Last week I went to a visa run to Macau and then I went on a three-day kind of jungle survival tour in northern Thailand where we caught frogs and tarantulas and slept on the ground. So a little brutal, but kind of fun. An interesting experience.
I have a lot of projects on the backburner I’ve been avoiding for years, but I’ve reached the point where I really need to get them done (and finally scale my passive income to $10K/month).
Some people say passive income is a myth – that you’re always doing something to maintain sales, and if your business isn’t growing, it’s dying. I’ve been struggling to boost my passive income for several years, so I can choose to spend my time on rewarding, meaningful creative projects.
And while I don’t think I’m an expert by any means, I am pretty good at researching and figuring out what’s not working and why. So I mapped out 21 new things I intend to do to start seeing bigger results. I haven’t made much progress on them yet, but I did record an hour-long crash course session on evergreen sales funnels explaining them (mostly to myself, but they’re sure to be helpful for you as well).
What’s an evergreen sales funnel?
In an “evergreen” funnel, people come, they find you or your website, and they have a need. You have a solution so you try to get them to buy your product. They might also sign up to your freebie optin offer, and you can follow up with them with reminders or discounts. But it’s passive.
Most people prefer an active course launch campaign, which means building a big list quickly (or using a popup facebook group or challenge) to try and sell a course during a limited window – this might include lots of emails or social posts. It tends to earn much more, but it’s exhausting.
I made $18K in 48hours with my first course launch and now I do more casual, occasional launches. But I prefer not to. I feel like, maybe you need to be an extroverted cheerleader to get the right kind of energy. Actually, I can set up a launch campaign on autopilot too and spend a few weeks on the beach; but even then launching usually includes a lot of customer support and interaction, not to mention welcoming new members with an electric and positive environment.
From online services to digital products
For years, I’ve been trying to switch from active services to passive income products, so instead of building one thing for one person for a high price point, you build one thing for tons of people at a lower price point.
Examples
- Custom publishing and book design package: $5000
- Personal coaching for your book launch: $500
- DIY book design templates: $50
I’ve noticed it’s actually easier for me to sell services. I never had a problem earning with book cover design or editing. There’s tons of demand I’m good at what I do, I have a lot of testimonials. With case studies and proof, I can set up a landing page and sell services. The problem is I don’t want to sell my time for money that way, because I don’t have time to work on my own creative projects.
I can’t really scale my business. I was already always like capped, I was making 10K or 12K a month pretty consistently but I couldn’t handle it. I was burnt out, and I just couldn’t grow it. I couldn’t do better than that, because I wasn’t able to do more work. I tried building out like big teams, but then you become kind of a manager of a lot of projects. It’s not really what I want to do either, so I’ve decided that courses and digital products work best for me; that’s how I can provide a lot of value for a lower price point to lots of people and also have time for my own writing.
I was thinking all this through on a business retreat and mastermind in Thailand, so I found a quiet Japanese restaurant and recorded this video. It’s a big checklist of 21 things that I want to get done this month, which should have a pretty big impact on my recurring passive income.
The narrator’s voice cuts in: he did not, in fact, get it done that month…
Updates: here’s the truth, I made this video, then used a transcription service to turn this video into text, but it was a wall of barely readable content so it sat unpublished for nearly four years.
Today however, I asked chatGPT to rewrite it all – so it may sound a little less like “myself” (rambling, hard to follow) and hopefully be more clear, and you can still watch the video if you have any questions.
Also, some of these ideas were good in 2019, though I failed to implement almost everything. No surprise, my passive income dried up and now – with the help of AI as an assistant – I’m finally starting to finish some projects for year, and will be testing most of these out.
The dumb thing is, I already get pretty great traffic, even though I haven’t optimized my blogs or SEO at all; and I get a ton of options, but I don’t lead them towards my products – luckily because I’m still doing everything so badly, I think I can turn things around pretty quickly with some big moves.
Those moves might not correlate exactly with this big list here – but I have a platform building course where I will post results of my experiments, or you can follow me on YouTube where I’m pretty open with my projects.
Boost Your Online Conversion Funnel
#1: consistency
When we’re talking about boosting conversions, one word reigns supreme – consistency. Now, on one hand, consistency is as simple as ensuring that all the information about your offer is uniform across all platforms. Whether it’s your emails, your sales page, your thank you confirmation page, or your checkout page – the price and the details should all match.
Now, this might seem straightforward, but when you’re managing multiple blogs, posts, or even offers that you posted a year or two ago, inconsistencies can start to creep in. And trust me, if your messaging becomes confusing, people will leave. For instance, on many of my materials, the click-through offer states a price of $97, but on the actual sales page, it says $997. Even though there’s a discount bringing it down by $500, the inconsistency is disconcerting and confuses people, leading to lower conversion rates.
But, consistency extends beyond just the information about your offer. It’s also about managing expectations and the customer experience. Here’s an example. A while back, I offered a literary critique package on my editing site, Book Butchers. This is something I saw at publishing conferences where editors would review a writer’s proposal, summary, chapter outline, and all the materials they would send to an agent or publisher to get feedback on.
I thought it was a fun thing to offer, especially since I enjoy positioning books to sell to agents or editors. However, I made a critical mistake. I assumed that most people who visited Book Butchers already knew me or followed me on YouTube. I didn’t set up the payment correctly, so when customers bought it from Book Butchers, it showed up as Creativindie on PayPal. This caused confusion. When I reached out to them, they were surprised to learn that I, Derek, would be the one providing the service. They were concerned about my qualifications and why my name was associated with the service they purchased from Book Butchers.
