Trends Pro #0031 — Marketing Funnels

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(📈 Pro) indicates exclusive Trends Pro insights

🔍 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)
(📈 Pro) Alexa and Google Home devices will collect data and become a funnel stage. (via Jason)
(📈 Pro) More types of data will become available. Advertisers can identify your face, tell which floor you’re on and how many people are in the room. (Via Samuel, Alan and Vik)
(📈 Pro) Anticipatory shipping will catch on. Amazon filed a pa t ent in 2014 to ship before you buy. Bottomless does this with hardware. (Via Yuriy)
(📈 Pro) Conversational AI will improve. The gap between humans and code is shrinking. (Via Edmund and Nico)
(📈 Pro) Old channels will merge with new technology. Scout uses data to personalize and track postcards. (Via Nico)

☁️ 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 outspend 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.
Use urgency with special offers, season sales and countdown timers.
Build open loops. Create multi-part stories, email challenges and courses with progress indicators.
(📈 Pro) Get leads with growth tools. See Ramit Sethi’s earning potential quiz.
(📈 Pro) Use a 2-step checkout process. Get the email in step 1. And payment in step 2. Reduce friction and send abandoned cart emails. (Via Miles)
(📈 Pro) Use event-based deals for birthdays and holidays.
(📈 Pro) Take a multi-channel approach to increase ROI. Blueshift and Exponea support single customer views.
(📈 Pro) Match your lead magnet with your offer. Selling a book? Offer a free chapter.
(📈 Pro) Retarget to spend efficiently.
(📈 Pro) Follow up with customers. Aim for loyalty and advocacy. Pitch the rest of your value ladder.
(📈 Pro) Remind users of the value you provide. Grammarly sends digest emails. (Via Natwar)
(📈 Pro) Use win-back campaigns to reengage customers.
(📈 Pro) Use risk reversal to boost conversions with free trials, discounted trials, money-back, double money-back and lifetime guarantees.
(📈 Pro) Use no-code tools like Dux-Soup to generate leads. (Via Vik)
(📈 Pro) Use high-fidelity lead magnets (webinars) to sell high-priced items. (Via Jawan)
(📈 Pro) Boost conversions with social proof. Basecamp has 1,000 testimonials.
(📈 Pro) Use funnels to reduce no-shows for doctors, dentists and therapists. Airlines send reminders based on flight dates.
(📈 Pro) Add affiliates to your checkout process to boost LTV. Airlines offer insurance, car rentals and hotels with flights. (Via Natwar)
(📈 Pro) Use these strategies to build relationships. Personal CRMs help you stay top of mind for job, investment and partnership opportunities.
(📈 Pro) Build a XaaS to create and optimize funnels. See NurtureKit by Jason Resnick.
(📈 Pro) Make a swipe file of funnel maps. Sell it as a digital product. Use the Funnelytics Vault for inspiration.

🔑 Key Lessons

Build and optimize a model
- Awareness-Evaluation-Purchase
- Attention-Interest-Desire-Action (AIDA)
- Acquisition-Activation-Retention-Referral-Revenue (AARRR)
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.
(📈 Pro) Use strategic friction. Add friction (ask for phone numbers) when marginal costs are high. Remove friction (1-click checkout) when marginal costs are low.
(📈 Pro) Build organic reach. Control customer acquisition costs.
(📈 Pro) Continuously test and improve funnels. A/B test subject lines, email previews, images, colors, calls to action and more.

😠 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.
(📈 Pro) AARRR Framework • A framework for growth. Based on acquisition, activation, retention, referral and revenue.
(📈 Pro) Sales Funnel Explained • How to optimize your funnel as ad prices increase.
(📈 Pro) The 19 Channels You Can Use to Get Traction • 19 entry points to your funnel. Part of Gabriel’s Bullseye framework.
(📈 Pro) Swipe-Worthy — Inspiration for ads, sales pages, pop-ups and more.
(📈 Pro) Sales Funnel Examples — BT has back-to-back upsells.
(📈 Pro) Facebook Ads Library — What are your competitors doing? Get inspiration from long-running (profitable) ads.
(📈 Pro) How Atlassian Used YouTube to Grow Their Marketing Funnel — Atlassian uses YouTube as a funnel entry point.

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