The Key Pieces You Must Have In Your Marketing Funnel

The Key Pieces You Must Have In Your Marketing Funnel

You may have heard people talking about marketing funds, but do you really know what a funnel is if you don't? Not to worry. I'm going to walk you through the main elements of a marketing funnel so you know exactly what it is and how you can use it to benefit your business.

Hi, I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the right plan. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in. Again, today it is all about funnels, funnels, funnels. So many people in marketing throw this word around. But I think there's a lot of business owners that just don't understand it. They may have heard about it, but they're like, what is all this funnel talk?

Let's clear it up. So what is a funnel? To me, a funnel is an automated or semi-automated way to help move prospects through the buyer's journey. What is the buyer's journey? Georgine's over Duct Tape Marketing popularized the buyer's journey as an hourglass. We all know what an hourglass is, right? There's sand in the bottom. You flip it over and the sands at the top and it works its way down. Well, if you think about the buyer's journey like an hourglass, there's seven steps.

No, like trust, try by repeat refer. OK, so the buyer's journey is just that system. Right. Or process that people go through when they think about working with a company like yours all the way through, buying and doing repeat business and funnels will typically help you with that top part of the hourglass. Right. A funnel is simply a way to attract people and nurture them appropriately until they're ready to raise their hand and say, yes, I want to get more information about what it's like to work with you.

We don't want to overcomplicate this. There's so many people out there that have these really complex funnels. And if somebody does this, then they go in this arm. And if they do this, they go into this arm. Forget that it's far too complicated. And when things are complex, to me, that's the enemy of results. So keep this simple. OK, so I've talked about what a funnel is. Hope you understand how I've explained it.

Now, what are the elements in that funnel? I'm going to talk about four main elements here. First, you've got to have a way to attract people. If you can't attract people into your funnel, nobody's ever going to get through the funnel. Right. So we have to attract people in some way, shape or form. How can you attract people? There's a ton of different ways. Here's a few. Search, right. Maybe you're investing in search engine optimization so that you can show up in search results and people click and that attracts people into your funnel.

Maybe you're doing paid ads, Google ads, or Facebook ads and you're attracting people that way. Print advertising. Hey, print advertising still works. Maybe you're doing direct mail or you're advertising in a local magazine, something like that. If you've got an email list, maybe you're promoting a workshop or training of some kind and you're sending it out to your email list.

Partnerships, joint venture partnerships, referral partners, maybe they've signed up and said, hey, I love your checklist on XYZ, I'd love to promote it to my email list. And they promote it and drive and traffic and attract people into your funnel that way. Social media, maybe you're creating some social posts over time consistently to try and drive people in to your funnel. There's a lot of different ways. Those are a few ways that you can attract people.

So the first step attraction. Second, you need to send people some place once you've attracted them. Most people are sending those people they're attracting to a landing page. A landing page is simply a web page that has the sole purpose of getting people to opt in to whatever you're offering. There's no navigation like there is on a website. It is very clear and direct. It talks to what you have to offer, the problem it solves, what are the benefits?

And then there's an opt-in. Hey, give me your name and your email address and you've got it. That's it. So your landing page is really important. It is dedicated. There is one message about whatever you're offering and one call to action, which is to sign up for it. That's it. OK, so that's our landing page. Now, once somebody opts in and gives you their name and their email on the landing page and says, yes, I want it, typically what's going to happen is you're going to send them to another page, which is a thank you page.

On that thank you page there are a number of different things you can do on thank you page. Most commonly I see people or we implement either you're giving people the asset that they signed up for right there on the thank you page. If it was a checklist or a cheat sheet, it's hey, download it now. Or sometimes people will thank them and hey, since you just asked for X, you might also like Y, and so they're trying to get people to opt-in or purchase something else additional into what, over and above what they just opted in for.

There's a lot of things you can do on a thank you page, but typically it's delivery of whatever they opted in for or and/or it's something else you have to offer that's complementary to what they just opted in for. That's your thank you page. We talked about attraction. You've got to attract people. You send them to a landing page. When they sign up on the landing page, they go to a thank you page.

