Ava, Author at Ava Carmichael

How to Create a Sales Funnel (For Beginners)

Digital marketing and lead generation isn’t exactly rocket science, but it needs to be data-driven and strategic. Lead magnets and sales funnels are pretty essential these days for any business—online or not.

If you want to create a successful marketing campaign or attract your customers, it helps to create a sales funnel.

What is a sales funnel?

A “Sales Funnel” is essentially a series of steps or the flow of the sales and lead generation process. It usually starts with an offer, valuable information, a giveaway or anything that attracts your target audience to your service, product or business.

For example, the food sampler at your grocery store is a type of live-action sales funnel. She attracts you with a yummy food enticement and you pay attention. You sample the food, maybe you’ll buy, maybe you won’t. But when you’ve entered her area to sample, you have basically entered phase 1 of a sales funnel, and the food sample is a “Lead Magnet.”

What happens next depends on how well she nurtures you, engages with you, or how much you like (or think you need) that breakfast sausage.

Creating a sales funnel online is an essential element in your digital marketing campaigns. Without it, you are likely missing out on reaching targeted customers and leads.

How to Create a Sales Funnel?

Step #1: Create your Lead Magnet. Depending on what you do, offer, or sell will determine your lead magnet. If you make products, a free sample is usually a good start. If you sell info, a free PDF download of valuable info is a good lead magnet. If you offer a service, a free estimate or evaluation is good. No matter what you give away, however, the most important aspect of your lead magnet (especially online) is gathering that potential customers’ email address. Without it, you are just giving away freebies with no real way to touch back or nurture those leads (potential customers) again. So make sure you are getting something in return when creating your lead magnet. Which brings me to step #2 of your sales funnel:

Step #2: Create an Opt-in Landing Page. For anyone who isn’t sure, an opt-in basically is that all-too-familiar page that kindly asks for our email address before letting us in, downloading, sending a free sample, taking advantage of a discount, etc. In any successful sales funnel, the opt-in landing page is crucial for your sales funnel. In order for your tempting lead magnet to convert, you need a landing page that gathers customers’ details.

Your opt-in landing page should address the following:

It should explain your lead magnet. What is it? What’s the value?
It should include why your prospective customers should request it, download it, etc. What they’ll learn, what they get, how it will improve their situation.
Your copy should be well-written and focused on advertising the RESULTS and benefits of the download, info, product or service they are getting.
Don’t ask for too many details if you can. You really need a first name and email address to reconnect. Too many steps or too much requested info may scare your potential customer away.
Use data or testimonials! Add credibility to your offer. Examples: “10,000 downloads can’t be wrong!” “Loved by over 1,000 women” “Featured in big-time Magazine” “Rated #1 by so and so.” (You get the idea. Just make sure the data, testimonials, PR and claims are REAL!)
Create an easy to read bullet list of all the benefits of your lead magnet
Including the problems it solves or how it improves their life or processes
Make your download button big, use a bright color (Red or Orange), and easy to find.

Once you have your lead magnet and an opt-in landing page (with minimal steps!), you’re ready to create your follow up emails.

Step #3 Create your E-mail Follow-ups Also known as drip emails or email campaigns. I have written another post on creating an easy email sequence if you need even more details. I recommend creating 3-4 follow up email sequences. This is where you nurture your customers. Remember the nice lady at the grocery store offering free samples? This is where you get to make a more lasting impression and create a personal touch with your potential clients. Your first email is engaging. Tell a story, offer even more free value, ideas or even another download. The second email creates authority and trust in your product or service and your third email hones in on a call to action (or your ask).

Step #4 Create a Service landing page with CTA. This will be your redirect page after they opt-in. This service page highlights or outlines your products or services with a clear CTA Call to Action such as Contact Us, Visit Us or Schedule an Appointment form).

