Now I want to let you in on a dirty little secret; I don’t know a single person anymore who is making a lot of money sending traffic directly to a sales page.While a simple Squeeze page that goes to a sales video might have worked 5 years ago, it rarely works now.All the top guys (including myself) are using custom, high converting sales funnels that are branded to us.
I use dynamic, behaviour based email sequences that convert subscribers into sales. I create our own offers.Without these things, you’ll struggle to make money online in 2015 and beyond.
It’s easy to explain…
HINT: It’s All About Using An “Unfair Advantage”
If you’ve ever wondered how some people seemingly skyrocket to the top, while others get left behind, this is it.v One minute nobody’s heard of them, and the next they’re dominating the leaderboards, raking in thousands of dollars in commissions every day.
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Here is why you need a branded high converting sales funnel…to make money
Because….The market is getting more and more sophisticated.
Which means unless your marketing is improving with it, you’ll get left behind. Even though this is obvious, I still see people blindly following the usual ‘spiel’ you hear from gurus. Lots of ‘get traffic to your affiliate link’ and ‘blog daily’ and all of your dreams will come true.
That’s simple marketing to lazy people, and unfortunately it just doesn’t work anymore. If you want to get rich on the Internet, you need to learn how to do all of this complicated stuff, or you need to pay other people to do it for you. Every day I see people blindly follow this advice, without ever learning anything.
There’s a natural progression most people have to go through as an online marketer.
If you make it past step 3, you’re guaranteed to make money.
Most people give up before completing step one.
Here’s how it works:
1. You get online and are told to just buy traffic to an affiliate link.
This sounds like the most logical and effective thing in the world, until you do it. Very rarely will you find traffic that magically converts into sales sending it straight to a sales video.
The only person this is really good for is the company owner. They are getting you to buy traffic to their offer, while probably collecting a copy of all your leads and whatever else. To most company owners, they just want to turn 1 affiliate into 1.5 affiliates.
They let the top earners figure things out for themselves, because the determined people always do.
The people with a burning desire to make money, always find a way. With this in mind, companies like to keep the ‘reality’ a secret.
By keeping it simple, more people buy traffic to their systems and they collect more leads (good for the company owner, not for honest, hard working people who want to get started).
Time frame: 1-6 months.
2. You realize it doesn’t work.
You realize you just wasted your money on traffic (and that’s fine). Try telling a guy who joins an Internet Marketing program for the first time they have to spend $50,000 or 1 year on a funnel
because sending traffic to an affiliate link doesn’t work (it works, but not in the numbers that make it profitable). People have to find out for themselves.
Hopefully, they learn and realise they need to put in the time to learn marketing, and work on their sales funnel (or pay someone to do it for them, with something like this).
I’ve had 101 people call me for traffic, where I’ve told them its a bad idea to send traffic to their affiliate link, but they insisted upon it.
After blowing money on traffic the logical thing would be to say it didn’t work because the conversions were too low, so you should work on your marketing funnel.
However, most people just think ‘the gurus must have a better traffic source than me’. So they start searching for places to buy traffic from (which inevitably results in the exact same outcome = nothing).
Time frame: 6-12 months.
(about 90% of people quit by this time)
3. They begin to see the truth.
Usually at step 3 in the progression ladder of an average marketer they begin to see the truth. That sending traffic to an affiliate link isn’t the answer. Really, it’s not hard to see at all.
The single most obvious thing about top earners online and top companies is their marketing, great marketing, unique marketing.
So around this time they write some of their own follow-up emails and create their own squeeze pages….again – it doesn’t really work. They spend a few thousand bucks or more on traffic and only generate a few sales. To some people, this excites them. To others, they get all ticked off and quit.
But the adjustment in their marketing funnel increases the conversions…
Time frame: 12 months to never.
(almost everyone quits by this time)
4. Success
You learn this is a real business, and you need your own systems, websites, funnels and more.
You spend 6-12+ months learning how to build them, 2-3 years mastering the process and you start living the life of your dreams.
If you’re good you can set it up in 3-6 months (if you’re a very talented and smart marketer).
After this making sales becomes EASY (it really is when you have this funnel stuff implemented).
What’s the biggest realisation of all? When you treat it like a business, it makes money like a business.
The fundamental problem with online marketing is people treat it like a lottery. Buying traffic to an affiliate link is like a lottery.
Think about it like this. If you opened up a jewellery store; do you think you’d know the price of what you’re selling, how much you pay, how much you gross and how much you profit?…as well as things like how much advertising costs?
Of course you would.
Everyone would call a guy an idiot who didn’t know that stuff before starting a business.Yet those same people go into Internet Marketing without knowing a single thing, just to play the lottery.
So why should Internet Marketing be any different to a normal business? 30% of your revenue should be invested back into traffic.
If you want to make $1,000,000 a month, you should expect to invest at least 30% of that into marketing and traffic. When you break it down, the single biggest thing you need is your own sales funnel. Without one, you don’t even have a starting point.
You need your own funnel, products, offers, pages and sequences. That’s owning your own business. That’s putting the control in your hands.
When you have those things built, it’s just a case of trying different traffic sources, and tweaking a few things until you get it right.
But be warned, it takes a lot of damn energy to learn all of this, and even more to implement it.
I guess you could say this offer is the true ‘lazy way out’ to becoming an Internet Millionaire. The funnel will be your start, but it’s up to you to decide what you do with it.
Once your funnel gets done, then your ready to market whatever it is your marketing, then, JUST ADD TRAFFIC!
Author: Troy Hollenbeck
Troy Hollenbeck is President/CEO of Evolve Journal a digital media company in St.Albert, Alberta,Canada. Hockey writer, blogger, author, former hockey player and marketing strategist. “Lives life with zest and authenticity to help others achieve their dreams and pursue passions”… View full profile ›