This confusion could have been avoided with better consistency. It’s crucial that what your customers get matches what they thought they were getting. This not only helps secure the sale but also makes the customer feel good and safe about their decision immediately after the sale. So, consistency is not just about your messaging, but also about ensuring a seamless customer experience from the moment they purchase, which leads us to our next step – onboarding.
#2 onboarding
Alright, now that we’ve nailed consistency let’s talk about your onboarding process. This is the part where you have to roll out the red carpet for your customers and make them feel like they’ve made the best decision of their life.
See, what you need are “Thank You” or “Getting Started” videos. These should be there for both when people opt-in and after they purchase something. Let me illustrate with an example. A lot of my stuff, like DIY book covers or templates, comes with freebies. People sign up for my offers, and they land on a page that dumps a whole lot of free stuff on them. Sounds great, right? But, in reality, it’s overwhelming. They don’t know how to use it all, and if they don’t start using it, they’re not going to keep opening my emails or value my content, let alone upgrade to a pro package.
So here’s the big win – when they sign up for something, show them a video or educate them to open my email. It’s a bit of a rookie mistake to just send them to the free stuff right away. You need to make sure they know what’s coming next or what they’re missing. You see, if they sign up for one thing and they get it, they’re not going to open any more of your emails. They’re not going to get to know you and what you have to offer. So, you need to immediately tell them, “Hey, thanks for signing up! I’m giving you this right now, but there are other things that are really critical that you need. I’m going to be slowly trickling them into your inbox over the next couple of weeks, so make sure you open my emails. At the end of this two-week sequence, I’m going to give you another bonus gift.”
It’s all about setting the stage, getting them excited to actually read your emails, and keeping their interest. This is something I’ve learned from writing best-sellers. In non-fiction, especially in your first chapter, introduction, or preface, it’s all about positioning the reader and getting them excited to read the book. You can apply the same concept to your email sequences. Include getting started videos that walk the customer through how to use the product and introduce upgrade offers if they need more help.
Also, make sure you send a thank you video as soon as they buy any product. This video should clearly walk them through how to use the product, what they’re going to get, and assure them that they can reach out with any questions. The goal is to increase immediate satisfaction. You absolutely don’t want your customers to experience buyer’s remorse because that’s going to affect how they feel about you and your brand.
You want every interaction with you to be good and positive. So, why not add something fun and easy that elicits a positive emotional response? A fun gif or a picture of a kitten could work. The point is, when customers think of you and your brand, they should be associating it with positive emotions.
#3 downloads page
Let’s move on to the next juicy tidbit – the downloads page. I think I’ve touched on this before, but I’ll explain it in more detail now.
Here’s the deal – I have a landing page with all this free stuff, and it’s just a dump of all kinds of goodies. But here’s the problem – it’s too much, and people don’t know where to start or what to do with it. So what I’m going to do is repackage that into a clean, streamlined downloads or resources page.
I’ve seen this on a few other platforms recently. After you sign up for something, you’re immediately taken to a free video course. It’s just one page with a collection of videos on different subjects. It provides massive value, and it’s all bundled together neatly. So when people sign up, they can see all the stuff at once.
The goal is to help them understand and appreciate your method of doing things while providing massive value. You want them to start using whatever you’re offering them and see quick wins or immediate results. Why? Because then they’re going to trust you, and they’re going to take action.
This is something that’s important in nonfiction books as well. You need to get your readers to take action. This means overcoming their limiting beliefs and filling them with enthusiasm, motivation, and optimism. You need to get them fired up by showing them the end result, showing them it’s possible. Show them some case studies, testimonials, or quotes – you want them to believe in the dream. But then you also need to give them clear steps that they can take to see results. Only then will they become acolytes or advocates, people who really buy into your system or product.
This free series would be like a free course, but instead of separating it into different modules, it’d just be one great page with lots of different videos. This way, when people sign up, they get all this value at once, in a really clean and organized manner. That’s something I’m going to go back and try to fix.
And at the bottom of that page, I would have an upsell. If they don’t have time for all these videos or want the next step, I would have that upsell ready. Instead of getting them to opt-in and then putting them through an education series which only 30% of people are actually going to follow up and read, I’m immediately giving them all this stuff.
There are arguments for and against this method, but I believe in the value of giving them a page they can bookmark and come back to at their leisure. Having the upsell on that page immediately, so they can choose to move forward when they’re ready, is a powerful approach.
I’ve seen someone use this as a “relationship funnel.” Instead of dripping things out in an email series over a couple of weeks, they have one page with one message. The user can click a link to move on to part two or the second video, and they can self-pace their way through the free materials to get to the core offer later. Instead of relying on them to open your emails at the pace you want to set for them, you’re giving them the materials so they can move at their own pace. I think that’s a pretty neat idea, and I’m eager to try playing with it.
#4 product display reel
So, point number four is the product display reel. This is an area I’ve been lagging behind in for quite some time. My product videos usually feature me talking about the stuff, which doesn’t look very professional or appealing.
What I really need are effective sales videos – quick, one or two-minute reels that hit the key benefits. I’m thinking along the lines of a b-roll of video showing happy people reading or publishing, paired with some catchy background music. The video would then highlight the offer and the benefits in a way that people can quickly grasp and think, “Yes, this is what I want. This is something I’m willing to pay for.”
Especially with my book design offerings, like book formatting or book cover design, it should be pretty obvious. I can tell you how good the templates are or how easy they are to use, but showing you would be way more effective. So, I’m planning to create new videos that demonstrate the product in action – like me using the templates or formatting a book from scratch.
There are some really amazing videos out there where you can watch someone create a cover from scratch, but it’s sped up so you see the whole process in just one minute. That’s a really cool concept, and I’m going to start making a few of those.
