Designer Boss
Designer Boss
Magical Sales Funnels for Designers
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0:04
Welcome to the designer boss podcast, listen, learn, love and level up with the ultimate success guide for web and graphic designers.
0:17
My name is Anna Dower. I'm a cake lover and success slaying graphic design mentor.
0:23
And I'm Emma Kate, your personal sensei for mastering the wonderful world of the Web.
0:30
Together, we'll show you how to harness our tried and tested experiences and hard earned lessons while you soak up everything we know about building a successful design business.
0:47
Hello, Anna here, welcome to the Designer of Boss Podcast. Today, Emma and I are talking about everything about sales funnels.
0:58
I get asked a lot, how do I actually get clients to my website? And my answer is always sales funnels. Basically, a sales funnel is you collecting your audience's email address and warming them up via that email address. We've noticed that a lot of people are relying on social media platforms to talk to their audience. And Emma wants to talk about why that's a big no, no, yeah, it's one thing that when I see it, it really quite scares me. And I feel for these people. Because when you're relying on social media, like Facebook or Instagram, you're relying on the algorithm. And if anyone's posted to sort of social media consistently for their business, like I have, like you have Anna, you notice that sometimes you reach just like disappears, like all of a sudden, you know, you usually get 20 people liking a post, and you know, now one person seen it, and something's happened with that algorithm. And all of a sudden, you just you can't get that reach that you usually would get. And so by just relying on social media means that when launch time comes or something like that, you're kind of just at the beck and call of Zuckerberg really, and it's not a safe space to be in. Yeah, so having a List is just, I feel like, it's kind of like really the equity in your business. And if you don't have a list of email subscribers, you know, if you just have 100 people on your email list, but you have 20,000 on your Instagram, it's just not a safe space to be in, in my opinion, I feel like it's like having all your eggs in one basket, rather than sort of spreading your risk and, and stuff like that. So building up your email list is super important in that you own that. And you control how those emails sort of get delivered. You know, if you have 2000 people on your email list, you know, that's going out to those 2000 people, yeah, there might be a few emails on there that are going to bounce or something like that. But it's not like having 2000 people on Instagram, yet only a couple 100 people see it. So building that email list is really important. And having a sales funnel that then nurtures that list is sort of the next step.
3:30
And I remember when I was starting out in business, and I just kept hearing over and over again, how important it is to have a list and that there's money in your list. And I was like, how does this work? I don't get it. But it is so important. It's not just having, you know, a whole heap of email addresses. It is having access to your audience directly. And having the opportunity to warm them up to the point where they actually hire you and buy something from you. You cannot sell to someone who is cold. It's basically like dating, you need to romance them a bit, warm up before you actually, you know, make a move. And the email list allows you to do that. Right? If you don't have consistent clients in your web or design business, it's because you are not warming up people consistently. And this is how you warm people up with a sales funnel. Now, like the first step of a sales funnel is a freebie. basically something that you give your audience for free, that is valuable. And when I say valuable, it needs to answer a problem that they're having in their business currently. So it could be say your ideal client is someone who needs a website and your niche is websites. So perhaps your freebie could be a blueprint for a homepage, which basically lays out how you think a high converting homepage should look. And it solves the problem for them pretty much straight away. Now, the thing is with these freebies, a lot of people are like, well, I'll create a 30 page ebook that's like, full of all this information. That is not a great freebie. Because people want quick and fast solutions, then not gonna sit there and like read 40 pages of copy to try to find the answer. They want the answer pretty much laid out for them.
5:45
So let's talk about some freebies, some lead magnets that we've had in our own businesses, that have been really successful, just to give everyone an idea of some examples.
