One Funnel Away Challenge [OFA]

Sometimes it gets so easy to complicate your business. 

Like you know what's working well...

Yet that little voice in your head convinces you to complicate things and makes things hard. 

Sometimes you may even hit rock bottom because of bad choices.

The beauty about having your back against the wall, is that it forces you to FOCUS on the right things so you can get the results you want.

This is exactly what the One Funnel Away Challenge [OFA] does.

It forces you to do what's right, so you won't get distracted by what's wrong for your online business.

OFA helps you to get the most out of your business launch by showing you what 30 Multi- Million Dollar Businesses would do to save themselves if they lost it all.

Click here to see if the OFA Challenge right for you.

Then let me know what you're trying to launch.

See you in the challenge.

Why It’s Time To Say Goodbye To “The Fold” In Email Marketing

Before the rise of the Internet and everything mobile (now up to 56% of opens in September), the news used to take time. We’d have our coffee and read the paper page by page. And we knew exactly what to focus on: what was above the fold. That’s where the biggest stories broke each day. If you weren’t sure you wanted to buy the paper, what was above the fold would also serve to entice you to buy, since most newsstands displayed them like so:

Source: New York Times

Now, the news is instant and 24/7, sometimes in as few as 140 characters. Even though the sight of an actual newspaper may be foreign to many cellphone-happy millennials, the term “the fold” has stuck around. For email and web design alike, “above the fold,” is still used to indicate relative importance—and also acknowledges the shrinking attention spans of readers today.

For email marketers, the fold has been a longstanding concern, whether that’s trying to optimize emails to render correctly in Outlook’s preview pane or for newer preview functionality like that in Inbox by Gmail. Marketers know they only have a short amount of time to grab the reader, which made “the fold” a clear demarcating line.

Because of widespread belief that attention spans have shortened and that people don’t read, marketers became obsessed with cramming their important information and CTA above the fold. But scrolling is actually easier than clicking, and subscribers come to expect it. While you can still lead with your most important content, you no longer have to. We’re here to debunk once and for all the idea of “the fold” in email.

SAY GOODBYE TO THE FOLD, HELLO TO “THE SCROLL”

According to Alex Williams, VP & Creative Director at Trendline (and a speaker at Litmus Live in 2016), mobile also has a fold: it’s called the “scroll.”

What does this mean?

Above the scroll means that you have to entice your reader to scroll down—show them why they should read your email in its entirety—by providing compelling and memorable content up top. The goal is to set expectations that your content will be relevant and interesting all the way down the email, and to be memorable right away, thus initiating the scroll.

See the full email on Litmus Scope.

In the above example from one of my favorite daily newsletters, theSkimm, you can see they don’t lead with the most important piece of information (well, #Hiddleswift was kind of a big deal). Instead, they break each section of the email into sections, just like a newspaper.

SUBSCRIBERS THAT DIDN’T CLICK ON YOUR HERO IMAGE, BUT ARE STILL SCROLLING, ARE BIG OPPORTUNITIES. —ALEX WILLIAMS

Because the information is relevant and easy to understand, they’re counting on subscribers scrolling all the way to the bottom, rather than clicking on the first piece of content without reading anything else.

USE THE ENVELOPE TO TEASE YOUR CONTENT

Back in the days of print marketing, the envelope was key to that first step in subscriber engagement: the open. Known as the Johnson Box, this gave mail recipients a window into your mail offer. Designed to draw the reader’s attention to the key message, it also served as a way to entice readers to open the letter—just like the subject line and preheader text in email today.

Regardless of the type of email you’re sending, initiating a scroll starts as early as the envelope in your email’s subject line and preheader text. Experiment with teasing an article in your subject line or preheader text that isn’t found until lower in the email. This can build up anticipation to get to the reason the subscriber opened the email in the first place.

See the full email on Litmus Scope.

In this example from TrackMaven’s newsletter, the content from the subject line (“35 Top Twitter Chats,”) isn’t shown until below the fold. Instead, they lead with top news stories from the past week. The top content is still relevant (and since they include it in every newsletter, expected), but to get to the content teased in the subject line, you need to scroll.

