[Guide]: 7 Engagement Techniques To Increase Your Sales Funnel’s Average Conversion Rate

Quick Summary

I’m going to cover 7 engagement techniques that increase your sales funnel conversion rate. Have a look and see if you’re interested or not..

1) Click-To-Continue CTA
2) Email Frequency Selector
3) Gmail-Zapier Hack
4) Activation Hook
5) (Automated) Welcome Video
6) Open Loops & Cliffhangers
7) 5 Question Interview

A sales funnel is the core engine behind your online business or startup.

That’s for sure.

What Is The Problem?

But the three main problems people (you!) always face are..

1) I don’t have an automated sales funnel for my business. And I need one.

2) I don’t have enough traffic. I need more.

3) My sales funnel conversion rate is super low. I need more of my people to buy my stuff.

Today we talk about problem #3.

When people tell me their conversion rate is low, one of the first things I ask about is their engagement.

My people (aka subscribers) usually have these problems:

• Not enough people open my emails
• Not enough people click my links
• Not enough people respond to my questions
• Not enough people visit my sale page
• Not enough people hit the buy button
• My people are not engaged enough

How low is a low sales funnel conversion rate for online businesses? (from subscriber to customer..)

I won’t be able to answer this question 100% accurately because I don’t have enough data to back this up.

But what I have seen from my limited experience with businesses I work with (businesses that sell online courses, SaaS software, coaching, done for you services, digital products, ecommerce products or books ..) and other entrepreneurs is that they run a 1% sales funnel conversion rate from email subscriber to customer.

So out of 100 people added to your email list, only one person becomes a paying customer.

Again, I don’t have the data to back this up. So please take this with a pinch of salt.

Now, check this screenshot out..

It’s the analytics dashboard of one of my clients.

A sales funnel conversion rate of 8.66% from email subscriber to paying customer.(they sell German language courses..)

Almost 9%.

That’s pretty epic, huh..?(that’s from 100% organic Google traffic. No ads..)

That’s 8X the conversion rate of any average sales funnel.

So what kind of sales funnel do they have and how they achieve these results..?

That’s what I will discuss in this article.

I will demonstrate 7 ways how my customers and I get great conversion rates & extremely high engagement rates.

We all use a sales funnel called Relationship Funnel.

This is what a Relationship Funnel looks like..

In this article I won’t discuss the entire Relationship Funnel. Only one part of it, which is the RBS.

7 Engagement Techniques To Boost Your Sales Funnel Conversion Rate

RBS = Relationship Builder Sequence

It’s an email automation.

And the RBS has the following characteristics..

• Permission-based
• Behavior-based
• Story-based
• Focuses on Engagement

Based on your subscriber’s behavior, you customize & personalize your message to send them down different paths in your Relationship Funnel.

The RBS is an email sequence that utilises advanced techniques to establish a relationship and create trust with email subscribers. What these techniques are and how they will increase your sales funnel conversion rate is what we will discuss next..

1) Click-To-Continue CTA

CTA stands for Call-To-Action..(in case you’re not familiar with this..)

The Click-To-Continue CTA is probably one of my favorite engagement techniques to get people hooked..

And when I say hooked, I mean hooked.(I seriously recommend you to click this link. You will love this..)

Here are 52 more of these screenshots. Have a look.(at the time I write this ..)

Goal:

Get people to click a specific link (“The Continue Link”) in your email series (for example in your third email) in order to progress in your sequence.

• Email #1
• Email #2
• Email #3 – Call To Action: Click this link to get email #4
• Email #4
• …

Tell your subscribers that if they want to get the next email lesson in your email sequence, they must click this specific “continue” link.

Template:

Have a look at this screenshot of the P.S. section of my third email in my email sequence.

See what I’m doing here?

It’s powerful stuff.

I have only ever seen one other marketer use this technique as well.

