Are you currently trying to sell things online?
I’m sure you will agree that converting your visitors into revenue is hard.
And getting yourself profitable? That’s even harder.
There is a simple secret to increasing the value of each customer you sell to:
Sales funnels. Clickfunnels Udemy
By creating a well-designed sales funnel, you can dramatically boost your earnings and provide more value to your customers.
In this post, I will present you to ClickFunnels, the software I’m using to build sales funnels for my business.
You don’t need any technical know-how to use this, and it is going to truly change the way you run your business.
Plus:
If you’re prepared to throw yourself into the ClickFunnels world, it has one of the best affiliate programs out there. I will be speaking about that too later on.
Here’s 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 per year business 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 kind 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 needing to employ expensive programmers.
And people are using ClickFunnels with great success.
If you check out their 2 Comma Club site, you can see that nearly 300 entrepreneurs have already created 1 million dollar funnels using ClickFunnels.
That is remarkable.Clickfunnels Udemy
What are the best parts of ClickFunnels?
Best Feature #1: Funnel template blueprints
If you have never created a sales funnel before then ClickFunnels has you covered.
Russell has identified 22 different forms of funnels that he has used 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 as well.
They include simple funnels such as the Squeeze Page Funnel which gathers a visitor’s email address and then sends them into a Thank you page when signing up.
Or to more complex 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 using 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 in the event that you don’t have any design skills, your funnel pages will all 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 Udemy
Best Feature #2: Good Visual Drag and Drop Editor
While ClickFunnels provides you a great starting point with its funnel and webpage templates, the ClickFunnels editor is the place you can truly 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 place them where you want them.
While not as adaptable as Instapage’s landing page editor, it is still very good and it may be used to achieve pretty much any design you want.
What I like is that the editor is quite intuitive to use.
Selecting elements on the page and transferring them where you want is very seamless.
Text elements can be edited inline, and modifying 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 way. You are not spending a lot of time searching for what you want to do.
The main thing is that no programming is needed. So you do not need 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 vital for giving you the flexibility to design the exact pages you woud like and ClickFunnels gives you a wide array of them to use.
Fundamental elements comprise of Headline, Photo, Text, Button, Input forms and Video widgets. These are the basic building blocks for any landing page you build 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
Additionally, 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 in the editor sidebar. With majority of elements, you can alter common properties such as background colors, margins, fonts, and orientation.
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 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 very own dream car once you hit 100 active referrals.
On top of that, they offer 5%, 2-tier commissions for referring people to the ClickFunnels affiliate program.
In addition you get 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 your referrals buy as they go through their specific funnels too.
That’s not all:
ClickFunnels also has another great feature for affiliates known as 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 have the ability to bring this funnel directly into their accounts if they’re an existing ClickFunnels member. If they are not a member yet, they can sign up for the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial then get your funnel added to their accounts.
What’s really awesome is that this share URL also acts as your affiliate link, and you’ll get a recurring commission if 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 choosing your funnel type and template, it needs to get added to your account.
For some reason, this process seems to take around 8-10 seconds every time.
While I really don’t know what is going on behind the scenes, it doesn’t make sense to me why this could take a long time. It is a bit 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 am not a fan of software products that limit you in this way.
If you are just building sales funnels for yourself, these limits are probably okay.
However you can get more annoyed at these limitations if you are doing client work, building funnels for multiple customers or promoting ClickFunnels as an affiliate with share funnels.
You’ll need to upgrade to the Etison Suite plan if you want to develop unlimited funnels.
Bad Part #3: Fairly High learning curve
The scope of what ClickFunnels can do is fairely huge, and it can certainly be intimidating to some.
That’s 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 when you’ve built a couple 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, but they’ve now been consolidated into 2 separate plans.
How much is ClickFunnels now?
Currently, the cheapest ClickFunnels plan is $97 a month. On this plan, you get access to all of the funnel creation tools, but you are restricted 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 allows you to create 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 are no ClickFunnels coupon codes out there. But, you can purchase Funnel Hacks for $997 which gives you 6 months of Etison Suite for free plus some extra 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’s not constrained in any way which lets you give the software a complete evaluation before you fully commit.
If $97 or $297 a month seems like too large a commitment for your present budget, there’s also a semi-secret, unadvertised Share Funnel plan that you can also get access to for just $19 a month. You can only create 3 funnels and 10 pages with this plan, but it’s 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 fairly 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 within a couple of hours and I found the team to fairly helpful to all my questions.
