Are you currently trying to sell stuff online?
I’m sure you will agree that converting your visitors into sales is hard.
And getting yourself profitable? That’s even tougher.
There’s a simple secret to increasing the value of each customer you sell to:
Sales funnels. Click Funnels For Lawyers
By producing a well-designed sales funnel, it is possible to dramatically boost your sales and provide more value for your clients.
In this post, I will present you to ClickFunnels, the application I’m using to create sales funnels for my business.
You do not need any technical know-how to use it, and it is going to truly change how you operate your business.
Plus:
If you are prepared to throw yourself into the ClickFunnels world, it has one of the best affiliate programs out there. I’ll be talking about that too later on.
What’s ClickFunnels?
ClickFunnels was made back in 2014 by Russell Brunson and his team. Since that time, Russell has turned ClickFunnels into a $100 million per year company and they just crossed over 65,000 active members as of August 2018.
In its core, ClickFunnels is a software for constructing sales funnels. With a lot of additional bells and whistles.
You can use it to build:
– Landing pages
– Squeeze pages
– Webinars
– Membership websites
– Every type of sales funnel you can think of, complete with order bumps, upsells and downsells
Additionally, with the highest end Etison Suite package you will even be able to start your own affiliate program (Backpack) and replace your email service with (Actionetics MD).
Basically, you’re getting everything you need to market and promote your products online, without having to employ expensive programmers.
And individuals are utilizing ClickFunnels with great success.
If you check out their 2 Comma Club website, you can see that almost 300 entrepreneurs have already created 1 million dollar funnels using ClickFunnels.
That’s remarkable.Click Funnels For Lawyers
What are the best features of ClickFunnels?
Best Feature #1: Funnel template blueprints
If you’ve never created a sales funnel before then ClickFunnels has you covered.
Russell has identified 22 distinct types of funnels that he has employed successfully in his own business.
The funnel forms fall into 3 main classes: Lead Capture Funnels, Sales Page Funnels, and Event Funnels. But there are some other special funnels like Membership funnels you can create too.
They include simple funnels like the Squeeze Page Funnel which collects a visitor’s email address and then sends them into a Thank you page when signing up.
Or to more sophisticated sales funnels like the 2-Step TripWire Funnel which sells a very low ticket front-end product (your tripwire) and then upsells them to a more expensive products with Order Form bumps, and One Click upsells or Downsells.
Moreover, every funnel type has its own group of free templates and paid templates. So even if you don’t have any design skills, your funnel pages will all have a consistent, professional design.
Here’s a high-level overview of how to create your first sales funnel:
- Choose a funnel type.
- Select a template.
- Customize each page to fit your business.
- Add your products and ensure all your email and payment integrations are set up.
- Set a domain name for your new funnel.
- Save your funnel.
Your sales funnel is now live and you can start sending traffic to it. Click Funnels For Lawyers
Best Feature #2: Good Visual Drag and Drop Editor
While ClickFunnels gives you a wonderful starting point with its funnel and page templates, the ClickFunnels editor is where you can truly make each page in your funnel your own.
Pages in ClickFunnels are laid out using sections that can have any number of rows and columns. You can then use your mouse to drag elements around and place them where you want them.
While not as flexible as Instapage’s landing page editor, it is still quite good and it may be utilized to achieve pretty much any design you desire.
What I like is that the editor is very intuitive to use.
Selecting elements on the page and transferring them where you want is quite seamless.
Text elements can be edited inline, and modifying any element’s properties could be accomplished through the fly-out sidebar.
And unlike other editors on the market, everything is organized in a logical manner. You’re not spending a lot of time hunting for what you want to do.
The important thing is that no coding is needed. So you do not have to spend time studying HTML or CSS or any technical things like that.
Best Feature #3: Nice Selection of Page Elements
Elements (or widgets) are all vital for giving you the flexibility to design the exact pages you woud like and ClickFunnels gives you a large variety of them to use.
Fundamental elements include Headline, Image, Text, Button, Input types and Video widgets. These are the basic building blocks for any landing page you construct in the software.