Why should you use this?:

• People who click the link will love the “continue link” as this is something literally nobody does. It’s very unique
• People who click, will deepen their relationship with you and your content. You pull them closer to you. They invest more into your content. (Hint: Micro Investment)
• The link can forward your subscriber to a social proof page to build further authority
• People that click are more likely to buy your product as they are more engaged & invested

So how well does this work for me ..?

I looked into my ESP (Wild Mail) to see how many people who sign up here actually click the continue link in email #3. I got these numbers..

36.63%.

Not too bad considering that the average click-through rate is 2-3% according to MailChimp’s Email Benchmark Report.

That’s more than 10X the average click-through rate. Just saying 😉

Difficulty to implement:

=> Easy

What are the steps to implement this?:

1) Open your third email in your email sequence

2) Place a link at the end of your email

3) Link the link to a simple landing page. Here’s an example ..

4) Done!

2) Email Frequency Selector

The next engagement strategy is something I’ve literally just implemented (as I write this).

I didn’t plan to include it in this article. But the numbers are so promising that I had to share it. The previous chapter was about the “Click-To-Continue CTA”. This time, we take it to the next level.

Goal:

At the end of each email in your email sequence, you insert two different links. The first link says “Get Next Lesson Now”. The second one says “Get Next Lesson In 2 Days”. Each link goes to a specific landing page with more information.

Template:

Here’s a screenshot of the frequency selector in action (that is at the end of the first email in my Relationship Builder Sequence (RBS))..

Why should you use this?:

The answer is engagement. This gets people really engaged.. Have a look at this screenshot of my Tagging Dashboard ..

(because this is so recent, not many leads have been through yet. But I like what I see so far..)

In my email sequence (7 emails), the large majority of people click the “Get Next Lesson Now” link (these are the orange boxes in the screenshot above..).

Around 4 times as many people prefer to have the next email delivered now (compared to in two days..). Or in other words, 79% of the people that click the link, prefer to get the next email now instead of in two days.

But how many people actually click a link? My ESP (Wild Mail) gives me these numbers..

I’m pretty happy.. (to say the least ..) Again, compare my numbers to an average 2-3 percent click-through-rate. I guess this works..

Difficulty to implement:

=> A little bit more advanced

What are the steps to implement this?:

1) Add your two links into each email

2) After each email gets sent in your automation, set up a wait block. The wait block waits until the “Get Next Lesson Now” link gets clicked – up to a maximum of 2 days. If the link doesn’t get clicked within two days, the next email gets sent automatically. 3) Done!

3) Gmail-Zapier Hack

Now it gets fun.

What is a Gmail-Zapier Hack?

If something special happens, a personal but automated email gets sent via your Gmail account.(I suggest you read this again ..)

The main reason why the Gmail-Zapier Hack rocks is that the email gets sent out automatically but it does not have an unsubscribe link at the bottom. The email comes across as hyper personal. And it is..

Goal:

I recommend you implement lead scoring throughout your funnel. It means that leads collect points for demographic characteristics and behaviour as they go through your funnel.

As leads collect points, there will be a moment when they hit your lead score threshold.

This threshold defines when a lead is ready to become a customer. And that is where the Gmail-Zapier Hack comes into place.

Here are some examples for a lead score threshold..

• Lead score reaches 200 points
• Visits sales page two times
• Has been on two webinars

Once they hit the threshold, the Gmail-Zapier Hack gets triggered.

The goal of the email is to add the lead into a sales conversion event. This could be..

• 20 minute free strategy call (that’s what I do)
• $1 trial
• Frontend product (tripwire or low cost offer)
• Invitation to a webinar (could be evergreen)
• An email with a question “Do you have any questions about X?”
• Coupon code or discount
• Extra resources (some people call this bonus) if they buy now
• Link to your FAQs or any other resources
• Customer testimonials. Have a look at this epic customer testimonial page.

Template:

Here’s the Gmail-Zapier Hack in action ..

