Today, I’m going tell you about something that I think a lot of people seem to get a little bit worked up on, and it’s something that a lot of people think is a lot bigger and harder and scarier than it actually is, so they don’t get around to actually doing it.

That is email sales funnels.

I know funnel is the cool buzz word at the moment.

Everyone’s talking about how their email sales funnel is doing.

If you haven’t had a chance to play with funnels or you haven’t implemented them yet in your blog or business, they might seem more difficult than they actually are.

Email sales funnels is just a nerdy way of saying selling shit on autopilot. #secretbloggersbusinessClick To Tweet

This might mean you don’t go and try them.

That’s a real shame because email sales funnels are brilliant tools, particularly for solopreneurs or for any bloggers or coaches or for anyone who doesn’t have a massive team yet.

Emails Sales Funnel: What Exactly is it?

An email sales funnel is a way of automating different parts of your business.

Email sales funnels help to grow your audience, grow your list and get you more sales.

So why wouldn’t you want to have that done on autopilot when you’re not having to pay staff to go and do it?

You can just set up the cool online bots and software to do it for you.

It’s not expensive.

It’s not scary, and I’m going to take you through exactly how to do my favourite email sales funnel.

My favourite email sales funnel, which is one of the first ones I set up, and it’s probably the one that’s made the most money for my business as well, as far as evergreen revenue is my warm-up funnel.

I call it our master funnel.

Other people call it warm-up, intro or an onboarding funnel.

Whatever you want to call it, it’s basically just the funnel that introduces people who join your list to you.

That’s what your warm-up funnel is.

It’s where you get that chance to really put your best foot forward

Show your best stuff to really grow some trust, help to give some value, get people to really know who you are, what you’re about and tell them how you’re going to help them.

Also, more controversially, to know whether you’re not for them because that’s another important service that your funnel can offer.

That is to stop those people who have maybe come in that is tyre-kickers, or they’re just having a look around.

Maybe they’ve stumbled across you from some weird Pinterest search. You’re not actually related to the stuff they’re looking for. They just want to get that one particular freebie.

You can use your funnel to filter them out so you’re not growing a massive e-mail list that’s just full of time wasters.

Instead, you’re growing an e-mail list of people who are really engaged, who are really interested in what you’re talking about and who really see the value in what you’re doing and who are starting to create that connection with you through the e-mails and the stuff that you send them.

Some good service providers for setting up your email sales funnels with are:

• ActiveCampaign (I use them + love it)
• MailChimp
• ConvertKit
• Ontraport

Email Sales Funnel: Keep it Simple

Firstly, just keep it really simple.

Now, a lot of people can get really carried away with all the cool stuff you can do.

Once you start playing with different automations and things like that, you’ll be going, “Oh my God, when someone reads this, a blog person would send them this. Then, when they sign up for this e-mail and click on this thing and this and this other thing.”

Then, you create this crazy complicated email sales funnel.

That’s when you get yourself into trouble.

Simple is better, and particularly when you’re getting started.

Keep it simple because that way, you’re going to know what is working and what isn’t.

If you’re wanting to jump in and make changes or tweak or alter anything, test different stuff out, it’s a lot easier to do than if you’ve got this crazy 50-step, with all different variations and A-B testing and all kinds of stuff going on, and it’s not working as well as you want it to work.

Keeping it simple also means you can implement it quickly.

You can literally get this up and running in a couple of hours.

Email Sales Funnels: What goes into it?

Most of us have multiple different ways of people getting onto our e-mail list.

You might have content upgrades in your blog posts.

You might have your big over-arching list builder that you use, whether it’s a challenge or a freebie or an eBook.

You might have different workshops that you do or different challenges.

All of these things are going to be sending people into your list.

You want all of these people to be having a really similar experience.

Make sure you’re keeping that in mind.

This is for after they’ve got their content upgrade or they’ve got their freebie challenge and they’ve received their e-mail going, “Hey, here’s your freebie,” the first step of your funnel is what happens next.

You can add them all into this email sales funnel.

Email Sales Funnels: Intro Email

The very first thing you want to do is send them an awesome introduction e-mail.

In this introduction e-mail is what I call “The love me or leave me e-mail.”

It’s almost like your about page.

You don’t have to go and write this stuff from scratch.

You’ve probably got most this info on your site already, but I want you to give these people a really good introduction to who you are.

Tell them who you are for and how you can help them.

Also tell them who you’re not for, and give them an option to self-select out.

If you know that your niche is about A, B and C, but not so much for D, E, F, then say that.

Say, “And so if you’re looking for D, E or F, I’m sorry. I’m not your gal. Click here to unsubscribe.”

You’re giving people a secondary revalidation of their choice to opt in because if they choose to stay, then, they’re like “Yes, this is where I’m supposed to be. This is the person I want to be following. They’re definitely going to be able to help me. I’m onboard. Let’s do this.”