6:03
Yeah, so a couple that either I've had or I've seen sort of students have, for me, my niche being websites, is having like a website roadmap, similar to what you would have said there, outlining the steps that I take to build a website. And so just giving that information to them. And then it really thing showcases your expertise, and gives them a lot of free tools and tips on how to do it themselves. But then also see how much actually goes into it. And hey, maybe I want to. I want some help with this, maybe I want to contact this image check. Another one that I've used successfully is like website goals, little mini course, which is a handy one, because that's sort of the first step that people need to take before they go to build a website. So sort of getting them to go through all that means that they're then primed and ready to go and take the next step. And they've already done something that I would have had to do with them anyway. So I think that's a really handy thing to do. And I've also seen students have like a brand clarity worksheet, or something like that, that it's probably one of those first steps that you do with a client. In initial discovery before when you're sort of doing the briefing process at the beginning. Taking sort of one of those steps and turning it into something that they can do self-directed, just a really small step, then kind of makes them they it makes them see your process and make you look like you know what you're talking about. And then it also brings them to you and they've already completed something for you, they've already taken a little task off your hands, that part of that's already done. So I think that's a really cool idea to
7:45
Yeah, and that was something that I was going to mention as well, when I was working in my design business full time. One of my freebies was a brand clarity workbook, which is basically just like a meteor beefier, brief, but it would make them look at their brand foundations, all the stuff that you want them to have done before they hire you, basically. So you would take them through what their Why was who their ideal client was, their brand values and voice. And it makes them the best clients when they do actually hire you to be the designer.
8:24
Another one that I had great success with was a brand consistency checklist. I wrote a blog post about why brand consistency was important. Why? You know how all the big brands are really consistent and how that's how you get brand recognition and trust. And then I provided a checklist, which is basically just going through everything they would need for their business, and then ticking off whether or not it is consistent with their fonts, colours and imagery. And like this was a great tool for them to realise, Oh crap, maybe I need to be more consistent. Maybe I need a professional designer. So that one was a surprise as to how popular it was and how useful it was. Often we have all this knowledge, all these answers in our head that we take for granted and think people know, but they don't. And that's why it's really important to like break down all this knowledge you have into tiny little chunks and provide it to them as a valuable free resource. And I suggest keeping it simple. Another one that I saw recently was a freebie which was various colour palettes. Basically, this designer had talked about four different kind of brand feels voices, and provided example colour palettes for each one of those voices. So it could be a strong brand or a feminine brand or have you know a nurturing brand, and then provide a colour palette and it was really well done. And I can see how that could be valuable to people. So don't overthink it and don't overcomplicate it is my advice.
10:15
Absolutely, I think making it quite simple and easy for them to digest and weigh, like, as you were sort of talking about your thinking how how awesome a lead magnet can be for your business, not to just get you know people on your list, but also to really warm up those clients and showcase your expertise is a huge one, because there's just all these things that they just never would have probably realised. And so they're going oh, like, this person really knows their stuff, I'm going to be in good hands. But on top of that, too, I think it ends up attracting the types of clients that are actually willing to put in a little bit of work to actually educate themselves. And maybe you know, fill out a worksheet and understand their brand voice and that kind of thing. And obviously, we all know that clients that are willing to put in some more work, and really understand their business and give you good feedback and understand the process and stuff. They're always the best clients, right? It's the ones that just expect you to do everything that can turn out to be a real drag when you're trying to pick their brain about what they actually want. So I feel like it's kind of a way of attracting more of those ideal clients that are actually going to do the work with you.
11:35
Yeah, and then it's a great opportunity to speak directly to your ideal client as well. So don't be afraid to, you know, create a freebie, especially for the person you want to attract. That's what turns you into a magnet. So if your ideal client is health and wellness entrepreneur, don't be afraid to speak directly to them, when it comes to your freebie, because then you will attract them. I know it seems like a no brainer. But often we think of something really generic and broad. and think, Oh, that'll do better, because it'll appeal to more people. That's not the case, you want it to speak directly to your ideal client. One of my most popular blog posts was how can graphic designers talk on the phone to clients. Because often As designers, we like to hide behind our max and email.And we don't want to talk to people. And I actually answered a problem specifically for my ideal client. And when you do that, that's when you get the people who are like, Oh my god, I must work with this person straightaway, like they have been looking for you. So don't be afraid to speak directly to your ideal client when it comes to your freebie. Also, I hear it all the time. I've got nothing to talk about. I don't know what to post on social media. Once you have your freebie, you can start talking about that. And, you know, there's a million different ways to talk about the same thing. There's different angles, and it's all an opportunity to educate. And to have actually something to say while giving your audience something valuable, basically.
