Ready to start building out your sales funnels? I find that a lot of people are just lost when it comes to building out their funnels. There are a few things you need before you can get started. Here are some of the most popular options when it comes to putting together both free and paid funnels:
Lead Pages-when it comes to building opt-in pages, LeadPages.net is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal. They’ve tracked and tested a variety of page styles to determine which ones convert best, and they make it easy for you to build similar pages for your marketing funnel. The reason people like LeadPages is because it has a drag and drop feature that makes building your opt-in pages a breeze. It does come with a fee of $25/month if you pay annually.So before investing, you’ll want to be sure you can recoup your investment.
I also recommend OptimizePress which is another landing page builder. With OptimizePress you pay a one time fee of $97 and it is yours for the year. No monthly payments. You do have to renew it annually but the renewal fee is only $34. OptimizePress has opt-in pages, webinar pages, thank you pages and is easy to work with just like Lead Pages. It’s a choice that you have to make financially and which one works for you the best.
Instabuilder-similar to LeadPages, but without the monthly investment. Instabuilder is a plugin for WordPress that allows you to create your own funnels. It includes several funnel templates and a drag-and-drop page builder that makes it easy to get just the look you want.
AWeber- When it comes to an email marketing management system, I choose Aweber. It’s probably the easiest email manager on the market today, Aweber is the choice for many small business owners, not only because it’s simple to use, but because it’s also economical. Starting at less than $20 per month for up to 500 subscribers, Aweber offers both autoresponders and broadcast emails, list automation, and segmenting, so you can send emails exactly when-and to whom-you want to add to your sales pipeline.
Click Funnels- With a click of a button you can easily build and create different types of sales funnels, opt-in funnels, webinar funnels, membership sites and so much more. Click funnels integrates with your shopping cart, CRM and Email Autoresponder. Click Funnels has a 14 day free trial and after the trial you pay $97 monthly.
PayPal-Is the simplest of all payment processors, PayPal allows you to take payments online for a very reasonable fee. You can also use it as a simple shopping cart for your website.
Infusionsoft-Probably the top tool for any business model, Infusionsoft is an all-in-one solution for customer management, funnel setup, mailing list, and even membership sites. It’s priced at the high end, but if you can (and will) use all its power, then Infusionsoft is well worth the investment. It’s a hefty investment though, It’s not for someone just starting their business. At $199 a month with a upfront fee of $999 you would use this tool for taking your business to the next level.
You can see that you have a lot of options (and even more that I have not mentioned) when it comes to building out your sales funnels, but what are the must-have items? At the most basic level, you must have:
A way to create web pages. A simple WordPress website will fill this need, with a little bit of work. LeadPages, Optimize Press, and Instabuilder are nice to have, but not essential, especially if you’re just getting started.
A way to capture email addresses. Aweber is definitely the top choice here, but others include MailChimp, Constant Contact, and iContact.
Take your time and start out small. Build the sales funnel by using tools that don’t cost a fortune. Once you have a few marketing funnels up and running, you will be able to see where they can use improvement, and how the tools available to you can help make your sales funnels convert better and work more efficiently.