The one “funnel question” you want to ask me
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- There are plenty of reasons why a sales funnel might not convert. In this video, I identify several bottlenecks that have even stopped Growbo’s funnel.
- I also include tactics, strategies, and resources for overcoming these bottlenecks.
So your funnel's not converting, well now what?
Let's say that you have an existing funnel set up. You've taken the time, written the emails and the landing pages, and created the lead magnet. You're driving traffic and people are getting into the email drip sequence, but money doesn't come out the other end.
What are you supposed to do in this situation?
Steps to Take When Your Funnel is Not Converting
Well, there are a few things that you can do. The first thing is to panic. I'm just kidding, don't panic.
What you want to do is iterate and make changes to cause a change. You shouldn't just be comfortable, sitting back and thinking, “I put in all this time in. Maybe if I just wait longer we'll get a better result.”
The answer is no. You should be iterating almost immediately, depending on the volume of leads you are getting. The higher the volume, the faster you can iterate because you're getting more data. What that data allows you to do is listen. By listening, you can use what you learn and what you hear to iterate and make the funnel better to actually make it convert better.
So how do you listen? What am I talking about?
So you’ve got the funnel set up and recognize that there is a problem. Now you can go into the analytics on your email marketing software. For example, if you're using ActiveCampaign, go in there and look at the open rates.
What story do the open rates actually tell from one email to the next? Are people replying to the emails, engaging with your email content, and giving you compliments? What, if anything, are you doing to request that people engage when they reply to an email? Are you asking them a question? You should be. You can see an example of how the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) made great use of questions in their emails here.
Beyond that, at the end of the funnel, if someone does not convert, are you surveying them? You might ask them, "What can we do better? I noticed you didn't take the offer we put out there. If you can take just 30 seconds to fill out this form and answer these two quick questions, I'd appreciate it." So you should be surveying in order to listen as well.
According to Start Question, other benefits to asking for customer feedback include better customer retention and a boost in customer satisfaction. You can also use customer feedback to make positive changes to your services and products in order to serve your customers even more efficiently.
Okay, so once you have this data, what's the next step? What the data should be pointing out to you are one or more potential bottlenecks. You want to a prioritize the recurring pattern you are seeing.
Has someone said the same thing or similar things about a certain email or about what their expectation was for how they got on the email list? What are some other possibilities for different areas where you should commonly expect to be iterating?
Well, those areas might include the actual email copy that you are using. Is it written in a high-quality way? In other words, in a way that's simple enough for other people to easily digest? Is it using too much jargon? Doing so can turn customers off.
Is the reading level appropriate to the market? What about the length of the emails? Perhaps they are too long, or maybe you're giving people too much information.
According to email company, Boomerang, “emails written at a 3rd grade level provided a whopping 36% lift over emails written at a college grade level and a 17% higher response rate than emails written even at a high school reading level.”
This is a mistake I made for a long, long time. I was cramming too much into emails and I didn't even realize it. Our emails just weren't focused on the email autoresponder and it was like we were throwing a lot of information at people instead of just keeping it simple.
Are you including links? Are you making the mistake of trying to just use your email list to drive traffic back rather than as a mechanism for really building the relationship with your email subscribers instead?
Is the copy written in a linear way? Does one email tie into the next? Are you doing anything to build anticipation for the next email or even for the upcoming offer? We just discussed this in a recent blog post. Andre Chaperon calls it Soap Opera Sequences. Essentially, you end your emails with exciting cliffhangers so customers can’t wait to read what’s next.
Do those emails tie in with the lead magnet, the reason why people actually joined your email list in the first place?
We were able to increase our sales by 71% by utilizing user feedback, don’t forget. This was just by fixing small errors like typos.
For this and for more ideas on what might be missing and on how to iterate on your sales funnel if it's not converting at the level that you expect it to, go ahead and check out my 11-Point Perfect Sales Funnel Checklist. It's linked to in the description if you're watching this on YouTube. If you're on our website, it's linked directly below as well.
One Action to Take Right Now
What I want you to take from this video is this. Go out and look at those opportunities to listen and gather data. Hear your audience in both qualitative and quantitative ways and take action. Watch where you see the patterns developing, because those could be your biggest bottlenecks and perhaps one of the biggest reasons why your funnel is not converting at the level you expect. Then, download our Sales Funnel Checklist and use that to take the next step.
Until next time, my name is Matt Ack in the Matt hat, delivering your daily dose of Matt Hacks. Keep hustling, stay focused. I'll see you in the next video.
Want more sales? Download my 11-Point Perfect Sales Funnel Checklist or invest in our new Rocket Content course, which is currently discounted.
