Having a million-dollar marketing funnel is nothing to scoff at. 

It’s a huge accomplishment that deserves its’ kudos. There’s a lot of automation, dedication, and ideation that goes into making something like that happen.

It’s the type of benchmark that says, “Hey, I was a serious business owner at 6-figures. But now? I turned my serious business into an EMPIRE.”

So listen, if you already have one: congrats, I commend you for the hard work. Feel free to kick back, put your feet up, and hang out.

For anyone looking to scale their funnel to that million-dollar benchmark, you’ll want to take a couple of notes.

But before I get into that, let’s talk about me real quick—just to make sure you know I’m not some random schlub pretending to know a thing or two about marketing.

My name’s Yogev Almog, I’m a marketing consultant and copywriting strategist for 6, 7, and 8-figure brands. 

I’ve written for and consulted on funnels ranging from fitness, coaching, eCommerce, business automation, CPG, financial institutions, telehealth services, done-for-you businesses, chiropractors—name an industry and I’ve likely written something or at the very least given some advice on it. 

And just to put the cherry on top, my work has been a direct contribution to a handful of million dollar funnels. 

So, now that you know a little about me and my credibility, I feel pretty comfortable saying this next part:

If your end goal is simply “The Million-Dollar Funnel,” everything I’m about to say is probably going to upset you. 

In fact, it definitely will. And you know who I’m going to upset the most today? Ad experts. 

Dearest ad expert friends of mine: I love you, truly, I do. I promise this isn’t a shot at you. 

Become a Certified Funnel Optimization Specialist

This Is The Most Profitable Customer-Getting Campaign We’ve Ever Created… And Now I Want To Show You How To Build One For Your Company

Click here

The thing is, entrepreneurs are especially obsessed with social media ads right now.

There’s this instant gratification that comes with an ad campaign because you can pretty easily track where a sale is coming from.

“Person sees ad. Person clicks on ad. Person spends time on site. Person buys.”

You can see how it might get addicting to watch as your phone blows up with sales confirmations but what people tend to be super quiet about is: 

1. The amount of ad budget you need to kickstart a campaign
2. All the creative you constantly need to test (Both the visual and written) 
3. Following community guidelines to make sure your account doesn’t get shut down for saying the wrong thing
4. The inevitable upward trend of ad spend due to market saturation

Talking about this often makes me think of a conversation I had with a client. 

On a call, she mentioned a competitor of hers in the coaching space who paraded around their million-dollar funnel. 

What’s important to note is this competitor went on a podcast talking about the $1.2 million they made that year but admitted to spending over a million on just ads alone…

…yea, that’s not what you want. 

Don’t get me wrong, loss leaders can be helpful in business, and turning a $200,000 profit is nothing to be ashamed of but the fact of the matter is that’s not $200,000 in profit. 

They still had to pay out employees, cover operating expenses, and ONLY THEN could they pay themselves out…  

…That’s a lot of work just to say you have a million-dollar funnel. 

Still, we see a few industry leaders truly killing it with Meta and Google Ads and all of a sudden that means everyone flocks to it as “the way” for every business to grow. 

Listen, there’s some truth to this. Ads can definitely grow your business and reach audiences you wouldn’t typically have access to. 

And sure, taking a loss on the frontend makes plenty of sense if you’re re-engaging repeat customers or people who didn’t initially buy on the backend—but how many people actually have that dialed? 

How many have figured out exactly what their ideal customer wants with organic traffic before putting money behind paid traffic? 

Ads are great, but only when they’re used the right way and only when you’re ready. 

(There’s nothing wrong with messy action, but if you’re not careful messy can become a disaster.)

And the only way you’re able to do that is if you recognize what is objective truth: ads aren’t THE answer, ads are just a tool—a piece of the bigger picture. 

Get the Digital Marketing Blueprint…

With a Customer Value Journey that strategically builds a relationship with new prospects and converts them into loyal, repeat customers. Click here

Once you see that, you’re able to use them more effectively, efficiently, and you put power back into your hands. 

Because when you rely solely on social media ads as your lead and revenue generator, you basically are at the mercy of Meta and how they want to run things. 

So how do you put that power back into your hands and build a business not dependent on ads? You take a step back and look at all the pieces that make a successful million-dollar funnel. 

There Are 3 Key Components To Any Successful Million-Dollar Funnel:

1. Attention
2. Affection
3. Retention 

I can dig deeper into each one of these in a later post but for now let’s just focus on the general idea.  

Attention is simply getting people to notice you. You’re creating awareness of something interesting or important. 

Typically this is where ads come into play but this can also be featured content, affiliate email programs, podcasts, you get the picture. 

Affection is what happens after you’ve grabbed their attention. The goal here is to connect with the audience and create a relationship that makes them want to buy from you.

This shows up as sales pages, email sequences, and even your everyday content on your social platforms but the bottom line is that you’re nurturing these people.

The last part is retention.

