When you join a network marketing business, the first thing your upline is asking from you is to have your name list ready. As network marketers, if you have tonnes of names ready to fill your list, congrats. But what if you don’t or you had reached a state where all your names are used up? So, you need to have a system to generate leads effectively.
For us, we use something called a lead generation funnel to collect new leads for our network marketing business.
How?
It all starts with bait.
Understanding The Lead Generation Funnel To Generate Leads for Network Marketers
To generate leads, we use something called a lead generation funnel. This is a simple 1-2 pages sales process where you provide super valuable lead magnets as your bait. Then you build the sales process and then run traffic to it.
The purpose of the lead generation funnel is to get potential customers to enter your sales funnel. This is done by exchanging their contact details with the lead magnets you provide. And, when they get the first value from you, it will be easier to build trust and relationships with them for your next offer.
At its most basic level, it consists of these three parts:
- Top of the sales funnel (ToFu): Target audience
- Middle of the sales funnel (MoFu): Potential customers
- Bottom of the sales funnel (BoFu): New and existing customers
Stage 1. TOFU (Top of the Funnel)
The first stage, the top of the funnel, is all about awareness. The audience group in the stage is problem aware, but not solution aware. This is where you target your dream customer and turn them into a lead.
You get the opportunity to “introduce” yourself to a future buyer. The key message in this stage will also be different from the middle and bottom of the funnel as you would want a more general term so they can understand it.
Stage 2. MOFU (Middle of the Funnel)
Once prospects reach the middle of the funnel, they begin to know your existence. They are now problem-aware and solution aware. But they lack why. “WHY SHOULD I BUY FROM YOU?”
Therefore, you need to continue to build relationships and nurture them. In this stage, you can offer them some additional value. This is what we call lead magnets.
Lead magnets are built to create value for our prospects. When they receive value from us for free, they’re more likely to find out more about us. It’s like building trust and relationships with them by providing free value upfront. No sales at this moment, only value. Because people will easily turn away when they saw a sales letter.
A good example of a lead magnet should be something that can bring instant value to your prospects and something they can implement and get results instantly. That’s why I always recommend a cheat sheet, step-by-step guide, video, report, or tutorial. This is more effective than offering them an ebook as no one spends time reading a long ebook now.
In this stage, you offer them the lead magnet in exchange for their contact details so you can use the autoresponder to further build relationships and nurture them with the email marketing campaign.
Stage 3. BOFU (Bottom of the Funnel)
Lastly, there is the bottom of the funnel.
In this stage, the user should be ready to make a purchase. But for some reason, they are still yet to pull the trigger. This is where you need to give them the final push to become paying customers.
In this stage, we don’t talk about the concept and idea anymore. Make an appointment for a demo and trials. And if possible, talk to them and understand their worry. And offer them an irresistible offer so they can’t say no to you.
What Is a Lead Generation Sales Funnel? And How To Generate Leads for Network Marketers
So now you know what a sales funnel is. But what is a lead generation funnel? What can be used for your business?
A lead generation funnel is the top of your sales funnel.
This is where you:
- Bring your target into your landing page and catch their attention.
- Offer them an irresistible and super valuable lead magnet that they can’t say no to for free.
- Get them to give you their contact information to claim the lead magnet.
Now, email marketing still works very effectively now. But what you can do is request his/her phone number. It can be mandatory for the email address and optional for the phone. This will get another touchpoint if you want to use telemarketing or Whatsapp to contact them.
In your registration, feel free to collect more points of contact like Facebook Messenger or join your Facebook group. More touchpoints will let you be able to get them easily. There is a statistic, someone needs to see your business at least 7 times before taking action.
Once you have their contact information, they are now your potential lead. Your job then is to get them to move through the rest of your sales funnel.
In some cases, we will move an additional step to charge a small premium of $1-5 for the lead magnet. To do this is not to cover any upfront cost, but rather to qualify leads. If someone is not willing to pay even $1 for the lead magnet that can give them over $10 in value. There is a very slim chance for them to buy from you.
How To Build a Lead Generation Funnel To Generate Leads for Network Marketers
Here is a 7-step process that you can follow step by step to build your own lead generation funnel for your client. These steps work for network marketers, insurance agents, real estate agents, and almost every business since every business will need new leads all the time.
Step #1: Define Your Network Marketers Target Audience
You need to know who your ideal customers are if you want to generate quality leads.
This is what many business owners missed out on when they start out. They tried to target everyone which in the end, had a low-quality campaign with a low conversion rate.
Here you are going to create your dream customer avatar. If you have an existing customer base, study the customer data and see who is buying your products. The data speaks the truth. Never assume anything if you have the data.