DIFFERENT EMAILS, DIFFERENT GOALS

However, this doesn’t mean “the fold” is completely useless. As with most things in email, the answer is: “it depends.”

When it comes to promotional email, marketers tend to send out three different categories, which relates to the three main areas of the marketing funnel:

• Awareness emails can take a variety of forms, but in general, they introduce the subscriber to something new, such as a blog post or infographic. The goal of these emails isn’t necessarily to sign up or buy your product but to increase familiarity and encourage people to visit your website. They may already be aware of your company (after all, they did give you an email address), but not everything about what you do or what you stand for. Awareness emails are about content consumption, which is a one-way interaction.
• Engagement emails build that 1:1 relationship with the subscriber, sometimes with personalization, recommendations, or an ask for feedback. This could take the form of a welcome email, survey request, sales outreach, gated ebook, or an email like our TEDC ‘16 tickets on sale email that encouraged folks to interact with with the email more deeply. Engagement emails ask for more than reading a piece of content. They’re about building a relationship, which requires two-way interaction.
• Conversion emails focus on completing a sale or purchase. This may be advertising a promotion, re-engaging the list, or asking for signups for a webinar. The ask and goal of the email is clear.

(Want to brush up on your definition of conversion? This article talks through exactly what it means.)

Each type of email requires a different mindset because you’re asking for a different level of commitment on the part of the subscriber. When you set your goals for your campaigns, enticing the scroll makes sense for some categories but not for others.

AWARENESS EMAILS

Awareness emails buy time, rather than buy clicks. How can you get your subscriber to keep reading for two more seconds, and then two more after that? The more they read or see, the higher the chance there is of something happening. Make your awareness emails creative, interesting, and above all, incomplete.

That doesn’t mean leaving the subscriber completely hanging or not finishing a sentence. It means keeping the curiosity gap high at all points in an email, so that they’re constantly wondering, “What’s next?” and satisfying them at each scroll.

See the full email on Litmus Scope.

The copy at the top of the email makes it super clear that the subscriber needs to scroll to see more winter coat options. Boom. Curiosity gap.

See the full email on Litmus Scope.

This product update from Trello doesn’t shy away from showing multiple pieces of news or completely different calls-to-action. The idea is to make people aware of new features, not sell them (though some of those features might require a plan upgrade).

See the full email on Litmus Scope.

This email doesn’t have a sale or promotion until the very bottom. Instead, the focus is on re-engagement and awareness—hey, here’s what you might be missing!

ENGAGEMENT EMAILS

Engagement emails start the conversation with your subscribers in a deeper way than awareness or conversion. They’re to be used sparingly, as they can be incredibly powerful.

To promote Litmus Live 2016, we decided to gamify our email to build excitement, increase engagement, and have a little fun. To reveal our third city, users sent in guesses via Twitter, which then populated a dynamic Twitter “collage” at the bottom of the email itself. We expected it to take 3-4 hours to get 500 shares using the hashtag #TEDC16. (Read why our new hashtag is #LitmusLive here, short version: politics.)

We were blown away 90 minutes later when we hit the mark! Our audience relished the opportunity to engage with us. The entire email worked together to reveal the city and encouraged subscribers to open the email again and again for updates. This completely flips the idea of a “fold” on its head, since our subscribers checked the email continuously to see new Twitter feed updates.

CONVERSION EMAILS

Conversion emails are usually short and to the point, with one ask, so it’s completely clear to the subscriber what action you want them to take. It might be a sales promotion, but it might not. Whether you’re focusing on buying a product or encouraging them to read an article, conversion emails focus on getting the click.

Because of their direct nature, conversion emails often benefit from having the CTA above the scroll to close the deal. It’s fine to include more options after the “scroll,” but those should be more opportunities for them to learn about that same one objective.