Now, whether or not this person has bought from you, they expressed interest in some form and you want to keep that person around. 

Why? 

Well, buyers will tell people how great your stuff is and anyone who didn’t buy might just need a little more time to think before they decide to buy from you. 

And again, even if they NEVER buy, best case they refer someone to you, worst case it doesn’t hurt to have one other person that likes you.

This piece also is largely working in your email and in the content you’re pushing out through your other channels. (Facebook, Instagram, podcast, blog, etc.) 

Okay, so remember when I said that entrepreneurs are addicted to ads? What I mean is, they’re so hyper-focused on making sure that Attention works that there’s little to no thought put into Affection or Retention—which is a problem. 

Those last 2 pieces of a successful million-dollar funnel can take time to build but are what can save you SOOOOO much time and money on cold ads and retargeting. 

Plus, if you set them up and automate the processes correctly, they account for the highest ROI in any successful business. (And I mean ANY.)

What really stops entrepreneurs from focusing on these areas is pretty simple: 

1. It’s harder to track exactly where a sale came from
2. It takes more time to see the results
3. It’s really not sexy

And I sympathize with you, really, I do. 

I want my results on demand like everyone else does. 

The thing is, that’s not how you build a million-dollar funnel. 

You have to be willing to put in the time and effort to make it work. Not only that, you need a strategy that makes sense within your business that can effectively scale as you do. (Because trust me, that million-dollar funnel is NOT a one-person operation.) 

SO am I saying don’t use ads? Absolutely not. (My ad expert friends would kill me if I did.) 

Ads are an important piece of a flourishing market strategy. 

But remember, that’s exactly what they are: a piece. 

And when you go back to edit or build your funnel, you should treat them as such—just a piece of the bigger picture.

The post Million-Dollar Funnels Aren’t Made With Ads appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

As advertisers, we focus a lot of our energy on ensuring our ad campaigns are performing and converting as best as they possibly can.

But that’s only one part of the equation. 

What happens after the click is just as important (if not more important!)

You can have the most incredible ad campaign set-up, but if the funnel you’re sending traffic to doesn’t convert, it doesn’t matter how great your campaign is – you simply won’t see the results you desire.

And so, in this article, I’m going to share 7 ways you can improve the conversion rate of your funnel, leading to better overall performance and results. 

Related Articles

• 2 Ways to Take Back the Power in Your Business: Part 2

• 2 Ways to Take Back the Power in Your Business: Part 1

• Unlocking the Secrets to Recruiting and Retaining Top Talent in Your Agency

1. Include the 3 Argument Types on Each Page

Whenever someone makes a buying decision, they use two different parts of their brain. 

There’s the emotional part (the limbic brain) and the logical part (the frontal lobe). It’s important to understand this because it plays a big role in how we structure the pages in our funnel.

When humans make a purchasing decision, it’s mainly an emotional reaction. A study by a Harvard School of Business Professor, Gerald Zaltman, concluded that 95% of purchase decisions are made by the limbic system (the emotional part).

We see something, like it and decide we want it. Once we’ve decided we want something, the frontal lobe then helps sway us on whether we actually buy the thing by processing it logically. 

Think about someone buying their dream house. 

They go to view the house and fall in love with it instantly and decide they want to buy it – that’s the limbic brain. It’s only when they get home and start looking at things like the area, electricity bills, neighbourhood and all the other bits that they start thinking about the purchase logically. 

And so, when it comes to our marketing (and our funnel specifically), we need to understand this as it impacts how we should structure the pages.

Regardless of the type of page you’re sending people to (whether it’s a lead gen funnel or e-commerce) you need to be making three types of arguments:

Emotional arguments

Logical arguments

Urgency

And we want to make them in this order too – since that’s the order in which someone makes a purchasing decision. 

Have your emotional arguments at the top of the page, above the fold. What are the emotional reasons someone would purchase your product? It can often be as simple as saving time, stress or money. 

As you move down the page, you can start talking about the logical arguments. These are often features and benefits. What would someone need to know/understand in order to purchase the product or service?

And lastly, for good measure – always include urgency in your messaging to further push those people to take action. There are people out there that simply won’t take action unless you give them a reason to take it now. Some good ways to do this are: Give them a certain timeframe, warn them about limited stock or simply talk about why it’s so important they take action now.

By doing this you’re structuring the pages in a way that flows with how we make purchasing decisions as human beings – setting you up for the best chance of success. 

2. Benefits > Features

There’s a common saying in the copywriting world: “features tell, benefits sell.”

However, when most come to write copy for their product/service, they write about all the features without explaining the benefits. 

Features focus on the product/service itself. Such as what you receive, what it does or how it works. 

Some examples of features are:

• Storage up to 1TB
• Access to a free Facebook group
• Latest waterproof technology

Those things are great, but they don’t tell the end consumer the benefit to them, which makes it less compelling. 

