building an ecommerce sales funnel - amazon s3 · create a “special offer” for your product. 3....

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© www.MySecretHandbook.com

Introduction

No matter what you are selling, the fact is that the majority of people are NOT going to buy your

product the first time they see it. Only a very small percentage of people will, especially with a

product that they have not seen before or a brand that they have never heard of previously.

In fact, studies show that on average, people need to see an offering at least 3 times before

deciding whether or not to make a purchase.

That is why you should never send your traffic directly to your product page (ie. your sales page)

as you are catering to the buying habits of the minority.

To cater to the buying habits of the vast majority, you need to send your traffic into a lead capture

page and collect prospects’ email addresses FIRST.

By doing so, you will have the opportunity to:

a) Build trust and credibility with your collected leads (and therefore increase the likelihood of

them buying your product.)

b) Present your product and offer to your leads multiple times, which as we know, is critical.

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Not only so, having a list of leads (or rather ‘subscribers’) who are interested in your subject or

market, and who you can blast emails to, will enable you to generate instant traffic (and sales)

literally at a drop of a hat when you launch new products in the future.

Having a list of subscribers also increases the value of your overall business too, if you were to sell

it.

In short…

No matter what product or service you sell, and no matter how big or small your business is,

you NEED to create a sales funnel and build an email list. It is essential to your success.


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The 7 Action Steps

So how do you build a sales funnel, specifically when it comes to selling products on eCommerce

websites?

It depends a little on what you are selling, but in most cases, there are 7 Action Steps that you will

need to think about and implement. These are:

1. Create an incentive for people to sign up on your lead capture page.

2. Create a “special offer” for your product.

3. Develop an email sequence that will be sent to your leads (this is your sales ‘funnel’).

4. Build a high converting lead capture page.

5. Set up the email sequence in your Email Marketing/Autoresponder service.

6. Drive targeted traffic.

7. Optimize based on feedback and data.

Targeted traffic is for another Handbook. We will cover action Steps 1 to 5 as well as number 7 in

this Handbook.


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STEP 1: Create an incentive for people to sign up on your lead capture page.

Just in case you don’t know what a lead capture page is, there are a few examples in the image

below:


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Essentially it a page where a visitor is asked to enter their email address (at a minimum) to receive

some type of content or offer. They are easy to create using a service such as Leadpages.net, but

we’ll cover that later.

In order to convince people to enter their information on your lead capture page, you will need to

offer them something of value in return. Here is a list of ideas:

A free report or eBook

A mini video series

A prize draw

Access to a product beta-test program

A coupon code/discounted price offer

A newsletter

What you decide to offer entirely depends on the market and the product you are selling so it is

difficult to give specific advice. But it needs to make sense, be relevant and most importantly have

a high perceived value.

Here are some examples for each of the above which will hopefully help you generate some ideas:


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A free report or eBook. If you were selling golf products, you could offer people a 10-page

guide on how to lower their handicap. Or in the case of a health product, maybe a list of 50

Superfoods that have been scientifically proven to improve your health and wellness.

A mini video series. If you were selling products in the fitness market you could give away a

5-part video series showing people how to work out from the comfort of their own home.

A prize draw. Something along the lines of: “Sign up now and enter the draw to win 5 of

these amazing limited-edition guitar straps”

A beta-test program. This could be positioned as follows: “Beta test this product and save

50%. It retails for $29.95 but in exchange for trying it out and giving us feedback, you will pay

just $14.95.”

A discount offer. In this instance, the incentive to enter their information would simply be to

get access to a coupon code that could be used to claim a limited-time discount on your

product.

A newsletter. You could also offer a weekly or monthly newsletter with tips, strategies or

other helpful advice that people in your market would find useful and that would help build

your reputation and credibility.


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Obviously some of the above ideas involve content creation, something that people generally

worry about. However, rather than create the content yourself, consider using private label rights

(PLR) products that you could rebrand as your own.

To find suitable content, simply Google

what you are looking for then add PLR at

the end.

For instance, you may have thought that

my above example of creating a 5-part

fitness video series would be a seriously

costly and time consuming exercise

(excuse the pun), but as you can see in

the image on the right, it is perfectly

possible just to buy in ready-to-go videos.

The same goes for written content too.

Once you have determined what

incentive you will use to get people to

sign up, the next stage is to create an

‘offer’ for your product.


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STEP 2: Create a “special offer” for your product.

There are two main options here…

1. Discount Coupon Offers

In most cases your special offer should be a coupon code to claim a discount for your product -

essentially an incentive for people to take action and buy.

What discount this is (10%, 15%, 20% etc), depends on your margins. You obviously still want to

be making a healthy profit for each sale that you make, even at a discount. Building a funnel is a

long term play, not just a way to get initial sales and reviews, so you need to be making money.

