Grow Your Marketing Funnel to Grow Your Bottom Line

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What does your marketing funnel look like?

For those who are unfamiliar, a marketing funnel represents the progress of prospects from the initial raising of the hand to say, "I'm interested in hearing more from you" to the purchase of your core-and probably most expensive-service. This is such a basic marketing concept, but I still see so many people, including advanced marketers, getting it wrong.

Prospects usually enter the wide-mouth top of the funnel by opting in for something free-such as signing up for your ezine or subscribing to your blog. But the business often tries to immediately push prospects to the narrow spout of the funnel, which represent their high-dollar, core product or service. Most prospects will balk-preferring to sit on the sidelines until they know more about you.

Channel Prospects Down the Funnel

Instead, you should keep prospects moving down the funnel with a series of products or services that "step-up" in price-allowing them to see the value you can provide with less risk to their wallet. These funnel products can be ebooks, paid newsletters, seminars, workshops, DIY home study guides or even just pared down versions of your core service. And the good news is you probably already have everything you need to create them in your head and your computer.

I'm sure someone out there is thinking, "But if they can get my expertise for less, or learn how to do what I do, will not that hurt sales of my core service?" No, it will not. People often buy the lower-priced products, recognize that either there's much more to learn than they thought or decide they just do not have the time to do it and hire you to do it instead. (I hope it goes without saying that these products should be high quality and high value, not slip-shod efforts to upsell people.)

AND you're getting sales from people who would have never paid for your core service anyway.

So to get started filling out your funnel:

1. Make a list of all your products and services-from the lowest (including free ones) to the highest priced
2. Identify the big gaps
3. Brainstorm products and services based on different areas of your expertise to create a more logical price progress (If you need help, sign up for a Magnetic Marketing Strategy Session!)
4. Create your new products and services!

So what is a logical price progress? This will depend on your clients. But I'd say expecting them to jump from a $ 20 eBook to an $ 800 workshop is not a logical progress. Adding a teleseminar series and workbook for around $ 100- $ 150 though could easily bridge the gap.

In the end, expanding your marketing funnel will result in more clients, more sales, and a much more consistent stream of income.