Are you trying to sell stuff online?
Then I’m sure you will agree that converting your visitors into sales is hard.
And getting yourself profitable? That’s even tougher.
But there’s a simple secret to increasing the value of each customer you market to:
Sales funnels. Clickfunnels T Shirt Funnel
By creating a well-designed sales funnel, you can dramatically increase your sales and provide more value to your customers.
In this article, I will present you to ClickFunnels, the software I am using to create sales funnels for my business.
You don’t need any technical know-how to utilize it, and it will truly change how you operate your business.
Plus:
If you are prepared to throw yourself into the ClickFunnels world, it’s one of the best affiliate programs out there. I will be talking about that too later on.
Here is what I will be covering in this ClickFunnels review.
- What is ClickFunnels?
- What are the best parts of ClickFunnels?
- What I don’t like about ClickFunnels
- ClickFunnels Pricing
- Everything else you need to know about ClickFunnels
- How can you make ClickFunnels work for you?
- ClickFunnels versus the competition
- Pros and Cons of ClickFunnels
- Final Thoughts
What is ClickFunnels?
ClickFunnels was made back in 2014 by Russell Brunson and his group. Since that time, Russell has turned ClickFunnels to a $100 million a year business and they just crossed over 65,000 active members as of August 2018.
At its core, ClickFunnels is a software for building sales funnels. With a bunch of added bells and whistles.
You can use it to build:
– Landing pages
– Squeeze pages
– Webinars
– Membership websites
– Every kind of sales funnel you can think of, complete with order bumps, upsells and downsells
Plus, 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 everything you need to advertise and sell your products online, without having to hire expensive programmers.
And individuals are using 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 amazing.Clickfunnels T Shirt Funnel
What are the best parts 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 types fall into 3 main categories: Lead Capture Funnels, Sales Page Funnels, and Event Funnels. But there are some other special funnels like Membership funnels you can make too.
They include simple funnels such as 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 such as the 2-Step TripWire Funnel which sells a very low ticket front-end product (your tripwire) and then upsells them to your more expensive products with Order Form bumps, and One Click upsells or Downsells.
In addition, each 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 have a consistent, professional design.
Here’s a high-level summary 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 T Shirt Funnel
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 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. After that you can use your mouse to drag elements around and put them where you want them.
While not as adaptable as Instapage’s landing page editor, it is still quite nice and it can be used 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 moving them where you want is quite seamless.
Text elements can be edited inline, and changing any element’s properties can be done through the fly-out sidebar.
And unlike other editors on the market, everything is organized in a logical manner. You’re not spending a great deal of time searching for what you would like to do.
The important thing is that no coding is required. So you do not need to spend time learning 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 giving you the flexibility to design the exact pages you woud like and ClickFunnels provides you a large array of them to use.
Fundamental elements include Headline, Photo, Text, Button, Input types and Video widgets. These are the fundamental building blocks for any landing page that you construct in the software.
ClickFunnels also includes several advanced elements 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 own membership pages and order and shipping form elements for your order pages.
Each element can be easily customized in the editor sidebar. With majority of elements, you can alter common properties like background colors, margins, fonts, and orientation.
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’s no 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 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.
In addition you earn 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 your referrals buy as they go through their specific funnels too.
But that is not all:
ClickFunnels also has another great feature for affiliates called share funnels.
Inside the Settings tab of any of your funnels, you can grab your Share Funnel URL.
When someone visits this URL, they’ll be able to add this funnel directly into their account if they are 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 account.
What’s really awesome is that this share URL also functions as your affiliate link, and you’ll 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 appears to take around 8-10 seconds every time.
While I really don’t know what’s really going on behind the scenes, it doesn’t make sense to me why this would take so long. It is somewhat annoying, although only a minor annoyance.
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 really not a fan of software products that restrict you in this manner.
If you are just building sales funnels for yourself, these limitations are probably okay.
However you can get more annoyed at such limitations 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 want to develop infinite funnels.
Bad Part #3: Fairly High learning curve
The scope of what ClickFunnels could 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 program. The ClickFunnels interface is fairely well designed for the most part and once you’ve assembled a few funnels yourself, the entire procedure does get easier over time.
ClickFunnels Pricing
Over time, ClickFunnels has evolved their pricing plans. Initially, they had 3 different pricing tiers, however they have now been consolidated into 2 separate plans.
How much is ClickFunnels now?
At the moment, the cheapest ClickFunnels plan is $97 a month. On this plan, you get access to all the funnel production 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 make your own affiliate program.
To gain access to that, you’ll need to go for the Etison Suite plan. It includes everything, and you receive 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 out there. However, you can buy Funnel Hacks for $997 which provides you 6 months of Etison Suite for free and some additional 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 limited in any way which lets you give the software a complete test before you fully commit.
If $97 or $297 a month sounds like too big a commitment for your current budget, there is also a semi-secret, unadvertised Share Funnel plan that you can also have access to for just $19 a month. You can only produce 3 funnels and 10 pages with this plan, but it is a great way to try out ClickFunnels on a budget.