ALSO NOTE: This ‘offer’ is a separate and further discount to any “sale price” that you may be

offering on your product page - you need something more.

To keep it simple, create just one general coupon code that everyone who goes through your

funnel can use and set the maximum number of coupon uses to around 50 to begin with. You can

always increase this later or create more coupons codes when needed.


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2. Buy One Get One Free Offers

There is also an option to create a “buy one get one free” offer. However, the margins for your

product would need to be particularly high for this to be viable. You would also need to be selling a

product where it would actually be an advantage to have two of them.

For example:

Two identical golf bags >>> no real advantage (you only need one golf bag)

Two identical packs of golf balls >>> definitely an advantage (you always need more golf balls,

especially if you are as atrocious a player as I am!)

Simply work out the overall margins and use common sense to establish whether a ‘buy one get

one free’ promotion for your own product would make sense.


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STEP 3: Develop Your Email Sequence (Your “Sales Funnel”).

Sales Funnel Structure

Once you have decided upon and have created your product offer, then you can then start

planning the structure of your sales funnel.

In simple terms, your sales funnel is the process of selling your product via a sequence of emails.

These emails that are sent automatically at desired intervals by your Email

Marketing/Autoresponder service – you don’t need to send them manually.

The emails should be a mixture of valuable content pieces to build credibility and trust as well as

sales pitches where you can present your offer to your leads multiple times.

Sales Funnel Example

There are so many different options in terms of content and exactly what you would need to create

is entirely determined by your market and audience. Therefore, again, it’s difficult to give out a

specific plan.

However, my hope is that by giving an example of a funnel, it will help you generate some ideas as

to what you should create for your own funnel.


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By looking carefully at this graphic,

hopefully the entire process laid

out in this Handbook will become

clearer.

You can download the full graphic

in the MySecretHandbook.com

private member’s area.

I recommend you download it

now and digest it before moving

further forward with this

Handbook.


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Crafting Emails

When it comes to writing emails, specifically the emails that present your offer and sell your

product, you don’t need to be a copywriter to do this well. Far from it actually.

Just keep the content simple and clear. Explain the offer, give the coupon code, list the benefits of

the product (which you will already have written when setting up your listing) and link to the

product page.

Here is an example email:

Email Subject:

Offer ends TONIGHT!

Email Content:

Hi {firstname},

You only have until midnight tonight to claim

the 15% discount on our newly launched Vacuum

Insulated Stainless Steel Water Bottles.

Use exclusive coupon code: DISCOUNT998

at checkout.


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Here is the link:

>> [Enter LINK]

…and here are the advantages of our new bottle:

- It has ADVANCED TEMP SAVER thermal insulating

technology that'll keep your drink ice cold longer

then ever before.

- It features a STAINLESS STEEL VACUUM DOUBLE WALL

with superior construction which eliminates bottle

sweat and has no metallic taste.

- The bottle is ECO-FRIENDLY and food grade containing

ZERO toxins or flavors.

Here is the code and link again:

Code: DISCOUNT998

>> [Enter LINK]

This offer will only be available for a few more hours so

take action as soon as possible.

Happy shopping!

YOUR NAME


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Content Creation Tips

1. Either create the content for your sales funnel yourself, or find PLR content which you can re-

brand and adjust for your own use.

2. Mix up your content with different presentation formats to keep your leads engaged. Don’t just

deliver content as written emails - compile your content into a variety of emails, PDF manuals and

videos. Also add content to Facebook posts and link to them in the emails that you send out.

3. Don’t over complicate your content and make it too lengthy. Instead, focus on quality. 500 words

of killer information is a thousand times more valuable than 50 pages of fluff.

4. The content doesn’t necessarily need to be tips and strategies either. Interest-based and

sharable content that you can post on your website and link to works equally well.

For instance:

Top 10 lists

Book recommendations

Valuable and interesting videos on YouTube (embed them on your own website)

…and so on.


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5. Don’t spend months writing content for your funnel. Just do some research and think about what

your target audience would find interesting and valuable.

6. If you do create downloadable content or videos, always remember to add watermarks or place

footers with your domain name being visible, just in case they get shared.

7. Once your leads have gone through the funnel, move them to a different list. This way, when

you launch new products or send email promotions to your subscribers in the future, send them to

this new list only. This way you won’t be sending them to people mid-way through the initial sales

funnel as it will ruin the flow, leading to a drop in conversions as well as an increase in

unsubscribes.

STEP 4: Build Your Lead Capture Page

Unless you have the ability to create your own custom pages, I suggest using www.leadpages.net

to create your lead capture pages as essentially all you need to do is fill in the blanks. You don’t

need any technical ability whatsoever.

