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Need to get customers in your door or get your schedule filled fast? Create an offer-focused funnel to target your ideal customer with a compelling offer to get them in your doors or on your schedule!

So what is an offer-based funnel? It consists of the following:

• The Offer
• Lead Conversion
• The Nurture
• Transformation

The key is to get them in your door or on your schedule as fast as possible. So how do you do that?

The offer is crucial.

The Offer

Building an effective offer requires several things.

It must demonstrate:

For a Specific Audience
Who has a Specific Situation – a life event or pain point
And a Reason to Claim the Offer NOW – a sense of urgency or scarcity 

All of these attributes should be included to drive the results your business needs. The value and risk have to pertain to the specific audience or the offer will not resonate.

Likewise, if the audience doesn’t have a life event or pain point, the offer, while it might have appeal, won’t drive the outcomes you want.

Remember, the goal of this funnel is to get business fast, so scarcity is a powerful tool that you need to leverage.

This is the where and how you get your offer in front of your target audience.

1. Create a simple landing page to capture leads
2. Create a thank you page with an incentive to take action (secondary offer to sweeten the deal for fast action)
3. A traffic source

The landing page should be simple with a clear message about what the offer is and how to claim it. Don’t get fancy and don’t distract. The objective is to get your target audience to complete a simple form.

Keep the form elements to a minimum. We recommend:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Email Address
• Cell Phone

Don’t make your prospect work to complete a form with information that is NOT NEEDED at this stage. Ask for too much information and your prospect will leave the landing page without submitting the form.

Once the form has been submitted, send your new lead to a thank you page. Let them know how they can claim the offer (schedule the appointment, book a reservation, place the order)… On the thank you page, you can also sweeten the deal to encourage the lead to take immediate action by having a secondary offer.

You will have to pick your traffic source too. This is how you are going to drive your target audience to the landing page to claim the offer.

If it is lifestyle-related, Facebook Ads can be a great traffic source. Where targeting based on lifestyle (likes, interests, and demographics), Google Ads (search) can be a great traffic source. And if you have a customer list, using email to get them to come back or to claim an offer for a different product or service you offer can be very powerful.

Nurture
Just because someone submits the form to claim your offer doesn’t mean that they are coming in the door that day, or scheduling their appointment. Life gets in the way too many times.

That’s where the follow-up comes in and increases the likelihood that they use the offer and come in your door!

This is not a long-term nurture sequence but one that is designed to get your lead to take immediate action and come in the door or book the appointment.

Here’s what we recommend:

• An immediate email with details on how to claim the offer and a fast action bonus to sweeten the deal
• Immediate SMS message on how to claim the offer
• Next-Day email to remind them that if they haven’t used the offer yet there is still time to do so
• Phone Call – If on the third or fourth day you still have not heard from your lead, we recommend reaching out to them with a phone call.
• Automate the follow-up and send reminders to your staff if they need to actively follow up.
• If a week goes by, drop them into a long-term nurture sequence to build the relationship with the lead and to stay top of mind. They’ve expressed interest in your business but just aren’t ready to buy yet… that’s okay. Keep in contact with them so they don’t fall through the cracks.

Transform Your Lead From Customer to Fan
In order to build a relationship with a new customer, it is essential to have a strategy to convert them from tire-kicker or deal shoppers into reliable customers.

The offer is great and it gets a new customer in the door, but you need to have a strategy to get them to come back. This is where systems like Groupon can fail because there is no strategy to get a customer to come back. Get them to buy from you twice and you’ve got a customer and are on the road to creating a dedicated fan!

• Use their first visit to give them a great first impression of your business
• Give them a reason to come back with another offer (if they come in a second time and have another great experience then they are on the road to being a repeat customer).
• Make it easy for them to refer your offer to their friends
• Ask for a review

Plan this all out and do not leave it to chance if you want to grow your customer base and your business.

Who Will Offer Focused Funnels Work For?

The Offer Focused Funnel is ideal for:

• brick and mortar businesses (such as restaurants and retail stores, gyms, martial arts, etc)
• professional services businesses (accountants, attorneys, consultants, chiropractors, dentists, etc)
• service area businesses (roofers, painters, remodelers, landscape contractors, etc)

Sure, the offers change, and the traffic source probably changes from one business to another, but this is a solid formula for generating customers fast.
To be successful, the offer-focused funnel has to align with the buyer’s journey. We like to use the Marketing Hourglass(™) of Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, and Refer.

Your offer has to be designed to accelerate the Know Like and Trust stages. This is accomplished by making the offer to a specific target audience with a specific situation for something that has high perceived value and a low risk to get them to the Try stage. Urgency and scarcity are the accelerants.

The secondary offer to Buy an upgrade, and the experience and incentive to get them to come back again (Repeat) can seal the deal. Ask customers to Refer your business (and make it easy to do so) and reviews and you’ve nailed it!

 

Ken Tucker is the founder and chief marketing strategist of Changescape Web (founded in 2005), a Small Business Marketing and Website Design Agency specializing in developing comprehensive integrated marketing strategies and campaigns for small and mid-sized businesses across the US.

Specialties include search engine optimization, website design, reputation management, social media marketing, and lead generation, and marketing automation.