151. How do you create a content funnel?
Wish you could grow your newsletter list on autopilot? 📈 This episode tells all. Brand strategists and hosts Phil and Lauren share their secrets to creating a content funnel that gets you seen and subscribers hooked. From planning out your key platforms to creating an irresistible offer, your email list will be catapulting before you know it.
Episode transcription
Phil
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren
And I'm Lauren.
Phil
And this is a podcast where we help you position, build and promote your brands. We're glad you're here, you're here, we're glad. Welcome to an informative episode, where we're gonna, I think do a little mini episode you've seen we've been doing there's more recently a little zip, zip zip episode, because we feel like we want it to be easy for you to listen to something, get immediate value, and then go and do it. Please go and do it. Do it, do it. And we decided for this episode that we would reflect on the one thing over the past year that probably in terms of traffic, at least, has sent us a significant number of people, the thing that sent us the most people email list, YouTube, freebies, that's what we're talking about. And I think that you're gonna find this enlightening because it's a little bit like a lottery, which I'll explain in a moment.
Lauren
Yeah, I think that with funnels, there's kind of a misconception out there that a funnel needs to be part of a paid campaign effort. But our hope is that with this episode, you will see that you can create your own organic funnel to convert people into email subscribers.
Phil
Yes, funnel is a word that's kind of scary, because there are funnel experts out there and you can get deep and really into the nitty gritty and testing, A B testing and all of these things. Whereas I'm just going to go ahead and say I don't think that even the experts necessarily have the answer. You and I both believe in the importance of testing, and trying. We don't have one freebie, I counted them recently. We have 16 freebies.
Lauren
Really?
Phil
Yes. It's a little over the top.
Lauren
Wow.
Phil
Do you remember how miserable I was in the season that we were making those? I made one a week for a few months, and they were so much work, because I'm picky with how things look. They can actually be very simple. But of course, I complicate everything. But yeah,
Lauren
And you were like we need to have a freebie that has 100 content ideas. And I'm there freaking hunched over my keyboard. I call it a day at 96. And when you're designing, you say we need four more, I was like I'm out of ideas. I'm out. I'm done.
Phil
Well wait, let's talk about that. freebie, 100 evergreen content ideas, which for the record is a great freebie, but so are all of our other freebies. All of them are excellent. This is not a plug, but I'm turning it into a plug philpallen.co/freebies. They're free, honey, go there and get them. 100 evergreen content ideas on that. And wow, wow, that has sent 1000s of people to our email list. I guess we should dissect the funnel step by step, so people understand the magnitude of what this freebie has done for us.
Lauren
Yeah, basically, to sort of set the premise before we get into the nitty gritty of what we did and how it worked. The benefit of having a content funnel set up is that if you're using the right keywords, and have all the pieces in place, you can be literally growing your email lists as you sleep, which is pretty powerful.
A lot of people will come to us, and they'll be just starting out their first email newsletter, and they'll be very, very concerned about the amount of subscribers they have. They're promoting that list on Instagram. And we have found that you can promote the heck out of your email list, but the fact is, people subscribe when they want something.
And so by having that freebie in place, that's just intriguing enough that they're willing to give you your email address, you can really set yourself up for success.
Phil
Absolutely. It's like the perfect storm. Really. So should we go through each step of it and dissect it a little bit so people can really see.
Lauren
Yeah, sure.
Phil
Let's go through it as a funnel. So the first piece of the funnel is something that is generating traffic or views. We've talked about it before I make YouTube videos. Sometimes they're a hit. Sometimes they're not a hit. My best ever YouTube video is called three free apps for content creation. It just surpassed 200,000 views from about a year ago I think. And I mention in the YouTube video, hey, you might want to check out my freebie. 100 evergreen content ideas and I put up a little picture in the YouTube video and then I keep talking about the content. And in the description of the YouTube video that took off, I didn't know that this would take off, but it did, in the description, in the first line of this is Get my 100 evergreen content ideas freebie. And then the link to my website,
Lauren
And you have the link in the banner photo part of your channel as well.
phil
I added that actually only recently.
Lauren
Oh, sorry, gotcha.
Phil
Yeah. Not part of the funnel.
Lauren
No, not part of the funnel, we will have Igor keep that in to keep me in my place.
Phil
Well, well, no. I mean, that's another lesson is like when something works, make sure that you maximize all of the places that it appears.
So the first step is to try to create something that's going to generate some traffic. YouTube is amazing for that. Pinterest is amazing for that. Instagram can be amazing for that. Twitter can be amazing for that. Search Engine optimization a page on your website could also be amazing for that. Thing is, there's no guarantee, and you're not going to win unless you participate.
So the thing that I love the most about YouTube is that I have two dates every week that I publish videos. And I don't sway from that. Sometimes the video will get 100 views, sometimes it gets 200,000 views. But every time I post, it's like me getting a lottery ticket, increasing my chances of winning. And this is the video that is winning, and it gets 1000s of views every day. I get at least 50 people who sign up on my website for the freebie, at least 50,sometimes ad a day, which is great, because then I go to advertisers or sponsor content partners a new vertical for us and say, Hey, by the way, I have 15,000 people on email us and they keep scrolling.
And so step one is like have something that's going to generate some traffic, try to put something out there with a little bit of research, we've talked about that for ages.
Lauren
Think of it as if you're casting a net and trying to get the eyes of as many people as possible. So this is an opportunity to be intriguing, but pretty broad in whatever you're offering. So for example, if you are a baker, I would say that maybe your video or your blog posts, or whatever is going to be the thing that you're going to be using as your net will be something like three tools every Baker needs in the kitchen, it wouldn't be like three tips for using vanilla extract and your next apple pie. Does that make sense?
Phil
That makes perfect sense.
