How to Set Up Automated Marketing Funnels That Capture Leads and Drive Sales

How to Set Up Automated Marketing Funnels That Capture Leads and Drive Sales Interview with Scott Bradley Tom: Thank you for joining us on the call, Scott. Today we're going to talk mostly about how to set up marketing funnels to drive sales and capture leads. Why don't you give us a little background about yourself and the services you provide? Scott: Thanks Tom, for bringing me on the call. My story starts about five years ago. After graduating from Boston College, I worked with an author. I was focused on generating as many leads as possible in the most effective manner. On the back end I focused on turning those leads into new customers through information products, teleseminars, membership programs and the like. I also worked with another author, Diane Kennedy and again focused on lead generation, follow-up, strategic front end marketing, strategic back end, upselling, backselling, copywriting, and social media marketing. I was able to take advantage of everything I had learned through working with the first author. I also worked with various companies helping them drive more direct visitors to their sites using free and innovative methods to help generate leads, close more sales, and build more rapport and trust. I eat, sleep, breathe and drink anything and everything to do with marketing. During that period, I honed my skills. I then started a marketing consulting practice. When first meeting with clients, our discussions would always center on what the client was looking to accomplish and how I could help them generate the results they were looking for given the assets that they had. Tom: In fact, we connected because of some of the work you did with an author. It's great that the tools you use to help generate business also get you great industry connections. Let's dig into this a bit. Marketing funnel is a term we hear a lot. What is a marketing funnel? Scott: Well, that really depends on who you ask. For me, setting up a strategic marketing funnel for a client starts with giving some serious thought to what it is that the client sells and how we can create a process from the very beginning to an actual purchase, while making that process as seamless, scalable and effective as possible. A marketing funnel is the strategic setup of a sales process. It begins with the first piece and goes all the way to the purchase of whatever the product is you're selling whether it's a service, whether it's an information product, whether it's an experience. And no one size fits all for marketing funnels. That's really where the 1

back-end strategy and reverse engineering of your funnel around your product becomes so important. First there is the initial introduction to the funnel. That could be the front end lead gen capture page that's giving away a guide. Or it could be a webinar that you're inviting people to. The back end is where you actually ask the customer to make an order. As you said, most businesses rely on luck and they look at marketing as an expense and not as an investment. When you have a strategically built front end, middle end, and back end funnel in place, it allows you to invest marketing dollars in the right places to generate those qualified leads. Tom: Many business owners and entrepreneurs have heard the term "marketing funnel" and I think they have a sense of what one is, but they're unsure about what a marketing funnel should consist of if the goal is not an immediate sale. How do you determine what to include in your funnel that's going to keep prospects interested? Scott: That is another really great question. If we're talking about driving people to either a sales page, an order page or a call to action, it really comes down to figuring out how long you want your marketing funnel to be. Do you want it to be as short as possible where you're just buying media and then driving people to a sales page? Depending on what the business is and what it is you're selling, every funnel is going to be different. Even an ad in a newspaper has a marketing funnel. When it comes to down to defining the pieces you want to include in your funnel, it really starts with the customer and the market. You have to target the right person. What is important to that person? Once I know what is important to my client's prospects, the next step is to introduce the company in the most strategic way possible and create a funnel where each part of the process works seamlessly. An important part of the marketing funnel is the capture page, where you ask a prospect to give you their name and email. The prospect is then given a download and perhaps a follow-up sequence on the back end of emails. Those emails continually add value and/or drive us to order the product or service. I just saw a Facebook ad which is a great example of a strategic marketing funnel. The front-end marketing was the actual Facebook ad. I clicked on it. It dropped me over to a webinar sign-up form. I signed up for the webinar. I was immediately sent an email that said, "Here's the information for the webinar. By the way, watch this video before the webinar on Saturday." I watched the video. It gave me some really great content, and there was an offer right in the video before I ever got to the webinar. The person that created this funnel was priming us before the webinar and, at the same time, giving us an option to take the offer that he put together. That's one example. 2