But if you are new, then you would need to define one and optimize it going down the road. Think about who has your money and will most likely benefit from your product/solution.
Step #2: Identify a Problem That Your Target Audience Is Struggling With
Once you know who your ideal customers are, it’s time to do some customer research. Go where they hang out online and observe the discussions happening there.
This can mean:
- Keeping an eye on relevant Twitter hashtags.
- Subscribing to relevant subreddits on Reddit.
- Registering to relevant online forums.
- Joining relevant Facebook groups.
- Reading the comments below relevant YouTube videos.
…etc.
Your aim should be to find a painful problem that your ideal customers are struggling with that is either the same or related to the problem that your front-end offer solves.
Step #3: Create a Lead Magnet That Offers a Solution To That Problem
Once you found a painful problem, it’s time to create a lead magnet that offers a solution to it.
Your lead magnet can be anything that your ideal customers can either download directly to their devices or access online:
- An ebook.
- A video course.
- An email course.
- A cheat sheet.
- A spreadsheet.
- A step-by-step plan.
…etc.
You want to pick a format that is best suited for conveying your message. If you were in your ideal customer’s shoes, in what form would you like to receive that content?
What’s important here is that you approach creating your lead magnet with the same seriousness that you approach creating your paid products.
You want your ideal customer to come away feeling that they have learned something valuable from your lead magnet.
Step #4: Create a Landing Page for Your Network Marketers Lead Magnet
Once you have your lead magnet, you need to create a landing page for it.
Think of it as a sales page but instead of asking for money you are asking for the potential customer’s email address.
A lead page should be simple and contains a few elements only. A headline, subheadline, offers, CTA button, and a contact form.
Just make sure your lead magnet is good.
For more persuasion, you can add some other information below like social proof, testimonials, and benefits to further persuade them to take action now.
Think about it:
- The more appealing your lead magnet landing page is, the more people will download that lead magnet.
- The more people download the lead magnet, the more leads you have that you can sell to.
- The more leads you have that you can sell to, the more sales you are going to make.
So treating your lead magnet landing page as a proper sales page makes sense. Consider doing it yourself.
Read more: Step by step on how to build your landing page for lead magnet
Step #5: Create a Lead Nurturing Email Autoresponder Sequence
Now, you already have the tool to capture the email addresses. What’s next? Leave it on the list?
Hell no.
Get an Autoresponder and start sending them emails after signing up. An autoresponder is a piece of tool that helps to manage your email list and send your email out automatically to your list once certain rules are met.
It can be a welcome email to welcome them to join your list. An email with the download link to download the lead magnet or a follow-up email to provide value and build relationships. In the end, it will be the promotion email to get them to persuade our other product.
Notes: Many people do it wrong on this part. Always remember, to give before you sell.
So, the email sequence should be like this.
- Provide value to the potential customer.
- Warm the potential customer to the idea of purchasing your front-end offer.
- Make the sales pitch for your front-end offer.
What’s important here is to strike the right balance between providing value and selling your product.
Focus too much on the former and you risk leaving money on the table. Focus too much on the latter and you might put the potential customer off. You need to get a balance on both.
Step #6: Start Driving Traffic To the Lead Magnet Landing Page
Once you have:
- lead magnet.
- landing page.
- lead nurturing email autoresponder sequence.
It’s time to start driving traffic to that landing page.
Getting traffic is easy, but getting quality traffic is not.
It’s probably safe to say that the fastest way to do that is via paid advertising. Set up a Facebook or Instagram ad campaign. Once you start paying them, your ads will be shown right away. You will quickly find out whether your lead generation funnel works.
That being said, you may want to focus on SEO as your long-term traffic generation strategy, so that you could eventually stop relying on paid ads to generate leads.
Step #7: Analyze the Data and Adjust Accordingly
Once you have enough data, analyze it to see what could be improved.
Make sure to examine:
- Ad conversion rates.
- Landing page conversion rate.
- Lead to customer conversion rate.
Also, if you get any feedback from people who have downloaded your lead magnet, pay special attention to it. What did they think about it?
Once you know your conversion rates, you can start experimenting with various ways to improve them.
This can include increasing the traffic quality, trying out different ad creatives, implementing the best conversion rate optimization practices, and more.
Final Thought – How To Generate Leads with Sales Funnel for Network Marketers
The sales funnel had been helping many companies and personnel in generating new leads and closing deals. Building a lead funnel is simple, you just need to follow the guide to optimize the page and create high-value lead magnets.
ClickFunnels is the tool that I have been using to build all my sales funnel together. The simplicity and ease of use of the platform have enabled more landing pages in a shorter time to test out different offers.