What you need to include on your lead capture page depends on what your offer is. However, the


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most important thing to remember is that you need to focus on creating a powerful headline as

well as listing the benefits of your product in bullet point format, rather than its features (features

don’t sell).

Here are a couple of example landing pages…


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The page on the right is actually a template from Leadpages.net which you have the ability to use if

you sign up to their service. This page is focused on a direct discount coupon offer.

The page on the left was set up for a demo brand that I created to help some of my Amazon

clients. As you can see I am offering a beta test of the product in question. You can see the results

below. It got a 75% conversion rate which is what you should be aiming for.

For this campaign, I ran traffic to the page from Facebook and generated over 4000 leads that

were added into the sales funnel. The campaign cost me about £1000 in Facebook Ads, as you

can see in the screenshot on the next page, but generated over $10,000 in sales by the time all the

leads had completed the funnel.


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And of course there are 4000 people who I could mail to in the future when new products are

released. (Note to self: I should probably do something with this brand rather than just have it as a

demo! )

I will be covering landing page creation in more detail in a soon-to-be-released Handbook. The

above should give you enough information for now to get started.

STEP 5: Set up the email sequence in your Email Marketing/Autoresponder service.

Once you have created your content, you will need to load the emails into your email marketing

service platform. I’m not going to give direct instructions for doing this as different people use

different services. GetResponse, Aweber, iContact, MailChimp and so on.

However, I recommend www.Aweber.com if you are not currently set up with one. I have used all

of the above services over the years and I find Aweber to be the best, both in terms of ease of use

as well as email deliverability.


http://www.aweber.com/

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You can also integrate your Aweber sign up forms into your Leadpages lead capture pages too.

Once you have set up an Aweber account, follow the instructions in the image below.


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I will likely do a further Handbook with more detail on how to set up an email sequence in Aweber

at a later date.

If you decide to use them, their support is very good, and they can help you with any set up

questions, should you need.

STEP 6: Drive Traffic

As mentioned previously, driving traffic will be covered in upcoming Handbooks. However, just so

you know, 95% of your traffic will be generated via Facebook Ads.

STEP 7: Optimizing Your Funnel

Once you begin driving traffic, you will need to optimize both your lead capture pages as well as

your emails once you start seeing results and have collected some data.

With your lead capture pages, I recommend split testing two to begin with and see which one

converts the best. Then keep the winner and create another version of the page to try and beat it.


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You need to aim to get between a 50% and 75% conversion rate and you will be able to see these

stats within your LeadPages account, as shown below.

Another important element of optimization is seeing how well your emails are performing.

Specifically, you need to look at:

Email open rates

Click throughs (from the email to your content)

Unsubscribe rates


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Email Open Rates & Click Throughs

For instance, in the image below (these are Aweber stats) you can see both the email open rates

as well as the click through rates. What you need to is to try to identify any issues and then fix

them.

In the above example, the open rates are all fine. A 30% open rate over 700 or so email sends is

perfectly acceptable. However, if you look at the total clicks in both email 4 and email 6, there is


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clearly an issue here as people are not clicking through to view the content.

What is then required (and which I actually did) is to go back into the emails and try to identify

what the problems are. As it turned out, in both these examples, the links were too far down within

the email content, and the email content was not enticing enough, so people were not reading

down to where the links were located.

So to fix, I improved the email content and also included an extra link further up within the email

body. Subsequently, the click through rate in both these emails jumped to around 20% which is

more in line with what it should be.

Unsubscribe Rates

The other thing that you will need to keep an eye on are the unsubscribe rates. If you take a look at

the stats image below, you can see the unsubscribe rate of each email in the funnel.

As you can see the unsubscribe rate of email 5 is considerable higher than the others.

Therefore, like with the click through rate optimization example a moment ago, I needed to return

to that email and try and analyse why the unsubscribe rate is higher and try and fix the issue.

Of course, you will always get people unsubscribing. That’s normal. Your job is just to identify any


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points where the dropout rate is higher than usual, determine the problem and rectify.


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Finally, when you make changes to your funnel, always keep a note of what you changed and

when you changed it, so you can return to the stats and assess whether the changes you have

made are working or not. I usually note them down in an excel sheet like the below.


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Conclusion

In this Handbook, we have covered how to build a sales funnel to promote products on an

eCommerce site. There are elements in this Handbook that need to be expanded upon, such as

more specific information on creating effective Lead Capture pages, email content writing, email

marketing platform set up processes as well as some more advanced funnel strategies.

I will be covering these areas soon, in further Handbooks. Look out for them in the My Secret

Handbook member’s area.

Remember, go download the Sales Funnel example image from the member’s area if you have not

done so already.


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