Tiers & Funnels

Oct 4

How to Build Your Audience

by Crunch Ranjani

Remember the first time you invested in a professional development training? Whether it was your first yoga teacher training, a life coaching certification, or leadership development training, you probably didn’t make this decision lightly, deciding to buy from the first expert you came across online.

Instead, you probably discovered someone on social media and followed them for a while before checking out their website. Maybe you attended a webinar they hosted or chatted with them on a free discovery call. Perhaps you bought a mini-course or template they offer, and then eventually, after having them on your radar for three to six months or even a year or more, you decided to make a big investment with them, and signed up for their coaching program or attended a conference they hosted.

If that sounds about right, congratulations, my friend. You just flowed through their sales funnel - and went from “stranger on the Internet” to “valued paying customer”!

Surprised? In this article, we’ll be digging into what a sales funnel is, and how to create one for your business that allows you to sell authentically.

Let's Talk About Sales Funnels

Sales funnels are a series of steps that guide people who have never heard of you or expressed interest in your work (cold leads) to become an engaged audience (warm leads). Once someone becomes a warm lead, it's much easier to sell them a product or service, and convert them into a paying client.

Despite what you may have heard online, digital marketing isn’t JUST about posting on social media and sending out an email newsletter, although that has its part to play too. You have to nurture and cultivate authentic relationships, and this is something that takes time. A sales funnel makes it easier to draw your ideal client to you AND build that relationship over time. By being supportive of your ideal client avatar, and aligning the content in your sales funnel with your paid offers through sales tiers, you’ll be well on your way to having eager, enthusiastic clients who can’t wait to work with you!

Why You Absolutely Need Sales Tiers

Sales tiers are basically the steps in your sales funnel. Each tier relates to the offers you create in your business to guide people through your funnel.

Freebies a.k.a Lead Magnets

At the very first tier, you have the $0 products or services, a.k.a freebies. They are also called lead magnets because their primary purpose is to attract (like a magnet!) your ideal clients to you by offering something of value to them. Social media content where you share tips and tricks, your email newsletter, blog posts, free eBooks, replays of past webinars or workshops, and free introductory consults or mini-sessions all fall into this category.

It gives people who don't know anything about you a chance to start to get to know you as a person, and become familiar with your business or organization as a brand. It’s a great idea to create your lead magnet on a similar topic to the paid offering that you are hoping to sell. Because the investment is so low, it’s a low-risk way to put yourself in front of your ideal audience and start warming up cold leads.

Tier 1 - Products & Services Below $100

In Tier 1, we have products and services that are less than $100. These types of offers are excellent to build your audience while generating a small amount of revenue in your business (ideally not the bulk of it!). Some examples of offers at this level are in-person or virtual 2-3 hour workshops or pre-recorded trainings.

The goal with this tier is to invite people to make a small investment with you and to give them a taste of what it would be like to work with you. You can reach a large group of people at this tier because of the more accessible price point and cultivate a warm audience.

Tier 2 - Signature Programs

Signature programs in the $100 to $500 per person price range fall into Tier 2. These would be things like your coaching program, online course, or training program. You’ll have more success with selling these offerings to your warm audience, so avoid pitching this offer to random people.

Instead, try guiding people through the sales tiers by offering them a freebie, then a Tier 1 offer, and when they’ve become even more interested in your offers, you can invite them to Tier 2 offers. This is what will support you in reaching the sales goals that you have in mind for Tier 2.

Tier 3 - High-End Offers

In some business models, you may also have a Tier 3 offer. These are higher value offers that range from $500 to $1,000 or more per person. Retreats, intensive or in-depth training programs, coaching packages, and VIP days are some common examples of high-end offers.

To get people to this tier, it is essential to have walked them up the sales tiers, guiding them from freebie to low-cost investment, to a higher cost investment, and finally inviting them to Tier 3 offers. This helps to ensure they are much, much more willing to make that investment with you. Remember, people are often cautious of making a big investment, so it will take time and effort on your part to nurture those genuine, authentic connections, and demonstrate that your offer is a good fit for them.

Pro Tip: Plan 3 months ahead of a new launch to give yourself sufficient time to implement the technical infrastructure you need for your new offer AND to build authentic relationships with your audience!

A Sales Funnel in Action

Let’s say you’re a holistic wellness coach who is hosting a 3-day wellness retreat in 6 months. Your business goal is to get people to attend the retreat, but you now understand that your retreat is most likely to be attended by members of your warm audience. So what do you do?

You might start by offering a free guided meditation for download. You might then invite people who downloaded the guided meditation to a paid workshop on daily wellness practices. From there, you might invite them to join your wellness membership platform or group coaching program. And then, maybe after a few months of connecting with them, getting to know them, and working with them in some capacity, you might extend an invitation to your retreat.

This is the same process you would repeat with any other offer you’re promoting in your business, whether that’s an online course, a training session, or 1:1 services.

Using Email Automations to Build a Sales Funnel

It can feel like a lot to keep track of nurturing your audience to guide them through the sales funnel and each sales tier. That’s where technology can lend a hand. By taking advantage of platforms like ConvertKit and MailChimp that have built-in email automations, nurturing your audience and guiding people through your sales funnel becomes a whole lot easier.

Step 1: Create a Lead Magnet - This is something that is interesting and attractive to your ideal client and will draw your audience to you. It doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated. A simple PDF prepared in Canva, resources you created for a previous training or course, or even a free workshop or consultation call can be great options for your lead magnet. We recommend creating a lead magnet that’s related to your paid offer.

Step 2: Build a Landing Page - Build a landing page for this lead magnet. This can be a simple registration page where people input their name and email address to get access to the free lead magnet.

Step 3: Create a Tag for Your Lead Magnet Audience - Most email platforms have a feature called Tags. A tag is essentially a label that allows you to differentiate that particular person from other people. Creating a tag for your lead magnet allows you to keep track of the list of people who have signed up for it.

Step 4: Set Up Email Automation with Tag - Email automation allows the process of sending emails to be taken care of by your mailing service. For example, instead of manually sending every person who signed up for your free workshop a Zoom link, and then emailing them periodic reminders in the lead-up to the workshop, the email platform can take care of all of this for you. Once you set up the email automation correctly, and set it to send an email or a sequence of emails to everyone with the Tag, you won’t have to worry about it again.

Step 5: Use This Funnel to Target Warm Client Leads - At the end of all this, you will have a list of people who are interested in your specific services or offerings a.k.a warm leads. Moving forward, this is a list you can tap into when you want to promote your paid offerings because these are people who have already said YES to your freebie. This is an indication that they are interested in your topic, in your brand, in your offerings!

And that’s it! While this process does take a few hours to create the landing page, set up the email tags, the sequence, and integrate everything, once it has been set up, you can pretty much forget about it and know that warm leads will always be in your sales funnel for you to invite to your paid offerings.

Educational sales funnels are just one element of selling authentically. If you are an entrepreneur or community organizer wanting to launch or grow your online business, nonprofit, or community project, and are interested in learning more about holistic sales strategies, please feel warmly welcome to join us in the Biz Growth Incubator.

A 9-week biz incubator to accelerate GROWTH, we will dive into a simple, easy to follow, step-by-step formula that even the LEAST tech-savvy person can follow. Learn how to design an authentic, genuine sales strategy, generate visibility and engagement on social media, fill your sales funnel with an eager audience, and much more. We’d love to have you join us!