How To Retain Customers In A Marketing Funnel
I got a question from a reader today that asked me to expand on a point from this article.
You can read that comment here:
Basically… how do you provide interesting material and keep a reader interested in your sales funnel.
I’m not a master at this, but here’s a few things I’ve found to be true so far.
Firstly, Have a Point
When you start a project online, the first thing people tell you is, “Have a mailing list from day one.”
If you’re starting up in e-commerce, I agree.
If you’re selling a product from day one, I agree.
However, a lot of guys (and girls) set up a mailing list where there’s absolutely no reason to. Or, they’ll set up a Facebook page and have nothing on it.
It’s almost impossible to retain people in a funnel if you’re not actually funnelling them to somewhere or something.
When you set up a marketing funnel, think of it like a river. You need to keep those people flowing.
Tip Two: What Does Everyone Do Wrong?
The quickest way to find out how to do email marketing and create sales funnels is to sign up for some.
You’ll learn really quickly how not to do funnel building.
- Have you ever had a person email you so many times you clicked the “Unsubscribe” button in a fit of rage?
- Are you subscribed to a mailing list which constantly sells to you without doing anything else?
- Have you ever subscribed to a funnel where you’re promised a free item that never comes?
- What about one where the “Secrets of whatever” are just rewritten blog entries?
- What about the guy who emails you so irregularly that you get him confused for a spammer who is cold-emailing you?
Chances are, you’ve experienced something like one of the above. You’ll learn more from finding out what not to do than you will from what you should actually do, because a sales funnel – when done well – is invisible.
…Also, Learn Copywriting
Today I received an email with this headline:
“30% off. Act right now. Only to Midnight.”
Like I would click on that. I don’t know what has 30% off. I haven’t been sold to. I’m not even going to open the email. It’s going straight in the Trash folder with the eighteen other emails I woke up to.
People will spend tons of time getting their copy right to attract people into their funnel. They should, because the returns on investment are huge.
However, they then promptly forget the copywriting rules. Email marketing has some atrocious headlines. The structure of the average email or post-signup video ignores the AIDA format and calls to action can be either everywhere or nowhere.
Copywriting isn’t just for getting new customers. It’s about studying psychology and giving people what they want when they need it.
Every copywriting principle you use in the front end of your funnel needs to extend into the back end.
Also along those lines, you need to be consistent with the subject and pitch. People who sign up for a free weight loss product are not going to buy your elite muscle building product at the end of a 5 email set up. Similarly, you can’t convert someone from caring about one thing to caring about a completely different thing. If I started a mailing list for this site, I wouldn’t talk about politics in the email newsletter, because all I’m going to get is people unsubscribing (and rightly so.)
Engaging Content = Give Something Away
To keep people in a funnel, you need to give them value.
I’m not talking about the fact that you should have a “Sign up and get a free e-book” entry. That’ll get people into the funnel, sure enough, but I’m talking about retaining them.
You need to think of your mailing list as a product in-and-of itself.
Why are people signing up for your mailing list? Is it because you give them helpful tips? Is it because you’re letting them know about new product releases ahead of time?
There are a lot of valid reasons to have a mailing list and absolutely none of them are “So you can try and drop affiliate links into my inbox three days a week.”
You have to give value. Can you use your mailing list to sell things? Absolutely. But nobody signs up to be sold to. They sign up for something else, and the selling is an added extra.
Your Funnel Is A Secret Society
Something else to consider about funnels is this: your readers trust you with a connection.
You need to elevate them. Whether they’ve subscribed to your YouTube channel, given you an email or a phone number or followed you on Instagram, there’s a two-way connection.
This is an opportunity.
You can have exclusive discounts. You can give your subscribers a chance to ask their questions and change the direction of your offerings. You can set up private products or invite-only forums and you’ll get loyalty.
A friend of mine had a website with a private members forum. He didn’t sell memberships or anything. All he wanted was for people to comment on his site. Regular commenters and friends of the site got access to the forum.
It was amazing how people would try and get into this private forum without doing anything. There was no particular value to that forum – it was just a place where likeminded people had every day chats.
But that exclusivity meant that people would write thousand-word emails or try and buy their way in to the exclusive club.
It’s a story for another day, but it sums up the funnel thing quite nicely: a funnel is an exclusive club, and you have to treat it as such.
You have to make it a place people want to be, take away the stuff that won’t make them want to be there and generally treat it as a gathering of friends.
It doesn’t matter if your intention is to create an online safe-space or sell a $50000 product; the mechanics are the same. You’re creating an exclusive club for your dedicated subscribers to get something they wouldn’t get anywhere else.