Impressions - April 2014 - 38

conﬁrm visitors wanted the materials they
requested.
The conﬁrmation page also gets the
prospects in the habit of being rewarded for
their action. When they click the conﬁrmation, they will be delivered to a thank-you
page, where they can download or access
the content for which they signed up.
The next step is important. Make sure
that you include live links back to your

webpages or order page in both the content
download (PDF) or on the content page to
which they're delivered. This is a process
ﬂow. Remember, your objective is to move
prospective customers one step closer to an
order through each interaction with you. By
having live links in the content and embedded in the PDF download, you guarantee
customers can get back to a place where
they can take action by ordering from you.

What happens if they don't immediately
place an order after receiving the free content? The answer is more follow-up. Keep
layering useful information that builds toward an order. Don't give customers everything they need in the initial free content. I
call it "useful-but-incomplete information."
The follow-up sequence also is known
as an auto-responder sequence. These
are prewritten emails that progressively
engage the reader. The mailing software
delivers the messages automatically. Each
step in the sequence is designed to further educate or to provide case studies of
how other customers used your services.
The case studies are in story form, which
makes it easy for your prospects tell their
friends and associates.
The follow-up sequence is prescheduled. You set the timing in advance based
on hours, days, weeks or even months after
the initial contact. This sequence is about
moving customers toward a purchase or
reminding them of what you do so they
can share with their friends and colleagues
as the need arises.

PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER
All of this sounds pretty complicated
and intricate. Your ﬁrst thought may be to
just be happy with putting up a webpage
and hope there is some business to be
gained from it. Most of you will admit that
approach hasn't worked so well in the past.
The funnel process takes some time and
thought to build, but the results are enormously worth it. Once in place, the sales
funnel will be working for you 24 hours a
day, all the time. It's pretty much hands off
once you have it working.
In the next installment of this series,
I'll show you how to use mailing software
and services to set up newsletters, broadcast emails, auto-responder sequences and
much more. I'll also show you how to use
the built-in analytics to track the open rates
of your messages and the actions that result
from them.

Use Info*Action #21 at impressionsmag.com/infoaction See us at ISS Nashville

Impressions | April/May 2014

Mark Coudray is a respected and wellknown industry innovator and strategist.
His works have been published in more than
400 papers, columns, features and articles in
every major publication in the United States
and abroad. Coudray has been an active
member of the Academy of Screen Printing
and Digital Technology since 1989, and has
written for Impressions since 1978. For more
information or to contact Mark, email him at
coudray@coudray.com.
impressionsmag.com

http://WWW.GT3PRINTERS.COM http://WWW.GT3PRINTERS.COM http://www.impressionsmag.com/infoaction http://www.impressionsmag.com

Impressions - April 2014

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