Once, there was this guy who was tirelessly persuaded by a company that wanted to sell their services valued at $2000. Well, they eventually succeeded in talking him into making that purchase.
Guess what? That guy was me!
I purchased their service and now I’m a member of their amazing community. The reason why I’m talking about this here is because I want to compliment their marketing skills. Believe me, they marketed the hell out of me. And that in a good way.
I’ll also use this medium to show you that there are no price limits for selling your products. Don’t believe me? All you need are the right strategies and a rock-solid foundation. Still don’t believe me? Well, I’ll be discussing all about that in this article so make sure to read till the end.
It’s saddening to know that they’re one of the very few companies who effectively advertise their products. Selling a $2000 product/services is totally different from selling low-priced products (worth around $50), and they should be approached in totally different ways. This is especially true in the later stages of the funnel.
Nevertheless, people still struggle to sell those cheap products. They may either end up going bankrupt, start selling very competitive products or sell junk products with which they’ve got almost no chance of success.
This is a very common situation in our era today which I see this happening repeatedly.
What’s interesting is this is not often the seller’s fault. It’s just that there is so much information available and it can be a daunting task to filter those who are actually trying to actually help and provide quality information from the ones who just want to con you.
The baseline is that people dive head-on into business without having the proper foundation.
So you’ve probably been thinking about what type of copy to write, or the kind of steps you need to include in your funnel. Well, this article answers all your questions.
The information I’ll be sharing below is 100% fresh and will never get outdated. I bet you haven’t seen this anywhere before.
Irrespective of your marketing platform, funnel software, or even the current market situation, these principles have always worked in times past and will continue to be 100% effective in the future.
So here they are!
TIP 1 – HOMEPAGE
Things to follow:
- You should have a decent homepage or landing page. Here’s the reason for this. You may have succeeded in creating a perfect funnel for your product; however, when customers visit your homepage and discovers something weird, they’ll immediately bounce off without buying anything.
- Is schema installed on your homepage? If the answer is no, you need to do that. To set up custom schema, you need to hire an SEO professional/developer.
This will help optimize your advertising campaigns and reduce costs.
- Install Facebook pixel on your homepage.
This piece of code helps to optimize your advertising campaigns and also reduce costs as stated earlier.
- Install Privacy Policy & compliant.
- Make sure your homepage is compliant with GDPR guidelines.
TIP 2 – CREATE YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER PERSONA
Research and find out EVERYTHING about your dream buyer. You need to ask yourself the following questions and be VERY specific:
- Where does your dream buyer hang out?
Take the time to name both offline as well as online places where you think they spend their time.
For example, “They hang out in the Mothers of NY”, or “Occasionally reads Reddit and visits Rookie Mama blog”. Trust me, this is necessary to determine where to advertise and what tone of copy to use.
- Where does your dream buyer get their information?
Blogs, YouTube, Facebook groups, etc. This helps you determine what platform to use when scheming your advertising strategies.
- What are their biggest frustrations and challenges?
Here, you’ll need to place yourself in your customer’s shoes so that you can connect with them emotionally. This will help you choose the right tone or emotions to use in whatever copy you’re going to use when advertising.
People buy from people, not just products. That’s why it is crucial to connect with your customer.
Products don’t match people, instead they match problems.
- What are their hopes, dreams, and desires?
When creating copy for the ads, try to paint a vivid picture of how life would look like after using your products.
- What are their biggest fears?
It’s natural for people to move away from their fears or pains toward a more pleasurable activity. Being able to state such fears in your copy and how your product eradicates such fears is a very good way to increase your sales.
- What’s their preferred form of communication?
It’s important to communicate with your customers in a way that’s much more convenient for them than it is for you. The easier it is for your customers, the better for you!
- What phrases, exact language, etc. do they use?
If you’re able to figure this out, it creates more trust. Again, customers buy from real people and not just from a random company. When customers feel that they are having a conversation with real people, it helps reduce their skepticism against your company.
Build a lingo library for each persona by browsing Reddit/Quora, surveying existing or ideal customers and giving much attention to their “natural environment“. In particular, pay attention to how they describe themselves and their problems.
- What does a typical day look like for your dream buyer?
People have different schedules for each day. For example, some people may have totally different weekend activities compared to their Monday mornings.
- What makes them happy?
You want to know the secret to getting yourself a loyal customer? Just make them happy. Surprise them in a unique way. For instance, if they order a product, include an extra product which they didn’t expect.
TIP 3 – FUNNEL FRAMEWORKS
What you are getting from this are 4 frameworks that are very easy to copy. They are suitable for selling products from a price range of about $2000. However, it is not limited to this price.
Before I continue describing funnel frameworks, I’d like to touch on the meaning of some important abbreviations.
MVF – Minimum Viable Funnel
TOF – Top Of Funnel. Cold audience (Facebook ads).
MOF – Middle Of Funnel
MOF 2 – Middle Of Funnel, extra step for warming the prospects even more. Warm audience.
BOF – Bottom Of Funnel. Hot audience (people who visited your product page, added to cart). Retargeting.
AOV – Average Order Value
LTV – Lifetime Value
CPA – Cost Per Acquisition
Important facts to know:
- When your AOV is less than 50 USD, it’s very hard to make your product profitable.
- $50 price range. Most cost-effective is always to send a customer from your ad directly to landing page or product page, which means, using MVF.
The reason is that this is usually an impulse purchase range. You can use a longer funnel, but when your AOV is less than $50, it’s very difficult to make a profit from this product, as mentioned previously.
