if they were offered the same items at a lower price.

That’s a big if that impacts your bottom line; likewise, over half of your buying base is nothing to scoff at.

So, how do you engage your customers to keep them from abandoning while also keeping yourself in the black?

Enter the exit pop.

In short, exit pops work to keep users on the page and further incentivize them to buy by either offering a down sell or a better deal.

For example, you could implement an exit pop-up to drive a 20% discount or an additional offer to help sweeten the deal.

Keep in mind that you shouldn’t go needlessly throwing exit pops around, considering that it could effectively drive down your bottom line if overused.

Instead, implement them as a way of foolproofing your shopping cart by targeting users who are spending a lot of time on your page without taking action or those who try to click away from the funnel.

There’s little risk involved in exit pops, which ultimately serve as a win-win for both you and your customers.

Play around with different offers to see what helps keep visitors sticking around: just be sure not to make your deals or discounts too steep.

If you find this task daunting, you wouldn’t think so if you’re using ClickFunnels. Set-up is a breeze!

Step 1: Log in to your ClickFunnels account

Step 2: Head on over to your funnel > sales page

Step 3: Click Edit Page

Step 4: In the bottom left corner of the editor, click Show Pop Up

Step 5: A pop-up will show prompting you to Add New Row. Select the number of blocks.

Step 6: You can choose whether your pop up is a headline, a text block or an image. Afterwards, click Edit Popup Settings.

Here’s an example using the Headline/Text element.

Step 7: Set Animation Settings

Optimizing Your Order Confirmation Page

Think that your sales funnel has done its job by the time your customers have clicked “purchase?”

Not by a long shot.

Keep in mind that your order confirmation page allows you to do a combination of the following with a bit of creativity:

• Encourage users to opt-in to your email list or newsletter (if they haven’t already).
• Incentivize them to boost their offer or deal to their friends and colleagues.
• Push worthwhile deals and content to create even more positive interactions with your base.

There’s plenty you can do as means of optimizing your order confirmation to drive users to take further action without interrupting them.

For Example:

• Offer an additional product from your own business or a promotion from an affiliate at the end of an order (granted it’s relevant).
• Give incentive for users to tweet or post on Facebook about their purchase: perhaps offer a 10% discount on future transactions, or a “refer a friend” deal.
• Share a video or case study that will keep users on your page or the pages of your affiliates: the more interactions you have, the more likely they are to evangelize your business for the long-term.

Small tweaks can result in huge returns. In short, your order confirmation page allows you to increase engagement across multiple marketing platforms of your funnel and see what best appeals to your base.

Add a progress bar to your sales funnel page in Clickfunnels using the Progress Bar element.

A Phone Call Follow-Up

Email marketing is a fantastic way to grow your business, market your funnel and effectively create a list of hungry customers.

However, some of our customers may find the era of email to be somewhat impersonal.

If you really want to think outside the box, consider a follow-up phone call to make sure that your customers are truly satisfied.

Why bother?

For starters, your users won’t be expecting it. Sure, we’ve become accustomed to autoresponders that say “Thanks!”

But hearing a legitimate, heartfelt “thank you” from an actual person is relatively rare in the digital world, isn’t it?

Besides, the benefits of effectively following up with customers are difficult to ignore:

• For starters, following up, sets you apart from the competition and perhaps presents your business as being more empathetic than its neighbors
• It shows that you care and emphasizes your company’s confidence: taking the time to actually personalize a call speaks volumes in today’s hustle-and-bustle marketing sphere
• You create yet another opportunity to leave a positive impression on your customers: the more positive interactions you have with customers, you more you’ll convert and keep them around

Granted you collect your customers’ phone numbers upon checkout, the ability to ring them up is at your fingertips.

If you don’t have the bandwidth to perform the calls yourself, you could have a virtual assistant take on the task via VOIP; however, make sure you can trust whoever’s calling your customers.

