When you talk to most experts in branding and marketing, they will tell you that your brand is not supposed to be the hero, your customer is the hero, and your brand’s role is to guide the hero through the challenges they will face en route to their desired outcome. When it comes down to it, all we are doing is looking for groups of people congregating and throwing hooks out to grab their attention so that you, as the magnetic personality, can act as their guide and lead them through your value ladder to the outcome they desire most.
I think there is much truth in the view that brand is more about what people say about you when you are not in the room than it is what you say about yourself. I also believe this is coupled with the belief that brand is the image and personality the business applies to its offers. If you think of it in these terms, I wonder if this would inspire you to change anything? In this part of the program, we will look at the funnels we use for communication follow-up; these are the funnels that move people from step to step inside our value ladder.
There are two types of messages that we send out in our follow-up funnels; we call the Cliff Edge sequence and the Re-Engagement Sequence. The Cliff Edge has the goal of building a relationship with the magnetic personality and taking the customer through the initial funnel, and taking them to the next level in the Value Ladder. The Re-Engagement Sequence is used for people that are not currently engaged and not in one of the other follow-up funnels. The objective here is to re-engage them and get them back into the value ladder.
The Three Types Of Traffic
Just before we look at the structure of the follow-up funnels and the campaigns we run through these, it is worth just talking briefly about the importance of building your list. The big question will always be how do we get people to join our list and become subscribers to be added to the follow-up fennels? We will deal with this subject in more detail a little later. We will learn about the three types of traffic too.
- The traffic you have control of
- The traffic you have earnt
- Traffic that you own
Your one and only goal, I think it would be fair to say, is to own all of the traffic that you can.
Traffic that you own – This is the most important traffic category by far. Traffic that you own is, without any shadow of a doubt, the most important and valuable to you. This comprises your client list, your email list and messenger lists. I can use these connections at any time and do not been to buy them from Google or Meta. I also do not need to do any PR or SEO to use them. Building this list should constantly be on your agenda. The more you build this list, the more potential you generate. In fact, I have been told that, on average, for each name on your list, you should be generating about £1 per person per month! This is not a fully accurate Metrick, but research seems to support that the bigger the list, the bigger the revenue generated.
Traffic that you control – You only control traffic when you can tell it where to go. So if I buy an ad, I can tell those that click on it where to go to end up on my landing page. I do not yet own them, but I control the destination. In other words, any form of paid traffic is traffic I control but do not own, at least not yet. The problem with this type of traffic is when you want more, you will have to pay for it. So it makes perfect sense that when you pay for this type of traffic, you should consider sending it to a Squeeze page so that the person allows you to use their email, and in so doing, they are added to your list and become traffic that you own. We call it a squeeze page because the mission of such landing pages is to squeeze the email through an offer that cannot be ignored.
The traffic you earn – With this type of traffic, you do not control it, but you earn it. Examples include mentions you may get in other peoples’ posts. Their followers may well then search you out and may land on one of your pages, so while you have earned the traffic, you have no control over it. Just like the traffic you control, the mission here has to be to own it. One of the most effective ways of achieving this is to have a way of directing them to your own sales funnels hub. This is a web landing page that contains all the links to the various sales funnels you are running. While it may look more like a traditional website, it is a junction of sales funnels. A hub. Once on this page, all they can do is look at the headline that gets their attention and let you have their email, then they become traffic you own.
Once someone has been to your Funnel landing page or Hub, either as the traffic you controlled or earned, and they have willingly given you their email address and qualified themselves, you now have the opportunity to communicate with them through the follow-up funnels.
The Cliff Edge Sequence (often referred to as the soap opera sequence)
When someone joins your list, it is very important to strike while the iron is hot and quickly establish a bond with them. One of the more popular ways of doing this we call the Cliff Edge Sequence, which is also referred to as the Soap Opera Sequence, and this is how it works. What we do not want to be doing is sending out boring or uninspiring emails to those who have just joined our list; there is no coming back from that! You need to start with something interesting that will continue through all the other emails in the sequence.
You will recognise the model, and the name for this sequence is certainly apt. The idea is to end on a cliff edge that will compel the reader to want to watch out for and then read the next and the next in the sequence. Finishing each email with high drama on a cliff edge just like they do in all the popular soap operas on both sides of the Atlantic.