See the full email on Litmus Scope

In this example, General Assembly is clear about what action the reader should take: request a syllabus to learn more about their digital marketing class. The objective is clear, to the point, and there’s no need to scroll—you can’t miss that big red button.

See the full email on Litmus Scope.

This email is a great example of how to focus on exactly what you want your subscriber to do in the top section of your email, but still, include information below for those who do want to scroll. It’s clear what action they want you to take.

DON’T DESIGN EMAILS IN A VACUUM

REMEMBER, YOUR MOST IMPORTANT JOB AS AN EMAIL DESIGNER IS TO GET THEM TO OPEN THE NEXT ONE. —ALEX WILLIAMS

When you design emails, you have to think about the overall subscriber journey. Each email isn’t independent—every awareness email you send can ultimately contribute to that purchase when a subscriber does receive a conversion email.

The most important thing to remember about the scroll? Set up expectations as a brand that provides compelling enough content that subscribers will want to scroll—and keep scrolling.

Source

Hacks to Becoming The Fastest Funnel Builder in the World

When time is money, learning how to be fast at something that MAKES money? … Well…that’s like inventing the 48-hour day.

Funnel building is hard work. Anyone who’s done it knows the sweat equity to get even a simple funnel up and running! Copy, design, tech hookups, email sequences, ads, graphics…phew. *wipes brow

So I’m going to give you my best Funnel building hacks – the ones that will exponentially speed up every part of the process, so you can churn out more funnels … money.

But before I do, let’s break down the traditional sales funnel into all its parts and pieces. We’ll use a simple self-liquidating offer (SLO) funnel.

• Landing Page (holding the free offer)
• Thank You Page with a low-cost tripwire offer
• Order Form
• OTO Page with the special upsell
• Order Confirmation Page
• Email Sequence that fires when someone opts in

We’ll avoid some the crazy email segmentation and abandon cart emails for this example for now. You can add them in later.

 Hack #1 – Act Like a Manufacturing Plant

We all know the brain works better when you batch tasks, and the funnel is no different. Most people do this…

1. Write the landing page. Design the landing page. Design the lead magnet.
2. Write the thank you page. Design the thank you page.
3. Write the OTO page. Design the OTO page. Write the OTO script. Record the video.

WRONG WRONG WRONG.

What I want you to do is batch your tasks like this:

1. Funnel Copy – Write all the copy (and by golly, use FunnelScripts)
   1. Landing Page
   2. Thank You Tripwire
   3. OTO Script (then pull from the script and add to bottom of the page)
   4. Email Sequence
2. Funnel Wireframing – During this phase, you’re simply setting up the funnel and adding in the copy (no design). Just get the pages and copy all in. Bonus points if you lay down placeholders for graphics so you know what size to make!
   1. Landing Page
   2. Thank You Tripwire
   3. Order Page
   4. OTO Page
   5. Order Confirm
3. Funnel Design – Now you go back and add colors, fonts, graphics, logos, etc.
   1. Landing Page
   2. Thank You Tripwire
   3. Order Page
   4. OTO Page
   5. Order Confirm
4. Funnel Tech – Finally (and this is important), do the tech in this order. Set up the domain for the funnel, go through each page and adjust the meta settings and permalinks, set up any integrations with your email service provider, and finally, set up the products and delivery on the order form.
   1. Domains + Links
   2. Meta + Settings
   3. Integrations
   4. Products + Orders

When you batch it by the type of task, you’ll work far faster because your mind and brain are already in the zone.

Hack #2 – Fall in Love with Video

Copy is the longest and hardest part of a funnel. But with video, you can shorten that time significantly. The hardest page to get a conversion is usually that FIRST thank you page – the tripwire. Because it’s often coming off of an ad and the traffic is cold, you have to spend more time than you might think to sell them on a measly $7 or $10 offer. USE video.

This means, get your house set up with some video equipment and a tripod. Every time you need a new sales page, your studio is ready to go so you can shoot yourself talking and save yourself a TON of words on the page.

