This is the free version of Trends PRO #0031 — Marketing Funnels
🔍 Problem
You need sales.
💡 Solution
Build a funnel to get attention, build trust and make offers. At scale.
🏁 Players
Companies
Funnel Stages
- Top • Ads, Blog Posts, Postcards, Tweets, Interviews
- Middle • Webinars, Emails, Case Studies, Growth Tools
- Bottom • Live Demo, Trial, Store Visit, Consultation
🔮 Predictions
- Retargeting will move into the physical world. Billboards track cell phones and show us ads as we move. Geofencing makes this more accurate.
- With 98% open rates, SMS will become a popular channel.
- Access to data services will become democratized. We’ll move from demo-based models (Acxiom) to self-serve models (Clearbit). (Via Samuel)
☁️ Opportunities
- Match the length of funnels to the price of offers. A $3,000 course takes longer to sell than a $5 eBook. The latter may not need a funnel.
- Start simple and optimize each stage of your funnel.
- Send behavior-based sequences to complete sales, retain customers and sell replenishments.
- Cross-sell, upsell, downsell and use subscriptions to boost LTV. Profitably spend more than others to acquire customers.
- Use referral programs to make your funnel non-linear. (Via Fernando)
- Personalize videos, send times and birthday deals for higher conversions.
- Create urgency with special offers, season sales and countdown timers.
- Build open loops. Create multi-part stories, email challenges and courses with progress indicators.
🔑 Key Lessons
- Build and optimize a model
- Stay in touch and top of mind. See the recency effect.
- Leverage reciprocity, urgency and open loops.
- Build a value ladder to let customers qualify themselves.
😠 Haters
“I hate popups, promotions and perpetual ‘sales.'”
Don’t we all? But they work.
“Acquire customers based on AOV. Not LTV.”
This is a luxury. Your competitors (or lack thereof) determine your strategy. (Via Miles)
🔗 Links
- 17 Best Sales Funnel Examples • Small case studies ranging from Groupon to Grasshopper.
- How to Create a Marketing Funnel that Works • Pat Flynn earns $2 million a year from his podcasting course.
- 3 Sales Funnels That Earned Over $2,000,000 • Miles Beckler draws funnel maps with ads, one-time offers and upsells.
🙏 Thanks
Thanks to Edmund Amoye, Vik Duggal, Jason Resnick, Miles Beckler, Natwar Maheshwari, Jawan Hopson, Samuel Thompson, Yuriy Yarovoy, Alan Mwangi, Jason Staats, Nicolás Cerdeira and more. We had a great time jamming on this report.
Get Weekly Reports
Join 54,000+ founders and investors
📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds
Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…
🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.
📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.
💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.
🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.
💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.
What you’ll get:
- 30 Companies with Funnels (328% More)
- 8 Predictions (166% More)
- 26 Opportunities (225% More)
- 7 Key Lessons (75% More)
- 10 Summarized Links (233% More)
With Trends Pro you’ll learn:
- (📈 Pro) How to increase your conversion rate?
- (📈 Pro) How to get more leads?
- (📈 Pro) How to increase your return on ad spend?
- (📈 Pro) What cutting-edge data points are marketers collecting?
- (📈 Pro) How to reduce churn?
- (📈 Pro) How to boost your LTV?
- (📈 Pro) What old channel is being merged with new technology?
- (📈 Pro) How to reduce friction and capture lost sales?
- (📈 Pro) How to control customer acquisition costs?
- and a lot more…