ClickFunnels also includes a number of advanced components such as:
– SMS Signup
– Surveys
– Pricing Tables
– Progress Bars
– Facebook Comments
– FAQ Blocks
– Countdown Timers
– Custom HTML
Plus, there are specialized elements like Membership elements for your membership pages and order and shipping form elements for your order pages.
Each element can be easily customized from the editor sidebar. With most elements, you can change common properties such as background colors, margins, fonts, and alignment.
Then there are element specific attributes like the image URL for the Image element or the Button text of your button.
Best Feature #4: The ClickFunnels Affiliate program is awesome
There’s little doubt in my mind that ClickFunnels has the very best, legitimate affiliate marketing program which you can be a part of.
The Fundamentals:
The ClickFunnels affiliate program pays out 40% recurring commissions for each referral you make and you can win cool prizes like $500 towards your own dream car once you reach 100 active referrals.
In addition to that, they offer 5%, 2-tier commissions for referring people to the ClickFunnels affiliate program.
You also earn 40% commissions by promoting any product in the ClickFunnel’s ecosystem such as DotCom Secrets, Expert Secrets or even the Software Secrets books.
And thanks to the ClickFunnel’s sticky cookie, you will also earn commissions on any upsells that your referrals purchase as they go through their specific funnels as well.
But that’s not all:
ClickFunnels also has another excellent feature for affiliates called share funnels.
Within the Settings tab of any of your funnels, you can grab your Share Funnel URL.
Whenever someone visits this URL, they will have the ability to add this funnel directly into their accounts if they’re an existing ClickFunnels member. If they aren’t a member yet, they can register for the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial and then get your funnel added to their accounts.
What’s really amazing is that this share URL also functions as your affiliate link, and you’ll get a recurring commission if this new user ends up staying.
What I don’t like about ClickFunnels?
Bad Part #1: Why is adding a funnel so slow?
After picking your funnel type and template, it needs to get added to your account.
For some reason, this procedure appears to take around 8-10 seconds every time.
While I don’t know what’s really going on behind the scenes, it does not make sense to me why this could take so long. It’s somewhat annoying, although only a minor inconvenience.
Bad Part #2: Limits on funnels you can create and visitors
ClickFunnels limits you to 20 funnels, 100 pages, and 20,000 visitors in their lowest plan. I’m not a fan of software products which limit you in this manner.
If you are just building sales funnels for yourself, these limitations are probably okay.
But you can get more annoyed at these constraints if you are doing client work, creating funnels for multiple customers or promoting ClickFunnels as an affiliate using share funnels.
You will need to upgrade to the Etison Suite plan if you would like to build unlimited funnels.
Bad Part #3: Fairly High learning curve
The range of what ClickFunnels could do is pretty huge, and it can certainly be intimidating to some.
That is why ClickFunnels put so much work into the onboarding process to help ease you into the software. The ClickFunnels interface is pretty well designed for the most part and once you’ve built a couple funnels yourself, the whole process does get easier over time.
ClickFunnels Pricing
Over time, ClickFunnels has evolved their pricing plans. In the beginning, they had 3 different pricing tiers, but they have now been merged into 2 separate plans.
How much is ClickFunnels now?
Currently, the lowest priced ClickFunnels plan is $97 a month. On this plan, you get access to all the funnel creation tools, but you are limited to creating 20 funnels, 100 pages, and 20,000 visitors. You also don’t get access to Actionetics, their built-in email service provider and Backpack, which allows you to create your own affiliate program.
To gain access to that, you’ll need to go with the Etison Suite plan. It features everything, and you get unlimited funnels, pages, and visitors. However, this will run you $297 a month.
As far as I can tell, there aren’t any ClickFunnels coupon codes available. However, you can buy Funnel Hacks for $997 which provides you 6 months of Etison Suite for free and some extra bonuses. This brings the cost down to $166.16 a month.
ClickFunnels does make it easy for you to demo their service with their free, 14-day free trial. It is not constrained in any way which lets you give the software a full test before you fully commit.