On top of that, I’m also planning to upgrade my Photoshop skills a little bit. The world of cover design has seen some fantastic new styles emerging, thanks to tools like the Daz 3D model studio. There’s a flood of amazing covers out there, and I want to ensure that my offerings are competitive.
The advice I gave about book cover design three or four years ago still holds true, but it’s not necessarily the best anymore. If you want to compete with your books, you need covers that can hold their own in today’s market.
So, I’m planning to overhaul a lot of my book cover design and book formatting offerings. I want to create visually appealing videos that demonstrate how cool it is to design your own covers from scratch, and how amazing and easy to use the templates are. If I can show this in a one or two-minute video, I won’t need a lengthy sales page or an extended funnel to convince people to buy my templates. It’ll just be obvious.
This is a big win that I can apply not only to my book design offerings but also to the several mini-courses that I offer. All of these could benefit from better sales videos. And on many of my opt-in pages, I don’t even have a video showing what people will get if they opt in, which likely deters some people from signing up. This is something I can address with these new product display videos
#5 turn your best content into optins
So, point number five is about optimizing your best content into opt-ins. I’ll use my DIY book formats page as an example. The main home page is a squeeze page, prompting visitors to sign up for free templates. However, most of my traffic actually lands on a different page that offers a free video course on formatting a book in Microsoft Word. It’s an older course, but it still attracts a lot of traffic.
A few months ago, I realized that visitors landing on the video course page weren’t seeing my sign-up offer because they weren’t visiting the home page. To remedy this, I broke up the video course and added the sign-up offer a few times throughout. Every three or four videos, I would remind the viewers that while they could learn a lot from the free video series, they could save a lot of time by signing up to get my free templates. This adjustment significantly boosted my conversion rate.
However, there’s another tweak I could make. Rather than giving away the entire free course, which consists of about twelve videos, I could just give away the first three or four videos. I could then create a summary video that’s sped up, explaining the next eight steps, but to access those steps in detail, viewers would need to sign up for my email list and access the full video course. While this approach might seem a bit aggressive, it’s worth remembering that it’s completely fine to put valuable content behind an opt-in wall.
I’m considering implementing a similar strategy on the DIY cover site, where I have a lot of free video courses and resources. Right now, the site is a bit cluttered with different resources. I think it would be beneficial to have one comprehensive, modern video course on cover design. I have a decent one on YouTube already, but it’s been a few years since I’ve updated it. A new and improved video course could serve as a great opt-in incentive.
#6 track user engagement
Point number six is about tracking user engagement and adjusting your website according to user behavior. To illustrate this, let’s take my two main squeeze pages as examples: DIY book formats and my own book page. On these pages, I noticed that a lot of visitors were clicking on the picture of the templates, expecting to zoom in and get a closer look. However, this image was not linked to anything, so nothing would happen when users clicked on it.
To improve the user experience and potentially increase conversions, I recently linked this image to the opt-in form. Now, when users click on the image of the templates, they are presented with the opt-in subscription box. It’s a subtle change, but it’s based on actual user behavior. I used a tool like Crazy Egg to track what people were clicking on, and this helped me make the website more responsive to user actions.
Another strategy I’ve used in the past to boost conversions is including a checklist on the opt-in page or pop-up. This checklist would outline what users get and the benefits they can expect from these features. It’s important to clearly state both the features (what’s included) and the benefits (why it matters). A good way to articulate this is by using the “so that” phrasing. For example, “hundreds of book design templates, so that you can easily format your own books without hiring an expensive designer.”
I’ve noticed that this approach can significantly improve opt-ins. In fact, I once had a pop-up box that included a checklist of what users would get upon opting in, and it converted at around 60%. So, revisiting this strategy and reintroducing such checklists could potentially boost my conversions.
#7 email autoresponder sequence (newsletter sales)
number seven is um is a new email sequence new autoresponder sequence so this is a whole can of worms that I’ve been struggling with for a long time earlier this year I read something that really helped me understand how important telling personal stories is so I took my my emails were basically massive value dumps and they’re like I complain to my to my group recently about how you know I get hate now sometimes because people think my emails are too long or they’re too convoluted or like this dump of resources or they’re too fast they come every day and it’s just so much information people don’t have time to consume it all but I I basically went through and I added all these personal stories so now they’re even longer but they tell these personal stories some people love them some people say it’s like the best thing that I’ve ever gotten but I also have some people that just don’t open them because they were whelming or they don’t you know they don’t click on anything because they just skim through especially for some of the shorter stuff like the DIY book templates I would like to test really short really salesy emails instead of teaching them everything this is something else I picked up from the book of referencing is expert secrets by Russell Brunson I read earlier this year that really helped me you know get a lot of clarity about these evergreen funnels and positioning and pricing and offers and stuff but one of the really interesting things I’ve read kind of big discovery from this year was that you don’t want to teach them things.
