The Simple 3 Step Email Marketing Sales Funnel

Sales funnels have been one of the hottest online marketing topics in the last few years. In fact, it’s almost all you hear people talking about in the online marketing communities. There’s a reason for all the buzz, too.

After setting up a sales funnel, it can help you generate more leads and sales without a ton of extra work. So if you’re looking to attach a simple sales funnel to your online business, then be sure to keep reading.

Setup for the Simple 3 Step Email Marketing Sales Funnel

You’re going to find out that this specific sales funnel doesn’t have many moving parts, which is a good thing. Once you set it up, there are only going to be two steps that you’ll have to focus on in the future.

1. Send visitors to your squeeze page to collect leads.
2. Create and add emails into your drip-fed autoresponder series.

To make things even better, you can continue the process of creating emails for as long as you want. As an example, my autoresponder series lasts for a little longer than 150 days. After that duration, I transition to sending email broadcasts.

Let’s now get started with the first step of the email marketing sales funnel process.

Step 1: The Lead Generation Page

The lead generation page is also referred to as a squeeze page, and it comes with only one goal: collect leads. I bring up this point because it’s very important that your landing pages only have one main goal per page.

Here are a few examples of different goals that can come along with your sales funnel (for reference).

• Lead Generation Page: Generate leads.
• Sales Letter: Get your visitors to click on the Add To Cart button.
• Checkout Page: Complete the sale.
• Application Page: Fill out the application and hit send.

Related Reading: Landing page examples.

Do you see what I mean? Each landing page has only one main goal because a confused mind always says no. This means that you won’t be looking to make any sales on your lead generation page. In fact, you won’t need to add a whole lot when creating your lead generation page. Let’s take a look at that now.

So if you want your lead generation page to convert as high as possible, please keep the following tips in mind.

• Offer some free gift in exchange for their email address.
• Make sure that your visitors know exactly what they are going to get.
• Add a beneficial headline that points out or solves a big problem.
• Include a call to action so that they know the proper steps to take.
• Make sure that everything is above the fold.

First, you will need to offer a free gift to collect email addresses. When it comes to converting higher, the secret comes down to doing some research. What is your perfect audience most interested in, and what do they need help with the most? If you can identify the answers to those questions, then you’ll be in a great spot.

Next, you want to make sure that your visitors know exactly what they are going to be getting for free. Is it a PDF eBook, video training course, cheatsheet, or a case study? Let them know at the top of your lead generation page. Here are a few examples for you.

• Free Case Study For Email Marketers.
• Free Video Course For Bloggers.

You’ll also notice that I talked about who the free gift is going to be for. This is a great way to ensure that you’re only getting the best of the best leads on your email marketing list.

Up next is the headline. This is the section of your lead generation page that will need the most amount of split-testing. The good news is that all you need is one simple sentence for this section. Here is a great example of a headline template that I recommend you use.

• How To (Yay) Without (Boo).

I’ve seen some great success with this template that I learned from Frank Kern. Here are a few examples that use this template.

• How To Generate More Traffic Without Spending Money On Paid Ads.
• How To Reach Decision Makers Without Making Cold Calls.
• How To Grow Your Online Business Without Launching Products.

The last step of your lead generation page is going to be a clear and concise call to action. Sometimes your visitors aren’t going to know what to do to get their free gift, so make sure that they know. Here are a few examples of a call to action.

• Click here to continue.
• Enter your email address here and then click the button below.
• Click the button to get instant access today.

Last but not least, you want to make sure that everything on your page is above the fold. In a nutshell, this means that your visitors won’t have to do any scrolling to give you their email address.

When it comes to making your landing pages pop, simplicity and clear steps are a big process for converting higher. All in all, it makes the process much easier to complete which is what you want.

Step 2: The Thank You Page

This is one of the easiest landing pages to create, and what’s great about it is that it’s very flexible. Now that you’ve generated a new lead, there are two steps that you’ll want to do.

• Thank them for opting in.
• Show them how they can get access to what they requested.

You can improve your thank you page by adding a video for a personal touch. In fact, I recommend that you create a video to build more rapport with your audience. Your video doesn’t need to be long either. Here are a few key points that you can touch upon in your video.

• Thank and congratulate them for opting in.
• Let them know your name, your expertise, and how you can help them.
• You can also talk about the information that they’ll be receiving from you via email.

Don’t forget to remind your visitors that you sent them an email, too. This is a great way to have them check their inbox and get them excited about opening up your future emails. Don’t worry either, as I’ll be talking more about the automated follow-up emails in the next section.

Creating this page can be exciting too, as it’s a great spot for possible monetization. After you deliver your free gift, you’ll have some room for adding a recommended offer. Here are a few examples of how you can monetize this section of your thank you page.

• An automated or live webinar presentation.
• A related product, offer, or service that you have.
• A related product, offer, or service that you don’t own (an affiliate marketing offer).

In case you’re wondering too, affiliate marketing is certainly not dead. In fact, it’s a great way to add an extra income stream to your online business by recommending offers.

Adding an offer here will be completely up to you, your marketing, as well as the niche that you’re in. In fact, this can be quite a controversial topic. Is it too soon to recommend a product, or is it the perfect time? I’ll let you be the judge on that.

So that’s the sales funnel that you’ll need to kickstart the process. As you might have noticed, this sales funnel isn’t super-complex as it’s pretty simple to create. In fact, using any type of sales funnel builder will help you get the job done.

Step 3: The Automated Followups

This is where the fun starts. So after someone opts-in, they will immediately receive your first email. It’s called the welcome email, and it’s set to hit their inbox as soon as your visitors optin.

Don’t worry too much about the welcome email as well, as it’s very straightforward. Here are a few details that you’ll want to add in your first automated email follow-up.

