Are you 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 harder.
There is a simple secret to raising the value of each customer you market to:
Sales funnels. Cost Of Clickfunnels Certification
By creating a well-designed sales funnel, you can dramatically boost your sales and provide more value to your customers.
In this post, I will present you to ClickFunnels, the application I’m using to build sales funnels for my business.
You do not need any technical know-how to use this, and it will really change how you run 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 speaking about that too later on.
Here’s what I’m going to 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 created 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.
In its core, ClickFunnels is an application for constructing sales funnels. With a bunch of added bells and whistles.
You can use it to build:
– Landing pages
– Squeeze pages
– Webinars
– Membership sites
– 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’ll even have the ability to start your own affiliate program (Backpack) and change out your email service with (Actionetics MD).
Basically, you’re getting everything you need to market and sell your products online, without needing to employ expensive developers.
And people are utilizing ClickFunnels with great success.
If you check out their 2 Comma Club website, you can see that nearly 300 entrepreneurs have already created 1 million dollar funnels utilizing ClickFunnels.
That is remarkable.Cost Of Clickfunnels Certification
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 distinct forms of funnels that he has used successfully in his own business.
The funnel types 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 make too.
They include simple funnels like the Squeeze Page Funnel which collects a visitor’s email address and then sends them to a Thank you page when signing up.
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.
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 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. Cost Of Clickfunnels Certification
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. After that you can use your mouse to drag elements around and put them where you need them.
While not as flexible as Instapage’s landing page editor, it’s still quite good and it can be used to achieve just about any design you want.
What I like is that the editor is very intuitive to use.
Selecting elements on the page and transferring them where you want is very seamless.
Text elements can be edited inline, and changing any element’s properties could be done via the fly-out sidebar.
And unlike other editors out there, everything is organized in a logical way. You’re not spending a lot of time hunting for what you would like to do.
The main thing is that no programming is needed. So you don’t 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 essential for providing you the flexibility to design the specific pages you woud like and ClickFunnels gives you a wide 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 that you construct in the software.
ClickFunnels also includes several advanced components like:
– 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 own 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 no 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 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.
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 that your referrals purchase as they go through their specific funnels as well.
That is 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.
When someone visits this URL, they will be able to add this funnel directly into their accounts if they are an existing ClickFunnels member. If they aren’t 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 amazing is that this share URL also acts as your affiliate link, and you’ll get a recurring commission when 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 process seems to take around 8-10 seconds each time.
While I really don’t know what is really going on behind the scenes, it doesn’t make sense to me why this would take so long. It’s somewhat annoying, although just 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 on their lowest plan. I am not a fan of software products which restrict you in this manner.
If you are just building sales funnels for yourself, these limits are most likely okay.
However you can get more annoyed at these constraints if you’re doing client work, building funnels for multiple customers or promoting ClickFunnels as an affiliate with share funnels.
You will want to upgrade to the Etison Suite plan if you would like to build infinite 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 a lot of work into the onboarding process to help ease you into the software. The ClickFunnels interface is fairely well made for the most part and when you’ve assembled 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, however they have now been merged into 2 separate plans.
So 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 production tools, but you are restricted 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 lets you create your own affiliate program.
To gain access to that, you’ll need to go with the Etison Suite plan. It includes everything, and 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 out there. However, you can buy Funnel Hacks for $997 which gives you 6 months of Etison Suite for free plus some extra bonuses. This brings the cost down 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 limited 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 is also a semi-secret, unadvertised Share Funnel plan which 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 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 a little slow in responding. They use Intercom, so you can immediately ask questions in the live chat box. Support requests are usually answered in a couple of hours and I found the team to pretty helpful to all my questions.
Do I need my own domain name? Cost Of Clickfunnels Certification
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 didn’t know about is that ClickFunnels will get you your first domain name for free and even set up 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 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 very active and it’s a great place to get opinions on your sales funnels and answer any questions that you may have.
There are also several other FB groups run by ClickFunnels affiliates which are also quite 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’s the reason why I would highly recommend 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 sign up with Funnel Hacks instead to save some additional money. For $997, you are going to 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 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 has some negative buzz around it due to all 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 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 can I create a sales funnel”, ClickFunnels is the #1 answer hands down. There’s no other software 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’s great for creating opt-in funnels that will help you generate more leads and build your email list.
You can produce webinar funnels that will help you develop your brand and sell your products and services.
And you can use it to build membership sites where you’re able to gate your premium content so that it’s accessible only to subscribers.
How can you make ClickFunnels work for you? Cost Of Clickfunnels Certification
First of all, you need to have a product or service to sell. If you do not have something to sell, then do not even bother looking into ClickFunnels until you do. Unless you only want to market it as an affiliate.
Next, you have 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 customers or clients into your funnel. And 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 have 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) into selling his flagship product (ClickFunnels).
By building his own community of raving fans he can 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 components that apply to your own company and create a strategy for your own sales funnel. Once you have that in place, you’ll be prepared to start making money with ClickFunnels.
ClickFunnels versus the competition
There are a couple of ClickFunnels alternatives out there that share a number of the same capabilities as ClickFunnels. Two that I use myself are LeadPages and SamCart.
ClickFunnels vs LeadPages
Today, LeadPages is among the market leaders in the landing page builder space and it is a very 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 features a large selection of nice looking templates. Both have drag and drop editors which make it effortless for you to build the designs you want. 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 can help you collect leads. 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 developing your email list is using content upgrades. By producing targeted lead magnets into your most popular articles you can acquire opt-in conversion rates that far surpass your typical 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’ll see now.
So if you’re primarily concentrated 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.
However, if you are selling a product or service, then ClickFunnels is the better alternative . While it comes with a higher learning curve than Leadpages, as soon as you master the tool, it’s possible to really explode your earnings once you start creating sales funnels for all your products.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart
SamCart is a product which allows users to 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 quickly. It supports both Stripe and Paypal and it comes with 17 distinct checkout page templates which you may customize.
In terms of flexibility, there is 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 like ClickFunnels does. You can also easily create coupons for your products which is another terrific way to raise conversions.
But where Samcart is missing, is the ability to capture leads and create complete sales funnels. Both products come in at the 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
– Amazing looking templates for every kind of funnel
– Great on-boarding procedure for learning the software
– Software has been 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
– Limits on the amount of funnels, pages, and visitors with the standard plan
– Lots of things to understand, a steep learning curve
– Split testing is pretty basic
Final Thoughts Cost Of Clickfunnels Certification
Which software you go with depends on your requirements and the amount of work you’re willing to invest in your enterprise.
Although many 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 sell your front end product more cheaply with alternative services.
However, if increasing the average lifetime value of your clients is important to you, then I really suggest giving ClickFunnels a try.
Not just to access the software but also since the training you get will probably be both inspirational and enlightening.
Make the most of the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial, and see if you can use it to grow your business today.
