Are you trying to sell things online?
Then I’m confident you will agree that converting your visitors into sales is hard.
And getting yourself profitable? That’s even tougher.
There’s a simple secret to increasing the value of every customer you sell to:
Sales funnels. Funnel Scripts Phone Number
By creating a well-designed sales funnel, you can dramatically increase your earnings and provide more value to your clients.
In this post, I’m going to present you to ClickFunnels, the software I am using to create sales funnels for my business.
You do not need any technical know-how to use this, and it will really change how you operate your business.
Plus:
If you are ready to throw yourself into the ClickFunnels world, it has one of the best affiliate programs on the market. I will be speaking about that too later on.
What is ClickFunnels?
ClickFunnels was made back in 2014 by Russell Brunson and his group. Since that time, Russell has turned ClickFunnels into a $100 million per 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 lot 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 will even be able to start your own affiliate program (Backpack) and change out your email service with (Actionetics MD).
Basically, you’re getting all you need to advertise and sell your products online, without having to employ expensive programmers.
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 remarkable.Funnel Scripts Phone Number
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 forms 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 some other special funnels like Membership funnels you can create too.
They include simple funnels such as the Squeeze Page Funnel which gathers a visitor’s email address and then sends them to a Thank you page when signing up.
Or to more complex 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 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 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. Funnel Scripts Phone Number
Best Feature #2: Good Visual Drag and Drop Editor
While ClickFunnels gives you a wonderful starting point with its funnel and webpage 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. You can then 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 may be used to achieve pretty much any design you desire.
What I like is that the editor is quite intuitive to use.
Selecting elements on the page and moving them where you want is quite seamless.
Text elements can be edited inline, and modifying any element’s properties could 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 hunting for what you want to do.
The main thing is that no programming is required. So you don’t have 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 vital for providing you the flexibility to design the exact pages you want and ClickFunnels provides you a wide variety of them to use.
Fundamental elements comprise of 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 from the editor sidebar. With most elements, you can change common properties such as 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 is little doubt in my mind that ClickFunnels has the very best, legitimate affiliate marketing program that you can be a part of.
First the basics:
The ClickFunnels affiliate program pays out 40% recurring commissions for each referral you make and you can win cool prizes like $500 towards your very own dream car as soon as you reach 100 active referrals.
In addition to that, they offer 5%, 2-tier commissions for referring people to the ClickFunnels affiliate program.
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 will also earn commissions on any upsells your referrals purchase as they go through their specific funnels too.
But that’s 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.
Whenever someone visits this URL, they’ll be able 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 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 choosing 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 understand 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 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 am not a fan of software products which limit you in this way.
If you’re just building sales funnels for yourself, these limitations are probably okay.
However you may get more annoyed at such constraints if you are doing client work, building funnels for multiple customers or promoting ClickFunnels as an affiliate with 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 range of what ClickFunnels can do is fairely huge, and it can definitely 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 once you’ve built a few funnels yourself, the entire procedure 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?
At the moment, the lowest priced ClickFunnels plan is $97 a month. On this plan, you get access to all of 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 create your own affiliate program.
To get access to that, you’ll need to go for the Etison Suite plan. It features 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. However, you can purchase Funnel Hacks for $997 which gives you 6 months of Etison Suite for free plus some additional 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 whatsoever which lets you give the software a complete test before you fully commit.
If $97 or $297 a month sounds 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 produce 3 funnels and 10 pages with this plan, but it’s 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 utilize Intercom, which means you may directly ask questions in the live chat box. Support requests are usually answered within a few hours and I found the team to fairly helpful to all my questions.
Do I need my own domain name? Funnel Scripts Phone Number
You don’t 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 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 learn 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 is 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 opinions on your own sales funnels and answer any questions that you may have.
There are also several other FB groups run by ClickFunnels affiliates that are also very active. The main one I recommend joining is Automation Nation. It’s 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 all 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 constraint with using Paypal though is that it does not support One Click Upsells or One Time Offers. That is why I would strongly 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’ll get six months of the Etison Suite plan which is $1,782 in value.
You’ll 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 believe ClickFunnels gets some negative buzz around it due to all 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’s a great software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. So many men and women are using ClickFunnels to construct 6 and 7 figure businesses.
When people ask, “How do I create a sales funnel”, ClickFunnels is the #1 answer 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 right now in their business.
It’s great for creating opt-in funnels that will help you generate more prospects and build your email list.
You can produce webinar funnels that will 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 accessible only to subscribers.
How can you make ClickFunnels work for you? Funnel Scripts Phone Number
To start with, you need to have a product or service to sell. If you don’t have something to market, then don’t 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 money and time into creating your value ladder and building out 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 coming up with appropriate upsells, order bumps and other OTOs that complement or improve your principal product offering.
If you’re unclear how to being, I’d take a look at Russell’s very own multi-million dollar sales funnels to give you inspiration. Read his book DotComSecrets where he describes precisely the why and how of creating sales funnels and how to tell stories to marketing your products and services.
And as you go through his own sales funnels yourself you can observe the way he goes from low-cost tripwire (DotComSecrets) to selling his flagship product (ClickFunnels).
By creating his very own community of raving fans he can then upsell his various different 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 company and create a strategy for your 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 really popular tool in its own right.
It also recently introduced the capability to sell products directly on their pages with 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 desire. And both integrate with all the popular email service providers.
However, Leadpages is significantly more limited in scope than ClickFunnels. You use it to create landing pages that can help you collect leads. This isn’t a terrible thing since LeadPages really shines for building landing pages quickly.
At this time, among the best strategies for developing your email list is by using content upgrades. By producing targeted lead magnets into your most popular articles you can get opt-in conversion rates that far surpass your standard 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’ll see today.
Therefore, if you’re 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 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, you can really explode your sales once you start creating sales funnels for each of your products.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart
SamCart is a product that lets users create amazing, high converting checkout pages. Which gives it a lot in common with ClickFunnels.
SamCart is targeted towards getting setup and selling quickly. It supports both Stripe and Paypal and it comes with 17 different checkout page templates which you can customize.
In terms of flexibility, there is 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 own pre-made templates.
SamCart does allow 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.
But where Samcart is missing, is the ability to capture leads and build complete sales funnels. The products come in at the exact same $97 per 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 each type of funnel
– Great on-boarding process for learning the program
– Software continues to get better after every update
– Readily 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
– Limits on the amount 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 Funnel Scripts Phone Number
Which application you go with depends on your requirements and the amount of work you are willing to invest in your business.
Although a lot of you are selling standalone products, are you willing to put in the effort necessary to create a high converting sales funnel?
Otherwise, ClickFunnels could be overkill for you. It’s possible to collect leads or market your front end product more cheaply with alternative services.
However, if increasing the average lifetime value of your customers is important to you, then I really suggest giving ClickFunnels a try.
Not only to get access to the software but also because the coaching 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.
