Marketing Funnels 101: How to Sell More Organic Products Online by Using Marketing Funnels

“Email will be gone in 30 years.”

Someone who works in software told me this recently, and I thought it was ludicrous.

First of all…email ain’t going no where!

Second of all, even if email was guaranteed to go away in 30 years, we can and WILL still do a lot of good with it until that time.

Namely, we can use email to market to a list of people who are qualified to buy our products.

You see, your EMAIL LIST is something you have complete control over in your business.

Not your Facebook page. (You don’t own Facebook.)

Not your Twitter page. (You don’t own Twitter.)

And certainly not ANY of your social media pages. Unless you’re the owner.

You don’t have control over any of your social media pages. They could disappear tomorrow without notice. Where would that leave you? F%@$ked.

Unless, of course…you bothered to capture everybody’s email address!

Everybody who has internet access has an email address. Sure, it may not be the primary way THEY communicate with other people…but email is the primary way YOU as a business will be communicating with people in your target market.

The most valuable piece of information you could possibly get from a potential customer is their email address.

Why? Because this allows you to send ongoing marketing content directly to where people are most likely to see it — their personal space.

People check email on their phones. They use their email to order products online. And they use it for basic communication needs.

Now, sending one email by itself isn’t going to get the job done. You need to think long-term. Think in terms of campaigns. Think in terms of sending batches of 10-15 emails, delivered over a certain timeframe, with a specific theme. I’ll explain more on that later.

But first, here’s a quick summary of what YOUR PRIMARY TASK is when it comes to email marketing:

First you have to OBTAIN the email addresses.

You need an irresistible OFFER — something that will entice a person to voluntarily give you their email address.

You need great COPY that’s compelling and interesting to read.

You need to get the right people’s ATTENTION for more than a few seconds, so that they’ll bother reading your copy beyond the headline.

And finally, you need a way to actually collect the email addys seamlessly.

This all might sound complicated, but it’s very easy to do if you have the right help.

One single marketing piece isn’t going to lead to sustained business growth. That’s why it’s worth building a marketing funnel.

As it’s structured, a marketing funnel delivers valuable content to someone who’s well-suited to buy your products. This content pushes all the information, motivation, inspiration, and whatever else is needed…to drive the first sale. Maybe not immediately, but within a short timeframe (i.e., a week or two).

With a marketing funnel, your #1 goal is simply to COLLECT EMAIL ADDRESSES.

The funnel takes care of the rest.

You don’t have to sell…you don’t have to get anyone to buy right away…you simply start by collecting emails.

Your CONTENT then does just job of selling, over time.

Here’s a quick and dirty outline of a what a marketing funnel might look like:

Let’s say you sell packaged organic grass-finished beef meals (not to be confused with grass-fed beef). Your meals are packed with vegetables, there’s no sugar added, no dairy, gluten or preservatives, and it’s basically the most kick-ass packaged meal on the planet.

How do you get people subscribed to your email list? You start by creating a piece of content, such as a 5-page report, that instantly grabs the attention of individuals most likely to buy your grass-finished meals.

Something like: “5 Reasons Why You Should Eat Grass-FINISHED Beef Instead of Grass-Fed!” or “3 Reasons Why Grass-Fed Beef Isn’t the Best Kind of Beef.”

A headline like this will instantly appeal to those who are in your target market.

The report should raise, and answer, the most pressing questions most likely to be on the minds of people who are thinking about or currently eating grass-fed beef. It can even raise questions they didn’t know they had.

It also positions your grass-finished product as a better alternative.

Your job is simply to create a piece of content like this (it can be a report, audio, video, etc.), that entices people to GIVE YOU THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS in exchange for the free content.

That’s it.

Once they’ve done that, boom…you’ve got their email address. You can begin marketing to them through email long-term…until they either die or unsubscribe.

The important thing to remember is: they’ve voluntarily handed you their personal contact info. They’ve given you permission to send them more relevant content related to this topic. (This is called “permission-based marketing.” Not to be confused with spam.)

Now what?