After all, a lack of authenticity may backfire on you.

Friendly Competition

A bit of competition never hurt anybody, right?

Likewise, implementing a competition amongst your customers to “refer a friend” for a free product or prize can pay off brilliantly with the proper incentive in place.

After all, people will go to great lengths to get something for free.

Refer a friend promotions can come in many shapes and sizes, although they’re perhaps most prime platform for such a content comes via social media, primarily Facebook.

Referral contests are a great way to get satisfied customers talking about your company and product.

Likewise, you can use the results of your contest as a form of social proof, showcasing how many satisfied customers you have that are hungry to spread the word about what you have to offer.

Use Actionetics to send out email updates and notifications to participants. Set-up is easy and you can segment email lists to promote your contest!

Affiliate Incentives

Just as contests and prizes offer incentives to your customers, the same rules apply when it comes to encouraging your affiliates to drive sales.

Think about it: many affiliates have their hands in a lot of simultaneous projects and funnels.

By offering a prize, either monetary or otherwise, you can give them the extra “push” they need to focus on your product first and foremost.

You can see above how Fat Diminisher mentions their contest in their headline for affiliates to promote.

You can even set your prizes up as a sort of rewards program: the more milestones your affiliates reach, the more extravagant your prizes yet.

Much like the strategy above of getting customers on the phone, sending affiliates prizes in the mail is rather unexpected and will definitely grab your affiliates’ attention.

Your promotions may include rewards for reaching a sales target, being the first to ship a product or a “most improved” prize for affiliates who’ve recently stepped up their game.

Your rewards can range from anything to concert tickets to gift cards; however, if you can afford it, don’t be afraid to handsomely reward your affiliates to keep them around for the long haul.

Also, keep in mind the word-of-mouth benefits: the more affiliates that hear about your sweet rewards, the more they’ll want to sell your products.

Managing your affiliate program and nurturing it is no walk in the park, but you can streamline your process with ClickFunnels affiliate management system, Backpack. Easily integrate your affiliate programs into your sales funnels!

What Other Mad Scientist Tests Should You Try?

Picking aspects of your funnel to test doesn’t have to be a headache, but rather a distinct opportunity to ensure that you’re creating the best customer experience possible.

At the end of the day, that’s exactly what any test should represent at its core.

What other outside-the-box tests do you feel are worth running?

ClickFunnels Action Steps

Creating variables and Split Testing any page in your funnel is easy with ClickFunnels!

Step 1: Log in to your ClickFunnels account

Step 2: Head over to your funnel

Step 3: Click the page you wish to split test

Step 4: Click Create Variation

Step 5: You can choose to create a variation based on the control page or create from a template

Step 6: Add elements and content to your variation and edit accordingly

Visit the ClickFunnels site today to start your free trial!

Thanks for reading Add These 5 “Mad Scientist” Tests To Your Sales Funnel which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

We live in a day and age where people have their smartphones glued to their hands and are always within a meter away from them.

With apps such as Facebook Messenger and Skype, communication has evolved from the phone to the easy option, live chat and computer to computer calling.

If someone had a question or wanted more information back in the day, they would have to pick up the phone and speak to someone.

Now, however, more and more people are using Facebook messages to ask for information.

If your sales people aren’t currently active on Facebook or Skype, it is high time they start as your business will be missing out on plenty of opportunities.

Believe it or not, it isn’t just low-end products that can be sold without even picking up the phone.

Even high ticket products worth over $1,000 can be sold without picking up the phone.

If you have a conversational way of writing, you will certainly reap the benefits. A 2012 report by AT&T showed that 85% of phone calls in 2011 were unanswered.

5 years later, this number has more than likely increased as more people used the likes of Facebook and Skype to communicate.

The great thing about communication evolving away from phone and face-to-face to Facebook Messenger and Skype is that you now have the time to think about the best answer without being under pressure.

While you need to be prompt with your first reply, you can take the time to find the best way to respond to a question from that point.