When it comes to designing a strategic marketing funnel, it's not a "one size fits all" situation for every client. What starts the funnel has to start with the customer and knowing the customer as well as you possibly can. You then have to ask yourself what's important in terms of marketing to that customer. Knowing that the process you create will take the prospect to a point where if you ask them to buy, there's a higher likelihood they'll say yes than say no. Even if they say no the first time you ask them to buy something, you then have to determine how you will respond to that "no." What will you do to turn that no into a yes? Tom: That's a good point. A no isn't always a no. They may not be ready to buy, so you have to be prepared to deliver some value. Scott: Yes. You want your marketing funnel to communicate so much value that even though they may not be ready to say yes, they will have ownership of the information you provide. As marketers, Tom, we both know that the more your customer knows, likes and trusts you; the more likely they are to buy from you. Most people think of a marketing funnel as just putting up an ad which will automatically drive traffic and they will be selling their product. On average, for every hundred people that visit a site, only one buys the first time they land on the site. That means we have to think about what to do for the ninetynine others what we are going to do to prime them and to warm them up, without treating them like just a number. The key is to put yourself inside of the buyer's mind and try to look at things through their eyes. Let's use as an example an author trying to sell a book. What would be the frontend introduction that you'd love to give somebody? Most likely it would be the first two or three chapters of your book. You drive someone to a page of the book and get them to download the first three chapters. Somewhere in those chapters you have a call to action which draws them to Amazon to buy your book. At this point, they're now on your email list. Now you have an exceptional opportunity to communicate with them on an automatic, ongoing basis through an autoresponder. What does that process look like? Are you going to use drip messages to highlight specific things in those three chapters? Things to add value but also inspire the prospects who haven't jumped over the edge to buy? All of that detailed, idiosyncratic thinking needs to be taking place as you're building out your funnels. And yes, there are a lot of moving parts to [the funnel]. You should always be thinking about the desires of the customer rather than just looking to drive more traffic. 3

Tom: I know this comes up quite a bit. Clients don't want to give away anything for free. How do you overcome that? Scott: Well, I put it back on them. I ask them what they would do if they were interested but not ready to buy a book whether getting to read the first three chapters for free would help them decide to buy it. Most of them say absolutely. This is a perfect example of the Law of Reciprocity in Robert Cialdini's book on persuasion. If you give something to somebody and it resonates with them and it adds value to their lives, they feel a sense of obligation to either buy what you're selling or return the favor. You, as the marketer, need to specifically and strategically set up that detailed, step-by-step process to ensure that every front-end or middle-end touch point of that funnel is optimized. Tom: I want to go back to that front end, the initial introduction to your marketing funnel. How do you figure out where your prospects are hanging out? How do you get your message in front of your prospects? Scott: That is a really great question. Honestly, that is where I spend most of the time with my clients. One marketer that I follow says that 65 percent of the success that you have is directly related to the list you're targeting. Following that, the second most important thing in the marketing mix is the offer and the third most important is the copy. The fourth thing I like to add is the funnel that systematic process that will drive people and increase the likelihood that your efforts are going to lead to the end results of making continual sales and lifetime customers. How do I figure out where a target market hangs out? I'm going to be flat-out honest with you it's leveraging a Twitter search. I go to www.search.twitter.com and enter some key phrases I think my market might be using in their tweets. One of the clients I worked with hired me to drive more people to their site in order to get more direct-to-consumer orders. One of the things I asked myself was what made my client so special. Well, this client makes a product that's specifically targeted for people with sensitivity to wheat. The product is made using spelt grain. So I went to www.search.twitter.com and typed in "wheat allergy." What popped up were mothers saying, "I just came back from the doctor. My child was just diagnosed with a wheat allergy. I have no idea what to buy." Now, that is a prime prospect for my customer. One of the systematic marketing funnel processes I then started was to reach out to more potential customers using my client's Twitter account. I would tweet, "Sorry to hear about your son being diagnosed with a wheat allergy. Spelt may be a safe alternative." 4

Once an interaction got to a certain point, I'd tweet "We'd be happy to send you a free sample for your kid to try." We were hugely successful with that. People were giving us physical mailing addresses. In addition, we decided to underpromise and overdeliver to make the experience that much better. We sent two loaves of bread and included a handwritten note directly related to our Twitter discussions. That is one example of a systematic marketing funnel process. Obviously, it's very labor intensive but the bottom line was we had people write us back telling us, "You do not know how much you saved my life as a mom. My son hasn't been able to eat bread for fifteen years, and can now enjoy a sandwich just like his friends at school." The success of just that one tactic of finding that right market exploded. Another example is going into Facebook and using the recently launched Graph Search. You can search keywords to find communities in Facebook pages. The chances are pretty good that your competitors are building fan bases of your customers that can reached by using Facebook ads. Once you create an ad in Facebook, you can target people. As an example, you can tell Facebook you want to target everyone who is a fan of a certain author. My funnel will be as follows: a prospect will see the Facebook ad and click on it. They're driven to a customized page in order to get a free download of the first chapter of a new book. They are now in my marketing funnel process. At the point they get their download, there is a call to action that should drive them over to Amazon. Regardless, I still have their contact information. You can use the Google External Keyword Tool and type in words and phrases you think your market is searching to see the level of demand. You can then use that information to cross-reference trends in Twitter and Facebook. You can use Google Trends, Google Insight and Alexa to cross-reference competitors' sites. Another similar site is called SimilarSites.com. It does the same thing. Spend more time reaching those front-end touch points like forums. I'm a member of the entrepreneurial FastLaneForum.com. There are so many front-end touch points. This research is one of the most important parts of your funnel, because your copy could be world-class, your offer could be amazing and your funnel could be sound; but if you get the front end wrong and reach out to the wrong people, you're going to be dealing with a lot of frustration on the back end. Tom: Those four or five tools are some serious gold nuggets right there. It can be such a hurdle for business owners and entrepreneurs to get to that front end and those prospects. Scott: And just to add onto that Tom, as I'm doing my research, I always keep a list of front-end touch points. I make a huge list of Facebook pages and Twitter 5

