Are you currently trying to sell things online?
I’m sure you will agree that converting your visitors into sales is hard.
And getting yourself profitable? That’s even harder.
But there’s a simple secret to raising the value of each customer you sell to:
Sales funnels. Clickfunnels Review For Bloggers
By producing a well-designed sales funnel, you can dramatically boost your earnings and provide more value to your clients.
In this article, I will introduce you to ClickFunnels, the application I am using to build sales funnels for my business.
You do not need any technical know-how to use it, and it will truly change the way you operate your business.
Plus:
If you’re ready to throw yourself into the ClickFunnels world, it has one of the best affiliate programs out there. I’ll be speaking about that too later on.
What is ClickFunnels?
ClickFunnels was created back in 2014 by Russell Brunson and his group. Since that time, Russell has turned ClickFunnels to a $100 million per year business and they just crossed over 65,000 active members as of August 2018.
At its core, ClickFunnels is a software for constructing sales funnels. With a bunch of added bells and whistles.
You can use it to construct:
– Landing pages
– Squeeze pages
– Webinars
– Membership sites
– 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’ll even be able to start your own affiliate program (Backpack) and replace your email service with (Actionetics MD).
Basically, you’re getting all you need to market and sell your products online, without having to hire expensive developers.
And individuals are utilizing ClickFunnels with great success.
If you check out their 2 Comma Club site, you can see that almost 300 entrepreneurs have already created 1 million dollar funnels utilizing ClickFunnels.
That’s amazing.Clickfunnels Review For Bloggers
What are the best features of ClickFunnels?
Best Feature #1: Funnel template blueprints
In case you have never created a sales funnel before then ClickFunnels has you covered.
Russell has identified 22 different types of funnels that he has used 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 a few additional special funnels like Membership funnels you can make as well.
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 registering.
Or to more sophisticated sales funnels like the 2-Step TripWire Funnel which sells a low ticket front-end product (your tripwire) and then upsells them to your more expensive products using 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. Clickfunnels Review For Bloggers
Best Feature #2: Good Visual Drag and Drop Editor
While ClickFunnels provides you a great starting point with its funnel and page templates, the ClickFunnels editor is the place you can actually make each page in your funnel your own.
Pages in ClickFunnels are laid out with sections that can have any number of columns and rows. You can then use your mouse to drag elements around and place them where you need them.
While not as flexible as Instapage’s landing page editor, it is still quite good and it can be utilized to achieve just about 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 changing any element’s properties can be accomplished through the fly-out sidebar.
And contrary to other editors out there, everything is organized in a logical manner. You are not spending a great deal of time searching for what you want to do.
The important thing is that no programming is needed. So you do not have to spend time studying HTML or CSS or some other technical things like that.
Best Feature #3: Nice Selection of Page Elements
Elements (or widgets) are all essential for providing you the flexibility to design the specific pages you want and ClickFunnels provides you a wide array of them to use.
Fundamental elements include Headline, Photo, Text, Button, Input forms and Video widgets. These are the fundamental building blocks for any landing page you construct in the software.
ClickFunnels also includes several advanced elements like:
– 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 own membership pages and order and shipping form elements for your order pages.
Each element can be easily customized from the editor sidebar. With majority of elements, you can alter common properties such as background colors, margins, fonts, and alignment.
Then there are element specific properties 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 is little doubt in my mind that ClickFunnels has the very best, legitimate affiliate marketing program that you can be a part of.
The basics:
The ClickFunnels affiliate program pays out 40% recurring commissions for every referral you make and you can win cool prizes like $500 towards your own dream car as soon as you hit 100 active referrals.
In addition to that, they offer 5%, 2-tier commissions for referring people to the ClickFunnels affiliate program itself.
You also get 40% commissions by promoting any product in the ClickFunnel’s ecosystem including DotCom Secrets, Expert Secrets or even the Software Secrets books.