Hack #3 – Get in the Habit of Testimonial Hacking

I don’t care if it’s from a nice email, a Facebook post, a private message, or something else. Screenshot everything! Use Skitch by Evernote so you can quickly blur out last names when you screenshot and make a quick folder on your computer. When you have testimonials all set and ready to go, it saves you a ton of time looking around and emailing people for feedback!

Some ways to get great testimonials quickly?

1. Ask for feedback in your group.
2. Send out a 1 question survey.
3. Do a Facebook Live and encourage people to comment.
4. Make a habit of offboarding customers and clients with a quick zoom call, and record it!

Then go through and screenshot everything!

Hack #4 – Make Copy Templates

This means you need to become a master at saving things that EVERY sales page uses.

1. Bullet points
2. Headlines
3. Taglines
4. Guarantees
5. Welcome Emails

A lot of sales pages use similar keywords and so it helps to have these in a spot where you can grab and go. Bonus points if you pre-design them in CF as saved sections too (see hack #5).

One of my favorite things to do is to take a bullet point from a health funnel, and then just take out a few words and reconstruct it for a totally different niche! If you make templates and amass hundreds of bullets and taglines and headings, try swapping out a headline for one industry and use it on another. You’ll find that it may cause a nice pattern interrupt!

For example….this is for a financial planning infoproduct.

Unwanted Debt is Not the Boss

Take Back Your Finances, Save Without Stress, and Trust The Process. You Can Get Out of Debt! I know this because my story is your story.

Now turn it around and use it for a diet product!

UNWANTED FAT IS NOT THE BOSS

Take Back Your Belly, Eat Without Stress, And Trust In The Process. You CAN Lose The Weight!

I know this because my story is your story.

Hack #5 – Save Your Sections for Repeatable Funnels

With the new Power Editor in Clickfunnels, you can save SECTIONS, not just pages. This is super handy when you have to use the same design for multiple page template types (like sales page and order form for example).

So when you’re starting a funnel, make a heading section, a bio section, a testimonial section, a footer section. Do this on the SALES page FIRST. Design those sections and save them.

Then, when it’s time to do all the order forms and landing pages and whatnot, those sections are all saved and ready to go!

Hack #6 – Batch Your Graphics and Mass Upload

When I’m getting started with a funnel, I go into Photoshop and work on graphics including things like…

1. Logos (multiple versions)
2. Backgrounds (2000×1050) – I make several
3. Icons (the guarantee icon, video icon, download, etc. etc.)
4. Dividers
5. Module Boxes
6. Headers

Then, I upload them ALL in one shot in the Clickfunnels Media Library so they are all there and ready to go, no matter what page I’m on!

Hack #7 – Learn How to SET Design

In a sales page, setting design can help speed up the process immensely. A sales page is long. And it’s common for sections to repeat themselves (the design elements I mean). So…you want to make sure you’ve introduced all the colors and type of sections you’re going to use in the first 6-10 sections of the sales page.

So build those first six types of sections. Start with backgrounds. Maybe it’s a…

1. Photo background
2. White background with colored borders
3. Faded out logo background
4. Black textured background

Get those sections set with the background, the borders, the drop shadows, and the fonts. Speaking of fonts, use the GENERAL typography font settings and ONLY customize the elements that deviate from it, but I digress.

Once they’re set, you can duplicate and repeat them again and again, only having to adjust the one-off graphics and copy inside the section.

Hack #8 – Make a Spreadsheet of Things You Always Need

So, how bout that favicon image per funnel? SAVE THAT LINK! You could even use a clipboard saver like Alfred for Mac so you can paste it with a simple command.

The same goes for any custom code you might be using in your funnels (like promo codes, check boxes, or custom CSS). Facebook Pixels in the settings. Here are the things I have saved…

• Favicon media URL
• Facebook Pixel
• CF Pro Tools Custom Scripts
• Onboarding fulfillment emails
• Color codes

Hack #9 – Optimize for Mobile LAST

Once the whole funnel is built, go through page by page and view on mobile. Adjust font sizes and if you have a section that REALLY can’t work on mobile, duplicate the section – turn it to desktop only, and then modify the duplicate and set it to mobile only. It does mean in the editor you’ll see two sections right next to each other, but the viewer won’t!