First what you have to do is get them excited about the opportunity you have to show them it’s possible you have to get them excited so that they take action like I mentioned earlier create the desire by withholding information by focusing on the case studies it’s possible but don’t actually tell them how to do the things so I have just like massively giving away all this education materials and that’s not you because first they need the clarity and the motivation and the willpower and a drive to learn the thing because it is difficult you can’t just you know get book designer or or formatting you have to put in a few hours to learn and to practice and it’s you know something most people will just avoid if they just want to quick or simple solution so something I really should be doing in the emails is more like case studies social proof testimonials results a lot of results like you know this formatting to this formatting doubled my book sales with proof case studies from people just like them who like were frustrated with formatting and spent all this time and money on it and then you know broke through I have tons and tons of testimonials and stuff but I don’t really position them as case studies as well as I should so that’s something I’ll I’ll be looking more at as well I actually have a whole I’ve done a lot of research and bought a lot of programs and stuff this year on on email marketing I have a whole other email funnel that’s already written I just have to plug in and kind of see if it works and I have tried lots of different versions of email funnels and so the interesting thing what people actually say is you have to first launch a product a few times to get your your launch strategy or launching emails as good as possible to make sure it’s working and then you can turn it into an evergreen funnel um I didn’t really do it that way so instead I’ve just been you know throwing a lot of spaghetti at the wall and seeing what works but at this point I do have a lot of history with the things I’ve tried to sell I have a lot of really good content I just need to clean it up and organize it you know better way something else with emails I think might be something I talk about oh it is something I talk about later on the less I’ll skip that one but the emails is basically just you just have to keep you know testing it out and and really every month at least I should rewrite my email sequence and just see if I can do better it’s hard to test with emails to really see what’s going on but if you’re driving traffic or if you have your own evergreen traffic source with content marketing then you know it should be pretty easy to just change they email series and see if you make more money basically so something I want to test I should be like you can go really deep into it and you can see you know testing your your email headlines makes a huge difference what you put like in the subject what you put for your call to action testing they’re like the buttons and the emails I want to try adding animated gifs and then Jeff’s in the emails anyway there’s so many things to test there it’s really difficult to do it well and to do it right but I also know there’s a ton of room for improvement because I think my emails even if they’re good and people like them they’re not conversion oriented they’re not sales focus and so you know it’s great to really help people but if I just give them all the information I’m not necessarily helping them what I actually have to do is get them to buy in and trust me enough to you know buy something from me or at least just you know consume my resources and and take action because if they don’t if they’re just passive consumers they’re just gonna download tons of free crap I do this all the time I sign up for tons of stuff and I never use it so my goal is really just to help people to take action is to start using my resources so they can prove my worth because if you know they actionable resources the templates the education it’s worthless if it doesn’t help them if they don’t take action if they don’t use it so that’s not necessarily I used to just believe that was on them like if they don’t have the willpower to do the stuff to see results that’s their fault I don’t believe that anymore I understand that it’s my position as an educator to not only give them the resources and the tools but to also give them the willpower and motivation and optimism to be encouraged and to be excited about the end results that’s part of what I need to be offering and need to be aware of so that’s something I can start with the email series so
#8 fix landing pages (copy+design)
The eighth point is about testing and improving landing pages or sales pages. Presently, most of my courses and similar offerings have sales pages that leave room for improvement. I’ve been using Teachable, a platform that isn’t particularly suited for creating well-designed sales pages. In the future, I may consider creating these pages in Photoshop and converting them to HTML, or using a platform like ClickFunnels or Instapage, which are known for their high-quality pages. I’ve also considered switching some of my sites to Thrive Themes, which offers impressive landing and sales pages.
But good design isn’t enough, the copywriting on these pages also matters a lot. I have a tendency to overdeliver and overwhelm visitors with too much information. Instead, I need to focus more on clearly communicating the benefits of my offerings. If I already have a lengthy email funnel, a free video course, or a webinar, then my sales page should be straightforward and concise. I shouldn’t need to repeat all the same information.
Improving the design and copywriting of my sales pages could significantly increase my sales. However, the length of the sales copy should depend on the cost of the product. For cheaper products (under a hundred dollars), a long sales page filled with price discounts and bonuses can come off as less credible and more suspicious. But for more expensive products, a longer sales page makes more sense.
Interestingly, some of my best-performing sales pages are the ones I put together quickly, without testimonials or videos, just a few paragraphs explaining why I made the course and what it includes. These tend to convert the best because they are an authentic description of the product. In contrast, the sales pages that I agonize over and change continually tend to become long and messy, which can deter potential customers.
While I may not tackle all of my landing pages immediately, I know there are simple tweaks that I can make to all my landing pages that would significantly improve their performance. In the future, I might even put together a blog post or a video about sales page optimization, potentially even focusing on optimizing Teachable pages, as I’ve had to figure out a lot of custom code to make those pages look decent.
#9 social proof (peers and pedestals)
The ninth point focuses on social proof, specifically using a tool named Proof on my opt-in pages. Proof is a small pop-up that appears on the screen and tells the viewer that someone from a certain place just signed up for whatever I’m offering, like free book cover templates. This serves as social proof and can reassure visitors that many other people are taking advantage of the same offer.
I had used Proof in the past, but discontinued it when I was inadvertently placed in an overpriced program that was costing me $200 a month. However, I believe the service usually costs around $30 a month, so I’m considering giving it another try to see if I can measure a difference.
Currently, I receive around 20-30 opt-ins a day, so if I reintroduce Proof and monitor my opt-in rates for a week, I should be able to easily identify any increase in sign-ups. If I can achieve an additional 30 opt-ins a day for $30 a month, it would be a worthwhile investment.
There are alternatives to Proof out there, and you’ve probably seen them on other websites, but I’m more familiar with Proof and I had a good experience when I met the founder a couple of years ago in Portland. Therefore, I’m planning to try it out again, and if it doesn’t deliver the desired results, I can easily cancel the service. However, I anticipate that it will boost my opt-ins to a measurably significant extent.
#10 social chatbox (messenger bots)
The tenth point revolves around integrating a chatbot or a chat box on the sales page of my courses. Some of the most successful websites I’ve come across have credited chatbots on their sales pages as a significant contributor to long-term product sales.
Setting up a chatbot is relatively simple. Even when I’m not online, it can be programmed to interact with potential customers, guiding them through a conversational funnel, asking questions and offering solutions based on their responses. For instance, it might ask if they’re a creative person or if they struggle with certain issues, and based on their answers, it can recommend suitable resources, like one of my books.
I had experimented with a tool developed by Derek Halpern from Social Triggers, which functioned like a chatbot. Although I discontinued it due to its monthly cost and the difficulty of measuring its benefits, I still see the potential value in this approach.