Why should you use this?:

• The email comes across as super personal. There is no unsubscribe link at the bottom of your email
• People that hit your lead score threshold (for example: visited your sales page two times) are clearly interested in what you have to offer. This is the perfect time to attempt the sale
• The lead score threshold defines a lead as super hot. There is no better time to sell than now.
• Personally, I use a strategy call. It works really well. You first solve the lead’s most important problem (add value) and then you move on to qualifying the lead and closing the deal.
• A strategy call allows you to add value before any money has changed hands (aka the strategy of preeminence).
• You deepen the relationship by helping, supporting and guiding your leads. You pull them closer to you. And then influence their behavior into your intended direction. You sell your product as the solution to their problem.

Difficulty to implement:

=> A little more advanced

What are the steps to implement this?:

1) Implement lead scoring in your ESP (advanced ESPs can do that ..)

2) Track if a lead visits your sales page two times or reaches your lead scoring threshold

3) If they do, trigger an automation that sends them an email (see template above) via Gmail. You need to use webhooks and connect your ESP through Zapier with Gmail.

This is my automation in Wild Mail ..

And this is what the Zapier implementation looks like..

4) Your lead now has a personal email in her inbox and thinks that you sent it manually to her/him. Pretty awesome!

5) Done!

Alright, what’s next?

4) Activation Hook

You (as a business owner) probably tried to use the Activation Hook before without really knowing and understanding its impact ..

So what’s the Activation Hook?

Goal:

Your goal is to get your email subscribers to respond to the first email of your RBS (email automation). It doesn’t matter too much how they respond. Just get them to respond.

That being said, there are two ways you can get them to respond:

1. Ask a real question to get a quality response. This one is great to learn more about your users but the response rate will be lower as it’s more work for the subscriber. I don’t use this one.
2. Tell them exactly how to respond. I tell my people to respond with “ready”. Simple. Response rate will be higher than option #1.

Template:

This is a screenshot of the middle part of my first email that people get when they sign up here.

See how I write “HIT REPLY and write “ready”.”

And once someone replies they get an (automated) response back ..

The reason why I put “automated” in brackets will be discussed in chapter “5” of this article..

Why Should You Use This?:

I went into my ESP (Wild Mail) to see what my response rate was ..

And this is what I found ..

A response rate of 17.68%.

If the average click rate is around 1-3 percent, then the average response rate is probably below 1% (I have no data for that).

But what’s even more impressive in my opinion is that out of my entire customer base 94% replied with “ready”. The graphic below is in percent.

Alternatively, instead of getting them to respond you could also get them to click a “Ready link”. One of my customers gets a 76% click through rate on that..

That’s pretty awesome 🙂

So why should you care about all of this?

And why should you use the Activation Hook?

Two reasons..

Reason #1:

By responding with “ready”, an email subscriber invests in you, your content and your business.

Once a person makes an initial investment in something (or someone), they feel more compelled to continue.

They will open your next email. Click on your next link. Check out your sales page. Become a customer..

That’s the power of micro investments. To respond to your first email is a micro investment.

The response doesn’t have to be a “ready”. It can be anything. Just make them reply. That’s all.

Reason #2:

You tell your email subscriber’s email client that your emails are important. It works because your subscriber responds to your first email. By doing that, it increases your email deliverability for all future emails. And thus the chance that your emails actually arrive in your subscriber’s inbox.

Simple.

Difficulty to implement:

=> Easy

What are the steps to implement this?:

1. Go to your ESP and open your first email.
2. Copy my template above
3. Add it to your first email
4. Done!

5) (Automated) Welcome Video

So what happens once someone replies to your first email?

They get a response, of course. Depending on how big of a fish you are, there are two ways for you to respond.

Big Fish Response:

If you get a ton of new email subscribers every day, you won’t be able to respond personally as this would take too much time. Here’s the automated but still personal approach ..

Goal:

As soon as they reply with “ready”, your ESP triggers an automated email with a link to a welcome video and if you want an educational resource (like an ebook).

