Always try and sell your product or service on the value it brings your customer, rather than competing in a race to the bottom on price.
The best way to do this?
Lead your potential customers into the sales funnel and build a deeper relationship with them.
Remember, most aren’t ready to buy yet.
The better your funnel, the more people in it that will know, like and trust you. These customers will eventually be worth more to you.
So, what do you do once you have a person’s email address?
Firstly, this means that they have entered the sales funnel.
Once someone is in the sales funnel you need to serve them.
The best way is to provide value…lots of value…and educate and guide them so you can earn their trust.
This should eventually lead to winning their business.
Back to the sales funnel.
Once they are in the funnel your marketing automation can start.
This means sending through a sequence of automated emails over a time period.
Once the automation system has been set up it will literally be on auto pilot once someone enters the funnel. You won’t have to do anything.
There are several different marketing automation tools. If you are doing this yourself, I suggest you look at all to see what suits your application.
So…what should you be sending through to turn your visitors to leads and then into customers?
The first email should include what they signed up for, such as the report or eBook, etc.
This should be sent immediately.
You will then need to “drip feed” the additional emails over a period of time.
This could be daily, twice a week, weekly, etc. Whatever you decide is appropriate.
Remember…you are adding value and educating your customer.
You are not selling yet!
Resist the temptation to go in for the sale.
Continue adding value and your potential customers will start building a trusting relationship
Examples of what you can send…
- A letter thanking the reader for downloading the free report, etc. Introduce yourself and explain why you do what you do. (Not what you do)
- A link to a blog post that provides further value or educates on your product or service.
- An invitation to a free webinar you are hosting that would provide more value or education to what they have shown interest in.
- A link to a video you have made. This could be a tutorial or similar.
These are just ideas. Offer anything that adds value or educates the reader. This all adds to the trust in the relationship and builds you as an authority.
Even though you are not “selling” as such in these value adding send outs, you are guiding the readers through your sales funnel.
The end goal is a sale.
Using the example of a custom home builder, let’s use a hypothetical.
The reader opts in with their email and they immediately get sent your report titled…”Top 5 Tips for getting the House of Your Dreams”.
This is a simple email from your company with a download link for the report. That’s it.
5-10 minutes later send another email.
This email is introducing yourself personally. It should be in conversational language and show your passion to help people build a beautiful home.
You could explain that you will be sending a few more informative emails over the next couple of days/weeks.
The next email that is automatically sent out could refer to a blog post on your website. It could be titled…”How the Sun could Save you $$$$ on Energy Bills”
This blog post could be about how orientating your house to harness the northern sunshine can save money on energy bills. Or insulating your house properly can save money on energy bills.
Targeting a pain point – expensive energy bills – would motivate more people to read the article. This will start to build trust for your business.
At the end of this post you could have an offer to speak to a consultant for a free assessment of their block of land.
Have the offer in a big “call to action” button.
Next I would send out an invite to a free webinar titled…”What to Expect in the build process”.
This webinar would be about the time line of a house build…land clearing, footing pour, brickwork, roof and internal framing and so on. Pure education.
I’m beginning to think I could be a builder with what I know…anyway, I digress!
This webinar should go for a minimum of 30 minutes – just film it at home, it doesn’t have to be fancy – and again this is on automation.
At the end of the webinar, ask the viewer… would they like to book a free assessment.
You are probably getting the point. Value and education are the main offerings at the moment.
The next email could blatantly ask for people to contact you for a free assessment.
As a rule, probably send 3 value/education emails to every 1 sales email.
You can decide on the frequency, number of emails and the time frame.
Once the reader becomes a customer, remove them from the sequence.
If you get all the way through to the end and they haven’t bought, move them to another list and keep in touch whenever you have any new material you can send them.
This is a very simple outline of what the process is.
Much thought and research needs to go into the copy and offers but you get the idea.
To ensure no subscriber falls through the cracks, you will need to have triggers set up for everything.
This includes:
- Tagging subscribers based on what they do or read and customise accordingly.
- Having multiple lists of subscribers based on how they interact with your emails.
- Integrating your webinar and email software based on how they interact with the webinars.
The marketing automation tools are able to do all this…or you could ask a professional to do it (like us).
Implementing the campaigns is reasonably easy – making sure the content and offer is spot on is the critical thing.
Your top competitors are already nailing it!
Strathfield Web Design can assist with your marketing sales funnel and help you nail it like your top competitors. Call today on 9742 5635 to see how our services can benefit your business.