Even when it’s not possible for me to be online, a chatbot can provide immediate feedback or create the illusion of a real-time conversation, which could significantly boost conversion rates. When visitors land on my sales page, they’re likely considering whether to buy the product and may have questions. A chatbot can provide immediate answers, possibly resolving their doubts or skepticisms and leading to a purchase.
While regular pop-ups or sliders might work better on my general websites, I believe a chatbot could be particularly effective on my sales pages. However, I’m still figuring out the best technology to add a chatbot to my Teachable sales page.
Once set up, I could also delegate the management of the chatbot to a virtual assistant in a different time zone to ensure round-the-clock coverage. I’m impressed by businesses that have salespeople who can personally handle objections and close sales over the phone. While I prefer an automated sequence due to my introverted nature, I understand the importance of championing my products and being prepared to discuss their benefits with those who may not initially understand their value.
#11 personalized welcome videos
Boost Your Online Conversion Funnel: Point #11 – Personalized Videos to Opt-ins
The eleventh point involves sending personalized videos to people who opt into my funnel. This strategy could create a personal connection and impress potential customers, making them feel valued and seen. This personal touch could be particularly impactful when dealing with higher ticket offers, as it gives potential customers a sense of being personally attended to.
However, it’s essential to note that this approach might be challenging to scale, especially if you’re getting numerous opt-ins daily. For instance, I currently receive around a hundred opt-ins a day, making it impractical to send each one a personalized video.
An alternative to this would be to filter through the opt-ins and identify those who seem to be a good fit for my program. Then, I could record a quick one-minute video for each of these selected individuals, which would be a manageable task and potentially increase the conversion rate significantly.
I’ve also experimented with a Facebook Messenger bot that sends automated messages to those who opt into my Guerrilla Publishing book funnel. The bot checks in with them throughout their journey, asking about their thoughts on the materials provided. Despite its potential, I’ve noticed that it’s not significantly boosting sales at the moment, but I believe it’s due to various factors in my funnel that need fixing.
One idea I’m considering is incorporating a generalized video into the Facebook Messenger bot system to provide a more personalized touch without the time investment of individual messages. Additionally, I’m thinking of making highly personalized videos where I review the potential customer’s books on Amazon, offer advice, and invite them to join my program. This approach could provide high-value content and create engaging case studies, making it an exciting prospect for future testing.
#12 retargeting ads
The twelfth point revolves around leveraging Facebook Ads for retargeting opt-ins. Retargeting is a powerful strategy that allows you to get back in front of individuals who have already shown interest in your product or service but haven’t yet made a purchase. The key here is to reach out to these potential customers, often referred to as a “warm audience,” with targeted advertising campaigns.
For example, on my DIY book formats or DIY book covers websites, I get about 500 visitors a day, but only around 100 opt-in to my offer. That means there’s a large percentage of interested visitors who don’t take the desired action. By retargeting those visitors, I can give them another opportunity to opt-in to my offer.
The cost for retargeting ads is often lower than for general audience ads, primarily because these individuals are already familiar with your platform. They might remember visiting your website and seeing your offer, and upon encountering your ad, they might decide to opt-in this time.
Boost Your Online Conversion Funnel: Point #13 – Retargeting Signups with Open and Close Ads
The thirteenth point delves deeper into the concept of retargeting, focusing on retargeting the actual sign-ups with open and close ads. This strategy is about showing your offer to the people who already signed up for your freebie or lead magnet, a warm audience that you know is interested in what you have to offer.
The idea here is to present your product or service at the right time to the right audience. One effective way to do this is to leverage the sense of urgency or scarcity. This can be done by highlighting when the offer is opening and when it’s about to close, thus urging potential customers to take action before it’s too late.
Retargeting can be set up to be automated, thus presenting your offer and the closing offer to the right people at the right time. This approach could significantly boost conversions for all of your courses and funnels.
However, it’s essential to note that success with Facebook Ads, or any advertising platform for that matter, requires a deep understanding of how to optimize for conversions and target the right audience. It’s also about setting realistic expectations. While the goal is to boost conversions as much as possible, it’s okay if you’re making 200% on your advertising investment, because it’s still profitable.
Scaling your business with advertising is a crucial step in growing your platform. However, it requires a solid understanding of your conversion funnel, a robust system for tracking and optimizing your ads, and a willingness to invest in the process.
WHAT ABOUT 14?! make something up.
#15: thankyou vids on upsell pages
The fifteenth point revolves around integrating thank you videos into the upsell pages of your online sales funnel. This tactic focuses on engaging with the customer after they’ve made a purchase to both express gratitude and to lead them towards further sales opportunities, usually in the form of an upsell.
One strategy used here is setting up ‘tripwire’ offers. These are low-cost offers presented to customers when they first sign up. The primary aim is not to make a large profit from these offers but to generate some income that helps support your advertising and platform investment efforts.
Once a customer purchases a tripwire offer, you can then present them with an upsell. This is usually a slightly more expensive product or service that complements their initial purchase. The idea is that if a customer has already made a buying decision, they might be more open to making another, especially if the offer provides significant value.
One approach to this is to package multiple courses or products together into a larger, more expensive offer, providing the customer with an opportunity to get even more value at a discount.
However, just having an upsell offer might not be enough. By adding a thank you video on the upsell page, you can create a more personal connection with the customer. This video could express gratitude for their purchase, explain what they can expect next, and introduce the upsell offer.
This approach could lead to a softer sale that feels more personal and less pushy. It helps to further build trust with the customer and might increase the likelihood of them making additional purchases.
