Ready to start building your sales funnels? It seems to me that a lot of people just get lost when it comes to building 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 building free and paid funnels:
Lead Pages – When it comes to creating subscription pages, LeadPages.net is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. They’ve scoured and tested a variety of page styles to determine which ones convert best, and make it easy for you to create similar pages for your marketing funnel. The reason people like LeadPages is because it has a drag and drop feature that makes creating your signup pages a breeze. It comes with a $25/month fee if you pay annually, so before you invest, you’ll want to make sure you can get your investment back.
I also recommend OptimizePress, which is another landing page builder. With OptimizePress, you pay a one-time fee of $97 and it’s yours for the year. No monthly payments. You have to renew annually, but the renewal fee is only $34. OptimizePress has signup pages, webinar pages, thank you pages, and it’s easy to work with, just like the lead pages. It’s a choice you have to make financially and which one works best for you.
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 the look you want.
AWeber – When it comes to an email marketing management system, I choose Aweber. Probably the easiest email manager on the market today, Aweber is the choice for many small business owners, not only because it’s easy to use, but also because it’s affordable. Starting at less than $20 per month for up to 500 subscribers, Aweber offers autoresponders and broadcast emails, list automation, and segmentation, so you can send emails exactly when and to whom you want to add to your sales funnel.
Click Funnels – With the click of a button, you can easily build and create different types of sales funnels, signup funnels, webinar funnels, membership sites, and much more. Click Funnels integrate with your shopping cart, CRM, and email autoresponder. Click Funnels has a 14-day free trial and after the trial you pay $97 per month.
PayPal – The simplest of all payment processors, PayPal allows you to make payments online for a very reasonable fee. You can also use it as a simple shopping cart for your website.
Infusionsoft – Probably the best tool for any business model, Infusionsoft is an all-in-one solution for customer management, funnel setup, mailing list, and even membership sites. It comes at a high-end price, but if you can (and want) to use its full power, then Infusionsoft is worth investing in. However, it is a great investment. It is not for someone who has just started their business. At $199 per month with an initial fee of $999, you would use this tool to take your business to the next level.
You can see that you have many options (and even more that I haven’t mentioned) when it comes to building your sales funnels, but what are the must-haves? At the most basic level, you should 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 starting out.
A way to capture email addresses. Aweber is definitely the best option here, but others include MailChimp, Constant Contact, and iContact.
Take your time and start small. Create the sales funnel using tools that don’t cost a fortune. Once you have a few marketing funnels up and running, you’ll be able to see where they can improve and how the tools available can help your sales funnels convert better and run more efficiently.