Let's talk about how to create a sales campaign.

Now, this is video number 6 in my marketing funnel series.

And if you haven't yet watched the previous videos in this series,

you can find links to those videos in the episode description box.

But let's get into it.

One of the biggest mistakes that businesses make is they fail to make

a compelling offer when it comes to selling their product or their service.

And typically this is the result of not wanting to be pushy

or not wanting to be overly aggressive.

But the unfortunate result is they don't ever directly ask for the sale.

And one interesting way to think about this

is it really shows a lack of confidence in your product,

because if you really believe in your product or your solution

and its ability to solve a real need or a problem for customers,

then you really owe it to them to make it as easy as possible

for them to purchase your product or to sign up for your service.

You really owe it to them

to make a compelling offer so they can take advantage

of your solution and make their lives better.

Now, of course, perhaps you don't believe in your product.

In some cases

people don't really believe in their product

and in that case, you're probably in the wrong business.

And this video almost certainly isn't for you.

But if you do believe in your product and its ability to make a real difference

in the lives of your customers, then when it comes to creating

an effective sales campaign, it begins with this confidence and knowing

you really do have a practical solution to a problem or need that they have

and that you owe it to them to make a compelling offer.

So with that in mind, let's talk about how to create a sales campaign.

The purpose of a sales

campaign is to make a compelling offer and to ultimately close the deal.

Now, as we talked about

in the last two videos in this series, customers

aren't always ready to buy immediately.

And that is why it's very useful

to focus on building an email list of people that are potentially interested

in your product or service.

So we first talked about offering a lead magnet to attract them

to your email list, and then we talked about crafting a nurture campaign

that can then nurture their interest

and keep your brand top of mind when they eventually are ready to buy.

But it's worth noting that some customers are ready to buy right away.

And the key to closing these sales

is to simply make a compelling offer so they have a reason to take action.

Because if you don't make a compelling offer, then these customers

are more likely to buy some other solution from a competitor

who does make a compelling offer because they aren't looking to wait around.

They're not necessarily interested in a protracted nurture campaign.

They want a solution right now.

And this is a reason why we really want to offer

a compelling reason for them to buy relatively early in the sales process.

Now, when we put together your lead magnet and when we put together a nurture

campaign, the reason why we did the nurture campaign before the sales

campaign is because typically it's a natural extension of your lead magnet.

And when you're in that mindset of nurturing their interest

and helping them gain motivation and momentum with solving their problem,

those two components go relatively hand-in-hand.

You're offering lead magnet

and then the Nurture campaign, in the case of a guided journey, is an extension

of that lead magnet

or in some way often reflects back or relates back to that lead magnet.

But often times what you really want to do is after you create your sales campaign,

you want to insert it

between when they first sign up for your list and before they actually

start your nurture campaign.

So in many cases they will sign up for your lead magnet.

You will immediately deliver them the lead magnet, and then you'll start

your sales campaign before transitioning to a nurture campaign.

Now, every business is different.

There are no hard and fast rules here.

In some cases, it might make sense to, for example, deliver the lead magnet

and then start the guided journey portion for that lead magnet

and then go into a sales campaign and after that go into more of a

consistent newsletter format for an ongoing nurture campaign.

The choice is ultimately yours, but often times it's very useful

to immediately after they sign up for your lead magnet, initiate

the sales campaign before transitioning to more of a nurture campaign.

Now it's important to note that all of the popular email automation

platforms will allow you to pull subscribers out of your sales campaign

the moment that they make a purchase.

So for example, if you have five emails in your sales campaign sequence

and after receiving the second email a customer buys,

they won't receive emails three, four and five,

they'll be immediately pulled out of that list.

And you can either direct them into your nurture campaign

if that was appropriate, or more likely you'll direct them

then into your onboarding campaign, your post-sale campaign.

And that's something we're going to talk about in the next video in the series.

But it's just very important to note

that if you're using a tool like Active Campaign, MailChimp, Drip

or one of the many other popular email automation platforms out

there, it's very easy to ensure

that people aren't receiving sales emails after they have made a purchase.

