Dotcom Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Growing Your Company Online with Sales Funnels

by Russell Brunson

Email #5—Urgency and CTA: This is usually the last email in my Soap Opera Sequence. The goal is to give the reader one last push to go take action right now. You do that by adding urgency into the equation and using a call to action (CTA).

DAILY SEINFELD EMAILS

My emails switched from 100 percent content to 90 percent entertainment with just 10 percent content, and my readership, opens, clicks, and sales all skyrocketed with the change.

The Seinfeld emails I send are usually related to one of these three styles of emails: Episode style: I tell a story about what happened today in my life, tell a story that ties back into my core offer, or share a controversial topic in my industry. My goal is to get people to go back into one of my funnels. Epiphany style: I talk about different ideas, such as inspirational or enlightening/thought-provoking ideas, or I can challenge existing beliefs. My goal is to help my readers have an epiphany that ties back into my core offers. Educational style: These may be checklists, how-tos, Q and A’s, or FAQs that I can answer and use to direct people back into my core offers and funnels.

Every email and every story must be tied back into some type of offer for your audience.

SECTION TWO THE FUNNELS IN THE VALUE LADDER

Front-End Lead Funnels

The three best lead funnels we’ve used are: lead “squeeze”, survey, and summit funnels.

LEAD “SQUEEZE” FUNNELS

Lead “squeeze” funnels have two pages: a squeeze page and a thank-you page where you offer the next step of your value ladder.

PAGE #1: THE “SQUEEZE” OR LANDING PAGE

Offer: The goal of the squeeze page is to make an offer, where you get someone to give you their email address in exchange for what is often called a “lead magnet.”

Hook: You’ll notice that these pages are all very simple. They all have a headline that serves as the hook. The more curiosity you can put into the headline, the more likely they will be to give you their email address. If your conversion rates are low on your squeeze page, it’s usually because the lead magnet (offer) isn’t good enough or there isn’t enough curiosity in the headline.

Story: On a traditional squeeze page, the story isn’t long. For most of my pages, the subheadline will tell a quick story.

I usually keep the story very short on the squeeze page because I don’t want to distract from the offer. If the offer is strong and simple to understand, you don’t need to spend as much time on the story. If your offer does need more explanation, you can use what we call a “reverse squeeze page,” where you have a video (instead of an image) that tells the story and asks for the opt-in. You’ll usually get a lower conversion rate on a reverse squeeze page, but the leads that come through are always more qualified.

PAGE #2: THE THANK-YOU PAGE

After someone has put in their email address to get your lead magnet, they’ll land on your thank-you page, where you’ll thank them for joining your list and give them the lead magnet you promised them.

Now is the time to start building a relationship with those people who just joined your list through your first Soap Opera Sequence.

On the thank-you page, you give them what you promised and offer the next step in your value ladder (in this case: One Funnel Away Challenge).

SURVEY FUNNELS

Survey funnels have these pages: a survey page, a squeeze page for each group, and a results page for each type of person with a message tailored specifically for them.

It was selling the same program, but the sales message catered to my specific problems! Since seeing this funnel, we’ve used the quiz (or survey) concept dozens of times for many different markets. It works best when there are many different types of people who would benefit from your offer.

PAGE #1: THE SURVEY PAGE

For this type of funnel, the offer is simple: “Take this short quiz, and I will tell you ________.” We ask our visitors to take a short quiz to find out which funnel will work the best for their specific business.

The purpose of a survey is to separate your visitors into different “buckets” so you can speak directly to them.

Out of all the questions, though, there is only one question that really matters. In the book Ask, Ryan Levesque calls this question the “bucket question.”15 How they answer this question will determine what landing page they end up on.

In our survey, our first question was our bucket question. I wanted to find out what type of business they owned, and then I would redirect them to the sales pages that explained the benefits of using ClickFunnels to that specific type of business.

I found that the majority of the quizzes followed this general multiple-choice format: Self-identifying questions (Gender; age; etc.) Self-identifying question based on subject (Do you have a funnel?; Have you ever tried to lose weight in the past?; etc.) Self-declare level of skill (How much money have you made with your business?; How much knowledge do you have on [topic]?; etc.) Self-declare biggest challenge with subject (I struggle with traffic the most; I struggle with eating carbs; etc.) Educate and clarify (Those with [#2 response] typically suffer from one of three [symptoms]. Tell me which issue you suffer from the most. [List 3 choices]) Surprise/random curiosity-based question (Wait . . . Are you drinking water first thing in the morning? Because that could matter . . . etc.)

PAGE #2: THE SQUEEZE PAGE

Once visitors complete the quiz, they’re directed to a “calculating” pop-up that explains their results are being calculated. This page isn’t essential, but we did see a lift in conversions by adding it.

The “calculating” pop-up shows your visitors that they’re going to get information tailored to them.

Based on their answer to the bucket question, they’ll see a case study from someone in their own industry. We have one case study for each of our nine options

Figure 9.5: Our squeeze pages feature different niche case studies that we send to our visitors after they enter their email address.

Prospects are also added to a specific Soap Opera Sequence follow-up funnel that talks more about their specific industry and how funnels will work uniquely for them.

PAGE #3: THE RESULT...

After they give us their email address, they are taken to the results page where we show them the case study (sto...

SUMMIT FUNNELS