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 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.
📈 Unlock Masterminds, 1:1 Intros and Standups
Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,000+ 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.
📈 Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.
💬 1:1 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…