This is the time to show your face & personality. Move & attract them closer to you.

Here is the email & welcome video I send to my people..

Why should you use this?:

The video is a personal welcome message to your new subscriber. 

Difficulty to implement:

=> Medium

What are the steps to implement this?:

1) Record a quick welcome video (1 minute)

2) Upload it to Wistia/YouTube/Vimeo/Facebook

3) Create a quick landing page and add your video.

4) Go to your ESP and set up reply tracking for your first email in your email automation. Every advanced email system can do this (Wild Mail, ActiveCampaign, InfusionSoft, ConvertKit, Drip etc)

5) Create a new automation. Every time someone replies to this first email, trigger an automated email with the link to your welcome video

6) Done!

Small Fish Response:

If you’re still small and only attract a few subscribers every day, have a look at this. I’m pretty sure you’ll love it 🙂

Goal:

When I first started out, I personally responded to every single new email subscriber who replied with “ready”. People LOVED it. Here’s what I did ..

I recorded a personal video for each email subscriber that responded with “ready” ..

This is the email I sent ..

And here’s the video I recorded (1min) ..

Depending on what information I had available, I opened the lead’s ..

• Twitter/LinkedIn profile
• Website

Why should you use this?:

They will be incredibly impressed by your effort. No one does that. Do this at the beginning whilst you still can. It pays off big time – especially at the beginning.

Difficulty to implement:

=> Easy

What are the steps to implement this?:

1. Here are two free chrome extensions you can use to quickly record videos of yourself + your screen. The video can be uploaded to YouTube and/or Google Drive.
   1. Loom (here’s their website for more information)
   2. Screencastify (here’s their website for more information)
2. Record your video response
3. Paste the link to your video into your email
4. Done!

And here’s another small but powerful relationship hack ..

Email Relationship Hack:

This little “relationship hack” helps you to..

• save time
• type less
• come across as very personal
• move the needle for leads who are on the fence

Goal:

If you get an email from a subscriber or a long question, record a quick video of yourself and send them a link to your video instead of typing a long answer.

Here’s an example of me answering one of my email subscribers questions (he’s not a customer yet) into the Wild Audience Facebook Group (not active anymore).

Have a look ..

Notice that he can see his own website in the screenshare. It shows that I take the time. It shows that I care.

That simple.

This technique is even more powerful if potential customers send you an email with some objections about your product/service. Instead of replying with text, record a video and answer their questions and objections. That often moved the needle for me and I won them over as a customer (because my video response blew them away).

Why should you use this?:

• You save a ton of time by not needing to type the entire email (especially if your answer requires a long reply)
• You come across as super personal (personalized attention) as you took the time to record a specific video just for her/him

You pull people closer into your sphere of influence by showing your face and personality. Show them that you care. If they feel that you care about them, they will care back.

Difficulty to implement:

=> Easy

What are the steps to implement this?:

1. Use the two free chrome extensions I already shared. Here they are again ..
   1. Loom (here’s their website for more information)
   2. Screencastify (here’s their website for more information)
2. Record your video response
3. Paste the link to your video into your email
4. Done!

If you want to learn how to attract the right people and turn them into paying customers using relationship marketing and sales funnel automation, then click on the image below.

6) Openloops & Cliffhangers

Think about your favorite TV show now.

You got it in your mind?

House of Cards, Gilmore Girls, Breaking Bad .. Hack, even Gossip Girl..

Each TV series exists of a few episodes.

Now, think about how each episode ends..

Yep, exactly. That’s what a cliffhanger is.

Think about the last paragraph of a chapter in your favorite book.

That’s a cliffhanger too.

A cliffhanger is a story element with a strong element of suspense. It’s when you leave your audience hanging.

Goal:

Your goal is simple but not easy. You want your email subscribers to be waiting for your next email.

That’s what you want. Have a look at this screenshot..

