Why You Need a Sales Funnel to Collect Leads and Dominate the Fitness Market

Why Your Website is Obsolete and Why You Need a Sales Funnel to Collect Leads and Dominate

Written by Greg Vasil on August 17, 2018

But Where Do They Go After Clicking?

Okay, so you've brainstormed a great special offer and you made a catchy Facebook ad that will grab people's attention. Those that resonate with your ad will click on it. What's next? What happens when someone clicks on your Facebook ad?

Well, next they will be taken to your website. Every single ad on Facebook has to lead to a website. In fact, when you are making your ad, you will be asked to provide your website URL address (www.example.com)

Now, if you are reading this and you are a fitness instructor or CrossFit gym owner, chances are you already have a website, right? This is your business's home page. It probably looks something like this:

The red arrows and circles above represent all the possible places where the person can click, once he or she ends up on your website, after clicking on the ad.

Without me having to explain too much, I think you can understand that it’s very easy for a person to get distracted on a typical home page with a myriad of links and tabs.

Their attention span is super short and they won't have the patience to browse around, especially if they just came from Facebook...

Also, a typical home page is not designed to collect leads, and that's something very crucial, as you'll see in a moment...

Your home page does have a purpose though. It's great for someone who already knows about your business and wants to learn more. (They heard about you by word of mouth, a referral, or they found you on Google).

However, when you are running an ad to a "cold audience" on Facebook (unaware of your business or product), and you want to get daily leads, you need a strategic sales funnel that is designed to collect people's information.

A sales funnel can consist of several steps or pages, the first of which is usually called the landing page. Here is an example of one such designated landing page we created for one of our clients:

The Landing Page

A landing page is a page that a person “lands” on, after clicking on your ad. This is usually the first step in the sales funnel.

The main difference between a typical website and a landing page, is that a website has lots of links & tabs to click on, and a visitor can get easily distracted, while a landing page collects a person’s info and has only one action:

There's no "home" or "about us" menu, there's no "meet the team..." There is only one option - to click on the button and claim the special offer. The only other realistic option the person has is to close the browser window entirely!

Once they do click on the button, they will be presented with an input form where they can enter their name, email, and phone number, in order to claim said offer:

And once they enter all their personal information and hit "send," you should be getting an instant lead notification on your phone (if you set it up correctly), like this:

After you receive the lead notification, you can follow up with the lead right away by calling them, schedule an appointment, and have them come in and receive your offer (free training session, discount massage, low-cost examination, etc.)

Then, when they come in and receive massive value from you up front, it's very easy to convince them to sign up for your paid service, buy your product, or join your membership.

And this is how true lead generation is done on autopilot using Facebook ads and a strategic landing page, folks!

Now again, compare this to a typical website that you may have already. Which one do you think will be more successful at bringing in leads?

The Value Ladder

"But how will I make money if I'm giving away my services for free...?" - You may be asking...

Every business that wants to succeed has to have a well-thought-out value ladder. A "value ladder" is simply 3 or more products that your business offers (that have a different price point and value to the customer).

However, many business fail to do this correctly (they usually have an incomplete or partial value ladder).

Step (1), often called the "front end" should be the lowest-price product or service that your business offers. This can be your free or heavily discounted special offer we discussed earlier.

The "front end" product is what you should use to attract clients into your business funnel. This is done by offering it in your Facebook ad. Again, free is best.

"Amateurs focus on the front end." - Your "front end" product IS NOT designed to bring you revenue, in fact, if you break even on your "front end" (cover the cost of advertising), you have a successful business model!

The "front end" product is designed to bring in as many potential customers into your business as possible. Then you smoothly guide them up your value ladder, offering them your higher-priced products that provide even more value (steps 2-5)

* taken from DotCom Secrets by Russell Brunson

The Value Ladder at Work

For example, say a dentist was to advertise a "free teeth cleaning" on Facebook as their front-end special offer in their ad. They would get a ton of people coming in to claim this offer!

Say during 1 month of running this offer, 30 people actually show up to get the free teeth cleaning. Now on the surface, it looks like the dentist just lost a bunch of money... (For the time and materials needed to do these 30 free teeth cleanings)

However, while cleaning a few of the patients' teeth, the dentist found several cavities, and because of the massive value she already provided for free, she is able to offer these services to her patients right on the spot (upsell).

Next, the dentist will notice that some of her patients have yellow teeth and may legitimately need teeth whitening. This is further up the value ladder (step 2). Because of the massive value she just provided with the free teeth cleaning and affordable fillings, most people will naturally want to get even more value.

So say 30 people come for the free teeth cleaning, 10 get upsold to teeth whitening (several hundred dollars each). Next, maybe 3 or 4 of these patients will need braces or a retainer (several thousand dollars each).

Further, possibly 1 or 2 patients will need serious cosmetic dental surgery ($10,000+ each). Cosmetic is the highest point on the dentist’s value ladder, called the "back end" product, where the business provides the most value and gets the most money.

And this is how a perfectly executed value ladder works! Now, of course not everyone is going to move on to step (2). Some people will take the free teeth cleaning and never come back, but the people who ascend to the higher steps more than cover the cost of doing free teeth cleanings for 30 people. Does that make sense? Are you having an epiphany!?

In DotCom Secrets, a brilliant marketing book by Russell Brunson, Russell talks about how he helped save his friend's sinking chiropractic business by helping him define his Value Ladder.

They offered a free 30-minute massage on the "front end," $50 back adjustments as the "middle-tier" product, and a $5,000 per month (per client) wellness continuity program, where the chiropractor spent several hours per week with each client, helping treat diseases like carpal tunnel, sciatica, scoliosis, etc.

In a short amount of time the chiropractor was able to hire 2 full-time massage therapists to do all the free massages, while he focused on adjustments and the wellness program. The massage therapists were trained to spot any problems with spinal alignment and guided patients higher up the value ladder.

As I mentioned earlier, the "front end" is what gets the people in the door and the "middle-tier" and "back-end" products are what brings in the real revenue. That's why it's okay if you break even or lose money on the "front-end."

Remember, "amateurs focus on making money on the front end", while the pros understand the concept of the Value Ladder and the LTV (Long-Term Value) of a customer, and provide massive value up front for free, while smoothly guiding their happy clients up their Value Ladder.

Want to learn more about successful client acquisition for CrossFit & Bootcamp gyms, using Facebook ads? Grab the Free Client Case Study below:

FREE GYM OWNER CASE STUDY

Greg Vasil

Greg Vasil helps CrossFit gym owners become hyper profitable and grow their business. He is an expert at helping people get clients, using online methods and making things super simple to understand. If you're interested in increasing your CrossFit member base or scaling up and getting a lot more clients, then definitely reach out and request a free strategy session today.

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