The fourth thing that's in your funnel is your email nurturing. So when they sign up on the landing page, they go into your email list, they go into your email marketing software. You have to have some type of email marketing software. We've all heard of MailChimp, Constant Contact. We love and use Active Campaign. There's AWeber, there's a ton of them. But you have to have once they opt-in, remember, the definition of that funnel is to attract people and then nurture them appropriately.

Email is one of the tools, one of the main tools people use to help you nurture appropriately. So I'm going to walk you through a set list, a sequence of emails that you can automatically send out after somebody opts in to your offer on your landing page. So they sign up, they go into my email list on Active Campaign. And the first email that they're going to get is just delivery of that asset. Hey, thanks so much for signing up for our checklist.

Here it is, enjoy, boom, done, that's it. Second email you could send out usually a day after is just an intro to you what's your business all about? What's the problem that you solve and what's the solution you use to solve that problem and what to expect?

A lot of these people are just signing up for your email list when they opt in, what can they expect from you? How often are you going to send emails to them? What type of information is it going to be? That's a great second email. Third email typically going to be a day after, but you can space it out however you want. Proof elements, trust, you have testimonials, you have a case study, something like that that you can send out and let people know, hey, look, we've worked with people.

Here's what they've experienced. Fourth email. I'd like to send something of value, something that's going to help people. You signed up for our checklist. Here's something else that we have that I think would be really helpful in addition to this. It could be a workshop, it could be a blog post, a video, something that you created that's complementary to that. It's just another way for you to help, serve and educate people that have come on in and raised their hand and shown an interest in what you're doing.

And then the fifth email. How can we help? This is a way to help garner additional information from people that have signed up to your email list and raise their hand and shown some interest, it's a way for you to continue to help. I like to send that last email and just say, hey, when it comes to marketing, I sel marketing. Whatever you do, that's what it's going to be. When it comes to X, what is your single biggest challenge or struggle?

Let me know, love to do what I can to help you. That's it. OK, so that's a simple five-part email sequence that you could send out over five to seven days after somebody opts in to whatever you are offering within your funnel. And then from there, they've come in. Now you're just going to nurture them typically through your regular email communications, whether you're sending emails out once a week, twice a month, once a month, whatever that is.

Now, they're just going to continue to get that help education. You're going to continue to serve them and nurture them. Because guess what? Sometimes when people come on your email list, they're not ready to take that next step. For us, we have our next step is get a free consultation. They may not be ready for that. So we're just going to continue to nurture them. The other thing that's important to keep in mind in your email nurture sequence, however many emails you have, whatever next step you want people to take, make sure that you put that in there in some way, shape or form.

Maybe it's in a P.S. at the end of the email piece. If you like this content and you want to take the next step, we can help you. Here's the call to action, click this button and you can sign up for us at the free consultation. So when any of our email nurture sequences, when somebody's opted in for a checklist or a cheat sheet or whatever it is we're offering. In that email nurture sequence, we have a call to action throughout that email sequence to get a free consultation.

Sometimes people may not be ready for that, and that's OK, but we want to let them know clearly what that next step is with us. So to break it down again, your funnel, it's just a way to attract prospect and nurture them appropriately in an automated or semi-automated way. The four elements to the funnel are attraction, you've got to attract people. Two, you're going to send them to a landing page that is dedicated for whatever you have to offer so that they can sign up.

When they sign up, they go to a thank you page. And then the last element is email, and you're going to nurture them through email. And that's it. Those are the four elements in a very simple funnel. Don't overcomplicate this. Now, if you want to try this, you get stuck. You need outside eyes. Hop on over to our website, rialtomarketing.com. That's R-I-A-L-T-O marketing.com. Click to get a free consultation button.

We'd be happy to chat with you and help you push through any roadblocks that you have with your funnel or any other marketing roadblock, for that matter. So no pressure, but if you need the help and the outside eyes, we are happy to give it to you. Just click to get a free consult button. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in today. Till next time, take care.