Do I need my own domain name? Clickfunnels Udemy
You do not 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 get you your first domain name for free and even install SSL on it for you. You can learn how to do this from the very 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 as well as the ClickFunnels Avengers FB group (for affiliates) that has over 30k members.
Both groups are very active and it’s an excellent place to get opinions on your sales funnels and answer any questions you may have.
Additionally, there are 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 offer?
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 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 strongly suggest going with Stripe if you’re able to.
What is the Funnel Hacks system?
If you’re 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’ll also get a bunch 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 gets some negative buzz around it because of all of the affiliates who are trying to market it.
But no, ClickFunnels isn’t a scam. It’s 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 is a software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. So many people are using ClickFunnels to construct 6 and 7 figure businesses.
When people ask, “How can I create a sales funnel”, ClickFunnels is the #1 response 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 building standard sales funnels, there are many ways marketers are using ClickFunnels at the moment in their business.
It is great for creating opt-in funnels to help you generate more prospects and build your email list.
You can create webinar funnels that will help you develop your brand and sell your products and services.
And you can use it to create membership sites where you can gate your premium content so that it’s accessible only to subscribers.
How can you make ClickFunnels work for you? Clickfunnels Udemy
To start with, you need to have a product or service to market. If you don’t have something to sell, then do not 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 time and money 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 customers or clients into your funnel. And coming up with appropriate upsells, order bumps and other OTOs that complement or enhance your main product offering.
If you are unclear how to being, I’d take a look at Russell’s very own multi-million dollar sales funnels to provide you with inspiration. Read his book DotComSecrets where he explains precisely the why and how of building sales funnels and how to tell stories to sell your services and products.
And as you go through his own sales funnels yourself you can see the way he goes from low-cost tripwire (DotComSecrets) to selling his flagship product (ClickFunnels).
By building his very own community of raving fans he could then upsell his various different products and events like Funnel Scripts, Funnel Hackers Live, and much more.
As soon as you’ve gone through his funnels, then you can take the parts that are applicable to your own business and create a plan for your sales funnel. As soon as you have that in place, you will be ready 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 really popular tool in its own right.
It also recently introduced the ability to sell products directly on their pages with its new Checkout widget
Each product comes with a huge selection of fine looking templates. Both have drag and drop editors which make it easy for you to build the designs you want. And both integrate with the popular email service providers.
However, Leadpages is significantly more limited in scope compared to ClickFunnels. You use it to create landing pages that will help you collect prospects. This is not a terrible thing since LeadPages really shines for building landing pages quickly.
Right now, among the most effective strategies for growing your email list is by using content upgrades. By producing targeted lead magnets into your most popular posts you can get opt-in conversion rates that far surpass your standard pop-up.
LeadPages is the best service for implementing this strategy with its LeadBoxes, 2 step opt-ins, and automatic lead magnet delivery which is why they are the most popular popup you will see today.
So if you are primarily concentrated 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 are selling a product or service, 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 earnings as soon as you begin generating sales funnels for each of your products.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart
SamCart is a product which lets users create amazing, high converting checkout pages. Which gives it a lot in common with ClickFunnels.
SamCart is geared towards getting setup and selling fast. It supports both Stripe and Paypal and it includes 17 distinct checkout page templates that you may customize.
In terms of flexibility, there’s absolutely not any 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 permit you to add order bumps, upsells and downsells such as ClickFunnels does. You can also easily create coupons for your products which is another great way to raise conversions.
However, where Samcart is missing, is the capability to capture leads and build complete sales funnels. The products come in at the exact same $97 a month price point, and I find ClickFunnels to be quite a bit more flexible and 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
– Beautiful looking templates for every kind of funnel
– Great on-boarding procedure for learning the program
– Software has been better after each update
– Easily 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 Clickfunnels Udemy
Which application you go with depends on your needs and the amount of work you’re willing to invest in your business.
Although many of you are selling standalone products, are you ready to put in the effort required to make a high converting sales funnel?
Otherwise, ClickFunnels might be overkill for you. You can collect leads or sell your front end product more cheaply using alternative services.
However, if increasing the average lifetime value of your clients is important to you, then I truly suggest giving ClickFunnels a try.
Not just to get access to the software but also since the coaching you get will be both inspiring and enlightening.
Make the most of the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial, and see if you can use it to grow your business now.