Hack #10 – Spend Time Planning So Building is Fast

I know that’s obvious, but it really works.

1. Do ALL your copy in a Google doc and make sure it’s edited and perfect before going in.
2. Create a quick funnel brand board with the color codes and theming you’ll need.
3. Evaluate if your funnel is falling into the “nerdy” cool zone. What I mean is, are you making it harder than it needs to be because you love to tinker? For example, does that OTO REALLY need its own page, or can it be a quick order bump?
4. Find a funnel you’re inspired by so everyone is clear what look and feel you’re going for.
5. Make sure Stripe and your email service provider or SMTP is all set up before you begin.
6. Hire a VA who JUST creates funnels and places the copy inside templates you determine, or just works on setting domains, filling out meta areas, and placing the pixels. Save your brain for the design and copy!

So there you have it. In the time it took you to read this blog post, I built 10 funnels…kidding. Only 2. 

Source

The Ultimate Marketer’s Blueprint To Funnel Hacking [A to Z]

If you’re a marketer who’s growing your business by building landing pages and sales funnels in your niche, you’ll agree that being able to ‘funnel hack’ is a vital skill.

Wait. Did I hear you ask…. what ‘Funnel Hacking’ means?

What is Funnel Hacking – Definition

Funnel Hacking [verb] – “to funnel hack”

The process of strategically investigating the sales and marketing process of your competitors, which you can use to model and test within your own sales & marketing processes.

E.g. “I just funnel hacked that guys website yesterday and he had two up-sells!” or “Man that landing page is sweet! I’m just going to quickly funnel hack it in Clickfunnels.”

Why Should You Know How To Funnel Hack?

Funnel hacking is one of the easiest and most crucial ways to grow your business. Being able to go deep into your competitor’s sales funnel and reverse-engineer what they’re up to, you can begin to test their strategies within your very own business. In an online business this can be anything from split testing their landing pages, price points, email sequences and even retargeting ads.

It’s common knowledge that split testing various elements of your sales funnel can yield to great results, but testing blindly is a slow and sloppy process, agreed?

By taking advantage of the culture of ‘funnel hacking’ and getting into the thick of your competitor’s processes, you can really see how successful they have been, and start to see similar results within your own business. While this won’t happen immediately, you’ll begin to see trends in what’s working and what’s not a lot faster than testing floating ideas from scratch.

So Where Do I Start With Funnel Hacking?

While there’s no right or wrong way to begin to funnel hack your way to more profits, I thought I’d lay out a simple road map for you to follow which will allow you to really take advantage of funnel hacking.

Make A List of Competitors

The very first thing you’ll need to do is make a list of all of your competitors that you have in your market. These people are your immediate and not so immediate competitors which take a chunk of the market you’re fighting for.

The reason why I include direct and indirect competitors, is they will both have concepts which are working in your market in some way, shape or form. So we’re not going to start discounting anyone from the mix just yet.

Screenshot Everything

Since we’re starting from the beginning, you won’t be able to see much on the outside of your competitor’s website. It’s simply a shell for all the juicy, money generating mechanisms which are happening on the inside.

BUT that doesn’t mean it’s useless.

The first step you need to take is acquiring a screenshotting tool which will allow you to easily screenshot website pages (full pages from top to bottom) so you can start saving them to your computer. My tool of choice is called Awesome Screenshot which is a Google Chrome extension, however I also use Greenshot which is a program that you install and has some great screenshotting settings you can customize to your liking.

Either of those tools will do the trick.

Create a ‘New Folder’ called ‘[Competitor Name] 1’ and start taking full page screenshots of the pages that you visit and place them into the folder you’ve created for that website.