Lauren
And also, I know Phil, you mentioned that your email list grows by 50 to 80 per day from this. To put in perspective, as of the time of this recording, almost 9000 people have signed up for your freebie,
Phil
That one single freebie. That's why we're making a podcast episode out of it.
Lauren
So this is potentially brand altering advice. And so we're really serious about this recommendation.
Phil
Yeah, I think that's important. So that's over half of my email list has been from this one freebie. Over half of my email list, almost two thirds from one funnel. So when we talk about the funnel, first, something that generates traffic.
Second, you want obviously somewhere visible to send them to your website with an opt in. Don't just give them a download link. It's an exchange. You're giving them free content you worked hard on that they want in exchange, currency online, they're giving you their email address. And so then the onus is on you to not only collect their email address, but keep emailing them.
If someone signs up for my freebie and doesn't hear from me for six months, they're gonna forget who I am and go, how did I get on this list and unsubscribe the report as spam? Who are you? So I make it my mission, given that this thing is taken off, to make sure I send at least one email a week, I don't really give myself a specific date. I just make sure I email once a week. And that's how I stay on their radar. And so I think one is the traffic two is the freebie and the opt in, that exchange of goods.
And then three is the opportunity I would say of this funnel is to start selling them. Not everyone who downloads your free stuff is going to buy from you, that's for sure. It might be a small percentage of us. But we still sell courses. I still get little surprise emails, this person bought your course using the link that they got on YouTube. Just so cool. total strangers trust me to teach them something and they spend money on it. I'd say that's probably the third level of the funnel, which is win their trust and then sell to them.
Lauren
Now some tips for the actual freebie. As much as it pains me to say because this was a real challenge to create. I think that the freebie needs to be selling or promising something ‘big’, something that is so valuable and packed with information that someone literally can't resist it.
I think that if your freebie had been five evergreen content ideas, it would have probably 5% of the performance that it does today. But the fact that it has 100 ideas brings value. So as you're thinking about your own checklist, or freebie or whatever, think of how you can make it really comprehensive. So for example, using the baker analogy, again, you could do something about how it'd be 100 tips for bakers wanting to start selling pies, or everything you need to know about baking from A to Z. Something very, very all encompassing either an entire experience, Survival Guide, or something that has 50 to 100 ideas about a certain concept.
Phil
Yeah, it needs to be big. I mean, for them to give you their email address, it needs to be something good, not necessarily something big, but something good, something incredibly valuable. And so reflect within your own business or interactions with clients or customers, what is something people really need? What is something that's going to make their life better? How do you have that knowledge somehow some way up in your noggin so you can share it in exchange for an email address?
Lauren
Mm hmm. Great. Let's talk about tools. So I would say the most important tool you need is probably Canva for the freebie, right?
Phil
I think Canva, Adobe Spark, or Google Docs. I think people stress over making it perfect. And I think that's the least important thing. I don't care to start if it's an ugly word document with black and white text, branded later, just get this thing live. And you can always improve it later. Just update the download link in my course, email mastery, philp.al/email I give people templates to create their own freebies. And they're all Google Slides, Google Docs templates. Keep it really simple.
Lauren
Great, great. You can also use PowerPoint too.
Phil
You could also use PowerPoint or Keynote. I've used the keynote for many of them.
Lauren
Okay, next tool is you want to have some sort of email subscription service, so we use ConvertKit. But MailChimp is another great one.
Phil
Active Campaign. There are so many of them. Constant Contact. They all do the same. So you just have to choose what's in your price range or which features do you really like. I'm a big ConvertKit fan. I think MailChimp is also excellent for people just getting started. If you're on Squarespace. There's an argument that can be made that Squarespace campaigns built into your website is also great. For starters, use it until you outgrow it. Those are a few options.
Lauren
Okay. And sometimes you need Zapier, right?
Phil
Yes, so MailChimp syncs really well with Squarespace, where we build all of our client websites. Zapier is an amazing tool to link to apps when they don't have a native connection. So I use Zapier to connect lots of things, but namely Squarespace with ConvertKit. It helps move the information from point A to point B.
Lauren
And I would say really, the last tool that's important to have is some sort of access to analytics. I know this is built into Squarespace under the analytics, and then conversion, a little label in the backend, where you can actually see how many people are landing on your freebie offer page and how many people are actually converting into subscribers. As Phil mentioned, we have 16 freebies, because we decided we wanted to do a super wide experiment and see what actually converted to get the winner. A bit extreme.
Phil
You don't need 16. But keep in mind, we teach this for a living. So yeah, we need to experiment a fair bit before we give you advice.
Lauren
But I would say that having at least two running concurrently is not a bad thing.
Phil
I think two is way better than one.
Lauren
So you want to have some sort of analytics who can compare the performance of the two freebies?
Phil
Exactly.
Lauren
Okay. Well, I think that's all I have to say about this topic. How about you?
Phil
Let's make it exciting for people to go and try it out. If you want to see this sequence or this funnel in action, go to YouTube type three free apps content creation, Phil Pallen. If you want that will definitely bring up that video first look at the description, how we link to it. Go to our website. Look at the freebie, it's philp.al/ 100 ideas all lowercase. And those are our winners, listeners. Those are the things that are working and winning for us and we thought we'd make a little episode out of it. We hope this is useful for you. Let us know. Let's continue the conversation. I'm @philpallen.
Lauren
I'm @thelaurenmoore
Phil
#brandtherapy and by the way, if you enjoyed this episode, we would be so so grateful if you took two seconds of sleep as a review in the iTunes Store five star five star that helps other people discover this podcast that we worked super hard to create for you. We hope you've enjoyed this now, get to work and we'll see you next week for the next episode of Brand Therapy. Thank you, thank you. See you then.
Lauren
Bye.