And thanks to the ClickFunnel’s sticky cookie, you’ll also earn commissions on any upsells that your referrals buy as they go through their specific funnels too.
But that is not all:
ClickFunnels also has another great feature for affiliates known as share funnels.
Within the Settings tab of any of your funnels, you can grab your Share Funnel URL.
When someone visits this URL, they will have the ability to bring this funnel directly into their accounts if they are an existing ClickFunnels member. If they are not a member yet, they can sign up for the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial and then get your funnel added to their accounts.
What’s really awesome is that this share URL also functions as your affiliate link, and you will get a recurring commission when this new user ends up staying on.
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 seems to take around 8-10 seconds every time.
While I really don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, it does not make sense to me why this would take a long time. It’s a bit annoying, although just 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 on their lowest plan. I’m not a fan of software products which limit you in this manner.
If you’re just building sales funnels for yourself, these limits are most likely okay.
However you can get more annoyed at such constraints if you’re doing client work, building funnels for multiple customers or promoting ClickFunnels as an affiliate using share funnels.
You will want to upgrade to the Etison Suite plan if you would like to develop unlimited funnels.
Bad Part #3: Fairly High learning curve
The scope of what ClickFunnels can do is pretty huge, and it can certainly be intimidating to some.
That’s why ClickFunnels put a lot of work into the onboarding process to help ease you into the software. The ClickFunnels interface is fairely well designed for the most part and once you’ve built a few 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’ve now been consolidated 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 of the funnel creation tools, but you are limited to generating 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 lets you create your own affiliate program.
To gain access to that, you’ll need to go for the Etison Suite plan. It features everything, plus you get unlimited funnels, pages, and visitors. However, this will run you $297 a month.
As far as I can tell, there are no ClickFunnels coupon codes available. However, you can purchase Funnel Hacks for $997 which provides you 6 months of Etison Suite for free plus some additional bonuses. This brings down the cost to $166.16 per month.
ClickFunnels does make it easy for you to demo their service with their free, 14-day free trial. It is not constrained whatsoever which lets you give the software a full test before you fully commit.
If $97 or $297 a month seems like too large a commitment for your current budget, there is also a semi-secret, unadvertised Share Funnel plan that you can also get access to for only $19 a month. You can only produce 3 funnels and 10 pages with this plan, but it is a great way to test out ClickFunnels on a budget.
Everything else you need to know about ClickFunnels
How is their support?
ClickFunnels support is quite good in my experience, although they can be somewhat slow in responding. They utilize Intercom, so you may directly ask questions in the live chat box. Support requests are usually answered in a couple of hours and I found the staff to pretty helpful to all my queries.
Do I need my own domain? Clickfunnels Review For Bloggers
You don’t necessarily need your own domain name to launch a funnel, although I would advise it. If you do not have one then your funnel URL will look something similar to http://username.clickfunnels.com.
One nice bonus 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 discover how to do this from the very first game in the onboarding training.
Do they have an active community?
ClickFunnels has an enormous community. There’s the official group on FB with over 100k members as well as the ClickFunnels Avengers FB group (for affiliates) that has over 30k members.
Both groups are extremely active and it is a great place to get feedback on your sales funnels and answer any questions you might have.
There are also other FB groups run by ClickFunnels affiliates which are also very active. The main one I recommend 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 all the best email marketing software out there.
For payment gateways, ClickFunnels integrates with Stripe, Paypal, Clickbank, Infusionsoft, Authorize.net, and a few others. The one limitation with using Paypal though is that it does not support One Click Upsells or One Time Offers. That is why I would highly suggest going with Stripe if you can.
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’ll also get a lot of additional bonuses and training that 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 has some negative buzz around it because of all of the affiliates who are trying to promote it.
However, no, ClickFunnels isn’t a scam. It is certainly 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’s a software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. So many people are utilizing ClickFunnels to construct 6 and 7 figure companies.
When folks ask, “How can I create a sales funnel”, ClickFunnels is the #1 response hands down. There is no other application that can do everything 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 at the moment in their business.