So with that in mind,

let's talk about the four steps for building an effective sales campaign.

Step number one. Set a clear goal.

Everything begins

by identifying and clarifying the objective of your sales campaign.

What is the product that you're trying to sell?

What is the service that you're trying to promote?

It's very important that a sales campaign has one clear objective

and that you don't muddy the waters by trying to achieve multiple things.

And even if your business offers multiple products or multiple services,

it's very important to note that an individual sales

campaign should be entirely focused around one goal.

Now, if you do have multiple products, then typically

an approach that you might consider is to have multiple streams of customers

going to different landing pages, offering different lead magnets

that then are linked up with different nurture campaigns

and then ultimately different sales campaigns that you'll insert that focus on

the specific solution that is best suited for that particular customer.

So if you do have multiple solutions, consider

creating a marketing funnel for each one of those solutions.

But for the rest of this video, really just going to focus on the idea

that you're promoting one product or one service, whatever it might be.

Once you clarify what that objective is, it's time to move on

to step number two, clarify the problem.

This is something that we've talked about throughout the series,

but it's very important to clarify the underlying problem that customers have

that caused them to seek out your product or service in the first place.

And this is very important

because people don't just buy products for random reasons.

They always have some underlying motivation

or some reason why they're trying to buy a solution

to something in their life, whether it's a challenge

they want to solve, whether it's a need that they have,

whether it's a pain point they are experiencing,

there's always this underlying need, even in the case of an entertainment

based product, it's something like boredom that they might be facing

and that is the problem that they have that you're ultimately trying to solve.

And so it's very important when you're crafting a sales campaign

to get clear on the underlying problem, because throughout the sales campaign

process, we're going to be highlighting that problem and making it clear

that we understand the problem.

And then we're going to focus on making a connection between the problem

that the customer is experiencing and our particular solution.

So it's very much about empathizing with the problem they're facing

and then connecting that with our particular product or service.

So if you haven't yet identified the reason why people might be interested

in buying your product, now is the time to clarify the problem

they are likely experiencing

that you're seeking to address with your sales campaign.

Step number three Outline your campaign.

This is where we begin to put together the structure of the campaign.

We're not necessarily writing

all of the emails at this point, but we're just outlining the flow

and what we're going to focus on with each of the emails.

And it's worth noting, there are no hard and fast rules here,

but I'm going to give you a quick sample campaign

just to give you a sense of how this can work.

And if you want, you can follow this format

or you can make some minor changes depending on the needs of your business.

Email number one.

This email gets sent out immediately after they join your list,

and it simply delivers the lead magnet that they signed up for

when they joined your list.

So, for example, if you offered a free PDF report,

you would include a download link for that report.

If you offered a simple how to video,

you'd include a link to the page where they can watch that video.

Whatever the lead magnet is, the purpose of this first video is

to simply deliver that lead magnet and to give them immediate access to it.

Email number two This can be sent out the day after they join your list.

And again, your email automation software

can automate this process and send it out automatically.

And the content of this email

is really geared towards restating the problem they are facing.

Empathizing with their situation and introducing your solution.

The goal is to create a clear connection between the problem

they are experiencing and your particular product or service.

And what we're really trying to achieve here is first and foremost

to ensure that they actually know that your product or service exists,

which they might not, depending on how they

went about signing up to your email list, making sure that they know that exists

and creating a clear connection between the problem they are experiencing

and your solutions.

They start to recognize that if they want to solve their problem,

your product is one promising way that they could go about doing that.

Now, with that in mind, your email should absolutely include

a clear call-to-action to your products sales page.

So somewhere closer to the bottom of the email,

you should have a highly visible button that, when clicked, takes people directly

to the sales page for your product or service.

And any time that you mention your product by name within the text of the email,

you can link that text as well straight to the sales page.

Email number three.

This would go out on day number two or perhaps day number three.