Include more value proposition of your product/service as well as client testimonials on this page; what makes you better or different. Provide reviews (also known as social proof). If you don’t have social proof online just yet, ask some previous clients to write you a testimonial. There is no need to be too wordy. Bullet points are great and easy to read. But don’t forget: Client testimonials are key!

Step #5 Set up Data Insights and Track Conversions. You MUST know the data and stats behind your funnel system. How else will you know if it’s working?? You have to plug into Google Analytics and use insight tools to determine who is landing on your page, how they got there and what they do after they get there. Tracking can be set up in your Google Analytics account. Here you can set up conversion tracking and understand your visitor and customer behaviors better.

Step #6 Amp up your traffic game! At this stage, you have set the foundation of your funnel system. Now it’s time to get that traffic count up. We do this will PPC (Pay per Click) ads through Google Ads, Bing Ads or Facebook Ads, for example. You can choose to send your customers directly to your opt-in landing page or the Service page with CTA. Where you send the clicks will depend on your ad campaign search terms and the leads. Warm leads already looking for what you have to offer can be directed to the Service page while colder leads can be directed to the lead magnet.

I have even seen companies go a traditional route and send postal mailers out with a CTA to a website, so if you want to reach your target audience through a postcard, having that landing page online where they can opt-in, learn more or contact you can still be a winning combination. This works great for free giveaways!

Don’t forget (or be afraid) to try A/B testing with different ad campaigns and creatives to see what converts the best. The next weeks and months ahead will need to be monitored and adjusted accordingly to avoid overspending on ads that aren’t converting. If you see a lot of people landing but they just aren’t opting in or contacting you, you’ll need to figure out why.

I have written another article on what makes a customer buy. If you hop over there, it’ll offer useful insight into consumer buying behaviors.

Branding

Brand Identity Examples that are Crushing it

Looking to build your brand? These 10 Brand Identity Examples will show you what to do to crush your competition and build a brand that stands out in a noisy world.

What is Brand Identity and why is it so important?

Coca-Cola, Nike, Disney, Campbell’s, Google, Apple. All of these companies are more than just products. They are relationships. What they do visually, emotionally and even silently is why we connect with them as often and as deep as we do.

Branding is when you build a relationship with your audience because they resonate with your vision, values, voice and visuals.

Brand identity is, essentially, a brands’ overall personality. It isn’t just about their logo, products or services, it’s about everything that surrounds who and what they are. The brands I mentioned above are the epitome of what great brands do.

Social media has become so noisy and oversaturated that it’s nearly impossible to be seen and heard without a hefty marketing budget. But even with a hefty marketing budget, a lot of brands fail to woo their target audience. The reason? Weak brand identity and positioning.

With over 60 million businesses registered and active on Facebook alone in 2018, your first task is standing out from everyone else.

Having a clearly defined brand identity is crucial in building your business and getting it noticed online. Your brand identity is what attracts your audience and builds loyalty.

Also, creating brand guidelines is essential to staying consistent.

When creating a brand identity package, make sure to include the brand guidelines for your vendors, printers, new employees and social media agencies.

Great Brand Identity Examples

Forest Found has nailed it with overall visuals. The typefaces, colors, mood, and logo are spot on. And while I can see here that their mission seems to be about adventure, I’d be curious to know more about the value they bring and company values.

When creating your brand, it’s important to pin down more than your visuals. Take for example this brand identity prism of L’Oreal:

Blogging

The Ultimate SEO Checklist for Beginners 2019

Follow these SEO strategies in 2019 to beat the competition and rank higher!

Is your website traffic dipping or flatlining? Maybe you want to take your blog to the next level and you’re not sure where to start. Well, you’ve come to the right place!

With every year comes new strategies and algorithms in Google search. It’s frustrating to have to keep making adjustments, I know. But as long as you know what to do, you’ll be better equipped to stay ahead of the curve. This quick guide and checklist is perfect for those who are just starting out or want to optimize their blog or website for better traffic.