It is terrific for creating opt-in funnels to help you generate more prospects and build your email list.
You are able to create webinar funnels that will help you develop your brand and promote your services and products.
And you can use it to build membership sites where you can gate your premium content so that it is available only to subscribers.
How can you make ClickFunnels work for you? Clickfunnels Review For Bloggers
First of all, you need to have a product or service to market. If you don’t have something to market, then don’t even bother looking into ClickFunnels before you do. Unless you only want to market it as an affiliate.
Next, you need to be willing to invest 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 appropriate upsells, order bumps and other OTOs that match or enhance your main product offering.
If you are unclear how to start, I’d 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 creating sales funnels and how to tell stories to marketing your services and products.
And as you go through his own sales funnels yourself you can see how he goes from low-cost tripwire (DotComSecrets) to promoting his flagship product (ClickFunnels).
By building his very own community of raving fans he can 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 apply to your own business and create a strategy for your sales funnel. As soon as you have that in place, you will be prepared to begin making money with ClickFunnels.
ClickFunnels versus the competition
There are a couple of ClickFunnels alternatives out there which share a number 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 is a really popular tool in its own right.
It also recently introduced the capability to sell products directly on their pages using its new Checkout widget
Each product comes with a huge selection of fine looking templates. Both have drag and drop editors that make it effortless for you to create the designs you desire. And both integrate with all the popular email service providers.
Leadpages is more limited in scope compared to ClickFunnels. You use it to create landing pages that can help you collect prospects. This isn’t a terrible thing since LeadPages really shines for building landing pages quickly.
At this time, among the most effective strategies for growing your email list is by using content upgrades. By creating targeted lead magnets into your most well-known articles you can acquire opt-in conversion rates that far exceed your typical pop-up.
LeadPages is the very best service for implementing this approach 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.
So if you are primarily focused on lead generation, I would definitely recommend 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 alternative . While it comes with a higher learning curve than Leadpages, once you master the instrument, you can definitely explode your earnings once you start generating sales funnels for each of your products.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart
SamCart is a product which lets users build amazing, high converting checkout pages. Which gives it a whole lot in common with ClickFunnels.
SamCart is targeted towards getting set up and selling fast. It supports both Stripe and Paypal and it comes with 17 different 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 about. SamCart only allows for some basic customizations to its own pre-made templates.
SamCart does allow you to add order bumps, upsells and downsells such as ClickFunnels does. You can also quickly create coupons for your products which is another great way to raise conversions.
But where Samcart is missing, is the capability to capture leads and build complete sales funnels. Both products come in at the exact same $97 a month price point, and I find ClickFunnels to be quite a bit more flexible and more powerful than Samcart.
ClickFunnels Pros
– Best software for building marketing and sales funnels
– Editor balances ease of use with flexibility
– Integrates with all major email and payment providers
– Amazing looking templates for every type of funnel
– Great on-boarding procedure for learning the software
– Software continues to get better after every update
– Easily share any funnels you build and automatically earn affiliate commissions
– 2-tier affiliate program
– Free domain name with SSL set up
– 14-day free trial
ClickFunnels Cons
– Limitations on the number of funnels, pages, and visitors with the standard plan
– Lots of things to learn, a steep learning curve
– Split testing is pretty basic
Final Thoughts Clickfunnels Review For Bloggers
Which application you go with depends on your requirements and the amount of work you are willing to invest in your business.
Although many of you are selling standalone products, are you willing to put in the effort required to create a high converting sales funnel?
Otherwise, ClickFunnels might be overkill for you. You can collect leads or sell your front end product more cheaply with alternative services.
However, if raising the average lifetime value of your clients is important to you, then I truly suggest giving ClickFunnels a try.
Not only to get access to the software but also since the coaching that you receive will be both inspiring and enlightening.
Make the most of the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial, and see whether you can use it to increase your business today.
