Website design By BotEap.comThe term “sales funnelIt may be new to you. It’s a marketing technique that has been around for decades in the offline world. It’s also a technique that has been routinely used by online product sellers.

Website design By BotEap.comIt is a way for a seller to earn more money from the people who visit their site.

Website design By BotEap.comWhat’s new is that affiliate marketers are now also starting to use sales funnels to increase their own earnings.

Website design By BotEap.comThere are two general types of sales funnel:

Website design By BotEap.com1. The multi-product funnel

Website design By BotEap.comThere is the funnel that is always used at JVZoo, Warrior Plus, and sometimes ClickBank.

Website design By BotEap.comThis is where you buy an initial low-priced product and are then subject to a variety of up-sells and one-time offers that are designed to part you with more of your money.

Website design By BotEap.comThe goal of this type of funnel is to sell you multiple products in quick succession before you really have time to consider your options.

Website design By BotEap.comOffers often have timers that show how little time you have left to make a decision or tell you that limited quantities are available.

Website design By BotEap.com2. The single product funnel

Website design By BotEap.comThe second type of funnel is geared towards selling you a single product.

Website design By BotEap.comThe purpose of the funnel is to repeatedly expose you to the product and explain why it will be useful, if not essential, to you or your business.

Website design By BotEap.comThis is often accomplished by enticing a visitor to sign up for a free product and then sending them a series of emails outlining the benefits of the product you are trying to sell them.

Website design By BotEap.comA less common tactic is to provide free training and information to prospects, regardless of whether or not they end up buying.

Website design By BotEap.comSales funnels in use

Website design By BotEap.comIf you’ve ever bought anything in the Make Money Online niche, you’ve already been exposed to the multi-product sales funnel.

Website design By BotEap.comThey can often leave a bad taste in your mouth and you end up feeling like you’ve been bullied into spending a lot more money than you intended. That can create some resentment in you.

Website design By BotEap.comIf you recognize that sentiment, is it something you’d like to highlight in your own customers?

Website design By BotEap.comDon’t forget that those who look at your offers are real people, not credit cards with legs.

Website design By BotEap.comTreat your prospects as you would like to be treated by a salesperson.

Website design By BotEap.comThat’s why I prefer the second type of funnel.

Website design By BotEap.comThere is no hard sell involved. You are giving your prospects something free to entice them in the door.

Website design By BotEap.comFrom there, start introducing them to your offer and why it might be a good fit for them.

Website design By BotEap.comYou are trying to persuade them that what you are offering will make their lives easier or solve a problem.

Website design By BotEap.comIf they buy, then they have made the decision to buy.

Website design By BotEap.comYou haven’t forced them to make the decision by using bogus scarcity tactics like a countdown timer or by saying there are only a limited number of copies available.

Website design By BotEap.comBecause a potential customer has made the decision to buy on their own terms, they will feel much better about their purchase decision.

Website design By BotEap.comYou will have earned their trust and can use it to further develop your relationship with them so that you can more successfully market other offers to them in the future.

Website design By BotEap.comSo how does this relate to affiliate marketing?

Website design By BotEap.comIn general, affiliate marketers have access to affiliate links and resources, such as image ads and emails that they can send.

Website design By BotEap.comThese are used to drive traffic to an offer.

Website design By BotEap.comHowever, when a prospect buys or signs up on a capture page, they enter the sellers’ email list, not the affiliate’s.

Website design By BotEap.comThat means the affiliate has lost access to that lead forever and it’s up to the marketer to market to that customer over and over again.

Website design By BotEap.comThe best affiliate networks will also pay affiliates for products that are in a seller’s sales funnel.

Website design By BotEap.comSo yes, you can earn commissions on multiple products.

Website design By BotEap.comBut what you, as an affiliate, don’t know is if the seller is offering products that aren’t in the “public” sales funnel to people on your list.

Website design By BotEap.comTherefore, you could be losing commissions as a result.

Website design By BotEap.comTypically, a sales funnel starts with a low-priced product, offers higher-priced products down the funnel, and culminates in one or more high-priced products at the bottom of the funnel.

Website design By BotEap.comThis tends to be where sellers get most of their money. It is much easier to sell one expensive product than dozens of cheap products.

Website design By BotEap.comThe seller has every right to market products for which he will not earn a commission.

Website design By BotEap.comAfter all, they own the email list that buyers are now subscribed to.

Website design By BotEap.comSo to counter this, affiliate marketers have been creating their own sales funnels.

Website design By BotEap.comThey select the entry product, the upsells, and any high-priced products to promote.

Website design By BotEap.comThese can all be from different vendors. But you, the affiliate, may think that some products complement each other better than the products in the seller’s own funnel.

Website design By BotEap.comYes, the lead will be exposed to each seller’s funnel as well as the affiliate’s.

Website design By BotEap.comBut the affiliate knows that the sale of any product in his own funnel will earn him a commission.

Website design By BotEap.comThat said, I still think the single product funnel is the best approach from a customer relationship standpoint.

Website design By BotEap.comIf a prospect ultimately doesn’t buy your offer, you still have them on your email list. And now is the time to promote a different offer for them.

Website design By BotEap.comYou can market to these prospects as often as you like since they are on your email list.

Website design By BotEap.comSo the biggest advantages of building your own sales funnels are:

1. Website design By BotEap.comYou can add prospects to your own email list
2. Website design By BotEap.comYour email list is a business asset that you own in its entirety. Its usefulness does not depend on the whims or algorithm changes of Google, Facebook or whoever.
3. Website design By BotEap.comEmail marketing is still the best way to make money online.
4. Website design By BotEap.comYou can market to your subscribers as often as you like.
5. Website design By BotEap.comYou can create your own unique sales funnels, combining products from a variety of sellers

Website design By BotEap.comAs an affiliate marketer, you should never send people directly to an offer. Basically, you’re giving that person exclusive access to the seller.

Website design By BotEap.comYou should always send people to a landing page first, one that You own, and only after they sign up there will you send them to your affiliate offer.

Website design By BotEap.comIn this way, you have captured their email address and now they are part of its 100% owned business asset: your email list.

Website design By BotEap.comHow to build a sales funnel?

Website design By BotEap.comIf you use WordPress, there are plugins that will create squeeze (opt) pages and other funnel page types for you.

Website design By BotEap.comBut creating a real sales funnel is not the easiest thing. These plugins are great for creating individual pages instead of an entire funnel. It can be done, but you have to be very organized and keep track of how each page relates to another.

Website design By BotEap.comAnother approach is to use a service like Clickfunnels that is designed exclusively for creating sales funnels. There is a link to a review in my bio below if you want to know more.

Website design By BotEap.comWith a service like this, you don’t even need your own website. The tool can do everything for you.

Website design By BotEap.comI hope you now see the benefits of creating your own sales funnels, regardless of which tool you end up using to create them.