And the focus of this email is on addressing uncertainty.

Now, a great way to do this is to offer up customer testimonials

or case studies or other examples of how other people

have solved the same problem that we've addressed in the previous email

by using your product or service.

So it's really about providing evidence or proof

that your solution can help and has helped other people.

And it's very important note here, you don't want to just provide

any random testimonials or any random case studies.

You want to provide examples that specifically link back to the problem

that was addressed in the previous email

so that when they go through these case studies,

when they go through these testimonials, they see the problem that they are

experiencing being solved for other people.

And that way they can see that potentially the product might also work for them.

Now a great subject line for an email like this is don't take my word for it...

Because it creates intrigue where people are left wondering,

Well, why are you telling me not to take your word?

And it also at the same time actually delivers

on that intrigue in the sense that when they read the email it’s

going to make sense. You're offering up customer testimonials.

And so that aligns with the idea presented in the subject.

And this is something we're going to come back to here in a minute

when we talk about how to craft great subject lines, it's very important

to walk this fine line between creating intrigue where people are curious

and they're likely to open the email and at the same time making sure

that when they open the email, they don't feel like they were oversold.

And the email itself actually delivers on their expectations

and that it all makes sense. Email number four.

This would go out on day number four or perhaps day number five

and the focus here is on answering frequently asked questions

or common objections when it comes to buying your product or service.

It's very important to start by asking yourself

what are the most common questions or concerns people

have when considering your solution?

Now, it is worth noting that some of the objections

or some of the concerns

that people might have may have been addressed

with the testimonials from the previous email.

And if that is the case, then you might consider focusing on other objections

or other questions that people typically have

when it comes to buying your solution.

Or, in the case of a very popular objection, you might consider

revisiting it, even if it was covered in the previous email, because of course,

people won't necessarily read every single word of every email.

And if it's a very popular objection, this is another opportunity

to really tackle it directly to ensure that people that are receiving

these emails are likely to see how you handle that objection.

Now, typically this email will be in the form of an FAQ

where you simply list each question and maybe bold the question itself,

and then immediately after each question you provide an answer.

And the focus here is on providing simple, clear explanations.

You're not trying to be overly salesy.

You don't want to have some high level of bias.

You just

simply want to answer each question in turn by providing factual information.

So in the case of an objection, you might state it as a question

and then answer it

and just provide the detail that someone might need to resolve that objection.

If it's a just simple question from a customer,

obviously you would just go about answering that question

or if it was a concerned same thing.

You just want to state it in the form of a question and then tackling as directly

and as honestly as possible A great subject line for an email

like this is either something like your questions answered . . .

or even better,

you can go with something like here's why people don't buy product name . . .

where you insert the name of your product or your service.

And this is an excellent subject line because once again,

it creates that intrigue where people say,

Why are you telling me the reasons people don't buy your product?

And of course, when they open the email, once again it aligns.

They understand you're really just providing

a detailed list of the kinds of questions people have.

And most important of all for you, you're addressing those questions.

So now someone who might be on the fence about buying your product,

they see that subject line

and they wonder whether other issues with the product or what's going on here.

They read the email and maybe their question or their objection is answered

and now they're more likely to buy your product.

Email number five.

This email can go out on day number five or day six or day

seven, depending on how you spaced out the previous emails.

And the entire point of this email is to simply ask for the sale.

So we don't want to be pushy,

we don't want to be aggressive, but we simply want to invite them

to buy your product or to sign up for your service

to solve the problem or the underlying need that they have.

And so it's simply about making an offer, asking them to buy and then, of course,

including a link in any instructions that are necessary to do so.

And oftentimes you'll just be linking to your sales page

or your checkout page

and in the case of a more complex sale in some businesses,

you might need to provide instructions or something like that so they know

exactly what steps to take in order to complete the checkout process.

And of course, the easier that you make this process

and the fewer steps that are involved in, the less friction that is involved

and perhaps the fewer

fields in the order form itself, the more likely you are to close the sale.