accounts. It might include lead influencers. You can go onto YouTube or Google and type "most followers in X niche," or "most Facebook fans in X niche." You can then list all of the websites that come up. This helps you decide where to invest your client's media dollars in order to drive traffic into the front end of the funnel. Tom: Social media is so hot now, and it's so confusing for business owners and entrepreneurs who don't use it on a regular basis. Do you have any other ways to fit social media into a marketing funnel? Scott: Absolutely. Don't spend your focus on building a Facebook fan page or a Twitter following, because the truth is you don't have direct control over what Facebook or Twitter may decide to do or what changes they may choose to make that could impact your ability to reach your contacts on the front end. I am a big proponent of building your own email list. Have that be the front-end focus. Everybody should have a way to capture email addresses. Social media is one channel you can use to build your email list by leveraging the concept of creating front-end valuable content and then leveraging that content to drive people onto a capture page. I'll give you an example that people can model. One of the strategic funnel-building implementations I did for an author was to create a business niche book. We have a blog on their site, and we decided to drive traffic into the blog using social media. We then built a call to action either through content or through banners to drive people to a capture page that gave away free chapters. They were now on our list. The fundamental actions that need to be done on a weekly basis start with content. Create content that a prospect will know, love, and trust. Next create the architecture for your funnel. Integrate those calls to action to get people to sign up for your email list. For instance, decide if you want a form at the top right of your right panel or a pop-up banner ad promoting the first three chapters of your book. The prospect is going to click and drop over to the capture page. Then use your autoresponder for follow-up messages and future email broadcasts. Keep in mind you'll need software to drive the back end. There's GetResponse, AWeber, OfficeAutoPilot, Infusionsoft and LeadPages.net. And by the way, LeadPages.net gives you capture pages for free. I really like it. Many people make the mistake of focusing on the Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube platforms. They don't see the bigger picture that if something changed, that's going to impact your ability to reach people you are connected to on those platforms. I suggest you use every opportunity to artfully and strategically get people on your list. 6

In my opinion, no matter how long the Internet is alive, email will never die. I believe that email is the glue that ties the Internet together. When you sign up for a Facebook or Twitter account, what do they ask for? Your email. When you sign up to work with a service provider, they want your email. No matter how evolved the mobile space gets, no matter how evolved the Internet space gets the email is the most important asset that you have on your list. The next step is to further develop relationships with prospects on your list. It's about priming the people in your marketing funnel. That list is worth potentially millions of dollars to you, because if you prime these people correctly, you get them to the point where they can't wait to read every email and offer you send them. They will click over to your offer page to see what you have to sell. That is the long-term equity of having a list and using the funnel process. There are several companies that move from the front end to back end, and do continued follow-up, lead nurturing and provide free content really well. For those of you listening, it's about spending your valuable time focusing on what the process will be that you use to convince people that they need or want your products or services when they are ready to buy even if they didn't make a purchase with the first contact. Social media's impact comes from the free viral channel that spreads your content in order to grow your email list. Tom: I think that a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs see social media as a unique resource that can be used by itself. You call it a channel and I think that's a good way to look at it. The proper question isn't whether or not you're using social media. The question is whether or not you're using social media as one of the channels to drive people into your marketing funnel. Scott: In addition, you should ask yourself whether your target market is even on a social media site like Facebook. Tom: Good point Scott: Let's say you sell power tools. Are carpenters spending their days on Facebook where you can you reach them? Probably not. You probably have to find other markets, like trade magazines. You might look for innovative ways to reach carpenters. It goes back to keeping your customer at the forefront of your decision-making process. I always go through the process of having my customers help me define their markets who they are and what is known about them. What is it about these markets that will allow us to easily reach them? You have to dive deep into that so that when we start implementing by driving traffic to a capture page or a sales funnel, we know that the market has XYZ traits and that these are their preconceived notions about what's already in the marketplace. We already know 7

