LESSON #48: The Marketing Funnel

By | September 1, 2009
88 Comments

In the past several lessons we’ve been talking about creating your product. It might be your first product, or it might be one of many products in your arsenal… either way, it’s important to look at how each product fits into your overall business strategy.

Today we’ll be looking at your marketing funnel, and an alternative viewpoint…

(Watch this video…)

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Main points:

  • Most newbies can’t see past their first product, and don’t have a grasp of how their product fits into their overall marketing strategy, let alone a well-defined marketing funnel… big mistake.

  • Types of Marketing Funnels…

    1) Evolution of a prospect to a customer. (awareness, consideration, preference, action… etc)
    Here is a diagram of this type of funnel:
    marketing funnel
    (Source: ResponseTap)

    2) Price-based funnel, with levels for each price range. (This is the kind we’re talking about)

  • It starts with your target market. You want to get prospects into your funnel.

  • The price ranges are totally relative to your business and what you’re selling.

  • In the online world, particularly for info-marketing, the top of the funnel usually starts with FREE.

  • “Moving the free line” is essentially taking products from a deeper level of your funnel, and giving them away for free in order to get more prospects into your funnel.

    – Freebies and loss-leaders should pay off in the long run.
    – The hard cost of giving away information is virtually zero.

  • There is no requirement for the number of levels contained within your funnel, but the mistake many marketers make is having too few levels.

  • Some ideas for each level…

    FREE Level:
    Newsletters
    Articles
    Reports
    Ebooks
    Interviews
    Teleseminars
    Free Membership sites
    Free Trial Memberships
    Free plus shipping*

    Low Price Level: ($1 – $100)
    Special Reports
    Audio Interviews
    Videos
    Ebooks
    Trial Membership Offers
    Trial Software
    Paid Membership Sites
    Mini-courses
    Teleseminars

    Medium Price Level: ($50 – $1,000)
    Software
    Video Collection
    Webinars
    Exclusive Membership sites
    Home Study Course
    Bundles/Packages

    Big Ticket Level: ($500 – $100,000)
    Coaching/Consulting
    High-end services: copywriting, websites, etc.
    Home Study Course
    Live Seminar
    Bootcamp/Conference
    Anything requiring your personal time

  • The traditional view of the funnel would indicate that your first product should be at the top of the funnel, however that’s not always necessary, because…

  • Alternative viewpoint: “Outer Circle Marketing” (from Alex Mandossian’s Blog)

    – It’s basically a non-linear approach to the strategy. Instead of a funnel, we can picture it as an archery target. (See video for details)

    – It is prospect-focused rather than product-focused.

    – This methodology dictates that it is often best to start with a mid-range product. This way you can make more profit up front, and move from there to both higher and lower price points.

  • The “Bird’s Eye” funnel (see video for details)

    alternate marketing funnel
    -Prospects can enter at any level.
    -The natural direction of movement is down through the channel (like the Funnel theory), but they can also move up or jump around (like the OCM theory).

    Action steps:

    1) Draw an outline of your marketing funnel or target, and create some levels for it.

    2) Determine where your product fits into this structure.

    In the next lesson we’re going to look at how to find the best price for your product!

    As always, you are welcome to post your questions and comments below.

    Have a great day!

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    • 88 thoughts on “LESSON #48: The Marketing Funnel”

    3. Cortney Jones

      Hey Mark,
      I saw an affiliate product on clickbank that would fit your website. It’s a ecookbook with recipes from famous restaurants (ie – Mrs Fields cookies, etc.) It would be an item that would fit into your theme and help you move people through the funnel. Good luck!

      Reply ↓
    5. Rick Ng

      Hi, Eric:
      The marketing funnel is very important in offline and online business. How you direct all the attracted traffic or prospects to eventually buy your products or services is even more critical in business. I have an offline business which operates an indoor soccer center. We face a problem to bring our business to the next level. Our whole marketing funnel is there but have weakness where we don’t have people that can close the sales or with good sales capabilities to close sales. We do a lot of advertisement, online and offline, and attracted a lot of prospect but the sales increment is not proportional to the amount of attracted prospects. We don’t know why at first, but after this lesson, I went back to look our marketing funnel of our business, examined and reviewed each phase of our marketing funnels and found the root cause. We got problem asking people to pay to buy. Thus, I think closing is the most important thing or else we will just wasted all the attracted traffic and prospects. I think this is the same to online business. This is what I think after watching your lesson 49 here. Just wanna share with the audience here.

      Thanks for the lesson.
      Rick Ng

      Reply ↓
    6. peter

      actually,it’s not difficult to creat your own ebook and sell it,what we are always worried is how long the ebook we made can sell…i think professional and confidence is very important about this…

      Reply ↓
    9. mike

      Hi Eric,I bought the siteprofitbot software after reading your email and watching your demo and did receive your extra tip video on the software. In your opinion can a “newbie+” such as myself truely expect to earn any money just putting up a default website that the software has to offer without doing to much to it. And do you think this software is a good learning tool. one more thing do you think the pro level is essential for $67 a month to have any chance. (all i would like to make is 200 a month) Thanks for all that you do

      Reply ↓
    10. Eric Post author

      First, I do think it’s a great tool for newbies. As you’ve seen in my video, it makes it very easy to create a decent looking website. Regarding the $67 upgrade, no its probably not essential.

      However, it’s important to undertstand that money is not made by simply putting up websites. Money is made by marketing.

      In order to make money from any website, you need to have some traffic to it.