Now you’ve got the keys to the kingdom. You can begin communicating to your subscribers through email.

How do you actually get people to sign up for the free content in the first place? Put a summary of the content on a “landing page.” This is a simple webpage with some short text and a box where folks can put their email address and click “Subscribe.”

Then you promote the landing page everywhere you can…through paid advertising, direct mail, or through any means where grass-fed beef consumers are likely to be.

So far, we’ve got Free Report… Landing Page…

Once people are signed up, then what? Then you start sending them emails.

The next piece of this Marketing Funnel is what’s called an email autoresponder sequence. Send a series of 10-15 emails (pre-written in advance) that are automatically delivered over a period of a few weeks. Each email is short, to the point, and touches on a point you made in the free report.

Each email goes deeper into the reasons why a subscriber should choose “grass-finished” over “grass-fed.” (Or whatever your topic is.)

These emails may include testimonials, success stories, personal stories, statistics wrapped in an entertaining story…or anything else that gets your message across in a compelling fashion.

All emails in this autoresponder series should be focused on delivering valuable information. Think: education mixed with entertainment. Whether people buy your products or not, you want them to get something valuable out of reading your emails.

In other words, you’re not simply trying to sell products in these emails…you’re focused on changing someone’s worldview, changing how they eat, changing how they think about food (or whatever your product is).

Think of these emails as empowering…possibly saving or at least massively improving someone’s quality of life.

The person reading them should truly ENJOY them. The emails should make them think, make them stop and be like, “Huh…interesting. I didn’t know that.”

These emails gradually introduce the new subscriber to your company, your philosophy, your mission, and your products.

Eventually, the emails will inspire someone to take action: which is usually buying/ordering your products.

Yes, there’s an art to crafting a successful email autoresponder sequence. There’s an art to writing a successful landing page. There’s an art to writing a free report.

You could bumble around on your own, trying to create this stuff for yourself…or you could hire an experienced copywriter for organic/health products such as myself to get it done for you in probably 1/2 the time you would have spent doing it yourself.

I’ve spent years writing and editing landing pages, email autoresponders, and reports…and I’ve discovered the simpler/“dumber” the writing is, the better. Simple always gets great results. Complicated does not.

A few points to remember:

• It almost doesn’t matter if someone reads your free report or consumes your free content in its entirety. What’s more important is to simply get them subscribed to your email list.
• Email autoresponders are written in advance. You plug them into your email system to be sent out at certain times, after someone has subscribed to your free gift.
• Think of emails as a life-changing gift you’re giving (not an intrusion), to help educate people about something that could improve their lives. Think 90% valuable info, 10% selling your products.
• Your social media profiles could vanish tomorrow. You don’t own them. You’re in a much more powerful place to OWN your list of followers…and you do this by collecting email addresses.

So now I’ve walked you through a very basic marketing funnel…

Free Report… Landing Page… Email Autoresponder Sequence.

How do people actually buy your products? In your email autoresponders, you’ll be directing subscribers to your SALES PAGE link, i.e., the webpage where your product can be purchased (assuming you sell it online).

You’ll want to make sure you have good sales copy on each of your sales pages. Yes, that’s something else I can help with.

Free Report… Landing Page… Email Autoresponder Sequence… Sales Page.

That’s pretty much it. That’s the nuts and bolts of a Marketing Funnel.

It’s called a funnel because you’re gathering a large number of people in, and leading them through a specific process designed to get them buying your products.

It works.

A client of mine has doubled and sometimes more than doubled his business three years in a row by using marketing funnels.

Refrain from doing this stuff at your own risk…it just slows growth. Makes it harder for people to find your products.

I can’t think of a faster, more effective way to deliver value to people, while getting more people to buy your products — than to use Marketing Funnels.

Structurally, a well-designed marketing funnel can only lead to one place: success!

Do you have any questions about this?

Would you like help creating your own marketing funnels?

If so, pop me a quick email and let’s chat.

If you’re a new client, make sure to fill out the short business questionnaire first. If you meet my initial criteria, I’ll be in touch to schedule a chat.

Talk soon,
Michelle