In this guide, I’m going to go through how to sell high ticket products through Facebook Messenger and Skype by building rapport, offering a solution and more.

Find Out Why They Have Reached Out To You

One of the first things you need to think about when a prospect has contacted you through Facebook Messenger is what has brought them to seek your help.

This will help you to steer the conversation towards a path that will lead to a sale.

The worst thing you can do is jump straight into a sales pitch and start giving prices and talk of contracts.

Unless the prospect has specially asked for prices, at this point they are more looking for your help and advice.

To make sure you provide a quick response, so the prospect knows you are active and care, you can use this opportunity to ask what it is that brought them to you.

This is a great way to start the conversation, as it will give you an insight into the prospects behaviour and story.

Don’t be surprised however if the prospect doesn’t really give much away as they are likely to still be cautious at this point and may say they just want some information.

Build Rapport

Image Source: PUA Training

After you have sent the information they have asked for, you can then start working on building rapport with them.

You don’t need me to tell you how important it is to build a rapport with prospects, though.

What I can tell you is how to do it without even picking up the phone.

One way to do this is to ask an open-ended question so as to start a conversation.

After a conversation has built up and they seem to open up a little more, you can even ask about sport or family.

Another great way to build rapport is to send the prospect helpful content that is relevant to the reason they came to you in the first place.

You could say something like “I’ve just finished writing this blog post and thought I’d send it to you” and share the link to the blog with them.

This level of detail will show them that you care and are trying to help.

Start The Sales Conversation

Only until you have established a relationship with the prospect can you continue to start talking about what is paramount.

If you haven’t established a relationship and jump into a sales pitch, you may come across as pushy and could scare the prospect away.

Sometimes friendliness and conversation go a long, long way in sales… especially when it involves high ticket products.

Think of it as the old-school car salesperson when they almost chase you around the showroom trying to corner you so they can present their sales pitch that makes you want to run in the opposite direction.

Don’t be the traditional car salesperson, be the friendly chap who will help and not push.

Another rule to stick to at this point is not to contact your prospect by phone to continue the conversation because you think this is the natural next step.

This isn’t true because the prospect is more comfortable chatting via Facebook Messenger which is why they contacted you through that rather than call in the first place.

Have Them Confess Their Problems

After you have directed the conversation towards the sales route but not the full pitch, you can start to delve a little deeper into what problems the prospect is facing that brought them to you in the first place.

While you asked this at the very start, they were probably unsure of you then so now that you have built a relationship with them and have gained their trust they will more inclined to tell you more about their problem.

This is where the process will move on from making conversation and building rapport to talking business and nurturing.

If your prospect is still being slightly vague, then you need to ask the right questions that will abstract the problem.

Only until you find what the problem is can you proceed to the next step.

Present the Solution

Now that you know what the problem is, you will be able to provide the solution that they need.

Because you have spent the time to build a relationship, they will be more inclined to trust the advice you are giving them and believe that your product can, in fact, help them.

Don’t lose the prospect at this point by waffling on about the features of your product though as they will not want to know.

The only thing they want to hear is it how it can help them.

Therefore, when offering your product as a solution to the prospect, make sure to talk about the benefits and not the features.

Tell them exactly how it will help solve their problem and offer statistics on other clients.

Migrate From Facebook To Skype

Image Source: TechnoMedia

If at whatever stage you believe the conversation could be made better but still as text then move the conversation from Facebook Messenger to Skype.

It is clear that the prospect is most comfortable with communicating through text and so you want to stick to this method.

Skype is still a text form of communication however it is not a messaging service like Facebook Messenger but a chat service.

This makes communication a lot more casual and quick.

You will also be able to attach images, files and even video messages.

Another great feature that I have used myself many times with prospects is being able to share your screen.

This is great for when you want to show the prospect how your product works.

