Funnel Mastery: Grow Your Email List and Boost Sales

 Building your email list doesn’t have to be a headache-inducing task. In fact, it can be fun, straightforward, and incredibly rewarding when you use a powerful lead magnet. Let's dive into how you can create an irresistible lead magnet that attracts your ideal clients and sets the stage for long-term engagement and sales.

Choosing your Topic

Your lead magnet should be solving a micro problem that your ideal client has, not one of the big things they are dealing with, that's what your paid offerings are for. 

Take a look at your content pillars, have a look at the smaller problems that are coming up inside each of the content pillars and the small pain points and then look at the micro problems.

What is the micro problem they've got that they need to solve?  

Start with the micro problem - Solve that through your lead magnet, and show off your expertise! 

 Your lead magnet needs to be:

• Simple to follow
• Easy to implement, 
• Gives them a quick win, 
• Sets them up to the next step - your low ticket offer. 

The format of your lead magnet can be however you best put across how you do what you do. I absolutely love a good PDF and I love checklists. I have some checklists, I also have some videos, but just put it across in the easiest way possible for them to consume, for you to create, and for them to get a quick win and to be easy to implement.. 

Your Funnel

People hear the word ‘funnel’ and think it’s complicated when it’s actually really simple.

Your funnel is simply bringing in new leads at the top and then using your emails and content to take them through the funnel til they get to the bottom, which is where your paying customer is.

You're going to have four parts to your funnel. 

Landing Page:

You drive traffic to your landing page; this will have the opt in form where they will put in their name and their email address. 

Your landing page name should be your url followed by a simple word, like /checklist or /freebie, so it’s easy to say, type, and remember.

Bonus Tip: Use this word on your Manychat automation and get leads with less effort!  www.melissasmithstrategy.com/manychat.

 When creating your form for your lead magnet, always add the first name option and not just the email address, because then you can personalise your emails to them, which makes connection easier as they feel you are talking just to them.

On the landing page, you also want to reiterate what they will get when they download the lead magnet, how it will benefit them, and what their quick win will be. Give three results that it’s going to get for them. 

Add testimonials (if you have them) that relate to the topic.

Then, under the testimonials you can add a bio and a picture of you, so they can get to know you a little bit more. 

Here’s an example of my landing page for my Audience Growth Checklist: www.melissasmithstrategy.com/checklist 

Make sure that there are no headers on the page so they can't click anywhere else on your website, you want to keep them focused on the landing page. 

Keep track of your Page Views, Sign Ups and Conversion % month on month.

Don’t be afraid to tweak your copy on your landing page and see if it increases conversions for that month.  The data will tell you if it worked or not. Make note of your tweaks so you can change it back if need be.

You can also use software like Hotjar to track where people are clicking, what part of your page they are spending most of their time on and more.
https://www.hotjar.com/product/heatmaps/

Thank You Page 

Once your new lead has entered their details on your landing page they are redirected to a Thank You page.

Your Thank You page should (obvious as it is) thank them for downloading your freebie. It should also then have either one of two things: it should send them to somewhere where they can carry on getting to know you like your Instagram account or your Facebook group. Somewhere where they can go and binge your content, and find out more about you and keep them in your world for longer. 

Alternatively, you could put what's called a tripwire, which is where your low-ticket offer comes in. 

A low ticket offer briefly consists of something that's priced at about £9 to £29. Which basically means it's a complete no-brainer for them to purchase. It complements your free lead magnet and is the next step that they need to take to solve their problem. The good thing about adding in a tripwire is that if they do buy it, you now have money to spend on your paid adverts for Facebook and Instagram getting you more leads, and directing them to the tripwire, and so on.

Delivery email 

Your delivery email should be automated to be sent as soon as they enter their details into the form on the landing page. 

The delivery email should have three things.

1. Thank them again for downloading the lead magnet and for signing up for your Lead Magnet
2. Link to download the lead magnet -  If your email service provider allows adding links, then great, but if not, just add the Dropbox link. If your lead magnet is a video, create a page on your website to host the video and give them the URL.
3. Remind them what they’re getting - It might be a few days between them signing up for your lead magnet and them reading the email, so reiterate what the lead magnet is going to give them - get them excited to open it! 

When it comes to subject lines for the delivery email, keep it simple. Mine simply say: Here’s your [guide to xyz] 

You need to set up an automation to give them a tag inside your email service provider or customer relationship manager, and that tag is simply the name of the lead magnet. 

Once they fill in the form, the tag is added.

This means you know how they first came into your world, which lead magnet brought them in, and it gives you a little bit of insight into where they are in their business and what problem they’re looking to solve. 

You can then use this information in future emails to target them with your offers related to your lead magnet.

Welcome Sequence

I have a few different lead magnets for different micro problems, but only one welcome sequence.  

You can create separate welcome sequences for each lead magnet to personalise them more and focus more on one problem; this is also helpful if you have different tripwires for each lead magnet as you can continue to offer them the tripwire inside the welcome sequence as it’s important to: 

1. Show you’re a business and will be selling them things 
2. Get them to invest in you early, as the saying goes: “It’s 5 times easier to sell to an existing customer”.

If that feels overwhelming right now, then just use one welcome sequence, track your clicks and replies and tweak your welcome sequence until it’s getting you a good number of clicks and replies. There is no industry standard, as every business is different, so just try to beat your own data!

NB: Since changes in iOS and Apple open rates are not seen as reliable, by all means track them, but don’t rely on them. Clicks and replies are more important. 

A welcome sequence is a set of three to six emails sent out after you've delivered the lead magnet. They go out one day after the other, allowing your new leads to get to know you a little bit better.

Introduction email: 

Tell them about your business, how you got started, and your favourite food or drink if it’s something you want to share! If you have hobbies or like to travel, add that in too, and a picture of you will help to put a face to the name.

Set Expectations:

You need to set the expectations on the frequency of those emails you are sending out, eg, once a week, so your audience knows when they will hear from you. 

If you emails are going to be sent on a particular day, let them know.

Give Value:

Here’s your chance to show off your expertise, and share some of your best-performing content with them. Link to a video, a reel, a post, podcast, or blog that will help them.

If you've got a valuable three part video series send each one on a single email, and tell them what’s coming tomorrow so they get used to looking forward to your emails.

Your offers:

Don't be afraid to again mention the low ticket offer, your tripwire. 

You don’t want to be pushy, but you are a business and you are here to make money - so getting your new leads to buy from you as soon as possible will only help you sell more of your offers in the future.

Subject lines:

Your subject lines and preview text are an important part of your email marketing strategy, as they open your emails.

It's best to write your email first, then your subject line as it can be taken from the email content.

Don’t be afraid to use ChatGPT to help you brainstorm ideas for your email subject lines, sometimes it will surprise you!

You want your subject line to be compelling, but not click bait. It needs to relate to the content inside.

Take a look at emails you’ve received and write down some of the ones that caught your eye, why did they make you open the email?

You can also A/B test your subject lines in your emails if you can’t decide which ones to use.

Tracking Data:

Don’t forget to track your data each month:

• Landing page views, sign-ups and conversion %
• Landing page tweaks
• Thank you page clicks (to your Instagram account, for example)
• Tripwire conversions (Hotjar really helps here so you can see where people are clicking and spending time on the page)
• Delivery email clicks to download the lead magnet
• Welcome sequence clicks and replies

Creating a lead magnet and funnel that works doesn’t have to be rocket science. By focusing on solving a specific problem, keeping things simple, and making your content irresistible, you’ll be well on your way to growing your email list and turning those leads into clients. Remember, it’s all about delivering value, building trust, and guiding your audience on their journey.