Everything else you need to know about ClickFunnels
How is their support?
ClickFunnels support is fairly good in my experience, although they can be somewhat slow in responding. They use Intercom, which means you can directly ask questions in the live chat box. Support requests are usually answered within a couple of hours and I found the staff to fairly helpful to all my queries.
Do I need my own domain name? Clickfunnels T Shirt Funnel
You do not necessarily need your own domain name to launch a funnel, but I would advise it. If you don’t have one then your funnel URL will look something like 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 set up SSL on it for you. You can discover how to do this from the 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 may have.
Additionally, there are several other FB groups run by ClickFunnels affiliates that are also quite 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 offer?
Even though ClickFunnels has its own email service provider via Actionetics, it also integrates directly with the best email marketing software out there.
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 strongly suggest going with Stripe if you can.
What is the Funnel Hacks system?
If you are looking to acquire the $297/mo. Etison Suite plan, then it is definitely worth it to join with Funnel Hacks instead to save some additional money. For $997, you’ll get six months of the Etison Suite plan which is $1,782 in value.
You will also get a bunch of additional training and bonuses 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 gets some negative buzz around it due to all the affiliates that are making an effort to market it.
But 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 great software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. So many men and women are using ClickFunnels to build 6 and 7 figure companies.
When people ask, “How do I create a sales funnel”, ClickFunnels is the #1 response hands down. There’s 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 many ways marketers are using ClickFunnels right now in their business.
It’s great for creating opt-in funnels to help you generate more leads and build your email list.
You are able to produce webinar funnels to help you grow your brand and promote your products and services.
And you can use it to create membership sites where you can gate your premium content so that it is accessible only to subscribers.
How can you make ClickFunnels work for you? Clickfunnels T Shirt Funnel
To start with, you need to have a product or service to market. If you do not have something to market, then don’t even bother looking into ClickFunnels until you do. Unless you just want to market it as an affiliate.
Next, you have to be willing to invest money and time into creating your value ladder and building out your entire sales funnel.
That means creating a lead magnet or low-cost tripwire product to get customers or clients into your funnel. And then coming up with proper upsells, order bumps and other OTOs that match or enhance your main product offering.
If you’re unclear how to being, I would have a look at Russell’s very 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 see how he goes from low-cost tripwire (DotComSecrets) into selling his flagship product (ClickFunnels).
By creating his own community of raving fans he can then upsell his various other products and events like Funnel Scripts, Funnel Hackers Live, and much more.
Once you’ve gone through his funnels, then you can take the parts that apply to your own business and create a strategy for your sales funnel. Once you have that in place, you will be ready to begin making money with ClickFunnels.
ClickFunnels versus the competition
There are a few 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’s a very popular tool in its own right.
It also recently added the ability to sell products directly on their pages using its new Checkout widget
Each product features a large selection of nice looking templates. Both have drag and drop editors that make it effortless for you to build the designs you desire. And both integrate with the popular email service providers.
However, Leadpages is more limited in scope than ClickFunnels. You use it to create landing pages that will allow you to collect prospects. This is not a bad thing since LeadPages really shines for building landing pages fast.
At this time, one of 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 get opt-in conversion rates that far surpass your typical pop-up.
LeadPages is the best service for implementing this approach with its LeadBoxes, 2 step opt-ins, and automatic lead magnet delivery which is why they are the most popular popup you will see now.
Therefore, if you are primarily focused on lead generation, I would 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’re 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 once you start generating sales funnels for each of your products.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart
SamCart is a product which allows users to build beautiful, high converting checkout pages. Which gives it a lot in common with ClickFunnels.
SamCart is geared towards getting set up and selling fast. It supports both Stripe and Paypal and it includes 17 different checkout page templates which you can customize.
Concerning flexibility, there is not any comparison between ClickFunnel’s drag and drop editor and SamCart’s.
ClickFunnels is infinitely more powerful in that you’ll be able to design any checkout page you can dream of. 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 terrific way to raise conversions.
But where Samcart is missing, is the capability to capture leads and create complete sales funnels. The products come in at the same $97 a month price point, and I find ClickFunnels to be quite a bit more flexible and powerful compared to 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
– Beautiful looking templates for every type of funnel
– Great on-boarding process for learning the program
– Software has been better after each update
– Readily 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
– Plently of things to learn, a steep learning curve
– Split testing is pretty basic
Final Thoughts Clickfunnels T Shirt Funnel
Which application you go with depends on your needs and the amount of work you are willing to invest in your business.
Although a lot of you are selling standalone products, are you ready to put in the effort necessary to make a high converting sales funnel?
If not, ClickFunnels might be overkill for you. It’s possible to collect leads or sell your front end product more cheaply with alternative services.
But if increasing the average lifetime value of your customers is important to you, then I really recommend giving ClickFunnels a try.
Not just to access the software but also because the coaching that you receive will be both inspirational and enlightening.
Make the most of the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial, and see whether you can use it to grow your business today.