      In some cases, you may be able to get traffic to your website with very little or no effort. For example, if it’s a niche with little competition you could get ranked well in google and get free organic traffic.

      Another scenario is if you have some domains that naturally get type-in traffic, or older domains with links throughout the web. This is a great way to monetize those kind of domains rather than just parking them. You can often acquire such domains off of expiring domain lists. I have done it many times, and a lot of those older domains do have back links and traffic that come automatically.

      If you want to make $200/month on autopilot (no work) with these kind of sites, I would aim to build up to 20 good domains that each bring in at least $10/month. Very achievable.

      You could also follow along with my lessons at the same time and build and information product business. Because it is very concievable to earn $200/mo with an infoproduct business. A mere 4 sales of a $50 ebook, or 1 sale of a $200 course could do it for you…

      Reply ↓
    11. Eric Post author

      If you want your ebook to be sellable for the long term, then it’s important to choose an “evergreen” niche. There are some topics which will always be relevant. For example, realationships, money, and health.

      Reply ↓
    13. Paul

      Hi Eric,
      I just joined your tips site so I thought I would head back to the lesson for the stage I am at right now!
      I have almost completed my first product that I plan to promote via CPA (actually it’s a rebranded plr which you may recognise 😉 ) I have completed the sales page and the next job is to put together a capture page. I have also put together a 30 page report to add as a freebie for the top of my funnel and I have a “pro version” upsell planned.
      Anyway, these training videos are just the thing I need right now so thanks for making them available!

      All the best
      Paul

      Reply ↓
    15. selfconfidencehypnosis

      No wonder I am not getting any sales. I am not giving away anything. I am to busy trying to sell. I was told by someone:
      “If you want to be successful at selling, stop selling.” I did not understand that. I am begining to understand now.

      Reply ↓
    16. Lori

      Hi Eric,

      My website, Trendy Tykes went live for a couple of weeks. I didn’t know what to expect, but I am so glad I found your site. Your lessons will really help me with marketing my products. Thanks so much for sharing this information.

      Lori

      Reply ↓
    17. ZachsHealthBlog

      Eric,

      Great video. I really liked the “moving the free line” concept. Didn’t think of giving something free away to make money.

      Zach

      Reply ↓
    18. Johan Hedin

      Great video Eric. I totally agree. When starting out what many do is focusing too early on the money. If you look at the most successful online businesses, they were are all free (Google, Facebook etc) and then they monetize it later. However, most ppl may not have the patience for it…So what you explained about the strategy of the funnels makes total sense..Thanks for the great videos that you put up…

      Reply ↓
    19. Jorge Dutra

      Hi Eric, If you look at my drawing, you will see that it is a hourglass. Like said I will be redoing the course again to better understand it. Please and Thank You! —- JAD

      Reply ↓
    20. Rock Salt

      We started with the wrong prices, and many others, but right now I realized how we can fix it and start again in our site erocksalt.com

      Thanks Eric, for such a nice article and video.

      Reply ↓
    21. Prue

      Hi Eric,

      Can’t thank you enough for the wonderful tips. However, I am a bit concerned about not having freebies to give away with my first product. Will it affect my business as a newbie?

      Thanks again for this great lesson.

      Reply ↓
    22. Eric Post author

      The main point of the freebie is to build your list, which I explain in depth in lesson #59-70. As you will see, there are many options for freebies, so it is easy to create or acquire a feeebie to give away.

      Reply ↓
    23. gerald

      i own 40 ebooks with resale rights cant i just sell them on amazon to ceate my list

      Reply ↓
    24. Eric Post author

      I just answered your other question regarding amazon.

      Regarding list building, I recommend starting with something that you can give away for free. So you would either need to create your own freebie, or find one with giveaway rights.

      Reply ↓
    25. Giddu

      Hi Eric,

      I am follwing your lesson since 2 months and i must say your lessons are piece of gold for any online marketers. I have created a site which sells an ebook http://easysmartparenting.com and have a sales page to trigger business. However, i am not able generate a single sale so far. I wonder what went wrong. Could you please take a look at my site and suggest possible steps to generate sale?

      Reply ↓
    28. GeorgeP.

      Eric ,you make it so simple Explaing the words is great for us Newbie’s Thank you
      I DiD NOT get lesson #49 could you send again
      please
      georgeP

      Reply ↓
    31. Marija

      Hi Eric,
      Thank you so much for your video. I had never understood before what the word funnel indicate, and I am starting to grasp now, how to handle to attract the prospects. Best regards Marija

      Reply ↓
    32. Ken Helmke

      The best presentation I have seen and heard about this very important topic!

      Reply ↓
    35. Bash

      Hi Eric,
      Thank you for all the info. I have been reading your tips but have not started with any actions yet.
      I hope to complete writing an e-book and then start to develop a website for it. appreciate all the tips.

      Reply ↓
    36. Julius M. Scott

      Eric,
      Can you put a funnel on clickbank? If so how?
      I am thinking about offering a Bible study of Malachi free, followed by a study of James for $27, followed by Gospel of John for $47 followed by Revelation for $97 followed by and Power Point of Revelation for those who want to teach Revelation for $147. Is this practical or doomed for failure?

      Reply ↓
    37. Marc M. Demers

      Hi Eric,

      I’m started with freebie and affiliate selling products as Upsell as I don’t have my own products yet.

      This is another Gem from Eric’s tips

      Merci beaucoup

      Marc

      Reply ↓

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