What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel (aka marketing funnel) is the process by which a stranger becomes a customer.

It is the visual representation of the customer journey through the sales process. A sales funnel begins with awareness and ends up with the sale.

It illustrates the fact that every sale begins with a large number of potential customers. It ends up with a much smaller number of people who actually make the purchase.

Email marketing

Let’s look at an email marketing sales funnel. To begin email marketing, you will need a landing page with a sign-up form.

A landing page has only one message plus an action request. It clearly indicates what that action is. The page must be simple and free of distractions such as links to other pages.

Using one of the landing page strategies discussed below,

• A complete stranger will end up on your landing page.
• Stranger is so impressed by what you are presenting that he/she fills in the form.
• After the stranger fills in the form, an email marketing platform such as AWeber sends him/her a thank-you email. (See the 7 Day YouTube thank you sample.)
  • The thank you page should get them even more excited about your product.
• AWeber‘s software sends name & email address to autoresponder
• Autoresponder sends confirmation email or else first email to stranger.
• The stranger has become a subscriber.
• Stranger will get a number of scheduled emails. (In the case of 7 Day YouTube, whoever signs up gets 7 emails sent one day apart. Emails are reproduced here.)

The above bullet points are illustrated in the diagram below.

Click here to learn more.

Email marketing service provider

An essential part of your sales funnel is the email marketing service provider. This is a company such as AWeber or MailChimp. Let’s use AWeber as the example to explain the above diagram.

After someone fills in the form on your landing page and clicks on the Submit button, things are on autopilot:

• Name & email address go to AWeber.
• AWeber sends customer a Thank You email.
• AWeber sends out emails according to your instructions.
  • In the case of 7 Day YouTube, it was one email each day for 7 days
• You now have a subscriber who either has purchased something from you or else is very close to doing so.

If you are having any problems with AWeber, see this FAQ page.

Landing page strategies

With so many billions of web pages out there, getting people to even see your landing page can be a bit tricky. Here are some tricks you can use for increasing the probability that it will be seen.

Before you read them, keep this in mind: People hate being spammed. If there is a hint that they may be spammed, you may lose them. Adjust the strategies below with the spamming principles.

1. Links to curated content

This would be a library of industry-specific web pages to which you would link. You could redesign some of your old blog posts into attractive PDF files.

Your library would be interspersed with subtle links to your landing page.

2. Guest blogging

Make online searches in your niche. When you come across blogs you like, pitch your free guest blog idea to them. If you are an authority, they may just let your write a blog. At the end you will have a paragraph about yourself with a link to your landing page.

3. Posting in online communities

Find some of the best forums & blogs in your niche. Perhaps there are questions you can answer or places you can comment. If so, try to subtly have a link to your landing page.

Remember that these people hate spamming.

4. Pictures & short videos on Instagram

Add amazing photos & short videos on Instagram. In the first comments window, have a link to your landing page.

In the second comments window, have at least eleven hashtags that relate to the picture or video. The more relevant hashtags you have, the more likely people are to find them when searching.

5. Content marketing

Giving people information that helps people solve one of their problems. Make sure the content relates to your landing page. Have a link to your landing page.

6. Video library

If you make lots of videos, have a page or a series of linked pages that feature that feature them in a logical order. Beneath some of them have a single sentence with a link to your landing page.

Correcting an outdated sales funnel

Imagine you are making sales by buying mailing lists and phoning each potential customer. Imagine that you have a half dozen telemarketers who are selling to fewer than 2% of the people on the list.

Now imagine that you alter your sales funnel to have a series of attention-grabbing content marketing pieces. That would include a blog, infographics, videos, etc. You would incorporate many of the ideas discussed in this blog post.

You could expect to increase your monthly sale many times over without using any cold calls at all.

Marketing Email on Day 1

On the first day, the AWeber autoresponder sends the potential 7 Day YouTube customers this marketing email.

Hello  ___,

Welcome to your first lesson in YouTube video creation.

You can find your first lesson by going to a password-protected page at bit.ly/lesson1youtube.  Use this password: _____.

By the time you are finished this lesson, you will be able to make a video similar to the animated GIF at the top of this email.

One of my rules of thumb for making YouTube videos is to never allow more than two seconds to pass without some noticeable movement on the screen. Today you will be using presentation software such as Keynote for making appropriate, interesting movement for both still images and text.

The concept of aspect ratio may not be obvious enough from Lesson 1. That refers to the width-height ratio of the video. You want it to be the same ratio as a typical YouTube video. Otherwise you will have black bars on either side of the video.

To get the correct aspect ratio, you should drag the Keynote right edge to 44 pixels and the bottom edge to -22 pixels.

Do not neglect to do the homework at the end of each lesson. Grade it yourself. It will be an indicator of whether or not you are ready to go on to the next lesson.

Make sure you make yourself a Pages file with all of the new things you are learning from these 7 lessons. Have an index at the top with links to each new concept.

If you absolutely cannot figure out something for yourself, go to any lesson page and click on the Contact Us button in the horizontal menu. To make sure your email does not get deleted, use this for your subject line “Just cannot figure out ___”.  Fill in the blank with one or two words that describe your problem.

Yours truly,

Day 2

Hello ____,

Have you successfully finished your homework from Lesson 1?  If so, you are ready to go to Lesson 2.

Go to bit.ly/youtubel2. Use this password: ____.