The key here is to test different approaches to see what works best with your specific audience. This could involve split testing different video formats or testing a page with just a video and a call-to-action button against a more traditional landing page. Ultimately, the goal is to find the most effective way to guide customers through your sales funnel and encourage them to make additional purchases.
#16: use a book in your funnel
Leverage a Book for Personal Branding and Sales
The sixteenth point hinges on the powerful tool of personal branding through writing a book. This strategy extends beyond merely providing educational content; it’s about weaving a narrative that convinces readers to take action, making your book a crucial part of your sales funnel.
Personal Branding and Storytelling
A well-crafted non-fiction book can be more than just an educational resource. It can be filled with personal stories, creating emotional relevance and building a relationship with the reader. It enables readers to get to know, like, and trust you.
Book as a Sales Tool
At the back of your book, you can have a strong call to action, usually in the form of a free opt-in offer. This offer can lead to more powerful conversions because, by the time readers finish your book, they’ve already received immense value and are likely to have positive feelings towards you and your brand.
Direct Sales in a Book
One innovative approach is to include direct sales links within your book. These can be links to landing pages for discounted offers or even deadline-based offers. This approach may be particularly effective if your book is a free download.
Book as a Lead Generator
Your book can also act as a lead generator, particularly if it’s published on Amazon. Even if you’re not making a significant profit from the book sales, the leads you capture can be far more valuable in the long run. The key is to ensure your non-fiction book isn’t a sales pitch; instead, it should make the reader believe in your message and trust you enough to follow up with you.
Increasing Book Value
Turning your book into an audiobook, or selling paperback versions, can increase the perceived value of your product, which in turn means you can spend more on Amazon or Facebook ads for your book.
The Book as a Quality Product
The focus should always be on writing a good book that people genuinely enjoy. This strategy contrasts with the approach some people take, where they write a book primarily as a calling card or an upsell opportunity. A well-written, engaging book can sell itself and naturally lead readers to explore your other offerings.
In conclusion, the main idea is to leverage a well-crafted book to establish a strong personal brand, create an emotional connection with your audience, and guide them naturally towards your products or services. This strategy forms a part of a larger authoring platform where you can generate income not just from book sales, but also from the additional opportunities your book creates.
#17 hook attention (emotion, not information)
(intrigue is information management).
number 17 is having a hook at the beginning of your email series I kind of mentioned some stuff about this but my ideal was basically because I was reading this thing and I was watching somebody else’s video series and like their funnel and how they were doing things and they had a whole free video series but the first like 3 or 4 videos were just it was really similar to think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill he has a great introduction and first chapter where he is not telling the secret he says he does all this stuff like all these famous people use this secret if you read this book you will find the secret it will change your life hundreds and thousands of other people have already discovered the secret and seen results he’s talking about the benefits he’s getting people excited but he doesn’t reveal the actual thing until later so I thought that I talked about doing that with a nonfiction book in the introduction in the preface which I think is really important but I also think you could do the same thing with your email funnel so that in your email funnel the first email and the first video even maybe the first two or three emails or videos should just be about hooking their attention it should be about getting them to open it should be about training them to continue opening your emails by providing value and not just like I was doing before with it with educational dumps or informational dumps because it’s overwhelming but by really hitting their emotions by really hitting their desires by focusing on you know the pain points and this is where you are this is where you want to be there is a way to get there I can help you to do it but you have to open my emails anyway so that’s kind of something I wanted to test out what I’m revising my emails is to really before I get into ending of the content or the material or the information or anything first to focus on hooking their attention and getting their emotional buy-in basically getting them to pay attention and listen and to want the things that you’re going to be providing which will boost your your open rates for all of the other videos it’s it’s a it’s an important thing I’m sure a lot of other people talk about it the first email I don’t think anyone’s quite done it and the way that I’m thinking about doing it or to the extent that I’m thinking about doing it so that’s some one trick that I’ll be doing so I actually got kicked out of that other restaurant that I was in because it closed down it’s 10 p.m. from me I’m kind of just getting started this is my afternoon I’m gonna talk about
number 18 on this list which is don’t share details in the main emails and what I mean is that in a lot of my other email sequences I say this is all the details the features this is the price this is a discount I give away all the information about the product in the email and I don’t think that’s really what you’re supposed to do or what smart to do I think what works a lot better is to create desire for the product the price doesn’t really matter if they don’t want it so the first thing to do is make sure they want the product so all your emails should just be about making them want the product enough to actually click and check it out and see because the sales page is where you would actually like lead them through overcome their objections sell the product you don’t really want to do that in email so what I’d like to try is just going through my email sequence is I’m just taking out all of the like information and just focus on the why like why this matters how this is going to help you all the case studies all the testimonials and just really focus on getting them to want to take that next step and believe in the dream like I said earlier rather than you know selling them with the descriptions of features in the actual email
#19 YouTube videos (and more)
The nineteenth point is about optimizing your YouTube videos to increase visibility and engagement.
Thumbnails Matter
The first and easiest step to enhance visibility is to have compelling thumbnails for your videos. An attractive, clear, and colorful thumbnail increases the chances of users clicking on your video when it appears in search results.
Utilize Endnotes
Endnotes in YouTube videos offer the opportunity to suggest a next step, call-to-action, or even recommend other videos. This feature can significantly improve user engagement and retention.
Keywords & Branding
Proper use of keywords can improve your video’s ranking on YouTube. Additionally, a brief 30-second branding intro at the beginning of your videos can help establish your brand’s identity and create the right associations in the viewers’ minds.
Self-Promotion
Consider including an ad for your own products or services in the middle of your videos. It’s a smart way to promote your offerings to a captive audience.
Consistent Aesthetics
Consider creating a consistent aesthetic for your thumbnails, which can help with brand recognition. It might be a big project, but the impact it can have on your visibility and branding is considerable.