Be sure to either create sub-folders or rename the images so you know which pages they’re reflecting from the start otherwise it’s very easy for it to get messy and lose track of what’s going on. What I generally do is setup folders along the lines of:

Competitor Research Folder Structure

• Front End Funnel Landing Pages
• Backend Funnel Landing Pages
• Ad Creatives
  • Retargeting Ad Creative
  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Other

It chops and changes from case to case, but essentially it’s a nice way to organise what I’m looking into.

Start Building Your ‘Funnel Hacking Bible’

Now that you’ve taken the screenshots of the homepage of your competitors, it’s time to do some quick evaluations.

This is what I like to call my ‘Funnel Hacking Bible‘.

It’s the notepad/document where I put together all of my ideas, strategies and notes that I want to implement into my existing funnel.

Open a Word Document or Notepad and start taking down some of the key homepage/first page trends your seeing.

Some of which may include:

• What type of copywriting are they using in their headlines?
• What colours are they using where?
• Are buttons located above the fold or below the fold?
• Do they have videos used or just text?
• Are they listing benefits or features?
• Do they include social proof?
• Are there any pop ups during exit intent?
• Is the header section of the site fixed?
• Is there a full sign up form or an opt in form?
• Are steps taken 1 or 2 step?
• Are prices mentioned for their products (if so, what are their price points?)
• How many words are there on the homepage? (Short vs. Long)

And the list goes on….

As you have multiple websites open which are within the same industry, you’ll begin to see the trends in their marketing and be able to contrast what you are doing vs. what you’re not doing. Contrast what Competitor Ais doing vs. what Competitor B is not doing.

Each of these trends should be added into your Funnel Hacking Bible (FHB)and be noted on accordingly.

Strip Away The Technology & Tracking

Now that you have arrived to the first page and can see what’s going on (visually anyway…), you’re most likely only seeing about 20-30% of the picture. Operating a sales funnel has many different stages, but generally they include:

1. Driving Traffic
2. Converting That Traffic

Within both of these stages, marketers use tools and resources to become as effective and profitable as possible. So what we want to see, is which tools are they using in their business that we can also use to see if they help make us profitable?

To find this, you’ll need to download two more great Google Chrome add-ons.

The first is called ‘Ghostery‘, this addon sees the “invisible” web, detecting trackers, web bugs, pixels and beacons placed on web pages by Facebook, Google and thousands of other companies which gather information about your internet activity.

While this app is primarily designed to stay hidden from trackers, it’s also a great tool to highlight to marketers which trackers and programs are being used on by competing businesses.

The second Google Chrome addon is called ‘BuiltWith Technology Profiler‘ which allows you to…well, see what a website is BuiltWith within a simple click of an icon.

Now that you’ve installed both of these tools into your browser, reload your selection of competitor’s websites and you’ll be able to see all of the tools and tracking which is taking place for every visitor who hits their website. Pretty creepy how much is being tracked without you knowing right?

This will begin to answer some of your traffic and conversion questions like:

• Are they using remarketing?
• Are they using Google, Facebook or other platforms?
• Are they using any conversion tracking software?
• Which plugins are they using?

And again…the list goes on. Some sites have 5-10 trackers, others I’ve seen may have 40+ scripts running in the background of their websites.

All of this should go straight into your FHB as you begin to build a web of information for your competitors.

Advanced Competitive Intelligence Tools

Above we covered a couple of key addons which highlight the technology that is being used on your competitor’s websites, but what about really finding out how your competitors are acquiring the traffic in your niche. We want to be able to know specifically, which sources will really lead us to the golden nuggets in our marketing endeavors.

To find these real game changers we’re going to need to move beyond plugins into some competitive intelligence tools.

These tools uncover what’s happening right now in the market:

AdBeat or WhatRunsWhere: These tools instantly show you the strategies of online advertisers in your industry. You can see anything from how many days they’ve been spending money and running a particular advertisement, all the way to the creative and landing pages they’re sending their paid traffic to. Either one of these is a must have tool (which don’t come cheap) but will instantly let you leverage your competition’s ‘wins’ in your business.