Sometimes when you make a video, you want to call your visitors’ attention to a particular part of the screen. To do that you will use the Callout feature you see in the animated GIF at the top of this email.

In this lesson you will also learn where to find free music, sound effects and pictures.

The best way to learn many things in this course is to experiment and practice lots. Start by experimenting and practicing with Keynote effects. You will find all sorts of interesting ways of creating movement within your images and text.

Do your Lesson #2 homework. In this lesson you will actually upload your homework video to YouTube.

If you absolutely cannot figure out something for yourself, email us at admin@waystomakemoney.site. To make sure your email does not get deleted, use this for your subject line “Absolutely cannot figure out ___”.  Fill in the blank with your problem area.

Yours truly,

Day 3

Hello ____,

Have you successfully finished your homework from Lesson 2?  If so, you are ready to go to Lesson 3.

You will find lesson 3 on this web page: bit.ly/youtubelesson3. The password is ____.

In lesson 3 you will learn how to make MP4 files. An MP4 file is a media-containing file that will hold video, audio, text and images.

Then you will take a still image and create an invisible space within it. You will have that MP4 file playing within that invisible space.

If you absolutely cannot figure out something for yourself, email us at admin@waystomakemoney.site. To make sure your email does not get deleted, use this for your subject line “Absolutely cannot figure out ___”.  Fill in the blank with your problem area.

Yours truly,

Day 4

Hello ____,

Have you successfully finished your homework from Lesson 3?  If so, you are ready to go to Lesson 4.

In lesson 4 you will learn how to turn your smartphone videos into entertaining YouTube videos.

You can access lesson 4 by going to bit.ly/youtubelesson4.  The password is lessons4-7.

Suppose you are making smartphone videos of your various family members. You will learn how to make your own YouTube channel named Family. Nothing but your family videos will go there.

Then, whenever you make a special smartphone video about a family member, you can upload it to your Family channnel for all of your family to see.

You will even learn how to give each video a descriptive URL name so that it will be easier for your family members to remember them. For instance, if you want to show your family a video about Susan’s new baby, you can send them to bit.ly/susansnewbaby.

If you absolutely cannot figure out something for yourself, email us at admin@waystomakemoney.site. To make sure your email does not get deleted, use this for your subject line “Absolutely cannot figure out ___”.  Fill in the blank with your problem area.

Yours truly,

Day 5

Hello ____,

Have you successfully finished your homework from Lesson 4?  If so, you are ready to go to Lesson 5.

In lesson 5 you will learn how to add interesting backgrounds to your subjects by using a green screen. For the purpose of this course, a green screen can be as simple as a piece of green bristol board.

In your ScreenFlow timeline, the top layer will be your subject in front of a green screen. In the second layer you will have your interesting background.

Then you will use ScreenFlow Chroma Key to electronically remove the green from the top layer. The background will show up behind the foreground subject.

You will find lesson 5 on this web page: bit.ly/youtubelesson5. The password is lessons4-7.

If you absolutely cannot figure out something for yourself, email us at admin@waystomakemoney.site. To make sure your email does not get deleted, use this for your subject line “Absolutely cannot figure out ___”.  Fill in the blank with your problem area.

Yours truly,

Day 6

Hello ____,

Have you successfully finished your homework from Lesson 5?  If so, you are ready to go to Lesson 6.

In lesson 6 you will learn 7 different things that people do to make money from their YouTube videos. Up to now you may have been thinking about only one way — Google AdSense advertising.  That really is not worth your while until you have a video that is having over 1000 views per day.

One way you will learn about is called “unboxing”.  This is where people make a series of related videos devoted to discussing a product line’s parts and features.

For instance, in 2014 someone made $4.7 million by opening Disney toy packages.

You will find lesson 6 on this web page: bit.ly/youtubelesson6. The password is lessons4-7.

If you absolutely cannot figure out something for yourself, email us at admin@waystomakemoney.site. To make sure your email does not get deleted, use this for your subject line “Absolutely cannot figure out ___”.  Fill in the blank with your problem area.

Yours truly,

Day 7

Hello ____,

Have you successfully finished your homework from Lesson 6?  If so, you are ready to go to Lesson 7.

You will find lesson 7 on this web page: bit.ly/youtubelesson7. The password is lessons4-7.

In lesson 7 you will learn how to make your videos distinctively different from other people’s videos. People will recognize a video as being yours. This way you are more likely to develop a following.

Consider the idea of getting patrons from lesson 6. Having high quality recognizable videos will help you get patrons.

You will find lesson 7 on this web page: bit.ly/youtubelesson7. The password is lessons4-7.

If you absolutely cannot figure out something for yourself, email us at admin@waystomakemoney.site. To make sure your email does not get deleted, use this for your subject line “Absolutely cannot figure out ___”.  Fill in the blank with your problem area.

Yours truly,

Sales process completed?

The 7 Day YouTube course was billed as a free course. I make money by the ScreenFlow programs people will buy to complete the course.

However, in order to be true to my promise of “free”, I told them they could use a free trial version of ScreenFlow. There will be a watermark on each video they create.

So, after the seventh marketing email is sent, the sales process still may not be complete. However, if they really like the product, they will buy as soon as they can afford it.

Peter Enns has been developing websites since 1996. He is a VA (virtual assistant), social media blogger and author of a free YouTube tutorial. It’s called 7 Day YouTube and will teach you how to make entertaining videos & animated GIFs.