13:25
Absolutely. And that's the sort of next step. Okay. Well, you have this freebie you have it on your website. But the whole goal was to get people to your website, right. So that's how you can get people to your website is by sharing little snippets or talking about that freebie on social media. And so rather than them just liking that post on social media, you can direct them to a hey, go get my PDF on this, whatever it is. And we'll go into more detail there. Like this is just one of the nine steps I go through, go get the rest of the steps here, you know, and keep directing people to your website to get the freebie. And that's just like Anna said, that gives you heaps of social media content, because you can talk about that freebie in 20 different posts in 20 different ways on all the different platforms and be directing people there to go to your website and check out your portfolio. Find out more about you as well. Yeah. And you basically send them to the page where they need to enter the email address, hit submit, and then the freebie is automatically sent to their inbox. Now you set up this automated sequence in like an email. What kind of what are they called? Em?
14:48
I actually don't know like a program like a CRM, like I didn't know. Kind of like that. Some of them aren't necessarily CRMs but just like just seeing everyone knows what MailChimp is in something like MailChimp.
15:00
MailChimp, Active Campaign we both use Active Campaign. Mailer Light, Flow desk, any one of those, basically, where you can set up an automation. And setting up the automation is easy, you basically just go in there. And let it know that when someone joins this list, a trigger is set off that sends them an email straight away with your freebie. Now the key is, like I talked about warming up all the time, is not just to give them the freebie and disappear, you need to have lots of follow-ups, lots of emails automated in that sequence, in order to follow them up and to continue to warm them up. Now, I'm a fan of Gary Vee, he talks about the jab, jab, punch, kind of marketing style of marketing where you can't be selling all the time, you need to provide value value value value, then hit them with something to buy. So when you're putting this sequence together, be aware of how you're serving your audience, and how you're providing value and knowledge and then throw in the sale.
16:23
I know it can be overwhelming. But once you get started and start to see conversions happening, and you start getting feedback, where people are like, Oh my God, this
cheat sheets just saved my life. You will know it works. And it does work. This is how you get consistent clients. Right. So do you want to talk about some tools? On how to set it up?
16:56
Yeah, yeah. You know, I love all the tech in the tools there. Absolutely. Yes. Well, first, the first thing I'll point out is because I do have a lot of people ask me, you know, how do I deliver my freebie to my audience, like when they subscribe, and a lot of people might put it on the thank you page for download. And this is a big no, no, in my opinion, because people can then just enter a fake email address and get your freebie and they don't actually subscribe to your list. So what you want to encourage is for people to actually enter in a legit email address, so that they're only going to get the freebie if it then syncs with your active campaign or your MailChimp or whatever account you're using, and then it will be sent to the email. So that's a really important one to do, rather than just putting it on the thank you page, in which case you might just get a lot of spam emails that you can't do anything with. So having a thank you page is great though because it gives you this extra opportunity to promote something else. So what I mean by thank you pages someone enters in their email address and their first name or whatever and goes, you know, get freebie clicks or get a freebie button. And then they get redirected to another page on your website that says thanks for subscribing, check your inbox, it's on its way to you now. Oh, by the way, did you know I have a Facebook group come hang out in the Facebook group. That's what I do in mine. It could be linking to you know, your Instagram or your Facebook or another freebie or blog post or something on your website, like whatever you sort of might want to do, you can have that sort of extra opportunity on the thank you page. Thank you page like that also helps with if you're ever going to be tracking conversions or something like Google Analytics and stuff, which to be honest bores the tears out of me like I just I don't do that. But if you ever work with like an SEO expert or something like that, having a thank you page can be really handy to sort of track your conversions and stuff as well. But then sorry, it goes into tools. So the first tool that you would need obviously is something to create that opt in form. So this is the little form on your website where people subscribe, they enter in the email address and subscribe to your list and there's a whole bunch of different form plugins and tools you can use out there. Obviously Anna and I are a WordPress girls. So we can sort of talk about WordPress tools. If you're using a different platform like Squarespace or something I'm sure that they have other forms that I know that they do have other forms there that you can use. But the ones that Anna and I use typically is because we use Divi. We just use the Divi opt in module and it's like super duper easy to set up. You hook it up with your MailChimp or Active Campaign and it'll automatically just sync it all together. So we mostly use that but there's other form plugins out there pretty much any of the good paid form plugins you can then sync them to an email program like Active Campaign, but the Divi opt-in module is the easiest one for us. If you're an Elementor girl then Elementor has its own form widget that you can use and you can also use that awesome pop up builder as well to create some really cool opt in sort of pop up style opt ins so there's some good tools there.