Benefits focus on the outcome of the product/service, telling the customer exactly what the feature will mean for them. Bringing it back to the first point – this is how we start to build emotion into our copy.

By telling people what a feature means to them, they start to visualise themselves using it – which creates the emotional reaction we need.

Luckily for you, I’ve got a super simple way to turn your features into benefits.

The “So That” Statement

This is a tactic I use every single time I write copy. 

If you’re like most people and tend to write about the features, simply add the words “so that” to the end of your sentence. This forces you to explain the benefit that’s tied to the feature, making your copy much more hard-hitting.

The formula you can use is: 

If ___ so that you can ___.

Let’s take our examples from above.

• Storage up to 1TB so that you can save all your files without ever worrying about running out of space.
• Get access to our free Facebook group so that you can network with like-minded individuals. 
• The latest waterproof technology so that you can hike out in the rain for longer without getting wet feet.

Review all your copy and ensure every feature is combined with the real benefit. This will make your copy much more emotionally driven and compelling to anyone that’s reading it.

3. Split Test All Pages

The key to success in any advertising campaign is comprehensive testing. Testing images, copy, creative types and audiences. But the importance of testing doesn’t stop at the advertising campaign – it’s just as important to continuously test the pages in your sales funnel. 

You should test at least 2 variants of every page in your sales funnel. Tests can be big or small, from having completely different designs to changing the colours of a button. It doesn’t matter what you test so much. The most important thing is just that you are testing… because that allows you to learn what works and what doesn’t. 

And like all great marketers do: do more of what works and do less of what doesn’t. 

Things You Can Test at Each Stage of the Sales Funnel

• Headline/Subtitle – this is arguably the most important thing to test because it’s the first thing people see and read when they land on a page. Little changes in a headline can have a huge impact on conversion rates. The headline is where you want your biggest emotional argument on the page.
• Main Image/Video – most funnel pages will have imagery or videos on them. This is another key thing to test out. Try different styles of images and videos to see which ones perform better, such as professionally designed images vs iPhone shot photos.
• Sales Copy – try testing different features and benefits. Even testing the order in which you share the features can make a difference. If you’re listing benefits in bullet point format, the first and last bullets are the most important.
• Call to Action – the copy you use on the button can make a huge impact on performance. Try ditching the boring “Learn more” and try something more unique such as “Get Started – See How 97% Lose Weight In Just 30 Days”

Upsells/Cross-sells – test different offers throughout your funnel to see which products/offerings people find more compelling.

Get the Digital Marketing Blueprint…

With a Customer Value Journey that strategically builds a relationship with new prospects and converts them into loyal, repeat customers. Click here

4. Improve Average Order Value with Offers

The success of a campaign isn’t always just based on the conversion rate of the campaigns and funnels. Sometimes it can come down to how much money people are spending on your funnel.

You can have a funnel that converts, but if the money being made isn’t providing good levels of profit on top of ad spend, you have a problem. 

We recently worked with an e-commerce store that sold home gifts. We managed to optimise the campaigns so successfully that we were able to get our cost per sale down to less than £5. However, because the average order value of the site was only £15, the ROAS wasn’t sustainable. 

In order for us to make the campaigns successful overall, we had to improve the conversion rate of the site – specifically focussing on increasing the Average Order Value (how much someone spends per transaction, on averageGavin Bel). 

To do this, we added in what is called order bumps and one-time offers.

An order bump is an offer made at the checkout, right before someone hits the pay button. A common order bump might be to “supersize” the order for a reduced rate or to get another product at a low price. These convert extremely well.

A one-time offer is what it says on the tin.

Once someone has made a purchase, another offer appears on the screen inviting them to purchase a related product at a discounted price.

Adding both of these increased the AOV of our client’s site by 20%, vastly improving the campaign’s overall effectiveness. Even if AOV isn’t a problem for you, look at adding these two tactics to improve it.

By not doing it, you’re essentially leaving money on the table!

5. Improve the Quality of Traffic on the Page

If your funnel isn’t converting, it might simply be because you’re attracting the wrong people in the first place.

You can have the best funnel and offer in the world, but if the people visiting it aren’t relevant, it’ll never convert. This is why it’s so important to ensure you’re performing lots of campaign tests – testing which audiences work and which ones don’t. 

With all of the advertising platforms, it’s very easy to see which audiences are bringing in the best returns. And like I mentioned earlier, simply do more of what’s working and turn off what’s not.

There is one fool-proof way of ensuring you’re only getting the highest quality people to your sales funnel: content creation.

Creating content is one of the most effective ways to attract an audience of people who definitely have an interest in what you offer and it’s something we advise every single client to do – either in written or video format. 

The biggest objection we face is “but I don’t know what to write about?!”

And so if that’s you, I’ve got you covered. 

The simplest way to start creating effective content is to simply answer the questions, objections and queries your customers have. 

