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hi everybody it's jenny from thinkific and in today's episode of our online course series we're talking about sales funnels stay tuned [Music] welcome back to our channel on our online course series where we teach you everything you need to know about creating a successful online course if you haven't done so already make sure to hit that bell below so you don't miss out on any of the awesome content coming your way so before we dive into the wonders of using your sales funnel for your online course we should probably start at the very beginning what is a sales funnel a sales funnel is a series of steps that companies use to persuade prospects to become customers a sales funnel is first and foremost a journey there are sales funnels everywhere you probably just haven't realized it yet in fact it's safe to say that at any given moment in time you yourself are traveling through dozens of different sales funnels without even noticing to give an example let's take that ad you recently saw in your facebook news feed a local clothing store in your area is offering a massive sale coincidentally you were in the market for some new yoga gear so this sounds great to you you click on that advertisement and find more info on their website and all the amazing products they have to offer you sign up with your email and mark that date in your calendar when the big day comes and you purchase all the discounted products that you need there's also a buy one get the other 50 off sales so you buy that too suddenly you find yourself at the checkout desk making a payment and that my friends is a sales funnel at its core the sales funnel looks something like this the awareness stage is where your prospects are just happening upon your brand they're looking for an answer to a question they have and they're discovering you through social media and other advertisements the interest stage is where you nurture your leads by using your website and content to give more information and help answer their questions the consideration stage is where a casual prospect turns into a warm lead specifically they signed up for a free resource that you're offering and opt-in to your email list the engagement stage at this stage your lead is consuming the free resource that you just emailed them they're taking some sort of action and they're starting to trust your brand the selling stage this is the stage where you actually advertise your paid online course and they buy it okay so there are a lot of different pieces that make up a sales funnel but we've squeezed it into just six key steps for you number one identify a specific problem your target market is facing your course is not for everyone there is a specific type of person that is most likely going to be interested in your course it's crucial to have an in-depth understanding of who that person is find their main struggles and figure out how you can help in a previous video we talked about finding the main points of your target audience make sure you watch that number two publish free content that solves a specific problem the idea behind this step is to provide value to your target market upfront for free earning their trust and positioning you as an expert in the process if you want you can publish blogs podcast episodes or videos on youtube the type of content you create is not super important the most important thing is that the content you create actually helps your target market with their problems in some way this will build trust but also an audience that you can tap into later on number three include a free resource to build your email list not everyone who reads your blog post will sign up for your online course and that's perfectly fine the best way to separate the casual readers from the people who are more likely to enroll in your course is to get them to subscribe to your email list ing to salesforce it takes an average of six to eight touches to generate a viable sales lead that means a potential student will likely need to hear from you six to eight times before they decide to enroll in your course in order to get someone to subscribe to your email list you will need to offer them an incentive for doing so this is a resource that you give away in exchange for someone's email address a checklist worksheet resource guide additional training or even a free course are all examples of content upgrades that you could offer number four send a welcome email to new subscribers this step is very straightforward and probably the easiest of all the steps involved in creating this sales funnel using your email service provider you can create what's called an order responder email this is an email that's sent to someone automatically and after a predetermined period of time which in the case of a welcome email would be immediately after they subscribe to your email list i recommend keeping your welcome email pretty simple introduce yourself thank them for reading your blog post invite them to reach out to you and include a link to download that free resource you promised them number five create an automated email follow-up series to sell your course how this works is pretty simple you write a bunch of emails and then add them to your autoresponder series using your email service provider like mailchimp you get to decide ahead of time when these emails are sent in relation to the day that someone first subscribes to your email list for example you could write seven follow-up emails and then configure your autoresponder series to send one email per day for 7 days to each new subscriber on your email list i don't recommend giving your follow-up emails subject lines like email 1 email 2 email 3 etc but you get the idea the point is to ensure that everyone who subscribes to your email list receives the same emails in the same order and after the same amount of time number six follow up with the non-buyers on your email list not everyone that you invite to sign up for your online course we'll do it and that's perfectly normal that being said what you can do after you pitch your course to your email subscribers is politely ask them why they didn't buy most people will be surprised that you even asked and if you do it properly you can obtain some incredibly valuable feedback from your target market sometimes they just want to talk to you and ask you a few questions before buying from you more often than not the feedback you receive from non-buyers will help you think of additional lessons to add to your course make changes to your follow-up emails or add more information to your course sales page or your frequently asked questions page all of which will help you to be more successful in the long run now that you're all done with your sales funnel it's time to take action and turn it into reality this will be a long process but don't worry the more you take these steps the more your cold leads will turn into warm leads eventually building a familiarity and trust in your brand we hope you found this video useful if you have any questions let us know in the comments and don't forget to like and subscribe until next time keep creating