Sam explains that a marketing funnel is not complicated. It’s simply a way to move someone from being unknown to us to a lead and then a customer.

Instead of talking about this in theory, Sam will create a sales funnel. On that basis, Sam and Marcus will create a marketing funnel for a brand shoot.
What happens first? Let's say our target market is solicitors. I need to “get them into my funnel”. Sam says his go to place to find solicitors would be LinkedIn. A good start would be connecting with solicitors on LinkedIn. Sam says that you then need to know what you will talk to the solicitors about. So he suggests a free Webinar “How to make the most of your personal brand online.” So you now have a free event that you can talk to the solicitors about.

So then search for solicitors in a fixed area using a connection message. Make it clear in the connection message why you are connecting. This is a positive way to connect. Anyone who then connects to you is “in your funnel”. Some people will reply to the connection and you can start a conversation about the event. For those that connect but don’t respond you can start a conversation with them. During the conversation, the chat uses open questions and guides them to booking the event. This is “moving them down the funnel”. The further down the funnel you go the fewer people there are, but the more likely they are to become customers.
You then run the webinar. Once you have planned and done one it’s really easy to repeat it. Marcus said he did something very similar and ran a day teaching solicitors how to take their own brand photographs. He says it works well.
It's vital that you allow time in the webinar to talk about “what next”. What are you going to offer them to move them to becoming a customer? Sam suggests something small, like a slot at a headshot day. Something small, but, they have to pay. The other option is to offer another free event.
Those who take you up on the headshot are customers, but this isn’t really the end of the funnel as this isn’t really what you want to sell them. Then at the headshot or when the photos are delivered have a chat about the headshots they have, ask if that is going to be enough or if they could really do with a bigger bank of images. That’s when the main sale can happen.

Remember that all the people who didn’t drop down to the next stage of the funnel are still in the funnel. Some are still getting emails, many are connected on LinkedIn.

Make sure that you have put the effort into getting people on the mailing list that you are using the mailing list and sending out email newsletters.

Sam and Marcus discuss niching, and this funnel is niched. There is a show on niching.

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