Here’s how to approach it:

1. Create a list of all the questions you’re asked as a business (get your team involved in this)
2. Turn those questions into eye-catching headlines
3. Sit down in front of a camera and record the answers (or write them up)

This is so effective for two reasons:

1. Only people who are genuinely interested in what you do will consume the content
2. When you promote the content through advertising, it’s super cheap because you’re not selling anything, you’re providing value. 

Pretty quickly,  you start to build a large audience of people who have an interest in your offering.

Let’s say you’re a physiotherapist. You could film a 60s video titled “5 reasons you have back pain”. You could then set up a basic ad campaign targeting people in your local area (that fit your basic customer avatar).

Who’s going to watch that video? 

People in the local area who have back pain!

Which, for a physiotherapist, is the perfect audience. What’s better is, these people are qualified AND educated. They know who the physiotherapist is already (building trust) and making them much more likely to take action and convert.

And to supercharge this strategy, you could run retargeting ads to the people who watched the video, pushing them to your sales funnel.

6. Increase or Decrease form Friction

When it comes to lead generation funnels, there’s a fine line between lead quantity and lead quality.

It’s not hard to generate lots of leads at a low cost, but it is difficult to generate lots of QUALIFIED leads at a low cost. 

It’s a constant balancing act, ensuring that you have both quality and quantity. 

The best way to strike the balance is to simply increase or decrease the fields you have in the form. 

This increases or decreases the friction that someone has to go through in order to convert. The more questions/fields, the higher the friction. The fewer fields, the lower the friction. 

If you’re struggling with lead quality, try and add some more fields to the form, specifically around the main reason your quality is low. For example, if you find the people you speak to aren’t motivated, add a “how motivated are you?” question. 

If you’re not getting enough leads, try reducing the number of questions in the form and monitor what impact that has. 

Whenever we’re starting a new campaign, we will always start with fewer fields to make sure we generate as many leads as possible. And then if we feel like we need to improve the quality of the leads, we’ll start slowly adding more fields to the form.

7. Include Social Proof Throughout

If there’s one thing that stops people from converting in a funnel, it’s a lack of trust. 

A lack of trust in the people behind the funnel, the offer itself or the promise the funnel is making. 

So, how do you build trust with people? How do you show them that your offer is legitimate and will have an impact on their lives?

Show the results that other people have achieved. 

Everyone in the world has problems. And they have desired results. 

Your job as a marketer is to show people how your product/service is a bridge from their problems to their desired results.

And the most effective way to do that is by showing the stories of others who have successfully achieved that with your product/service.

Social proof can take the form of: case studies, testimonials and even quotes from previous customers and people who have already converted through the funnel. The more you can share, the better. 

Even better – if you can have your social proof cover the main objections you know people have when converting, your social proof will do some of the selling for you!

Wrapping Up…

Improving the funnel conversion rate can have a drastic effect on the performance of your overall campaigns and business. If you’re able to get your funnel and ad campaigns to a point where they are profitable, you can scale your spend quickly. 

Start implementing some of these strategies and I guarantee that you’ll see improvements in your overall results.

Let me know – have you tried any of these? Which was the most effective for you?

The post 7 Ways To Improve The Conversion Rate Of Your Funnel appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

You’ve finally found it…

The “treasure map” to building an unstoppable business.

We call it the Customer Value Optimization process.

(RELATED: Conversion Funnel Mastery)

If you’re not familiar with how we do things here at DigitalMarketer, this is the first article you should read. It teaches you the foundational principles of digital marketing.

And even if you’re a salty DM veteran, you might still want to reread this from time to time as a refresher. It’s that important.

What you’re about to get in this post is a 10,000-foot view of how the marketing process works when it’s done right.

This is vital to understand because all marketers and entrepreneurs are at various levels of STUCK. There’s so much to learn—and the marketing space is changing so rapidly—that no one can keep up with every little shift in the market.

But when you understand the big-picture view…

When you can see how all the different pieces are meant to work together…

You’ll know how to create a SYSTEM that works to efficiently and repeatedly attract new prospects, convert them into customers, and get the maximum profit out of them.

Sound like something you’d like to have? Then let’s get right to it.

The System

This is the system Starbucks and McDonald’s used to corner the coffee and hamburger markets. It’s the same system Amazon uses to dominate ecommerce. It’s how Best Buy, Beachbody (selling workouts like P90X), and Sports Illustrated have become household names.

It works for small, medium, and enterprise-level businesses. It works for mom-and-pop shops and billion-dollar retailers. It works whether you sell traditional products, digital products, or services.

This system works because it exploits each and every aspect of the irrefutable law of business growth put forth by legendary marketer Jay Abraham. He teaches that there are only 3 ways to grow a business:

1. Increase the number of customers
2. Increase the average transaction value per customer
3. Increase the number of transactions per customer

If you think about it, this makes perfect sense.

And the system you’re about to learn—we call it Customer Value Optimization or CVO—leverages all 3 business growth methods. That’s what makes it so powerful.

