I’ve talked about the importance of a sales funnel quite a few times on this blog. In case you’ve missed it, you can click here if you want to know more about how it helps your low-tier marketing strategies. However, today I want to discuss another purpose of it: lead generation.

Discover How a Sales Funnel Powers Your Lead Generation

To help you understand how a sales funnel can be used in lead generation, let’s define the leads first. Who are they?

The leads are actually your dream clients. These are the people who are going to enroll in your coaching programs over and over. They are the ones who can benefit the most from what you’re offering.

But they’re not your customers yet. While they are likely interested in what you’re selling, they’ve yet to make the first purchase.

Many of these leads are interested, but they’re very hard to convince. This hesitance is understandable. The truth is people don’t trust a stranger immediately. I know I don’t.

Additionally, they have these nagging questions in their heads like, “Will this work for me?” “Is this person even real, or can he be trusted?” “Is this worth my time and money?”

This is where a sales funnel comes in. You are going to use it to capture your leads and bring them all the way down through the process of conversion.

Use a Sales Funnel to Build Your Mailing List

In my other blog post, I already touched on this subject. However, I still want to take the time to elaborate on it.

First, read my post about email marketing to give yourself some background.

Now, how can sales funnels help in lead generation? Well, email marketing is actually one of the best ways to generate leads!

Let me tell you why. First, you can already target your leads, which means those who sign up at least have some interest in what you’re offering. That’s already good. You need your leads to believe you can help them in some way. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter how much you talk about problems, solutions, and opportunities. If they don’t see their benefits in their lives, they’re not going to sign up.

Second, it provides a certain level of connectedness and vulnerability. Think about receiving emails from friends and family. It’s more personal, right? You can be more open. The email helps create the relationship you want with your leads.

Email marketing also has a very high conversion rate and gives you a good return on your money. Again, it has something to do with having targeted leads.

Attract Your Leads with the Sales Funnel

There are different sales funnel stages, but the idea is the topmost part has the widest opening. This means it’s where you’ll have the highest number of leads.

If you’re a first-time coach or speaker, then your business is going to be about numbers. You have no idea how much they’re willing to pay for your coaching program or if they’ll even spend money on your seminars. Consequently, you want to have as many people as possible to compensate for those who may not buy your paid offers.

To do that, the top part of the sales funnel is about email marketing. The first thing you’ll do is offer free gifts. It can be anything from PDFs to e-books or even a video training series.

The purpose of the free gift is to encourage them to give their email address. Once they do, boom! They become your generated lead.

Now you have two possible strategies to sell your coaching program. One, you can send your announcements, offers, and updates straight to their email. The other tactic is to redirect them to your first paid offer.

The latter technique occurs right after they’ve submitted their email address on the opt-in page. Don’t confuse this one with the free gift. The paid offer will contain a very low-tier product, which can be a program worth $37 or even less.

As for the free gift, you will send it straight to their mailbox. It’s very important you don’t delay this one. You want to make sure when they open their inbox, they can see the free gift. You don’t want any room for doubt.

That’s it! That’s basically how a sales funnel helps you capture leads. Keep in mind as soon as you master converting these leads, building a lifestyle-friendly business doing what you love and sharing your passion is so much easier. Stay tuned for more marketing tips in the coming days!

There are different sales funnel templates for lead generation. What are your favorites? Share them in the comments below.

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