How to get sales flooding in, without an expensive ad spend...
You have a lot more control than you think.
A 5-minute read
I often audit sales funnels for clients who can’t figure out why they aren’t getting more sales.
These are top experts in their field. Just not top experts in online sales.
Here's the audit checklist I use for my 1:1’s you can steal:
If you’re getting no sales at all. This means you have:
- An offer problem, or a...
- Target audience problem, or a...
- Tech problem
Offer problem doesn’t mean your solution is wrong. It might just be packaged wrong. If you validated your offer by pre-selling it or selling it to 3-to-5 strangers (who are not your mom), then consider repackaging it.
If you didn’t validate your offer, start there. It’s most likely a gap between what your buyers think they need and what they really need.
The wrong target audience. I’ve had two clients this year who had great offers that they were trying to sell to the wrong audience.
One client was selling to an audience who didn’t have enough internal urgency because they had an alternate solution that didn’t cost as much.
Another client was targeting too big of an audience. Her real target buyer didn’t see her as THE expert for their specific needs, so she was blending into the background.
Tech problem. If you’ve got a validated offer and you’re getting zero sales or opt-ins, it’s 99% a tech problem. Open an incognito window and try your own sales funnel.
I have the following conversation all the time (seriously, just ask any of my clients)…
Client: My ads are performing but not one person has registered for my webinar.
Me: Check your tech.
Client: I did. Everything is working fine.
Me: Check it again.
Client: I just found out that my software isn’t accepting email addresses.
Me: Yeah.
If you’re getting sales but they never really took off or have dropped off recently. You have…
- Offer revalidation problem, or a...
- Marketing problem, or a...
- Target audience problem, or a...
- Everything’s good. Just not enough visibility problem.
Offer validation or revalidation problem. This year I’ve seen high-performing offers fatigue more than ever. What used to sell, doesn’t anymore. Market demand changes. Buyers are moody.
I’m coaching m y 1:1 clients to re-validate their offer to make sure your target audience still has internal urgency, still has the same set of beliefs about it, and still sees you as the authority in the field.
Maybe buyers are enamored with a newer process, or the internal urgency just isn’t as strong as it once was. Find out now.
Example: I have a client who had nailed unique messaging in a competitive market two years ago. But competitors copied her messaging, so she no longer stands out in her market the way she once did.
Marketing problem: If your offer is solid and validated, you can fix ANY marketing problem. You just need to know is what to fix and in what order to fix it.
Here are target numbers that reveal what you can fix to get back on track:
Not all numbers apply to your sales funnel. For example, you might not be paying for advertising. Or you might not have a webinar. Just use the benchmarks that apply.
- Facebook ads should have a 1.0% to 1.5% click through rate (CTR). If not, adjust your creative, or target audience, or both.
- Non-sales landing page should convert at 20% to 25%. If not, start testing new headline, sub-headline, image, and social proof above the fold first.
- Webinar registration page should also convert at 20% to 25%. If not, make sure your webinar topic is hot on your buyers’ mind and you’ve got a good title. This is easy to test beforehand.
- Live webinar show up rates have been dropping. Industry benchmark is a 20% show-up rate. I recommend clients only advertise live webinars to warm audiences so I personally think you can do 35% show up rate or better because I’ve had clients with 68% and 70% show up rates. This one is fixable.
- Evergreen (automated) webinar show up rate should be 50% to 60% because it’s available right away. If you’re below 50%, check your tech, then test different webinar topics and headlines to get better results.
- Live webinar watch rate. If your live webinar is good, you can expect to have 75% to 80% to stay till the end to hear your offer. If that drops below 60%, fix your webinar.
- Evergreen (automated) webinar watch rate is easier to fix because your software tells you exactly where in your presentation people are dropping off. Use that tracking to improve your webinar at drop-off points.
- Only about 12% to 15% of your audience will watch your webinar replay, so you see why it’s so important to get people to your live webinar or watch the on-demand.
- Sales page conversions for live webinar should be in the 3% to 5% range.
- Sales page conversions for evergreen webinar should be in the 1% to 2%. I’ve had a client make a profit at lower than 1% conversion rate, but the profit margins weren’t great.
- Applications from either a webinar or sales page should be in the 30% to 35% range. Remember, not all applications will be qualified. This is just the response rate.
- The number of people who show up to the booked call from your application funnel should be 60% to 70%.
- Booked sales from phone calls should be 1 in 4 (25%) or better, assuming you qualified applications before allowing them to book a call. Anything less and you need to fix your sales call script.
Three things to remember about these benchmarks.
1. These are minimum benchmarks for diagnosing sales throttles. If you’re already hitting these numbers, keep optimizing to go higher. Go. Go. Go.
2. These are good starting points. There will always be outliers based on your offer, audience, and market conditions.
3. Once your offer is validated with the right audience, any of these numbers are fixable.
Target audience problem. Make sure your target audience has internal urgency, e.g. this is a big enough problem to want to solve now. And has the budget or means to buy. Also see my comments above.
Example: Coaching high school kids on how to study more effectively for tests is a noble offer. High school kids don’t have a budget. Their parents do—and it’s already spread thin because teenagers are an expensive bunch. You know who really has a budget for this kind of offer? Any professional that must test to get a license or certified. Lawyers, real estate agents, and security brokers.
Not enough visibility means that you’re just not reaching enough people to generate the sales you want based on conversion numbers.
Just reverse engineer the numbers you need. Here’s an example for an application funnel:
- Goal: 20 new client bookings
- Need: 80 phone calls converting at 25%
- Need: 134 calls booked from application converting at 60%
- Need: 450 people to visit your application page converting at 30%
- Need: 45,000 impressions converting at 1%
To sum it up:
You are in more control than you think.
- Validate your offer BEFORE creating it
- Use the words, pain, outcomes, and objections you hear in your packaging and messaging
- Offer social proof about the solution, the offer, and/or you.
- Get the volume of visibility you need to hit your sales goals
Pssssst. It's only 67 days until Black Friday Cyber Monday. Then December sales season. These are big revenue months you want to maximize.
Let’s do a revenue audit for you. Book a Revenue Acceleration Hour.
Why book now? I’m running a special for my LinkedIn Audience that you get first dibs on.
60% OFF my regular one-hour consultation fee until September 26th. Book one hour now to talk offer, messaging, write copy, or whatever you need to make Q4 2022 your best.