The Affiliate Sledgehammer Funnel, and You…

Mar 19, 2011 // by Sledgehammer // 1 Comment

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Here is how: Click to see larger image
If you don’t have a sales funnel, you are not really in business. The fact is to be in business online you must convert some percentage of all possible prospective customers that could conceivably visit your site, into real, paying customers. If you don’t you don’t make money, and you are not in business.

Period.

The wide end of the funnel represents those who will visit from the cloud of all possible prospects – you want the top of the funnel to be as wide as possible so that as many prospects as possible will visit.

In truth, you would rather have a cylindrical tube – where every prospect that comes into the top, leaves the bottom as a fully paid customer – but that is not going to happen anywhere but your dreams…

What is going to happen is at each level within the funnel you will attempt to get your prospects to take some action. Some will, some wont. Those that won’t will leave and now your total prospects are a smaller number, hence the funnel shape. Near the top of your funnel you will attempt to get your prospects to take a simple action such as give their email address for a free report – now you have a new contact in your marketing list.

Some will take this action, perhaps most because it is free- but even here, some will move on. They are not customers. That is the way it is.

Next you may try to sell them a product or get them to go to to a landing page that you are marketing (if you are an affiliate marketer), etc. Some will, some won’t.

As you move down the funnel, you may try to sell these customers a course or some other, larger more expensive product. Some will buy, some will not.

The idea is to keep as many of the customers who came in the top, through the entire process to your “final” product or service, whatever that may be.

If you are not doing this, you are not in business…not really. Selling a one-off here and there and not managing a funnel process is not really a business.

So… getting back to Affiliate Sledgehammers funnel: It is simple with three levels as you can see from the image (Click on it to see a larger image).

We do three things here: we market an offer to all affiliate marketers both seasoned and new, as well as offer a free course on how to become an affiliate marketer – that is our first level (orange in the picture). You can read the blogs (like this post) and read only the general forum. You can download the free course. You can see how Affiliate Sledgehammer can help you make an incredible amount of money. That is about it at the top of the funnel.

Next, we invite you to join as a free member. That is funnel level two (green in the picture). Here all of the data on products from our affiliate networks open up to you. Here you can see every bit of data on every active Click-Bank product for example and perform comparisons against other products. Here you can post in the forums and, for a nominal fee, even promote your own products. You can download any of the hundreds of e-books from the affiliate library for free. You can shop in the affiliate marketplace where pro level members sell their e-books, reports, systems, courses, software, etc. This is a double opt-in active name/email signup.

Finally our third level (in blue) is the professional level. Here, for a monthly fee, you are a full member with all privileges which include the ability to access feeds of all product data and analysis, access all private forums, post to the blog and promote your own products, even create side-bar ads and e-mail promotions to our list. At the pro level you can make from this site alone several hundred times your membership price!

Pro members are also not required to pay a fee to promote their products as free members do, and they have a much wider access to promotional venues, customer acquisition, etc. Pro member are also allowed early access to any new features added to the site (such as new affiliate networks and products) before free members.

In a way, our sales funnel is part of your own! Another unique first of this site. Which brings out the fact that membership certainly has it’s privileges, but frankly it is for the more seasoned professional affiliate marketers who know how to use this information to make themselves some real money.

That is how our funnel works – you should spend some time creating your own sales funnel for your business if you have not already. As an affiliate or any kind of online marketer, it is an essential part of a true business.

So may your efforts be successful, and your “funnel” always full!

Stay thirsty my friends!

David T. McKee
“Sledgehammer”