You can migrate the conversation from Facebook to Skype by asking first if they are on Skype and if so, for their Skype handle so you can add them to your contact list.

Once they have accepted your request to add them, you can then start chatting via Skype and sharing files.

However the best case scenrario is jumping on a call with them on Skype and closing them over the phone.

Result Orientated Offer

In order to sell high ticket products through Skype and Facebook Messenger, your offer is going to have to be results orientated.

While building rapport and finding the pain point and goals of prospects are imperative, it won’t lead to much if what you’re offering isn’t appealing.

The only thing business operators want to know about is the kind of results you are going to deliver to them.

For example, if you were a health guru then you may offer a 6 Week One-On-One Detox Course for $1,000.

This titled offer will let your prospect know exactly what the result will be and when they will get that result.

No Sales Pitch… Just a Friendly Conversation

Remember to keep the tone and conversation friendly and without a pushy sales pitch.

Take the time to listen to your prospect and find out plenty of information about them.

Sometimes, people just want to know what you can do for them and the best way to do this is by speaking to them.

The emphasis word being ‘speak’ and not ‘sell’ as people do not want to be sold to.

Having a friendly conversation with prospects will go a lot further than copying and pasting a sales script.

To Summarize…

Not many sales people and businesses are utilising the power of selling through Facebook Messenger and Skype and still tend to stick to the most traditional phone and email.

While there is nothing wrong with picking up the phone, it is important to offer your audience all options of communication.

With Facebook groups becoming so popular, you can move the conversation to Facebook and then begin talking from there.

Have you ever sold through Facebook Messenger or Skype? Let me know in the comments below.

Thanks for reading Selling High Ticket Over Skype or Facebook Message which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

When it comes to marketing live events using Facebook and Clickfunnels I have learnt so much over the last few years, what works, what DOESN’T (oh that was expensive) and how to make sure that you get the best possible outcome.

The major takeaways I have had is that combining these three things has allowed me to generate some pretty powerful results, like spending $400 in ads to generate over $40,000 in front end sales at an event or helping a client generate more leads in a day for his event than he had in the last 6 months.

Why Do Live Events?

Let’s start at the beginning, why should we do live events, let alone market them?

Marketo published an awesome guide on event marketing, and they listed the top 4 reasons for an event;

1. Branding and awareness
2. Generating leads
3. Engaging with prospects and existing customers
4. Educating attendees

I think they missed the biggest one, though… SALES!

Live events are the perfect selling platform for you to get your product or service out there, as long as you are confident enough to present in front of people.

What Type Of Events?

Now, what sort of live events are we talking about here?

Well, I have marketed events that range from Free – all the way up to $4,000. Just today I was checking the analytics for a $4,000 event we are promoting and we had to sales for $0.76 each.

Now that is absolutely ridiculous but it just shows what is possible when you get things setup correctly.

For the purpose of this article I’m going to focus on the lower end events, the free or under $100 events as that’s the easiest way to get started and really, it can give you the best ROI if you can sell as well.

So let’s break it down into three easy to follow sections.

Event Setup

This can cost you thousands of dollars if you do not do it properly.

I recommend if you are just getting started to start with a free event, the reason being that the biggest thing people look at is the opportunity cost.

Is your event going to be more beneficial for me than anything else I could be doing?

If you factor in money at this point in time and you are not very well known them you compound the opportunity cost, and it pushes your audience away rather than bringing them in.

So my recommended setup would be a free front-end live event.

Now if you want (and clickfunnels is amazing for this) you can add in a VIP upsell for anywhere up to $47, giving them front row seating, some added training or some products, the choice is yours.

The benefit of the VIP option is that it allows you to create an ‘event within an event’ which was listed as the number 1 tip from Inc Magazines new rules of event marketing;

“We try to create an event within an event where we can touch a consumer one-on-one, where you can engage directly, and teach them about your product, and do so by interacting in a quality way. I just got back from Sundance, and we were doing VIP and celebrity shuttling to events in our vehicles, and the goal for us is to create an event within the vehicle.”