In conclusion, both points emphasize the importance of desire creation over information overload in emails and the various ways of optimizing YouTube videos for better visibility and engagement.
mber
#20 branded images for Pinterest & social media
The twentieth point centers on the use of infographics in your content strategy. Infographics can be highly effective tools for conveying complex information in a visually appealing, easy-to-understand manner.
Infographics for Blog and Social Media
One of the initial steps you can take is creating a consistent theme for the featured images on your blog posts. In addition, consider creating Pinterest-sized images that are optimized for sharing on that platform. Not only does this make your content more shareable, but it also helps with SEO as you get backlinks from Pinterest.
Infographics as Checklists
Another great use for infographics is as checklists. For instance, if you have a blog post detailing 22 ways to boost your evergreen funnels, this can be transformed into an infographic checklist. This type of content tends to be highly shareable and can be used in various ways across different platforms.
A LinkedIn Example
Consider creating a LinkedIn checklist that walks users through the steps you took to optimize your LinkedIn profile. This type of content is easily digestible, conveys your expertise, and encourages sharing.
Create an Array of Infographics
By creating a template for your infographic checklist, you can quickly generate a variety of them. This strategy could entail creating 20, 30, or even 50 different infographics. These infographics can then be distributed across your various channels, providing a wealth of content for your audience.
Infographics as Call-to-Actions
Consider using infographics as a part of your call-to-action (CTA) strategy. For example, if you have a free tool on your site, you could use an infographic as a CTA to guide users to the next step. The infographic could be something like a scorecard where users can evaluate the effectiveness of their book cover, for instance. Not only does this provide value to your audience, but it also leads them towards taking the next step, such as signing up for a course on book cover design.
Shareability of Infographics
One of the main advantages of infographics is their shareability. They can be easily shared across social media platforms, providing an effective way to distribute your content widely. Moreover, since all the information is included in the image, it’s easy for users to understand your message quickly.
In conclusion, infographics can be a powerful tool in your content strategy. They provide a visually appealing way to convey complex information, boost the shareability of your content, and can serve as effective CTAs.
#21 stacking offers in multiple newsletter sequences
number 21 is creating multiple funnels for your products and what that the biggest thing that impacted conversion and and sales wasn’t any piece of his funnel that he was tweaking it was just stacking offers together so when they sign up for something that goes through one email funnel a whole sequence and then they’d be added on to another funnel for another product so it’s another like 7 week 7 day warm up sequence closing card opening whatever but basically like once they’ve signed up for one thing just continue repeating funnels for other products I have a lot of free books and a lot of different courses now I have a lot of different things to offer so instead of like I bet most of my funnels now run for about 30 days or less after that there’s just nothing I don’t like I put them on maybe what do you call it a blast email so like they get notified of new updates or if I send out a campaign but there’s nothing else what works really well and what I want to test is once I fixed all these funnels and got them working just a second ball together so if they go through one there might be like a two-week break and I would start up again with the next offer and the next offer so I want to have like three months or six months of content you don’t just want to make the offer once because also they may not be ready for the offer the first time a guerrilla publishing course doesn’t necessarily make a lot of sense if you have never written a book before and you’re not sure if you’re gonna finish a book so I might make the offer but six months from now a year from now I want to maybe put that offer in front of you again because you may not have been ready for it things might change you can actually repeat even the same offers over a long period of time I’m going for three months or six months eventually I’d like to build out to like a year or something like that I may not have time to you know do all of that stuff this month but at least I want to make sure that my emails are converting well for the main reason they signed up but also that I put them into another funnel I think right now if these are the DIY stuff after that funnel I offer them the guerrilla publishing book which is like the next step book marketing stuff but I should also be featuring other products at other affiliate stuff things I recommend when I talk about editing I should talk about Grimley basically you want to it sounds strange to say this but you kind of want to squeeze as much money out of your list as possible and that’s just because if you have a really big list and you’re not earning any money you can’t scale your platform between you can’t help as many people the more money you can generate out of your existing platforms the more you can focus your time and energy on creating high value stuff for more people okay so the last one the twenty second one which I thought about when I was driving over here it’s actually something I’m already doing which is just to rebuild my website so that’s actually a massive project it’s not something I really planned on getting into this month but like I said I want to fix all my stuff this month December 2018 so like all of next year I can really be scaling up focusing on my writing focusing all that big passion projects that are gonna take my basically the things I’m passionate about things that I want to do but also things that are moving me in the direction that I want to go and that has to be deliberate if the problem with just doing like client worker services is you’re not really making the decision of what direction you’re going in so the own black friday offer i put together a couple days ago was actually basically about website redesign because what i wanted to do for a long time is offer some kind of author wordpress template i have a free course on setting up WordPress but it’s it’s a few years old and I’ve always focus on simple content first websites that get traffic please if you get organic traffic you don’t really have to spend on ads or other things but I haven’t really focus on conversion optimized websites which means like if you’re getting for example creativity gets I think a couple thousand people a day but out of all those people maybe like ten people sign up for stuff through the creativity website so that’s a lot of traffic that is being underutilized there are ways around it I tried adding a couple of pop-ups back it’s kind of weird if you have like a slide-in opt-in and didn’t an opt-in and like content upgrades it just gets a little bit messy and basically even though it’s you know I’m happy with my blog it works I get traffic people like it it’s not conversion optimized it’s not getting people to trust me or believe me or want to get to know me or anything like that and there are ways to set up a personal branded website in a way that that does a lot of really valuable things um so it’ll probably do is I’ll redo my creativity website with Divi which is a theme that I recommend for a lot of stuff and that I might redo my to DIY sides with thrive themes a DIY sites I think they’re like on