So read this page carefully. Read it multiple times, and commit it to memory.

This is the stuff the world’s best marketers and entrepreneurs know and use daily—but it isn’t taught in any business school.

Learn the Steps to Customer Value Optimization

This handy flowchart outlines the CVO system: Download a PDF version of the chart here

Print this PDF and tack it to the wall next to your work station. If you intend to execute this plan, you’ll need to reference it often.

This is your big-picture treasure map to building an unstoppable business. Anytime you’re learning a new tactic—whether it’s Facebook marketing, Google Analytics, search engine optimization (SEO), and so on—you’ll want to check in to see which part of the Customer Value Optimization process that tactic fits into.

Otherwise, you’re liable to end up wasting your time and money.

Take this as a WARNING: There is little profit in understanding, for example, Pinterest advertising or email marketing in and of itself. Because individual tactics like that represent just one piece of the whole.

But there is an ENORMOUS profit in understanding how to apply these traffic strategies within the context of the CVO process.

Here is a flowchart of the entire Customer Value Optimization system:

When you break it down, there are 7 steps to Customer Value Optimization:

1. Determine Product/Market Fit
2. Choose a Traffic Source
3. Offer a Lead Magnet
4. Offer a Tripwire
5. Offer a Core Product
6. Offer a Profit Maximizer
7. Create the Return Path

Lean into this article and pay close attention—we’re about to reveal the EXACT process we use to sell products and services in multiple niche markets and mainstream verticals including…

• Finance and Investing
• Men’s Clothing
• Home Improvement
• Survival and Preparedness
• Beauty

… just to name a few.

Let’s begin with…

Step 1: Determine Product/Market Fit

We begin the Customer Value Optimization process by getting clear on the most important person in your business: your customer.

At its core, business is pretty simple.

We get paid to move these customers from an undesirable “Before” state to a desirable “After” state.

In the “Before” state, the customer is discontent in some way. They might be in pain, bored, frightened, or unhappy for any number of reasons.

In the “After” state, life is better. They are free of pain, entertained, or unafraid of what previously plagued them.

People don’t buy products or services…

They buy transformations.

AKA outcomes.

AKA a more desirable “After” state.

This means that a good OFFER will deliver the “After” state the person wants…

And good MARKETING will articulate that transformation from “Before” to “After.”

The flip side is also true: when a new business fails, it’s often because it FAILED to either…

• Offer a desired “After” state (the offer was no good)
• Articulate the movement from “Before” to “After” (the marketing was no good)

Needless to say, getting clear on the desired outcome your offer delivers is fundamental to the success of your business.

Here’s how to get that clarity…

The 10-Question “Before & After” Grid

Before you create or market another offer, ask yourself these 10 questions:

• What does your prospect HAVE in the “Before” state? What does your prospect HAVE in the “After” state?
• How does your prospect FEEL in the “Before” state? How does your prospect FEEL in the “After” state?
• What is an AVERAGE DAY like for your prospect in the “Before” state? What is an AVERAGE DAY like for your prospect in the “After” state?
• What is your prospect’s STATUS in the “Before” state? What is your prospect’s STATUS in the “After” state?
• What is an EVIL that is plaguing the prospect in the “Before” state? How does your prospect conquer it and bring more GOOD to the world in the “After” state?

Just put your answers in a simple table like this:

(RELATED: Perpetual Traffic Episode 116: Ryan Deiss Breaks Down the “Before & After” Strategy of Chatbooks’ Viral Video)

Here’s an example, using our own company DigitalMarketer. How do we help our customers achieve a positive transformation in their lives?

For this example, we’re going to use our “Marketing Executives” avatar. So these people are in charge of a marketing department—usually the CMO, the VP of Marketing, or the Director of Marketing.

We know from experience that people in these positions run into a lot of problems. A lot of undesirable “Before” states. So, we’ve created training programs that can help solve those problems and deliver the “After” states these people really want.

How do we do it? By transforming the marketing executive…

• From HAVING a disorganized team… to having a team that’s a well-oiled machine
• From FEELING frustrated, overwhelmed, and scared of losing their job… to feeling confident and in control
• From having an AVERAGE DAY in which they have to “coach up” under-performing team members… to an average day in which they’re free to focus on big-picture strategy because they can trust their other team members to take care of the details correctly
• From a STATUS of being disrespected and behind the times… to a status of being respected, up-to-date, and even up for a promotion
• From the EVIL of being a victim of an old-school university model that doesn’t prepare graduates for the realities of marketing today… to the GOOD of helping to train the marketing leaders of the future

Average marketers only articulate what a customer will HAVE if they purchase their product or service.

Great marketers speak to the transformations around how the customer will FEEL, how their AVERAGE DAY will change, how their STATUS will elevate, and how they will solve an EVIL in the world (making them a real-life hero).