I love using the template Dark Local Lander for several reasons, but because it is setup with a video optin, it’s something that anyone can use and you cannot really go wrong.

Even if you don’t customize it, and you just use it the way it is then you are still off to a roaring start.

The second reason to use that template or any of the video templates is more psychological.

We are asking people to come to an event, where they will be interacting with us in person, hearing us talk, seeing us walk and basically seeing us for who we really are.

In preparation for this video is going to be key to the optin here – because if they don’t like us on video, chances are they won’t like us in real life, so we are better off NOT having them at an event!

It can be a little harsh, but it ensures that the marketing dollars you spend generate you a result. I am all about ROI.

The Tools & Tech

You will need a few bits and pieces to ensure that you have set yourself up for success with your event;

• Landing Page Software – Clickfunnels (obviously)
• Autoresponder Software –Infusionsoft, AWeber or MailChimp will do
• Event management Software – https://www.dynamicsync.com/

If you are using Infusionsoft I highly recommend Dynamicsync – it allows you to segment your lists by those that attended, didn’t attend, registered, even those that buy and don’t buy which becomes super powerful in the follow-up, plus it allows for text message on registration as well – which dramatically increases attendance rates.

Facebook Ads

Whether you are running an online event or a live event – the structure is mostly the same. A great example of a simple ad is below from Robin Sharma;

Now I understand that this isn’t an event ad – but this has all the principles that you need to be able to create a world class ad and get people to your event.

Designing Your Ad Copy

You can see on this ad that there is CONGRUENCY, which is key – he is only talking about 1 thing, the free training/webinar.The copy mentions the FREE (always use capitals for free).

Training, the image says FREE WEBINAR and the key line at the bottom mentions the upcoming training. This is key to an effective ad. You need to tell people specifically what it is they can

The copy mentions the FREE (always use capitals for free) Training, the image says FREE WEBINAR and the key line at the bottom mentions the upcoming training.This is key to an effective ad. You need to tell people specifically what it is they can

This is key to an effective ad.You need to tell people specifically what it is they can

You need to tell people specifically what it is they can expect, if it is a free live event say; FREE LIVE EVENT. If it is a paid event say; LIVE EVENT and then later on, mention the ticket price.

I personally would have used more ad copy for an event but you can go short form as well.If I was to write longer copy I would have included;

If I was to write longer copy I would have included;

• Benefits of attending
• Outcome of attending
• Who the event is for (obviously in this case not needed as he makes it clear it’s for ‘game changers’

Setting Your Budget

When it comes down to your budget, you are doing extremely well if you are getting conversions for under $20 for a free event – scale it if that is the case.

Average would be $50 per conversion for a free event so if you hit those numbers you are doing well!

For paid events the minimum you should expect is to pay 100% of the ticket price to acquire that lead. If you are worried about making money on the front end, you are doing an event for the wrong reason, so I would rethink doing one to begin with.

Nailing Your Targeting 

Targeting your audience could take us about another ten pages, so here’s just a simple tip – I call it WRF.

W – what do your prospective clients watch?

R – what do your prospective clients read?

F – who do your prospective clients follow?

This should get you kick started on your targeting!

If you want more information on ads and setting up campaigns check out our blog at the end of the post where we have a ton of free resources too.

In The Event (Ie. Sales!)

After running a successful marketing campaign, it all comes down to event experience and the sales you can expect.

The screenshots below are for an event where we had a $17 upgrade to VIP – to help cover some of the marketing expense.

Now if you HAVEN’T sold before I wouldn’t spend as much money as we did on the event, start with smaller crowds and make your way up.

So you will see below we had 107 people register for the event, of which 21 upgraded to VIP. From that, we had 54 attend the event and made $26,000 in sales.