optimized press but they’re kind of cobbled together so like the the home landing page looks okay but it has a different logo from the blog the blog looks pretty terrible and you know it really shouldn’t if I’m a designer if I have good products for sale I shouldn’t be using a really ugly website which is what I teach against so it’s an ambitious thing to redesign websites I might hire it out and get it done faster because I don’t really want to you know learn all of these new systems but the idea is to at least on creativity have a home page that set up in a way like on the top and this is also what I would do for books or book pages or my author pages I’m gonna do this from my fiction site as well as a test but you’d have like a big welcome opt-in offer on top then you’d have like maybe the three main subjects you deal with are you looking further X Y or maybe or C helping them to find solutions to problems that they want then maybe like personal biography testimonials personal credibility boosting and then another often offer at the back so there’s a lot of examples of this thrive themes just put out a really good article breakdown of like all the experts in the industry and what they’re doing on their websites so kind of be using that as my guide so that’s the twenty second thing that’s any one of those things could be a massive project but my plan is it’s already the first it’s the fourth of December I want to finish these things in the next twenty second days because
22 days because my birthday is December 22nd I would like to have all of these done which means doing about one a day I’ll have to stack up a few of them up I feel that more thank you very much time and I can do like three or four a day but the idea of December is to do all of these things one today one day they’re manageable chunks I could do one of these and you know probably less than four hours if I just focus on it so one at a time I actually have set up a co-working with a friend of mine so we’re gonna do like eight hours a day of you know sitting together working on our stuff I think I can get it done and my big ambitious goal because I like to set ambitious goals for myself is to grow my income to 22 K so it all matches by the end of the month so it’s 20 mm of passive income which won’t include like advertising costs because I do plan to start advertising I’m not really advertising now so if I can spend five thousand to make twenty thousand that’s fine if I have to spend ten or fifteen thousand that’s not as good but I’m willing to do it to hit that benchmark just to show that I can do it I think it’s that also kind of forces me to keep spending more money because I think when you get started with advertising it’s of course you should start slow and cautiously I’m not really a cautious person but you also want like if it’s working you want to spend more money and you want to if it’s breaking even you want to spend more money I want to build my list really quickly this year so I have to learn about advertising quickly which means I’m probably gonna have to fail and I’ll probably have something failed ad something failed experiments but I have to start doing it now so those are the things I’m gonna do and setup and be working on all month but by the end of the month the 22nd I have that income goal which is actually only about double my current income shouldn’t be impossible to hit it’s a big goal that will kind of keep me reaching forward it’s a quantum leap forward because you know I’ve had months where I do better than that when I do a course launch but what I’m really trying to do is you know consistently make a bunch of money every month without doing a lot of work by building all of these funnels and products to just work in the background so I can really focus my time on the high level creative projects that I’m more passionate about so that’s what I’m gonna be working on December like I said I’ll make a blog post I think I’ll actually then make like a long blog post and show you exactly what I’ve done like the before and after for each of one of those things which i think would be a pretty good piece of content that’s what I’ll be working on hopefully by the time I get to my birthday I’ve succeeded in a lot of these things and then I can you know put out more books or spend more of my time really where people say your your zone of genius like the thing that you can do the best and nobody else can do the thing that you’re excited about that’s what you really want spend your time doing I haven’t been doing that for a while the last few years I’m really excited about starting to focus on those things so I hope this video was useful if so let me know in the comments which of these you think is the most interesting or which one you’re going to try first.
My 21st strategy involves creating multiple funnels for my products. I’m thinking about creating a system where, instead of just having one funnel for a product that ends after a certain period, I keep the customer engaged by continuously presenting them with new funnels. Once a customer goes through one funnel and completes it, they get added onto another funnel for a different product. This could be a sequence that lasts for several weeks or even months, allowing me to present different offers to my customers over time.
I have many free books and different courses to offer. Currently, most of my funnels run for about 30 days or less, after which I usually put my customers on a blast email list for updates or campaigns. However, I think what could work well is to keep adding customers into new funnels for different products once they’ve completed an initial one.
I aim to build a sequence of funnels that provide content for three to six months, repeating the same offers over time. I recognize that a customer might not be ready for a certain offer the first time, and their circumstances or readiness could change over time. Therefore, presenting the same offer months later could lead to a conversion that wasn’t possible initially.
For my 22nd strategy, I’m thinking about redesigning my website. I understand this to be a massive project that might not be completed within the month, but I’m keen on improving my platforms. My goal is to fix all my platforms this December, so that I can focus on scaling up and focusing on my writing next year.
The project involves revamping my websites for enhanced conversion optimization. For instance, my Creativindie website gets a few thousand visitors a day, but only a small fraction of those visitors end up signing up for my offerings. I aim to remedy this by making my website more conversion optimized.
The new design could include a welcome opt-in offer at the top, followed by sections that deal with the three main subjects or solutions I offer. These could be followed by a personal biography section, testimonials, and credibility boosters, with another opt-in offer at the end.
As an ambitious goal, I’m aiming to grow my income to $22K by the end of December, doubling my current income. To achieve this, I’m considering learning about advertising and spending more on it, even if it involves some failed attempts. I understand that this process is crucial for building my list quickly and scaling my business.
Finally, I plan to share my progress and the outcome of these strategies in a long blog post, showing the before and after for each strategy. By the time I reach my birthday on December 22nd, I hope to have succeeded in many of these strategies, enabling me to focus on my high-level creative projects that I’m passionate about.
The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a haunted castle tour. Totally free. Get it here.
I’m a philosophy dropout with a PhD in Literature. I covet a cabin full of cats, where I can write fantasy novels to pay for my cake addiction. Sometimes I live in castles.
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