• Remind them who you are and why they are getting the email (sometimes people forget).
• Provide them with another link for accessing the gift that they requested.
• Talk about some of the helpful information that you’ll be sending them in future emails.

It’s important that you set the expectations for your future emails. That will also allow you to build curiosity and desire for your emails as well. After completing your first email, you’ll then move onto the best part of the funnel.

This is what I like to refer to as the four email loop. This sequence is a series of four emails that follow a specific pattern, and you can repeat them for as long as you like. As I mentioned before, this email loop sequence currently lasts over 150 days for me. Here are the four types of emails that you’ll be writing.

• Emails 1 and 2 contain valuable tips.
• Email 3 contains a product review.
• Email 4 contains a product promo.

This email sequence provides a combination of helpful content and related offers. You’ll also have the ability to review the offers that you promote. This is beneficial because it’s a great way to help increase your conversions.

What’s great about the four email loop is that you can have the emails sent out at any time duration that you like. You might want to be more aggressive and send an email out every day. Yet you might want to add some time between emails and wait 2-4 days. It’s completely up to you, but don’t wait too long as your list might forget about you (it can happen).

Before we start talking about each specific email, I want to give you a template that will help you out. This is a template that I use for most of my emails, and you’ll find it very helpful.

I refer to this template as the A5 formula, and the As stand for the following.

• Bring up “Anything” that happened or is happening.
• Point out a feeling that “Accommodates” their beliefs.
• “Angle” that feeling into the information or offer that you have.
• “Acknowledge” something your reader wants.
• “Aspire” their action.

Allow me to give you an example of the A5 formula in action. The example will be about bloggers wanting more traffic.

Have you ever felt like your traffic will never seem to increase? It’s as if Google doesn’t want to be on your side.  While it might seem that way, there’s actually a way to increase your traffic, without creating a single new blog post. That’s what my new video is about, which you can click here to watch. After all, being stuck with the same amount of traffic is not a spot that you want to be in. So be sure to watch this valuable video, as it will allow you to burst out of that traffic plateau.

Pretty simple stuff, right? Now keep in mind that the example above was a short and condensed version of this template. Still, it covers the main points that I mentioned. Feel free to use this template when you’re creating any of your emails down below.

Now let’s first talk about the first two emails which will include some type of valuable content.

Email 1-2: The Valuable Tips

Since you now have a template for each of these emails, I can focus on the main goal of each email. When it comes to the first two emails, you’ll want to provide some type of valuable information. Here are a few options for you.

• Writing your valuable information in the email itself.
• Sending your subscribers to a helpful video.
• Sending your subscribers to a helpful blog post.

All in all, I would recommend sending your subscribers to a helpful video or blog post. Plus, websites tend to have more opportunities for monetization compared to emails.

You’ll also want to make sure that your audience will enjoy the information that you provide. Ask yourself, is the content that I’m providing related to what my subscribers opted in for? If the answer is no, then you’ll have to think of different content to send.

As Databox states in one of their articles, create content that caters to your ideal customers.

Email 3: The Product Review

This is the third email of the sequence, where you get to review a related product for your subscribers. This is beneficial for a few reasons. First, there are going to be plenty of subscribers who are looking for a solution to their problems.

Next, reviewing a product allows you to build trust with your recommendations. Authority Builders recommends that you have a pros and cons section in your review. If not, then your review will feel biased.

Once again, you’re going to want to link to some type of review that you’ve done either on a video or a blog post. Writing reviews is an article all by itself, so allow me to give you some pointers when it comes to doing reviews.

• Talk about the features but also state the benefits (what’s in it for the audience).
• Do a walkthrough demonstration if you can, whether that be by the use of pictures of a video.
• Talk about the pros and cons of the products (as mentioned in the link above).
• Add some bonuses to help increase your conversions.

As AppSumo mentions, you can also feature testimonials to help increase your conversions.

Remember, reviews are usually too long to cram into an email. So be sure to send your subscribers to a blog post or video if you can. Now let’s move onto the last step of the four email loop.

Email 4: The Product Promo

Out of the four email series, this is going to be the only pitch email. As always, you will be using the same email template. The only difference with this email is that you’ll be linking to the product sales page. By now, your subscribers should be familiar with the product anyway.

Here are a few more tips to help with your product promo email.

• Use urgency or scarcity (but ONLY if you can).
• Provide bonuses for those who buy from you.
• Feel free to also add a link to your review in case they missed it.

At the end of the day, your main goal is to generate the click so there’s no need to write a sales letter for your email. After all, the product page that you send them to will do all the selling for you.

So that’s the final email in the four email loop. Keep in mind that you can continue this series of emails for as long as you want. Plus, you can make a few tweaks to the series as well. You could always add a few more value emails before your product review. Heck, you could also add another pitch email to help generate more clicks. That’s the beauty of the formula, as it’s very flexible.

Closing Words for the Simple Email Marketing Sales Funnels

First, I would like to thank you for taking the time to learn about this email marketing sales funnel. As I mentioned above, its beauty lies in the simplicity of how it’s set up, along with its flexibility.

Here are a few extra ideas when it comes to setting up this specific funnel.

• You can add one of your products on the thank you page.
• By doing that, you can always expand upon your entire sales funnel.
• You can use your autoresponder follow-ups to send visitors back to a sales page.
• You can also use your autoresponder follow-ups to help get webinar registrations.

Those decisions will be completely up to you. You’ll have to make sure that you have the framework set up for your funnel. Once your landing pages are complete, there will be two things that you need to focus on.

• Collecting leads.
• Adding emails to your follow-up series.

It’s quite a fun process, and I’m sure that you’ll enjoy the results.