Now most people would leave it there, but because you are reading this blog I know you are a bit more savvy than the normal punter, and we know that we never only have 1 sale opportunity, that is the beauty of a funnel!

The lifetime customer value was actually $11,000 for this client. So after making 26 sales it meant that the ACTUAL total value of sales was $286,000.

Now I don’t know about you, but I would spend $1872.50 EVERY day of the week to make $286,000 in my business.

This is the most important section of the whole process as if you cannot sell, well you won’t be producing numbers as I shared above.

So let’s recap, the 3 steps;

1. Event Setup – creating your lander and everything that goes with it
2. Facebook Ads – tell your audience what you are doing and show them why they NEED to spend time with you
3. Sales – show them value, then ask them to spend money with you

Overall marketing and running events can be ridiculously profitable, but there is also a ton of downside too as there can be many things that can happen outside of your control.

Personally, it’s fun and exhilarating and you should through your hat in the ring at least once – you might be surprised of the outcome.

My question for you today is, have you ever tried event advertising before? If you have, what’s been your biggest struggle I can help you with? Leave a comment below and I’ll get to your questions.

Thanks for reading The Event Marketing Trio: ClickFunnels, Facebook Ads which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Webinars are the great way to build trust and rapport with existing leads but also to attract new customers too.

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you have either created your first webinar or are planning to create one.

Either way, I am happy to hear you are taking this exciting step and to help you get some bums on seats, I have listed five tips that are easy to implement and won’t break the bank… you can thank me later.

1. $5 a Day Paid Advertising

To get the ball rolling and build awareness about your webinar, you are going to need to advertise.

Don’t start sweating at the thought of how much it’ll cost you as we have based this strategy on using just a $5 spend a day.

We have written a complete guide on this strategy on our “How To Launch Your First Native Ad From As Low As $5/Day” blog post if you want to find out more details.

It’s also possible to use a different traffic source but for this example, we’ll start with Native.

Register

To get started, you will need to register a new account with Outbrain which is a content discovery platform that will display your ads on relevant websites and websites such as CNN and People.

You can start the registering process by clicking the “For Businesses & Brands” tab towards to the top of the website.

The best thing about Outbrain is that it will tell you exactly what websites your advert will appear on.

Campaign

You will reach a page where you will create your advert campaign for your first webinar.

I suggest naming the campaign the same as your webinar so you can easily identify it in the future.

You will need to submit the URL of the webinar signup page as this is where you will want to direct people to.

A great tool that can be used on Outbrain is the RSS feed that will promote new webinars as soon as they go live.

Settings

Once you have created your campaign, you will need to set your budget of $5 a day and your targeting choices.

This is an extremely important step as you don’t want to be targeting those who are on smartphones if your webinar isn’t mobile friendly or those who live somewhere that aren’t within your target audience.

One thing to note is that the daily spend could be 20% higher than what you have set so keep this in mind when setting the budget.

Make sure to read the guidelines before submitting as you don’t want to be red flagged.

2. Create & Share a Facebook Event

While many businesses and marketers will take to Facebook to promote their webinar by posting about it on their timeline, there are more tactical ways in which to use Facebook to promote your webinar.

One of them is by creating a Facebook event and sharing it.

This will create a page within your Facebook Fan page that will have all the information about the event, will keep track of RSVPs and will also give a place for fans to ask questions and communicate with each other.

How to Create a Facebook Event

You can easily create a Facebook Event by following the below steps:

1. Open up your Facebook Fan page and click on “Offer, Event+” above where you would normally write a post.
2. Click the “Event” option that will then open up a popup box.
3. Here you can add an Event photo, the title of the event, the date and time of the event, who is hosting the event, the URL to where they fans can buy tickets and the description of the webinar.
4. Once you have added all the details about the Webinar, you can publish the event.

Make sure to add an image that is appealing and is relevant to what the webinar is about.

Also, make sure that the description will excite fans enough to want to register.