If $97 or $297 a month sounds like too big a commitment for your current budget, there’s also a semi-secret, unadvertised Share Funnel plan that you can also have access to for only $19 a month. You can only create 3 funnels and 10 pages with this plan, but it’s a great way to try out ClickFunnels on a budget.
Everything else you should know about ClickFunnels
How is their support?
ClickFunnels support is fairly good in my experience, although they can be somewhat slow in responding. They utilize Intercom, so you can immediately ask questions in the live chat box. Support requests are usually answered within a couple of hours and I found the team to fairly helpful to all my queries.
Do I need my own domain name? Click Funnels For Lawyers
You do not necessarily need your own domain name to launch a funnel, although I would recommend it. If you don’t have one then your funnel URL will look something similar to http://username.clickfunnels.com.
One nice bonus that I did not know about is that ClickFunnels will buy you your first domain name for free and even install SSL on it for you. You can learn how to do this from the first game in the onboarding training.
Do they have an active community?
ClickFunnels has an massive community. There’s the official group on FB with over 100k members and the ClickFunnels Avengers FB group (for affiliates) that has over 30k members.
Both groups are extremely active and it is an excellent place to get opinions on your sales funnels and answer any questions that you may have.
Additionally, there are several other FB groups run by ClickFunnels affiliates that are also very active. The main one I suggest joining is Automation Nation. It is run by Spencer Mecham who is ClickFunnel’s top affiliate.
What integrations do they provide?
Even though ClickFunnels has its own email service provider via Actionetics, it also integrates directly with the best email marketing software on the market.
For payment gateways, ClickFunnels integrates with Stripe, Paypal, Clickbank, Infusionsoft, Authorize.net, and a couple of others. The one limitation with using Paypal though is that it does not support One Click Upsells or One Time Offers. That’s why I would highly suggest going with Stripe if you’re able to.
What’s the Funnel Hacks system?
If you’re looking to get the $297/mo. Etison Suite plan, then it is definitely worth it to sign up with Funnel Hacks instead to save some additional money. For $997, you are going to receive six months of the Etison Suite plan which is $1,782 in value.
You will also get a lot of additional training and bonuses which include:
– 6 Week Funnel Hacks Master Class ($2,997 value)
– Instant Traffic Hacks ($1,997 value)
– Inception Secrets ($1,997 value)
– SOAP & Seinfeld Email Sequences ($997 value)
Is ClickFunnels a scam?
I think ClickFunnels gets some negative buzz around it because of all of the affiliates who are making an effort to market it.
However, no, ClickFunnels isn’t a scam. It is definitely the real deal.
It’s a great software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. So many people are using ClickFunnels to build 6 and 7 figure businesses.
It is a fantastic software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. So many people are using ClickFunnels to construct 6 and 7 figure businesses.
When folks ask, “How do I create a sales funnel”, ClickFunnels is the #1 answer hands down. There is no other software that can do every thing that ClickFunnels does at the moment.
What else is ClickFunnels used for?
Besides creating standard sales funnels, there are plenty of ways marketers are using ClickFunnels right now in their business.
It’s great for creating opt-in funnels that will help you generate more prospects and build your email list.
You are able to create webinar funnels that will help you grow your brand and promote your services and products.
And you can use it to build membership sites where you’re able to gate your premium content so that it’s available only to subscribers.
How can you make ClickFunnels work for you? Click Funnels For Lawyers
First of all, you need to have a product or service to market. If you don’t have something to sell, then don’t even bother looking into ClickFunnels until you do. Unless you only want to promote it as an affiliate.
Next, you need to be willing to commit money and time into creating your value ladder and constructing your entire sales funnel.
That means at least creating a lead magnet or low-cost tripwire product to get clients or customers into your funnel. And then coming up with proper upsells, order bumps and other OTOs that complement or enhance your principal product offering.
If you are unclear how to start, I would take a look at Russell’s own multi-million dollar sales funnels to provide you with inspiration. Read his book DotComSecrets where he describes exactly the why and how of building sales funnels and how to tell stories to sell your products and services.