So it's very important to optimize the checkout process

to make it as easy as possible for someone to place an order for your product

or to sign up for your service.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, any email automation platform

that you use can automatically pull people out of your sales campaign

the moment they place an order.

So if you're using something

like ActiveCampaign or MailChimp, the second they click an email,

they go to your website, they place an order,

they won't receive any of the remaining sales campaign emails.

And so with this in mind, oftentimes you might choose to actually send

a sixth email where once again you ask for the sale

maybe 5 to 7 days after the most recent email.

So it's just one more opportunity to make an offer

and to see if they might be interested in buying.

Now every business is different.

Some businesses have a much longer time horizon before a new prospect

is ready to place an order.

In some cases, it might be typical for a customer

not to be ready to place an order for 3 to 6 months, in which case

you probably want to reformulate your sales campaign with that in mind.

But if customers often times are ready to place an order

relatively quickly after discovering your product,

then it might make sense to include a sixth email and to keep this

tighter sales campaign strategy and give them one more opportunity

to place an order before transitioning over to more of a nurture campaign.

Step number four Write the emails.

Once you've outlined the structure of your campaign and decided which emails

you're going to be sending on which particular day and the overall sequence,

it's time to write the emails themselves and to fill out all the information

and most important of all, to come up with great subject lines.

Now, as is often the case, there are no hard and fast rules here.

It's largely dependent on your business and the product or service

that you are selling.

But let's quickly go through some best practices to consider

as you put together your sales emails number

one, use intriguing subject lines.

Just as with the Nurture campaign, it's

very important that we focus heavily on creating great subject lines

that are likely to cause people to open our emails.

And again, just as with creating a great website, oftentimes

it's the headline of the website

that is the only text that someone will actually read to decide

whether or not they’re going to stick around.

And this is again, true when it comes to email.

So it's very important to spend as much time, in

many cases on your subject line as you do writing the email itself.

Because if they read the subject line and don't open the email,

then there's no point in spending all that extra time on the content of the email.

The subject line is the most important text.

So again, we want to strike this balance, as I alluded to earlier, between

creating intrigue and causing people to be curious

and then making sure that that curiosity gets fulfilled in the end, that the

email itself actually delivers in a way that makes sense with the subject line.

So you're not overhyping it, you're not overselling it.

Where then when they read the email, they're kind of let down and wondering,

Well, why did I click this?

And feeling manipulated or something like that.

That is not what we want.

Instead, again, we want to strike a balance between creating this intrigue,

making them curious, making them wonder what is to follow off

of that subject line?

And then when they read the email, it should all make sense

and they shouldn't feel let down or anything like that.

So again, some of the examples from earlier,

you might say something like, Don't take my word for it . .

And that's intriguing because you're wondering why would somebody say that?

Or here are the reasons why people don't buy a product name.

And again, people are wondering,

why would you say that about your own product or

why would you give reasons not to buy your product?

And then, of course, you're leading in to frequently asked questions.

So you want to choose subject lines.

And this can take time.

I don't want to give you the false impression here.

This isn't a speedy process.

You need to try lots of ideas, write out many different possibilities, brainstorm

options, talk to other people, get their opinions,

but really come up with subject lines that hit this balance between intrigue

and then aligning with the ultimate message of the email

number to tackle common objections.

One of the most common mistakes that marketers and salespeople make

is they ignore the elephant in the room.

They ignore the concerns or the questions that people have,

and they'd rather just focus on pushing their product or selling their product

and just pretending that those objections don't even exist.

So, for example,

let's say that you're selling a step by step photography course online

that teaches people exactly how to use their camera to capture great photos.

And you might know that some customers are hesitant to buy your course

because they feel, rightly or wrongly, that they can get videos

on YouTube for free that will teach them everything that they need to know.

So why would they ever pay for your course

when the information is freely available on YouTube?

Now, this is a situation where oftentimes the salesperson will just say,

Let's pretend that's not a real thing.

We don't want to bring that to people's attention if they're not aware of it.