Who Should be Allowed to Post

When adding the details for the event, you will be asked whether only admins can post to the event before publishing the event.

I wouldn’t recommend selecting this option as it will stop fans communicating with each other and asking questions about the webinar.

Keep it open so as your fans and others can build up a bit of buzz for you.

Keep People Excited

Once you have created an event and shared it everywhere, don’t just leave it to do what it will.

Make sure you are answering questions, joining in on conversations and posting on your Facebook page to remind everyone to register for the webinar.

SocialTimes found that 50% of webinar tickets are sold when an Event is first created, and the other 50% are sold during the week of the event.

Don’t forget about the days in-between and miss out on additional ticket sales.

3. Facebook Group Marketing

Facebook Groups seem to be in the lost collection with many businesses and marketers forgetting about it and focusing all their attention on Facebook Ads and their Facebook Fan Pages… that’s their loss.

Facebook Groups are used to build communities of people who share the same interests and will communicate with each other.

One of the biggest benefits of Facebook Groups is that members of the group will be notified when someone has posted something to the group.

In comparison, not all of your Facebook Fan page posts will be shown on your fan’s timelines.

What is a Facebook Group?

A Facebook Group is a community of people who are interested in the group’s topic.

All members of the group can chat with each other, upload their own photos and posts, invite their friend and family to join the group and can run polls.

Facebook groups have by far the highest engagement and organic reach than Fan pages.

They’re kind of an untapped resource.

Which Type of Group to Setup

There are three group types; an open group, closed group and secret group. This is what each one is:

1. Open Group – a user doesn’t have to be a member of the group to see the posts, post themselves and see who is in the group.
2. Closed Group – a user doesn’t have to be a member to see who is in the group but do have to be a member in order to see the posts and post themselves.
3. Secret Group – only members of the group can see who is in it, the posts and to be able to post themselves.

I suggest creating a Closed Group so that you can avoid spam that might be generated if it were open but to limit it so much so that it is secret.

4. Joint Venture With Influencers

Image Source: LiveandSocial

Sometimes you just can’t do it by yourself and that is ok, especially for your first webinar.

Getting the help of someone who has an engaging email list will help generate interest for your first webinar and create a buzz around your brand.

What’s a Joint Venture Webinar

A joint venture webinar is when two businesses host a webinar with one person (John) usually inviting the other person (Judy) to join them in hosting it.

The person who is being asked (Judy) will usually want financial compensation using a percentage of tickets sales.

Benefits of a Join Venture Webinar

Both John and Judy involved in the joint venture webinar will reap the benefits.

Judy will have new content to publish to her email list without spending the time creating it and also gain commission from the ticket sales.

John will benefit by being able to reach a new audience and generate increased ticket sales.

How to Find Influencers

You need to work with someone who has an engaging email list, is influential and is relevant to what your webinar is about.

You can find influencers be browsing through LinkedIn and Twitter and building a relationship with them.

Make sure to ask about email statistics and any joint venture webinars they have done in the past and their performances.

5. Scheduling Podcast Interviews

Podcasting is still a very popular form of marketing and by finding influencers who are relevant and will help expand your reach to the right target audience.

Podcast interviews are for you to contact influential podcasters who are relevant to your webinar topic and see if they would be interested in interviewing you.

The Benefits

You will benefit by being able to speak directly to a new audience and telling them verbally about your webinar.

You will also benefit from the promotion that the podcaster will do which will, in turn, increase awareness and ticket sales.

How To Find Podcasters

You can browse through the podcasts on iTunes and check their social media accounts to get an idea of their following and more importantly, engagement rates.

Popcorn at the Ready…

Hopefully, you should now have some ideas to get started on promoting your very first webinar.

Remember always to keep your promotion relevant to the webinar and keep the excitement about it going, even after the webinar is over.

What’s your most successful webinar promotion technique? Post and share it below!

Thanks for reading 5 Tips To Get Bums On Seats For Your First Webinar 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.