That’s the result of a cliffhanger well executed. I’ll show you how you do that in a second ..

Template:

Here’s a screenshot of the end section of one of my RBS emails to demonstrate how to use cliffhangers.

Why should you use this?:

1) A cliffhanger employed at the end of your email can tease about the next email by revealing just enough information to get strong emotional reactions from your email subscribers.

2) A cliffhanger is a story element that appeals to something so deeply seated in the human mind that we can not resist it.

3) Whenever the human brain is presented with an open loop (an unfinished idea, thought, or story) .. our brains seek closure.

4) Authors use it all the time to tease the next chapter or book.

5) TV Show creators and Hollywood movie directors use it all the time.

6) The concept of the cliffhanger is borrowed from Hollywood and implemented in my emails. You should do that too.

Difficulty to implement:

This is more art than science. There is no technical difficulty to implement cliffhangers in your email sequence. But a cliffhanger done wrong is a problem. Be warned.

What are the steps to implement this?:

1. Write your email’s main body content.
2. Place a cliffhanger at the end of your email. See screenshot above.
3. Continue your next email where you left your reader hanging in the previous email.
4. If you want more information on how to write a good story, you can download our copywriter’s templates here.
5. Done!

 7) The 5 Question Interview

This is not so sexy.

But it’s (or should be) the foundation of every funnel.

So what is a 5 Question Interview?

The goal of this interview is to ask a bunch of questions in order to collect a bunch of data.

Why?

You want to get to know your leads ..

You want to understand ..

1. Who they are
2. What they do
3. What their problems are
4. What they want to learn from you (how you can help them)

This is how it works ..

1. People sign up with their email address (for example from your blog post)
2. They get an email to confirm their email address (double opt-in)
3. They click the link. Link goes to the 5 Question Interview
4. They answer the questions (3 to 5 questions)
5. After they’re done, they get access to whatever they signed up for
6. Done

And here’s a gif to show you what a 5 Question Interview could look like ..

Here’s a “dummy example” of a 5 Question Interview, in case you’re interested.(no email signup required ..)

These are the questions you could ask your subscribers ..

1. How did you first hear about [INSERT YOUR COMPANY]?
2. What do you do?
3. What are your problems?
4. What is your website?
5. What do you want to learn/improve/work on in the next 30 days?

The 5 Question Interview doesn’t have to have 5 questions. I usually recommend 3-5 questions.

Keep it short.

Keep it relevant.

I use dynamic questions. So based on what a subscriber answers to my question, I show her a different next question. Relevancy is key my friend.

I used SurveySlam to implement all of this but we now use ConvertBox.

Remember this client of mine?

How do they use the 5 Question Interview to achieve a sales funnel conversion rate of almost 9%?

Well, they sell German language courses for different levels ..

• Beginners
• Intermediate
• Advanced

It doesn’t make sense to sell an advanced product to a beginner.

Right?

That is why they use the 5 Question Interview to ..

1. Figure out their level of German
2. Understand what part of their German they want to improve (speaking, reading etc ..)
3. Find out how they would like to study German (online course, 1:1 calls, local language school)
4. Subscribe them to the right and most relevant email funnel to teach them German
5. And then sell them the right product down the line

The 5 Question Interview allows you to be relevant.

And relevancy is key nowadays.

If you’re not relevant, you lose your subscriber’s attention. And once attention is gone, it is gone for good.

Always remember that.

Alright.

That’s it 🙂

These are my 7 favorite ways to increase engagement in my sales funnel to ultimately increase my sales funnel conversion rate.

I hope you enjoyed it.

If you want to receive all the resources mentioned in this article..

1. Relationship Funnel Implementation Ebook (37 pages)
2. Automation Template (Email Frequency Selector)
3. Video Walk-Through of the Gmail-Zapier Hack
4. High Quality Sales Funnel Graphic

.. Then I suggest you to click on the image below and enter your first name and email address.

Over to you now.