With this simple 10-question “Before & After” Grid, any half-decent copywriter will be able to create a marketing message that will have an impact.

The marketing copy writes itself now that you are clear on the “Before” and “After”…

• “Turn your disorganized team into a well-oiled machine that’s ready to kick some serious marketing butt.”
• “Tired of having to ‘coach up’ your team day after day? With DigitalMarketer HQ, you’ll be free to step back and focus on big-picture strategy.”
• “Just imagine feeling confident and respected in meetings, knowing that your next promotion is coming soon.”

Do you see how this copy clearly articulates how the product will move a marketing executive from a “Before” state of stress and frustration to an “After” state of confidence and success?

It’s powerful stuff.

Make sure to complete the Before & After Grid for ALL of your customer avatars, because each customer segment will go through a different transformation.

Understanding how you will transform your prospect from a “Before” state to a desired “After” state also impacts…

How much you can charge

What is the distance between the “Before” and desired “After” state?

That distance is called VALUE.

A stick of gum is inexpensive, in part, because it covers a very short distance—from “bad taste in your mouth” to “good taste in your mouth.”

By comparison, a car covers a much greater distance: from “stuck at home” or possibly “forced to take a crowded bus to work” to being “free to travel wherever you want in privacy and comfort.” The car provides much more value, and accordingly, it’s also a lot more expensive.

Do you want to charge more for your products and services?

If so, the solution is simple: create more distance between the “Before” and desired “After” state by either:

• Creating a better product or service (better offer)
• Articulating the movement from “Before” to “After” differently or more clearly (better marketing)

When rolling out a new offer, starting a new company, or moving into a new market—make sure to get clear on your “Before” and “After” states. And as I said, make sure to do it for EACH of your customer avatars.

(RELATED: Learn more about what a customer avatar is—and how to create your own—HERE!)

If you’re not able to clearly articulate how you can take your prospect from the “Before” state to a desired “After” state… you may have an issue with Product/Market Fit.

Product/Market Fit may be the single most important part of the entire Customer Value Optimization system. Simply, because every other part of the process is dependent upon having a group of willing and able buyers.

Once you have that group of buyers, the next step is to find a way to bring those people to your website. Which brings us to Step 2: Choose a traffic source.

Step 2: Choose a Traffic Source

Now that you’ve achieved Product/Market fit, your next step is to figure out how to reach that market and get them to your website.

This is where paid traffic comes into play.

I’ve often said that in this day & age, NOBODY has a traffic problem.

You might have a business model problem, an offer problem, or a measurement problem.

But traffic is NOT your problem.

Want to know why?

You can always buy more traffic.

Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn… these platforms are all essentially traffic stores. And they would love to send you more clicks (for the right CPC or CPM, of course).

When you look at it that way, the question of traffic comes down to cost. And to generate traffic profitably, you simply need to understand 2 things:

1. How to measure what traffic is worth
2. How to extract maximum immediate value from that traffic

For example, pretend that you got $10 in profit every time a visitor came to your website. Would you be able to get traffic to the site?

Heck yes, you would!

You could pay up to $10 per visitor and still break even.

In fact, you’ll be able to pay MORE than $10 to get a visitor to that page when you truly understand the whole Customer Value Optimization system—because you’ll be able to extract even more profit from those visitors later on.

This is why CVO is so powerful. Because it allows you to earn more profit per visitor…which means you can spend more money per visitor.

I’ve often said:

“He who can spend the most money to acquire a new customer… wins.”

And Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com, once said something similar (in a tongue-in-cheek warning to his competitors):

“Your margin is my opportunity.”

Amazon.com sells on the thinnest of margins, knowing that acquiring new customers, selling them more products, and selling to them more frequently is how you become unstoppable (there’s Jay Abraham’s law of business growth again).

Now THAT is a killer traffic strategy—one that sets you up for long-term profits and steady growth.

And this is also why tactics and “marketing hacks” are worthless if you don’t understand the CVO process.

You can learn about blogging, Facebook ads, or email marketing until you’re blue in the face…but unless you know how to set up a system that wrings maximum profit from that traffic, you’ll continue to be frustrated.

That’s because the goal of traffic generation—no matter which traffic source you choose—isn’t to generate an immediate profit—it’s to drive prospects into the CVO Funnel.

So whatever you do, don’t hop around from one traffic source to the next, looking for some kind of “magic pill” that will instantly make your business profitable.

Instead, become a master of a single, steady traffic source. Stay focused on that traffic source and, once mastered, add a second and third traffic source.

These traffic sources include…

• Email marketing
• Social advertising (Facebook/Twitter/YouTube ads, etc.)
• Display advertising
• Content marketing
• Organic social media
• SEO

And so on.

You won’t make a huge profit right away, but that’s not the point. The profits will come later IF you use the CVO system.

And the next step of that system is to…

Step 3: Offer a Lead Magnet

The next 2 sections (Offer a Lead Magnet and Offer a Tripwire) show you how to grow your business through the first of Jay Abraham’s methods: increase the number of customers.