Of course, many different story structures can be used to build your sequence, and you can use different structures for each product or service inside the value ladder. The key is less to do with the structure and more to do with the story you are telling and that your stories are compelling and open a loop in each email can only be closed by reading the next email in the sequence.
Email 1 – This is simply setting the stage and is sent as soon as the customer has subscribed to the list. The email will set the stage for the remaining emails, which will follow in the sequence. This email also sets the initial hook that will compel them to read the email.
Email 2 – We open this email with some high drama; it is most effective when you start your story with some high drama. In other words, you do not have to start your story at the beginning; the best stories will get to the good stuff early, and then you can go back to the explanations that can be found in the back story once the reader is hooked. When it comes to the back story, it is really effective if that part of the story is taking you back to a similar situation that your reader is in right now. The backstory culminated in hitting the wall, and often, this is a reflection of where the reader is right now.
Email 3 – The epiphany email is where you get to reveal the epiphany that will tie into the product or service you are selling. It is the moment in the story where everything turned around for you. At this point, the reader is well and truly hooked. They will want to know more about what you have discovered; they want to know this one thing.
Email 4 – Now, we look at the hidden benefits. If the individual hasn’t purchased the product, they will not have seen how valuable it can be. So in this email, we can point out other hidden benefits that they will receive when they have made the purchase.
Email 5 – Creating urgency and a call to action. This will be the last email in the sequence; the objective is to give the prospect one last push to go and take action right now. This is where you can light a bit of a fire under them and create the need for urgent action now. Here are a couple of examples that might inspire immediate action:
- The event starts tomorrow
- You only have a few tickets left
- You only ordered 1,000 books, and most have already gone
- You’re taking this offline shortly
Whatever reason you choose, your urgency needs to be real; you do not want to lose credibility by stating something false. Use your imagination; there is always some way of creating some urgency.
Re-engagement & engagement Sequence
Once you have helped your customer, once they have made the purchase, you still need to keep in touch with them and keep them engaged, maybe there are some people on your list, and you have lost that engagement. This is the sequence you use to ensure you do not lose contact with them just because they are not currently on your value ladder.
The structure of these emails will be familiar, and we will stick to the model that we know will work, that is, Hook, Story, Offer. The email subject line will hook them in and get them to open the email, the body of the mail is the story and has only one goal, and that is to entertain. The email has at the end an offer that is going to be attractive to them.
My preference is to use one of these styles for these emails, and I am sure you could find a use for these models also:
- The Episode Style – This is almost like a ‘dear diary’ entry; I tell the story of my day and then relate that to anecdotal stories that, in turn, will tie into a specific offer or indeed share something that is in some way polarising. The purpose of this is often to get people to go back into one of the funnels, often one of my book funnels.
- Epiphany Style – Here, I will talk about different ideas, things that might inspire, motivate and even provoke thought. Sometimes the content will challenge existing conventions and ideas. The goal here is to help the reader to have an epiphany that will tie back into an offer.
- Educational Style – These can include a checklist, how-to or even my top 5 tips for… I have also used FAQ, and they all direct people back into one of the core offers being made.
Unlike the Cliff Edge Sequence, these emails have no sequence, and so each day, you can cast a different hook or tell a different story and, in so doing, get a different section of the community to respond. The goal here is to test a hook and then follow that up with a story that will lead people to one of your core offers, or indeed some other product or service. If you do not link to an offer, product or service, do not be surprised if you don’t make enough money!
When it comes to actually writing and sending out these emails, I think I have heard every excuse and objection under the sun. When I ask why emails of this nature are not being sent out, the excuses come thick and fast. The most popular of which is the time excuse. I just don’t have the time. Interestingly the same people complain about a lack of sales. They do not seem to realise this is part of the solution.
With technology today, you can even use your smartphone and dictate your email while you are on the move; there really is no excuse anymore. Once you get into it, this can be a fun exercise, and it is more to do with habit than time. Get the habit, and you’ll find the time. Find the time, and you’ll get the results. Just remember, this is all about consistency and the accumulative effect of consistent and regular activity.