20:00
And then the next thing is your email program. So whether that's active campaign or ConvertKit, or what did you say on a flow desk is another one mailer lite mailer alone. Yeah. So there's, there's heaps of them out there, it comes down to personal choice really, and also budget, active campaigns, not for everyone, it's a pretty expensive tool, and I complain about pricing all the time.
20:26
So if you just want to start with something cheaper and easier to begin with, then things like MailChimp and MailerLite have free options. So you can just start small and as your list grows, then you can start paying.
20:41
So choosing a tool like that. But what I would recommend is if you are a Divi user, then or if you are an Elementor user, and you've decided, Okay, I'm going to use this particular form, module or plugin or something to create my opt in, see what it syncs with. If you haven't decided on what email program to use yet, then just check what your form plugin will sync with. And that way, you can just choose one of those from the list. And most of the good ones will sync with like probably 20 different email programs. So you have a lot to choose from. And the last thing I had on my list was like a countdown timer. Did you want to talk about that Anna?
21:20
Yeah. So before I mentioned about, once you have them in the automated sequence, you need to have a series of emails, following them out with more knowledge more value. Now, once you've warmed them up, you know, over a few emails, perhaps over the span of a week, I think it's really important to offer them something that is low paid. When I say low paid, I mean under $50. So something that perhaps you would sell normally for $80. But you're offering it to these people because they're your VIPs on your email list for half price for a limited time only. Now, the whole point of this low paid offer isn't necessarily to make money. It is basically just to turn people from voyeurs into paying customers, it's really important that they hand over some cash to you, in order to realise that you can be trusted, that you will over deliver with knowledge and value. That way, when it comes time to like booking you in for $10,000 design package, it's not so scary for them, it's easy. So this low paid offer, like I said, under 50 bucks, and for a limited time only. And that's where the countdown timer comes into play. It's really important to have that sense of urgency in the email. And we use deadline funnel for that. And that just creates a really clever HTML code that you pop into the email. And then as soon as they open the email, it starts counting down that 24 hours or 12 hours or however long you want. And then once that timer has expired, The offer has expired also. So it's really clever. It's not cheap, but it works. And once you have a whole heap of data in your email program, like Active Campaign,
23:29
and you can go back and see, well, these clients who ended up paying me for a package, actually, you know, did download the freebie, and they did buy the low paid offer. And it gives you a whole heap of data for you to analyse, because chances are if they buy the low paid offer, they are definitely going to end up hiring you. Yeah, now the low paid offer can be something like a Mini eCourse or it needs to be more substantial. Because by the time they get to that point in the funnel, they're like ready for more.
24:05
So the low paid offer can be more than a lot more than the initial freebie. Now once you've had your funnel running for a while, and you can see that everything's working and people are you know enjoying the content. That's when you can like start investing in Facebook ads sending people to the initial freebie and that's another way to get people to your website.
24:33
I know it can be overwhelming but it's not as hard as you think and once you set out once it's taken along in the background all the time Yeah, I found Facebook ads super overwhelming to begin with but once I learnt what all that sort of terminology was I think that was the most confusing thing it's like it's not this straightforward interface. It definitely feels like something that full time marketing people should be and not me.
25:00
yeah, sorry, it was daunting. Once you've, once you work it out, then it can just be a set and forget kind of thing. Something that really helped me though is I just bought a small short course on it. And that just walked me through it. And it made it light years easier than having to work it all out myself. Because it can be quite daunting, but I feel like it's a great investment to learn.