- Usually the more expensive a product is, the longer the funnel should be.
- Ideally you should aim for CPA that’s 30% of AOV when using Facebook ads.
- When you know your product LTV, then it’s OK to break even or sell with loss in the front end.
Explanation: When you are selling say a $10 product on Facebook, it’s impossible to make this product profitable. However, if the product is something that’s very essential and people usually end up purchasing it again (e.g. toilet paper, toothpaste or other commodities), and you also know that your customer spends an average of about $100 (fictional number, each product is different with different LTV) buying from your store (for the whole time he/she is your client), it’s okay to sell with a loss in the front end.
- It’s very reasonable and cost-effective to always start with MVF, no matter the price of your product. If it works, that’s GREAT. If not, then you need to add some extra steps to your funnel.
If you start with a longer funnel, you may spend a lot of money and time to create and craft this funnel. Similarly, a shorter funnel would have worked the same way.
The framework below shows how your customers should move through a sales funnel from the very beginning to the end.
- FUNNEL 1 framework – MVF. Price point $20-100.
TOF (Facebook ad) → product page → BOF
- FUNNEL 2 framework – Price point $100-500. Use soft content.
TOF (Facebook ad) → MOF → product page → BOF
- FUNNEL 3 framework – Price point $100-2000. Value-based funnel. This doesn’t work when product price is less than $50.
TOF (Facebook ad) → lead magnet → MOF → product page → BOF
- FUNNEL 4 framework – It works for products with different price points. Value-based framework. The purpose is to warm up the audience even more than the previous frameworks.
TOF (Facebook ad) → MOF → Lead magnet → MOF 2 → product page → BOF
The problem with today’s marketing is that most people target only the highly interested (top 3%) customers. This leads to wasting and leaving a lot of money on the table.
Usually, those who have discovered this end up getting it wrong, because they implement the same boring and general copies for those highly interested people.
The temperatures of the marketing message must match the temperature of your traffic, as well as with the persona.
It’s crucial to write compelling ads because very often this determines the success of your campaign.
The fact is that fast-selling doesn’t work very well with cold traffic, especially if the price of your product is $50 or more and you’re an unknown brand.
Imagine this for a sec: Say a guy named Bob goes to a bar or probably finds a date on the Tinder app. He meets a girl, and on the first date says: “Hello, would you like to marry me?”
Doesn’t usually work out that way, right?
That’s basically the same thing you’re doing when you ask for such great commitment from potential buyers. It doesn’t make sense to request for a purchase so quickly. So, why do this in your ads?
Be smart. Don’t be like Bob.
TIP 4 – YOUR SALES FUNNEL COPY
By now you’ve done an in-depth analysis about your potential customers and mapped out the funnel you want to use. So, what next?
No sales funnel is complete without a good copy and headline. As mentioned earlier, it can make the difference between a $40 CPA and a $5 CPA!
I’ll give you another point of view of a sales funnel from a copywriter’s standpoint.
This original concept was actually created by the copywriter legend and one of the world’s most highly paid copywriters ― Eugene M. Schwarz. In his concept, Eugene proposed 5 stages, but for our purposes, we’ll only cover 3 here. I don’t see the need to overwhelm you with all 5.
In fact, these three are just enough for creating an amazing copy!
1. Problem awareness stage: Awareness. TOF
This is the stage where:
- No one knows you. They neither know your product nor your brand.
- You need to talk about their core problem or desire.
- Your job is to educate them through storytelling and figuring out their problems.
- You’ll need to use polite words. For example: “Are you tired of…”, “Would you like to…”, “Are you sick about…”, etc.
2. Solution awareness stage: Consideration. MOF
This is the stage where:
- Your job is to educate them and provide solutions to their problems.
- It’s important to provide claims, benefits, proof, and solutions.
- You’ll need to use statements like: “FB advertisements can help you to…”, “Build your funnels by…”, “It fixes your ads by…”, etc.
3. Product awareness stage: Conversion. BOF
This is the stage where:
- It’s very important to provide offers, features, hooks and urgency.
- Examples of statements to use include: “Check out what Matt says about…”, “5-day Bootcamp”, “Offer ends tomorrow”, etc.
TIP 5 – HEADLINES
- When using MVF, ideally your headline copy should consist of all previously mentioned stages, that is problem awareness, solution awareness, and product awareness.
- It should be no more than one paragraph long.
- Optimal word count for the headline should be 15-18 words.
- For e-commerce, short headlines usually proves to be more effective.
- NB: It’s all about trying out new things and being creative. KEEP TESTING NEW HEADLINES! Nothing is engraved on stones here, so there are no limits to what you can try. In some niches, longer headlines work better than others.
TIP 6 – LEAD MAGNETS
It’s important to know that your lead magnet should be VERY valuable and related to your product.
You have to STUN your customers by making them anticipate how nice and interesting your real products look if you are offering such high-quality giveaway products.
List of potential lead magnets
- Free consultations
- Coupons
- Checklist
- Cheat sheet
- Quizzes
- Videos
- Courses
- Toolkits
- Calendar
- Podcasts
- Interviews
- Live demo
- Tickets
- Email courses
- Physical products
- Swipe files
- Infographics
- Custom pricing
- White papers
- E-books
- T-shirts
- Industry statistics
- Case studies
- How-to guides
- PDF downloads
- Webinars
- E-courses
- Phone calls
- Assessment
- Providing solutions
- Free report