First, let’s talk about Lead Magnets.

A Lead Magnet is an irresistible bribe that gives a specific chunk of value to a prospect in exchange for their contact information.

Make no mistake, although no money changes hands, this is a transaction. It is often the very first transaction you will have with a prospect.

In order for your Lead Magnet to be effective, you need to provide tremendous value with it.

The Lead Magnet is usually offered on a web page called a landing page or squeeze page that is optimized to convert even cold traffic into leads.

Your landing page doesn’t need to be fancy to be effective. Here’s a high-performing Lead Magnet landing page from Digital Marketer…

The purpose of your Lead Magnet is to generate leads so you can continue to follow up with them. Because your Lead Magnet is the very top of the CVO Funnel, increasing your opt-ins here will pay dividends throughout the rest of the system.

But not all Lead Magnets are created equal. The best Lead Magnet squeeze pages will convert north of 50% of visitors into leads.

How do you achieve such a high conversion rate?

The key is to make sure your Lead Magnet is specific.

Specificity: The Key to Getting More Leads

What irresistible bribe could you offer in exchange for a prospect’s contact information?

The good news is that you DO NOT need to create something lengthy or complex. In fact, we’ve found that the more laser-focused your Lead Magnet is…the better it will convert.

This, for example, is NOT a good Lead Magnet:

There is no offer in this Lead Magnet, much less a specific one.

But this Lead Magnet isn’t much better. There is an offer, but it isn’t specific…

The offer of a nondescript “freebie” is not going to move people to action. They want to solve a problem. They want an outcome.

(Hint: Any opt-in form or squeeze page that begins with “Subscribe to our newsletter” is probably NOT a good Lead Magnet. Just sayin’.)

Contrast the prior two Lead Magnets with the specific problem that is addressed in this Lead Magnet…

This ad gives a very specific promise to “take your blog posts from ‘Meh’ to Magnificent—FAST.”

It’s a specific promise that appeals to exactly what our customer avatar is looking for.

Now, because of the nature of our company, we tend to offer a lot of online resources—PDFs, videos, that sort of thing.

But your Lead Magnet could be all sorts of things. If you’re a SaaS company like Sprout Social, your Lead Magnet might be a free trial:

Ecommerce companies can offer free shipping or even a discount on your first purchase like Williams Sonoma does here:

No matter what industry you’re in, the take-home message is the same:

Make sure your Lead Magnet solves a specific problem for a specific segment of the market.

Do that, and you’ll generate more high-quality leads… some of whom will then go on to take the next step in the Customer Value Optimization system.

Step 4: Offer a Tripwire

Now you have a Lead Magnet that is generating opt-ins and helping to build your email list. But your Lead Magnet isn’t generating customers, only prospects.

The next step in the CVO process is to turn those leads into customers. To do that, you need a Tripwire.

A Tripwire offer is an irresistible offer that exists for one reason and one reason only:

To convert prospects into buyers.

Typically, a tripwire is a super low-ticket offer (usually between $1 and $20), although this can depend on your market. In markets selling high-ticket products and services, a tripwire offer of $500 might be considered a low-ticket purchase.

The goal of the Tripwire is to fundamentally change the relationship from prospect to customer. The conversion of a prospect to a customer, even for $1, is magical.

The key is to make a Tripwire Offer that your leads are unable to resist.

The most common way to make the Tripwire irresistible is by selling it at cost and, in some cases, at a loss to you.

That’s correct—you are not trying to make a living from selling Tripwire Offers. You are trying to acquire buyers because there is nothing more valuable than a list of buyers.

When you understand the rest of the Customer Value Optimization process, you will understand that the Tripwire Offer is the single most powerful addition you can make to your business—even though you make no direct profit from it.

A classic example of a Tripwire Offer comes from Columbia Records…

Columbia House took over the music market by making an absolutely irresistible offer (13 records or tapes for $1) because they understood that acquiring a list of buyers is the name of the game.

Types of Tripwire Offers

Physical products can make fantastic Tripwire offers…

and so do physical books…

Service-based businesses will often give a steep discount on services to get new customers in the door—like dentists who offer low-cost exams or teeth whitening sessions:

Or gyms offering a low introductory price on fitness classes…

Heck, Groupon is FULL of Tripwire offers. It’s a great place for local businesses (like salons) to attract new customers with deeply discounted offers:

Even GoDaddy, the domain registration and website hosting service, offers a low-priced domain to acquire new customers…

Tripwires are all around us.

It’s the ridiculous flat-screen TV deal at Best Buy. It’s the rock-bottom price of a Kindle Fire. It’s every service offered for a measly $5 on Fiverr.