SEMRush: While paid advertising is a very important part of any marketer’s funnel strategy, SEO cannot be left out either. This tool gathers paid and organic insights on your competitors. Some of the features include displaying, search positions & changes, ad copy, video advertising, backlinks, estimated traffic expenditure, keyword research and much more.

SimilarWeb: Another fantastic traffic insight tool which you can use to see a wide range of activity that’s going on within the websites you’re profiling. One of my favorite activities that you can see on SimilarWeb is the top referring sites and top destination sites as people flow in and out of your competitor’s website. Additionally you’ll also get information like a breakdown of social traffic, banner ads, other similar websites and more.

Follow: Follow is another great tool which gives you a lot of data for free (also has a paid plan) and lets you identify where the websites are doing a lot of their media buying. It’s a great tool if you don’t have the budget for one of the first two which can give you some really great intelligence on what’s going on.

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

So by now you’ve got all the tools you need to see what’s happening on your competitor’s websites.

But there’s just one thing a tool can’t do for you.

Do you know what it is?

That’s make purchases of your competitor’s products and go through their funnel.

So now it’s time to take that $$ you’ve put aside for a rainy day and start buying competitor’s products through their funnels. You want to maximize all the data you get from this stage, because remember, we’re buying data.

The reason you’re spending money with your competitor is to rip apart their sales funnel so you have a complete anatomy of what’s going on behind their closed doors.

During this stage of the funnel hacking process, you want to take as many different variations of the funnel as possible. Take all the upsells, downsells, cross sells…everything!

Got it?

This is crucial.

Because the funnel itself is what’s the heart of this whole operation. The ascension & process from Product A to Product B is what allows the business to buy traffic at the price that it does, add customers to their list at the rate they do and make a profit the way they do.

And if you’re going into a new market completely cold, this is even more important. You want to see what funnel the advertiser has been sending traffic to for the past 124 days (you’d be able to find this information from one of the competitive analysis tools listed above).

Everything leads to the funnel, and ultimately this is why funnel hacking is so important.

Re-Building A Winning Funnel

So you’ve finally got enough notes in your FHB that you’re wondering, gosh when can I start actually using all this?

You now know the look, feel and core strategy behind the competing sales funnels in your industry and it’s time for you to start building out your sales funnel.

The Clickfunnels Builder was built specifically with their intention in mind, building and hacking existing sales funnels so you can build a thriving business.

Step 1: Landing Pages & Homepages (Front End Funnels)

Firstly you’re going to want to start pulling apart the front end of the funnels you’ve been seeing. Clickfunnels has a wide range of templates you can use to get started, however if you want to go completely custom and build something with the same look and feel of your competitor, you can do that within Clickfunnels too.

I’d personally start with the 3 sales funnels which look as similar as possible to the competitors page you want to mimic.

Please note that if you’re funnel hacking a homepage or a landing page, the design will be a little different. There’s some great tutorials on using the Clickfunnels editor which you can watch too.

This is when those screenshots will come in handy which we saved earlier of the different pages as you went through of your competitor’s sales funnels.

Other elements which you will need to keep in mind when re-building a page include:

• Videos/Video Sales Letters
• Copywriting
• Custom Graphics/Images
• Adding Tracking Codes

If you don’t already have a ‘guy’ who can help you with these areas of your funnel (that is, if you’re not able to do them yourself), you’d be wise to connect/ask individuals in the Clickfunnels Facebook Group who may be able to help you out (there’s a wealth of talent and resources in that group!). You can also poke your head in the DotComSecrets Facebook Group for great marketing information too.

Step 2: UpSells & Downsells (Front End)

So you’ve put together your homepage and/or landing pages for the new funnel you’re building, now its time to go a little deeper and start building out any upsells and downsells which are offered by your competitors.

These offers may be made immediately after an action is taken on their website like filling in a form, taking a survey, watching a VSL or clicking a button.

Step 3: Funnel Hacking The Back End

This is probably the hardest part of the process for any #funnelhacker.