You’ll want those who aren’t going to benefit from what you offer to unsubscribe.

They’re just taking up space and you end up paying for them because e-mail service providers normally charge you based on how many subscribers you’ve got.

If they’re just there but not interested then they’re costing you money.

They’re ruining your open rates, your interaction and your deliverability.

You don’t want them. Get them out.

Email Sales Funnels: How Many + When?

For the first couple of weeks, I like to send emails 4 to 5 days apart because if anyone’s like me, you’re probably opting into a few different bits and pieces.

You might forget that you opted into someone’s list if you don’t hear from them again until a whole week later.

For this first couple of weeks, I do send a bit more regularly.

The first week, I might send three e-mails. Then, in the next week, two.

Then, it goes to about a five-day cycle for the following couple of weeks for however many e-mails you want to send in this email sales funnel.

The number of e-mails you send is entirely up to you.

A great tip is to go into your e-mail statistics and find what have been your most successful e-mails that you’ve ever sent?

Go and have a look.

What’s got the best open rates, the best click through rates of all the e-mails that you’ve sent to your list previously?

Take those e-mails. Add them in, in an order that makes sense.

Now, of course, you might have to tweak them slightly.

They might be slightly out-of-date, but you want to really use this chance.

Put your best foot forward.

Share your best stuff.

Why rewrite it when it’s already there?

You’ve already put the time and effort into it. It’s just going, finding it and popping it into this sequence.

Email Sales Funnel: The Offer

Now, the third part of your email sales funnel is probably the most crucial part is I want you guys to make an offer.

Somewhere in the sequence, and it will really depend on what your niche is and what your product is.

If you don’t have a product yet, that’s fine, but try and find an awesome affiliate product that you can link to.

Something that’s got a good amount of commission that you can get back.

Something that you really stand behind, that really aligns with the stuff that you talk about.

You can even have a few of them sprinkled through, but I want to make sure that in this indoctrination series, you are giving people a chance to take the next step and also give yourself the chance to start earning some nice recurring evergreen revenue.

There’s lots of different ways to do this.

But just make sure that within that indoctrination series, you are offering, and depending on how long it is, you might even have more than one, that you are doing at least one offer.

You’ll have people that have come in. They’ve got the freebie. They’ve reaffirmed that yes, you are the person that they want to follow.

Then, you can send them a bit of value and roundabout e-mails, three or four, you want to make an offer of some sort.

Your offer can be subtle or it can be big.

Maybe you invite them to a webinar.

Maybe it’s a straight-off 50% off.

Maybe you’re going to give them a bonus.

Whatever it is, find a way to make a nice timely offer.

Do it out the front, because your new subscribers are going to be probably the most primed to take that next step.

If they’ve sought you out, and if they’ve been looking for that particular solution, that particular topic that you’re talking about, then probably right now, they have an issue.

They have something that they need some help with.

Right now, is the best time to be offering that next step.

I know some people like to warm people up months before they go and make an offer, but you don’t have to be aggressive about it.

Give those people who are looking for a solution right now, the opportunity to take that solution if you have one, rather than making them wait for it, in which case, they might have solved it themselves.

They might have bought someone else’s offering. Don’t be too scared to make that offer.

I wouldn’t do it in your very first e-mail, but give a little bit of value.

Then, feel free to send through some sort of related offer.

Email Sales Funnels: Recap

Email sales funnels are not at all scary. They’re literally just a series of e-mails.

There’s some really cool tools out there that allow you to do them. ActiveCampaign is my personal favourite. It starts at only $9 a month.

Then, once you’re creating it, keep it super simple. Don’t get too complicated, particularly at the start. You don’t need to go on and reinvent the wheel.

Your stuff you’ve already got that works, so the first e-mail you’re going to send is your love me or leave me e-mail where you introduce yourself.

Give people a chance to reaffirm that yes, you are the right person for them to follow, but also to opt out and leave if you’re not.

Do not be scared of scaring the wrong people away.

Then, your following e-mails, so the next five to 10 e-mails, which you can scatter out at varying intervals over the next few weeks, even months, they’re going to be the very best e-mails that you’ve ever sent.

Go through your stats. Find them. Pop them altogether. Tweak them slightly, and you’re good to go.

Seriously, this is not a difficult thing to do. You can go away and do it in a couple of hours.

You will be amazed, particularly if you’re in the third step, which is adding in offer somewhere out the front, at how useful this can be for your business.

How good it is creating that initial connection, creating that initial value, that trust and also starting to get some sales coming through, literally, day-after-day, without you having to do anything, so well worth a few hours, I reckon.

Have you got an email sales funnel set up in your blog or biz? Let me know how it works for you in the comments below!