25:30
Yeah, definitely. Or if you don't have like the brain space, just hire someone to set them up for you. Like I get it. I don't have room in my brain to learn anything new. Yeah, so just get someone to set them up for you. But when you feel like oh, I don't have any new inquiries. I don't have any potential new clients happening. Ask yourself, how am I serving my people? What am I offering them for free? That's valuable. And chances are? If you're not having any new inquiries, it's because you're not offering anything, or perhaps you're not offering the right thing. Awesome. Yeah. What do you want from me? You know.
26:10
and I think a really key thing here, which we know Anna talks about all the time, is being having a niche and being very specific. And it's going to be really hard to talk to your audience, if your audience is everyone. So you could create this awesome freebie. But if it's sort of perfect for every kind of business, then it's going to be really hard to bring them into your funnel and attract those types of people. So having a really clear person, an idea in your mind of who you're creating this freebie for and this funnel for is going to make it a lot more successful and actually attract those clients that you really want to work with, rather than just every man and his dog. Yeah.
26:50
And it's harder to be heard when you're trying to talk to everyone, rather than a specific type
It actually makes everything easier when you know who your ideal client is. Like, if you're struggling trying to figure out what to create. And what to say it's chances are, it's because you don't know who you're talking to you specifically. And like I can say that until I'm blue in the face. And it won't be until you do it. There you go, Oh, she was right, I should have done this ages ago. So create a freebie. And you'll get to a point where you've got like a whole library of freebies. So on your website, you can have a page, that's just freebies or free resources or whatever you want to call it. And each of those wonderful freebies is a funnel that takes your client through the journey to end up buying from you in the end. And this works. It's been tested. I know from my own business, I know from everyone who I've taught that this works. So as soon as you get your website up, and you're proud of it, start on the sales funnel. Yeah, and a good point there too, is that when you you can have multiple freebies that potentially could talk to if you have multiple sort of ideal client avatars, I know a lot of people find it hard to just have one, especially if you're sort of serving people in say health and wellness. But you might have like different types of businesses within that space that you might want to create a slightly different opt in for that's a bit more targeted towards them. So you can have multiple opt-ins that speak a little bit more specifically to those different ideal clients that you have. Obviously, you want to niche down as much as possible, but I know it can be hard for some people to just have just one sort of type of person that they're talking to. So having those multiple different opt-ins can be really good. And then it also gives you more to talk about and so yeah, as well. And if you have something like Active Campaign, you can use tags and I don't want to like overwhelm you and freak you out and how about more so but once you get really into like sales funnel building, it becomes really fun, it's weird, but you can then start tagging people as to they've you know, download of this specific freebie and have been offered the low paid off or before and boarded, so don't show it to them again. It can be really powerful. If you use funnels correctly. There's tags, there's all sorts of fun, nerdy stuff that you can play with as well in there.
29:45
And that also comes down to the type of email program you choose as well. Obviously on the free plans, you're probably not going to have them as many options. Often they sort of plan
In the pricing for the plans, go by how many subscribers you have, but sometimes I know in Active Campaign, they actually limit the features that you get on the different pricing plans as well. So you can really just start small and then when you want to, and you realise when you become like Anna and I go, Oh, sales funnels, have fun, then you can sort of upgrade your plan and start using those fancier features. One thing I did want to point out too, is that the deadline funnel is like, that's the countdown timer. It is a super powerful fantastic tool but it is expensive like Anna said and I find it a little bit confusing to figure out to begin with. With all the different options and stuff like that. So if you want to start smaller and still have a countdown timer in your email, a cheaper and easier option, doesn’t have as many features but is really good is called Sendtric, and I’ve used that with pretty good success. It’s a lot cheaper but there are fancy features that you don't get that you would get with deadline funnel.
31:17
Cool. well hopefully we've given everyone some food for thought. And yes start ,create a freebie. Just take the first step in creating a funnel. And you wont regret it. It;s how you become a magnet. Stop chasing clients. Make them come to you. Just figure out how to serve them best.
31:47
So, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Just letting you know that we do have our next designer boss Summit coming out so head to our website designerboss.co so you can come attend the summit that's happening on early October. We love to see you there.
32:08
You've been listening to the designer boss podcast with Anna Dower and Emma Kate. If you'd like to learn more about us and our upcoming digital summit for graphic and web designers, head to our website designerboss.co