Do you often wonder why it is that some coaches and other solo service providers seem to be well-known and sought after in their niche and while others, many others (you, perhaps?), still struggle to attract all the clients they'd like?
I can give you a simple (really!) solution to that problem. It's called the Marketing & Product Funnel and if you implement it in your business, I promise that you too can enjoy being considered an expert, in addition to selling more of your products and services. And you'll just have more fun!
You know what a funnel looks like, right? It's wide and the top and tapers down to a narrow opening. When your prospects enter your funnel through your ezine or other (usually) freebie offering, they are in the "getting to know you" level of the funnel. Once they get to know you, like you and trust you, they likely will move down to the next level, which will include your for-fee products and services, your least expensive ones first, increasing in value and cost as they continue downwards, until they eventually get to hiring you one-on-one or to your other big ticket item. That's basically how the funnel system of marketing works.
I see a lot of coaches and other solo service professionals offer a freebie at the top of their funnel, and then their one-on-one service packages at the bottom, with nothing in between. I made this mistake myself. It's important to have offerings at each level of your marketing funnel so people can continue to get to know, like and trust you, as well as get to know, like and trust your products and services.
And when you offer your products and services at different price points, you are lowering the financial and emotional risk for your prospects. You are essentially making it impossible for them not to buy from you!
Implementing this system is easy. Get started by attract prospects into your funnel. Create a freebie offering (an ezine, mini ecourse, ebook, report, guide, checklist, etc.) and put a sign-up form 'above the fold' and prominently on your website. You'll want to add a link to your freebie offering in your email signature as well. This is just one highly effective way I attract folks into my funnel.
Once you have prospects in your funnel, find ways to give them more valuable content at increasingly higher prices as they go through the funnel.
For example, the second level of your funnel might offer an ebook for $27 or an ecource for $39. The third level might have a home study course for $147 or a series of teleseminars for $77 each. The fourth level might offer a boot camp for $347, and the fifth level might offer your one-on-one services for $500.
Get the picture? Fabulous – now go to it!
© 2005-2009 Alicia M Forest and ClientAbundance.com
WANT TO REPRINT THIS ARTICLE? You may, as long as it remains intact and you include this complete blurb with it: Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & Coach, founder of http://www.ClientAbundance.com, and creator of "21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System, teaches coaches, consultants, online entrepreneurs and solo professionals how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create abundance in your business, visit http://www.ClientAbundance.com
Things have been crazy lately – with traveling for Thanksgiving, and getting ready for our holiday party, and shopping for Christmas (which is so fun for Chloe’s first!), and James traveling for work and meeting some tight deadlines, and trying to keep on top of business-related stuff, and trying to keep a great brainstorming session underwraps so I don’t get off course!
But I wanted to share some of our Thanksgiving photos:
We’re so grateful for her!!
I’m sure many of you are familiar with the original ice cream shop that offers you a taste of any flavor ice cream you want before you make your decision on which scoop you are going to enjoy.
Giving you a taste (or as many tastes of different flavors as you’d like) is a brilliant way to ensure that you not only order a cone at that moment, but it’s also a way to bring you back to try more flavors on another day.
You can use this brilliant marketing strategy in building your business, too. Offering your prospects a taste of what it is that you provide is a proven and easy way to get people to become part of your community, and part of your marketing/product funnel (the funnel is the "journey" (that builds a relationship over time) that your clients follow from the first visit to your website, where they enter by giving you their contact information, down through each level as they make their way through each purchasing step in the funnel). By offering them a sample, you’re giving them an opportunity to get to know you without risking anything more than perhaps a bit of time.
In your marketing/product funnel, the taste you are giving your potential clients is at the top of the funnel, the widest part. The taste is your freebie/complimentary/gift offering and is your first (and usually only!) opportunity to engage your prospect. Your taste needs to be something of value that you offer for free to people who visit your website in exchange for their contact information, usually their name and email address.
This is often one of the most overlooked steps in building an online business. A prospect needs to see your message many times (it ranges anywhere from 5-10) before they will feel confident enough to risk handing over their money to you. In order to build a relationship with people you need to be able to contact them again, which means your goal is to capture their email address before they click away from your website.
If they leave, it’s unlikely that they will come back, so don’t lose the opportunity to welcome them into your community, your funnel. They landed at your website because they were looking for something (usually a solution to a problem they are having, right? :)). Give them a taste of the solution you offer. And remember to make it easy for them: make your sign-up form or email so obvious that they’d have to trip over it not to notice it (yes, that includes pop-ups and the like, because even if they annoy you as much as they do me, they work!).
So, what can you offer of value in exchange for their email address? A newsletter, an ecourse, an audio clip, or a special report, are all good options. Personally, I like the offer of an ecourse AND an ezine. You give them a taste of what your services are like with the ecourse, and then you keep in touch with them on a regular basis with the ezine. The ezine allows you to build a bond with your readers in a uniquely personal way, letting them get to know, like and trust you over time, with you having to build that bond one-on-one.
So, one caution is to not offer any one-on-one interaction with you at this level. You want to leverage your time, and offering free consultations or one-time meetings with you is not a good use of your time. Let them get to know you over the course of your freebie offering. When and if they become serious about you and your products or services, they will move further down the funnel (from free to fee) without you having to "sell" them on what you provide during a complimentary session (how nice is that?).
So what is your taste going to be? Here are some other ideas:
> write a Top Ten article about the benefits of your products and services, convert it to a PDF file, and offer it as a special report.
> record a short audio about the three key things your niche needs to know about X.
> create a mini ecourse that encompasses the five steps to getting started for your market.
> or create a quick-start guide that helps your market focus on how to get started.
Once you’ve given them a taste, they will likely come back for more, eventually turning from a prospect to a client. Creating a taste of what you provide is easy and it’s fun. Try it and watch what happens!
© 2005 Alicia M Forest and ClientAbundance.com
WANT TO REPRINT THIS ARTICLE? You may, as long as it remains intact and you include this complete blurb with it: Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & Coach, founder of http://www.ClientAbundance.com, and creator of "21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System, teaches coaches, consultants, online entrepreneurs and solo professionals how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create abundance in your business, visit http://www.ClientAbundance.com
The Urge to Purge has been super strong for me lately, and while James has been away on business, I’ve been cleaning stuff out left, right and center! And it feels good. I usually do my office every month or so, simply because the piles make me nuts, and completely unable to focus. Now if I would just stop creating them! 🙂
I did most of my office, the kitchen cabinets (that was a big one), and I’m a quarter of the way through my clothes, about which I’m being brutal. I have business suits that I haven’t worn in almost five years still hanging in my closet. Granted, some of them are timeless and classic (love Jones NY for that), but there are definitely some that could use a new home. And if I get them donated before the end of the year, it’s a tax break, too.
James is coming home tonight and we so glad – we’ve missed him – and I’ve got a list of things for him to do, too! 🙂
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