The strategy behind the Tripwire is simple:

Convert the maximum number of Lead Magnet leads into paying customers, even at the expense of your profit margin, with the understanding that acquiring a paying customer will deliver profit through the next 3 steps:

• Core Offer
• Profit Maximizer
• Return Path

OK, now that you understand how to increase the number of customers, let’s talk about increasing the average transaction value per customer by selling your Core Product.

Step 5: Offer a Core Product

Now that you have a bunch of customers who have purchased a low-dollar item with you, the next step in the Customer Value Optimization process is to sell these people a higher-priced product.

We call that your Core Offer.

You most likely already have a Core Offer. It’s your flagship product or products.

The mistake that many businesses make is trying to sell their Core Offer to cold prospects. This almost never works, because your Core Offer is too expensive. It’s too big of a commitment for someone who’s making their first purchase with you.

That’s why we follow the CVO process to turn cold prospects into warm prospects and warm prospects into customers. Because those customers will be much more receptive to your Core Offer.

Often, simply adding a Lead Magnet and a Tripwire is enough to explode your Core Offer sales.

As long as you over-deliver and provide immense value with your Lead Magnet and Tripwire, your customers will be highly interested in purchasing your Core Offer.

And here’s something to keep in mind:

In some cases, sales from the Core Offer will make you profitable. But it doesn’t have to. If you follow through on the CVO process, you could take everything you make from the Core Offer and reinvest it to acquire more customers.

Again, this is how you become unstoppable. You build a system in which you can spend more to acquire a customer than your competitors. That means you’ll be able to acquire more customers and generate more profit in the long run through future transactions.

Compare that strategy to what most companies do—which is try to make a living from selling their Core Offer.

But you? You don’t need to make a dime from your Core Offer.

Remember, as Jeff Bezos says, your competitor’s margin is an opportunity. It is your opportunity to, for example, spend more on traffic acquisition, conversion rate optimization, or increase the value of your offers.

It might stun you to find out that many of the most successful businesses in the world make no profit until they reach the next 2 stages, Profit Maximizers and Return Path.

Here’s where things get very interesting…

Step 6: Offer a Profit Maximizer

The second of Jay Abraham’s business growth methods is to increase the average transaction value per customer.

That’s what the Profit Maximizer is for.

Most businesses don’t have Tripwire Offers and they don’t have Profit Maximizers. They live and die selling cold prospects on their Core Offer.

This is why they struggle… but you won’t.

Would it shock you to find out that McDonald’s makes almost no money on the hamburger? The hamburger is the Core Offer, but it’s the French fry and soda Profit Maximizers that built the Golden Arches.

This type of Profit Maximizer is called an immediate upsell…

Best Buy sells laptops and plasma TVs (Core Offers) on wafer-thin margins you can’t resist. They make up for it on warranties, installation, and Geek Squad support (Profit Maximizers).

Amazon makes a Cross-Sell Profit Maximizer offer when they show you, “People who bought this product, also bought that product” to increase the Average Basket Value (also known as maximizing profit).

But Amazon also makes a Bundle Profit Maximizer offer with their “Frequently Bought Together” offer…

And Premium Subscriptions (recurring billing) like membership websites and other continuity offers make fantastic Profit Maximizer offers…

Hint: Any offer made after the initial sale is a Profit Maximizer.

They’re called Profit Maximizers because the revenue you get from these sales will be much more profitable than your Tripwire or Core Offer sales.

Remember: the single biggest expense most companies will incur is the cost of acquiring a new customer (which is the job of the Tripwire Offer).

Everything that happens after that increases the customer’s immediate and lifetime value.

So take some time to think about what you could be offering as an upsell or cross-sell. What could you bundle with your Core Offer? How can you incorporate a subscription or membership site into your business model?

Find your Profit Maximizer, and you begin to become unstoppable.

But there is one more way to grow…

Step 7: Create the Return Path

The last way to grow a business is to increase the number of transactions per customer.

Enter the Return Path.

The goal of the Return Path is to have frequent, strategic communication with your buyers and prospects that cause them to buy again and again.

Because you have received their contact information through the Lead Magnet, you can continue marketing online to them.

You can offer new Lead Magnets, Tripwires, Core Offers, and Profit Maximizers because you have permission to market to them or bring them back to the Tripwire, Core Offer, or Profit Maximizer that they didn’t buy the first time around.

The Return Path is anything that brings the customer or prospect back more frequently, including…

• Email marketing
• Exit offers
• Organic social media (like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn)
• Loyalty programs
• Content marketing
• Outbound sales calling
• Ad retargeting (More on ad retargeting here)

And that, my friends, is the system we have used (and continue to use) to grow DigitalMarketer and multiple other businesses in multiple industries.

It’s worked for single-member businesses and giant corporations like McDonald’s and Starbucks.

It works because it takes all the jigsaw pieces of digital marketing and fits them together in a way that fits.

And if you begin applying it the way I’ve just explained, it will help you (too!) to grow and scale your business.

The post Customer Value Optimization: How to Build an Unstoppable Business appeared first on DigitalMarketer.