Are you currently trying to sell things online?
Then I am 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 raising the value of every customer you market to:
Sales funnels. Funnel Scripts Jvzoo
By creating a well-designed sales funnel, it is possible to dramatically increase your sales and provide more value to your customers.
In this article, I will introduce you to ClickFunnels, the application I’m using to create sales funnels for my business.
You don’t need any technical know-how to use this, and it will truly change how you run your business.
Plus:
If you’re ready 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.
What’s ClickFunnels?
ClickFunnels was created back in 2014 by Russell Brunson and his group. Since that time, Russell has turned ClickFunnels into a $100 million a year business and they just crossed over 65,000 active members as of August 2018.
At its core, ClickFunnels is an application for building sales funnels. With a bunch of additional bells and whistles.
You can use it to construct:
– 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’ll even be able to start your own affiliate program (Backpack) and change out your email service with (Actionetics MD).
Essentially, you’re getting everything you need to advertise and sell your products online, without needing to hire expensive developers.
And individuals are using 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 using ClickFunnels.
That’s amazing.Funnel Scripts Jvzoo
What are the best features of ClickFunnels?
Best Feature #1: Funnel template blueprints
In case you’ve never created a sales funnel before then ClickFunnels has you covered.
Russell has identified 22 different 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 a few additional special funnels like Membership funnels you can create as well.
They include simple funnels like 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 sophisticated sales funnels such as 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 set 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. Funnel Scripts Jvzoo
Best Feature #2: Good Visual Drag and Drop Editor
While ClickFunnels provides you a wonderful 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 using sections that can have any number of rows and columns. After that you can 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 very good and it can be utilized 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 moving them where you want is very seamless.
Text elements can be edited inline, and modifying any element’s properties could be accomplished through the fly-out sidebar.
And contrary to other editors on the market, everything is organized in a logical way. You’re not spending a lot 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 studying HTML or CSS or any technical things like that.
Best Feature #3: Nice Selection of Page Elements
Elements (or widgets) are vital for providing you the flexibility to design the exact pages you want and ClickFunnels gives you a wide array of them to use.
Basic elements comprise of Headline, Photo, 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 a number of advanced elements 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 majority of elements, you can change 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 is little doubt in my mind that ClickFunnels has the best, legitimate affiliate marketing program which you can be a part of.
The basics:
The ClickFunnels affiliate program pays 40% recurring commissions for each referral you make and you can win cool prizes like $500 towards your very own dream car once you reach 100 active referrals.
On top of that, they offer 5%, 2-tier commissions for referring people to the ClickFunnels affiliate program itself.
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 will also earn commissions on any upsells that your referrals purchase as they go through their specific funnels too.
But that is not all:
ClickFunnels also has another excellent feature for affiliates known as share funnels.
Inside the Settings tab of any of your funnels, you can grab your Share Funnel URL.
Whenever someone visits this URL, they’ll be able 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 awesome is that this share URL also acts as your affiliate link, and you will get a recurring commission when this new user ends up staying on.
What I do not 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 each time.
While I don’t know what is really going on behind the scenes, it doesn’t make sense to me why this would take a long time. It is 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 in their cheapest plan. I am not a fan of software products that limit you in this way.
If you’re just building sales funnels for yourself, these limitations are probably okay.
However you can get more annoyed at these limitations if you’re doing client work, creating funnels for multiple customers or promoting ClickFunnels as an affiliate using share funnels.
You’ll need to upgrade to the Etison Suite plan if you want to build infinite funnels.
Bad Part #3: Fairly High learning curve
The range of what ClickFunnels could do is fairely huge, and it can definitely be intimidating to some.
That is why ClickFunnels put a lot of 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 whole process 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?
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 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 get access to that, you’ll need to go for the Etison Suite plan. It features everything, plus 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. But, you can purchase Funnel Hacks for $997 which gives 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 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 present budget, there’s also a semi-secret, unadvertised Share Funnel plan which 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, even though they can be a little slow in responding. They utilize Intercom, which means 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 fairly helpful to all my questions.
Do I need my own domain name? Funnel Scripts Jvzoo
You do not necessarily need your own domain name to launch a funnel, but I would recommend it. If you do not 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 enormous 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 very active and it’s an excellent place to get feedback on your sales funnels and answer any questions you might have.
Additionally, there are several 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 can.
What’s the Funnel Hacks system?
If you’re looking to get the $297/mo. Etison Suite plan, then it is definitely well 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 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 believe ClickFunnels has some negative buzz around it due to all of the affiliates who are making an effort to promote 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’s a great software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. So many people are using ClickFunnels to construct 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 application 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 at the moment in their business.
It is great for creating opt-in funnels to help you generate more leads and build your email list.
You are able to create webinar funnels to help you develop your brand and promote 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 is available only to subscribers.
How can you make ClickFunnels work for you? Funnel Scripts Jvzoo
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 before you do. Unless you just want to promote it as an affiliate.
Next, you have to be ready to invest time and money 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 clients or customers into your funnel. And coming up with proper upsells, order bumps and other OTOs that complement or improve your principal product offering.
If you are unclear how to being, 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 promoting his flagship product (ClickFunnels).
By creating his own community of raving fans he could then upsell his various other products and events like Funnel Scripts, Funnel Hackers Live, and 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 own sales funnel. Once 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 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’s 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 comes with a large selection of nice looking templates. Both have drag and drop editors that make it easy for you to build the designs you desire. And both integrate with all the popular email service providers.
But, Leadpages is significantly more limited in scope compared to ClickFunnels. You use it to create landing pages that can help you collect leads. This isn’t a terrible thing because LeadPages really shines for building landing pages fast.
At this time, one of the most effective strategies for developing your email list is by using content upgrades. By producing targeted lead magnets into your most well-known posts you can get 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 are primarily concentrated 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 choice. While it comes with a higher learning curve than Leadpages, once you master the tool, you can definitely explode your sales once you start creating sales funnels for all your products.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart
SamCart is a product that lets users create beautiful, high converting checkout pages. Which gives it a lot in common with ClickFunnels.
SamCart is targeted towards getting set up 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’ll be able to design any checkout page you can dream of. SamCart only allows for some basic customizations to its pre-made templates.
SamCart does allow you to add order bumps, upsells and downsells like ClickFunnels does. You can also easily create coupons for your products which is another great way to raise conversions.
But where Samcart is lacking, 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 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
– Amazing looking templates for each type of funnel
– Great on-boarding procedure for learning the software
– Software has been better after each update
– Easily share any funnels you build and automatically earn affiliate commissions
– 2-tier affiliate program
– Free domain name with SSL installed
– 14-day free trial
ClickFunnels Cons
– Limitations on the amount 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 Funnel Scripts Jvzoo
Which software you go with depends on your needs and the quantity of work you’re willing to invest in your business.
Although many of you are selling standalone products, are you willing to put in the effort required to make a high converting sales funnel?
If not, ClickFunnels could be overkill for you. It’s possible to collect leads or market your front end product more cheaply using alternative services.
But if raising the average lifetime value of your clients is important to you, then I truly recommend giving ClickFunnels a try.
Not only to get access to the software but also since the training you get will probably be both inspiring and enlightening.
Take advantage of the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial, and see whether you can use it to grow your business today.