And as you go through his own sales funnels you can observe how he goes from low-cost tripwire (DotComSecrets) to selling his flagship product (ClickFunnels).
By building his own community of raving fans he could then upsell his various different products and events like Funnel Scripts, Funnel Hackers Live, and much more.
Once you’ve gone through his funnels, then you can take the components that are applicable to your own company and create a plan for your sales funnel. Once you have that in place, you will be prepared to start making money with ClickFunnels.
ClickFunnels versus the competition
There are a few ClickFunnels alternatives out there that share some of the same capabilities as ClickFunnels. Two that I use myself are LeadPages and SamCart.
ClickFunnels vs LeadPages
Today, LeadPages is one of the market leaders in the landing page builder space and it’s a very popular tool in its own right.
It also recently added the ability to sell products directly on their pages with its new Checkout widget
Each product comes with a huge selection of nice looking templates. Both have drag and drop editors which make it effortless for you to create the designs you desire. And both integrate with all the popular email service providers.
However, Leadpages is more limited in scope compared to ClickFunnels. You use it to create landing pages that will allow you to collect leads. This isn’t a terrible thing because LeadPages really shines for building landing pages quickly.
At this time, among the best strategies for developing your email list is using content upgrades. By producing targeted lead magnets into your most popular posts you can acquire opt-in conversion rates that far exceed your typical pop-up.
LeadPages is the very best service for implementing this strategy with its LeadBoxes, 2 step opt-ins, and automated lead magnet delivery which is why they are the most popular popup you’ll see now.
Therefore, if you are primarily focused on lead generation, I’d definitely suggest trying out LeadPages.
However, if you are selling a product or service, then ClickFunnels is the better choice. While it comes with a higher learning curve than Leadpages, once you master the tool, you can really explode your sales once you start creating sales funnels for each of your products.
But, if you are selling a service or product, then ClickFunnels is the better choice. While it comes with a higher learning curve than Leadpages, as soon as you master the instrument, it’s possible to really explode your sales as soon as you begin creating sales funnels for each of your products.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart
SamCart is a product which allows users to create amazing, high converting checkout pages. Which gives it a lot in common with ClickFunnels.
SamCart is targeted towards getting setup and selling quickly. It supports both Stripe and Paypal and it includes 17 distinct checkout page templates that you can customize.
In terms of flexibility, there’s absolutely no comparison between ClickFunnel’s drag and drop editor and SamCart’s.
ClickFunnels is infinitely more powerful in that you can design any checkout page you can dream of. SamCart only allows for some basic customizations to its pre-made templates.
SamCart does permit you to add order bumps, upsells and downsells such as ClickFunnels does. You can also easily create coupons for your products which is just another great way to increase conversions.
But where Samcart is lacking, is the capability to capture leads and create complete sales funnels. The products come in at the same $97 per month price point, and I find ClickFunnels to be quite a bit more flexible and more powerful than Samcart.
ClickFunnels Pros
– Best software for creating marketing and sales funnels
– Editor balances ease of use with flexibility
– Integrates with all major email and payment providers
– Amazing looking templates for each kind of funnel
– Great on-boarding process for learning the program
– Software continues to get better after each update
– Readily share any funnels you create and automatically earn affiliate commissions
– 2-tier affiliate program
– Free domain name with SSL installed
– 14-day free trial
ClickFunnels Cons
– Limitations on the number of funnels, pages, and visitors with the standard plan
– Plently of things to understand, a steep learning curve
– Split testing is pretty basic
Final Thoughts Click Funnels For Lawyers
Which application you go with depends on your needs and the quantity of work you’re willing to invest in your business.
Although a lot of you are selling standalone products, are you willing to put in the effort necessary to make a high converting sales funnel?
If not, ClickFunnels could be overkill for you. You can collect leads or market your front end product more cheaply with alternative services.
However, if raising the average lifetime value of your customers is important to you, then I truly suggest giving ClickFunnels a try.
Not just to get access to the software but also since the training you receive will be both inspiring and enlightening.
Take advantage of the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial, and see whether you can use it to increase your business now.