their needs, desires, fears and other psychographic information, and we'll integrate that into our copy. There is then a step-by-step process to take from initial opt-in or initial call all the way through to the actual purchasing decision. From that point on, it's all in the details. What do we say to them on the phone? What do we say to them in message one or message two using our autoresponder? You need to think from 30,000 feet up and then dive deep into the granular, because once you start driving traffic; that's when the real work begins. You start doing analyses. We drove a thousand visitors into our capture page and we converted it at 30 percent. That means we have 300 leads. Of those 300 leads, what are the open rates that we're getting on those follow-up emails? Can we improve those open rates and can we improve those click rates in those emails? You can't keep driving traffic if you keep getting bad results, and by doing the same thing over and over, you're going to get the same results. I'm passionate about helping clients architect their funnels and then looking for ways to improve the process. We all have top line revenue, costs, and bottom line profits. If your efforts building funnels for marketing aren't yielding good numbers, you have to assess the problems and take steps to optimize them. As you said, most business owners just sit there hoping that customers will find them. The truth is by building these strategic marketing funnels, finding the markets and driving strategic traffic through these funnels, customers will pop out of the other end. But you've got to be committed. Tom: You mentioned metrics like "open rates" and talked about whether you're making more than you're spending. That ties right into the idea of testing. What elements of your marketing funnel do you adjust or tweak to improve response rates? Scott: One of the most important parts is the front end capture page that you leverage to drive prospects into your funnel. It could be a free download. It could be a white paper. It could be inviting someone to a webinar that's going to give them free content with something to sell at the end. The niche and the market will help determine the conversion rates and will help you figure out how to maximize that front end funnel side while at the same time keeping in touch with how to drive traffic. I know you talk about this in your book, Tom. How to drive traffic, who to reach out to, and whether traffic is hitting your page. Is the call to action laid out as effectively as possible? Then you get into A/B split testing, using a website optimizer and many other tools out there. That's the first metric I look at. The next metric I focus on is open rates. That's a very general term because there are different open rates for different types of communication. There are open rates for follow-up messages and autoresponders. There are open rates for email 8

broadcasts. You want to split test your subject lines or leads (the first four or five sentences in your emails). Obviously certain things sell differently to different markets. Again, it ties right back to who your market is, what you know about them, what's important to them and weaving all of that knowledge through that funnel. There is no one funnel that's built for everyone. You have to really think about who you're serving and what's important to them and then set up your funnel. Review your open rates on your emails. Look at your follow-up sequences message by message. On day three, is your open rate 30 percent, but on day four only 10 percent? Allow yourself to be vulnerable enough to dive into the why and potentially tweak things in order to turn that 10 percent into 15 or 20 percent. The whole point of the funnel is to prime the leads in order to make them more open to buying from you when you make your offer. That's another key metric. Then there is the conversion on the back end sales page or, depending on the way you sell, the phone appointment or long form sales letter or video sales letter. You can split test your calls to action and depending on the software you use; if you do get a conversion, pay attention to how that person entered your funnel. Once you start finding patterns in who's converting and how they came into the funnel, that allows you to optimize your future marketing dollar spend to move the needle on that number knowing that you can spend X dollars on the front end and it will convert to X dollars on the back end. That the targeting process is working. Those are the key things that I pay attention to. Any other detailed metrics are client-specific. Again, we're back to the "no one size fits all." Tom: Well, that's phenomenal information. I want to give you the opportunity to have people connect with you and get into your marketing funnel. Scott: My website is ScottBradley.name. That's the best way to get in touch with me. On the site is an article on how to increase the sales that you generate and also increase your profit at the same time. I definitely recommend you go and read it. You're going to get a ton of ideas. My Twitter handle is ScottBradleyOC. You can also find me on Facebook. Send me a friend request, and make sure that when you send that request, you send me a message saying you listened to this recording that Tom and I did. My Facebook profile can be accessed at Facebook.com/ScottBradley. Another passion of mine is personal productivity and maximum life output efficiency. One of the tools I use is Evernote. It is such an amazing tool that helps me manage my business as well as my personal life. I have a YouTube channel at YouTube.com/EvernoteScott and on that YouTube channel there are some videos that show you how to use Evernote effectively. 9

Tom, I'm really glad you brought me on this call. I had such a great time, and I'll hand it back over to you. Tom: I appreciate the time, Scott. Thanks for being so open to sharing your best tips, tricks, and techniques. There's a lot of value here and we crammed a lot into fortyfive minutes. You gave us a lot of actionable advice that people can take and run with it. I really appreciate it, Scott. Scott: Thank you. [End] 10