Here’s what beginners need to know about SEO strategy in 2019

#1. Make sure you’re plugged into Google Search Console. Plug your website into search console and spy on what people are searching for. You’ll see their search term phrases and which pages of yours they land on and where you rank in the grand scheme of it all. Sometimes, you’ll find out some pretty sweet info in Search Console about topics you have that you didn’t even know where trending! Click that red ‘Add a Property’ button in Google Search Console Property Manager to get started. P.S. Don’t forget to add your sitemap!

#2. Install Bing Webmaster tools. No, it isn’t as prominent as Google, but Bing is used a lot. And, they have some pretty cool features such as keyword suggestions

#3. Get your ass on Pinterest. Pinterest is quickly becoming a search engine powerhouse. If your content isn’t pinned on Pinterest with compelling eye candy pins, you’re losing a major portion of search traffic. Check out my article on how to create Pins that work if you’re not sure what to do.

#4. Plug into Google Analytics. I know, this one may seem like a no-brainer for a lot of you who have been blogging or have a website online for a while now. GA is not to be overlooked. All of your juicy insights, traffic, referrals, acquisition and customer behaviors live inside the dashboard of your Google Analytics. What is a bounce rate and what’s your website’s bounce rate? Find out! Get that set up ASAP. Not sure how to set it up? No problem, Google has a handy little guide they’ve created to walk you through the steps here

#5. Do you use WordPress? If so, you need Yoast! Yoast is a plugin designed to help you optimize your pages and posts for search. It includes best practices and suggestions to create killer content that is SEO optimized. I have used it for a few years and it’s helped a lot in structuring and optimizing my blog posts and pages correctly.

For example, using Yoast will tell you such things as: Use your keyword or search phrase in your Header, as well as Sub-Headings, and use that keyword term or search phrase in the first paragraph of your content. 😉

#6. Conduct Keyword Research with Google and even Pinterest. Conducting Keyword research is the BACKBONE of all great SEO and content that gets visitors. One simple tool you can use starting right now is Google Suggest. Go to Google search main page and type in your keyword, but don’t press enter! Let’s see what Google suggests!

This is also a handy trick to find the long tail keywords. You can use these to create that awesome content to get more traffic! You can also use Google Keyword Planner (found in Google Ads) to help find the right keywords with a good search volume.

Pro Tip: Make sure you pick keywords that have a search volume. A “0” search volume means no one is searching for that topic or content, which means your likelihood of getting traffic is slim to none for that content. The first objective in getting traffic (and making money blogging) is to create content that people want.

#7. Use pro tools like KWFinder and Keywords Everywhere to help you find keywords and topics people are searching for. Aim for the lower competition keywords, meaning, you’ll rank higher with less competition.

#8. Use shorter URLs with your Keywords in it. Example: /seo_checklist_beginners_2019

#9. Optimize your images and include the search key phrase or term in the title and Alt tags of the photo. Use the Alt tags to tell Google specifically what that image is related to. Example: How to optimize your blog for better SEO in 2019

#10. Don’t keyword stuff. Google is too smart for that and actually penalizes blogs and websites with too much keyword stuffing. You can, however, use different phrases instead of the same keyword over and over again.

Examples: Best SEO tips, Search Engine Optimization strategies, How to optimize your website for SEO, Setting up your blog for SEO.

#11. Use LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords, which are words that are commonly found together within a single topic and are semantically related to each other. (e.g. Fishing licenses, bass fishing, fish, rivers, lakes, Texas)

#12. Use Long tail Keywords in your titles and H2 headers. Long tail keywords are those three and four keyword phrases that a lot of people plug into their Google search browser. These “search phrases” are usually pretty specific and can help your customers locate whatever you’re selling.

Examples:

How to Create a Blog using Bluehost
Create a Blog that Makes Money
How to Launch a Fashion Blog

#13. Use internal and external links in your posts and pages. Link to your own relevant content and external content for strong backlinks to websites with authority.

How to Create a Sales Funnel (For Beginners)﻿