The back end is not only where the majority of the profit is generated, but it’s also very difficult to uncover exactly what’s going on.

Every business will have a different back end product to ascend their clients from their front end offers into a more premium product (Make sure you get yourself a copy of Russell’s DotComSecrets Book to go deeper on this).

So the question is, how do you take notes and realize what’s happening with the back end? What actions do you need to take to be able to get the inside scoop.

Look At Backend Email Sequences

After you go through the front end of a sales funnel, a smart marketer will have a follow up email sequence which allow them to communicate with you based on the action that were taken on the website.

E.g. Send email xxx if they visit page xxx.

So make sure to save and note down what email sequences you are put through, and how many days from taking action within the website you are sent these emails.

You will almost be able to build your own ‘lookalike email sequence’ based on the emails you aggregate from your competitors.

Screenshotting Retargeting Ads & Their Landing Pages

This is a pretty neat ‘hack’ you can use in most industries. Chances are that one of your competitors are using some form of retargeting (whether it be on Google, Facebook or something else).

If you see these ads, make sure you screenshot the ad itself along with the landing page which it is linked to. This will break down the offer they’re giving you and what action they are looking for you to take too.

This might be in the form of offering you bonuses to take something previously offered in a webinar, after a VSL, after an email sequence or any other action which you didn’t complete to the end.

Based on this you can re-create a landing page similar in your own funnel using Clickfunnels and also get ideas on retargeting designs to offer your own customers.

NOTE: Don’t forget to save the URL of the landing pages too! These may come in handy in the future, so I’d save them into a folder called “Retargeting Landing Pages” which you can then have subfolders for if you’re being shown multiple offers for different products.

High Ticket Webinar Funnel Hacking

If by chance you go through a webinar funnel with a somewhat high ticket offer at the end of it, you can screen record the webinar and save a copy of it on your computer. This will let you see the slides, script and flow of the webinar by the host which might inspire you to get some ideas on.

Most of all, you’ll see the pitch of the product and types of objections they handle etc. This works great for products being sold straight off a webinar funnel (which can be re-built right out of the box using Clickfunnels).

TIP: Again, save the order page link they tell you to go to. I’d screenshot the order page too as they usually are time sensitive so it may be taken down at any time.

Ask For Affiliate Metrics (Affiliate Based Products)

If your competitor’s products have an affiliate program, they’ll generally discuss the numbers they’re achieving throughout their funnel. This is a great opportunity for you to see what types of numbers they’re getting. Affiliate pages (coming soon) offer a wealth of information to entice people to promote their products – great news for us funnel hackers!

You can even re-build an affiliate page in Clickfunnels yourself if you also run an affiliate program too.

Jump On A “Strategy Session”

(Aka Sales Call) And Note Take Like Crazy

One of the biggest back end funnels is to get people into a strategy call. Being able to go through the process of your competitor’s sales call will give you great clarity into products they may not list publicly, as well as their sales strategy. If you have the opportunity, jumping on the phone and taking lots of notes while your competitor ‘sells’ you over the phone will really give you a glance into what their strategies are.

Heck, it may even be worth taking the product offer to see if that’s where their funnel ends!

Conclusion

Rounding up, funnel hacking is one of the most important and crucial processes in any business. Being able to take the ‘working’ and ‘converting’ from one business and replicate it in your own way within your business, is what really leads to faster wins and success…and ultimately more profit.

With the tools, resources and processes that I’ve outlined above, you should be able to get off on the right foot to becoming a badass funnel hacker. Don’t be frustrated or set back if you feel that overwhelmed at first (there’s a lot to take in) but as you go out and sharpen your skills you’ll become more confident in building a high converting funnel for your own business…and one day, people will be funnel hacking you!

Is there a sales funnel right now you’re trying to funnel hack? Comment below and let us know if you’ve used any of the strategies mentioned above.

(Blog illustrations by AdToons. AdToons is the leader provider in whiteboard animation and other creative cartoon advertising services.)

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