And again, this kind of stems from a lack of confidence in one's product.

But there is this temptation to just ignore the objection, pretend

it doesn't exist, and instead focus on selling, selling, selling.

But it's very important that you tackle these objections,

especially if they're very common and a lot of people are aware of them.

And you want to identify why is your product

better than that Other option?

What are the pros and cons?

And to simply provide that information objectively where you're not selling,

you're not pitching, you're just saying, but here's this option

that's out there that you might be considering.

Here are the pros and cons.

In the case of YouTube, the information is often unqualified.

It can be disorganized, it can be inconsistent

where some people say one thing, other people say something else,

and you're not really sure what feedback applies to which context.

So a step by step course by comparison provides qualified information

that is concise and that is thorough and is well-organized typically.

And so in a case

like this, you want to address the objections that people might have,

tackle them directly,

give them the information they need to make the right decision for themselves.

You're not necessarily pushing them towards your solution.

You're just providing the objective information

that they need to reach their own conclusion.

And oftentimes this can cause them to reassess

whether or not YouTube in this case is a superior method

or whether they're willing to spend some money for a higher

quality course that provides a much superior experience.

Number three, provide honest information, avoid overhyping your product

or your service, or making exaggerated claims

that your product can't actually live up to.

This typically is a big turnoff for customers.

They can see that you're being biased and that you're really pushing your product.

And in many cases this makes it less likely

that they will be interested in buying from you.

And in the rare case

where it does convince someone to buy who really shouldn't buy,

this can lead to all kinds of negative outcomes like higher product returns,

negative reviews, and in some cases negative word of mouth

referral where people start to bad mouth your brand to other people who might have

been interested in buying your solution and now may not be interested

in buying your solution.

So it's very important to simply provide the information that people need to make

a decision to clarify the problem, to relate to the problem that they're facing,

and to show empathy for it, and then to connect that to your solution

and to explain in plain trustworthy language

how your solution can ultimately resolve their problem so that, once again,

if the product is right for them,

they can make an informed decision and buy from you.

Number four. Offer a compelling reason to buy.

There are often a lot of potential customers

who are just barely sitting on the fence

and they're looking for any excuse, any extra reason whatsoever

to take action and to buy your product or to sign up for your service.

So it's very important to offer some kind of a compelling reason

for them to take action.

And typically,

this is going to be done in emails number five or number six in the sample sequence

that I provided earlier, kind of closer to the end of the sales campaign,

you want to provide some incentive,

some reason for them to make a purchase within a certain timeframe.

Now a lot of businesses will default to offering some kind of a discount

or something like that,

and that can certainly work and it is a common approach,

but oftentimes a better approach is to offer added incentive.

So to include some kind of a special bonus or an additional product

or something extra so that if they buy within a certain window

or if they take action right away, then they get some additional benefit

as opposed to a discount, because in some cases

a discount could kind of devalue your product and to cause people to think

less of your product.

But depending on what you sell,

depending on your business, again, every business is different.

Sometimes a discount can make sense,

sometimes some kind of add on can make sense, and in some cases

you might even use both approaches, a slight discount and a bonus.

And ultimately you want to find the formula that works best for you.

But it is important to give some compelling reason

for people to take actions that if they're sitting on the fence,

they have that extra little nudge

and they're more likely to make a purchase anyway.

With those four things in mind, now is the time to create your sales campaign.

Start by defining your objection.

Reclarify the problem that your product or service solves.

Then outline the structure of your sales campaign.

And finally write the emails.

And of course, you're going to want to incorporate the best practices

that we just covered.

Now, if you have any questions about any of this process

or about any of the things that we covered here,

let me know by posting a comment down in the questions section.

I can either address those questions

in the comment section or perhaps in a follow up video here in the future.

But next up, we're going to talk about how to create an onboarding campaign.

So click the like button, subscribe to the channel

if you haven't already, and then continue on to the next video.

You can find link to it right here in the video Player as well as down below

in the video description text.