Bonus: I’ve included a behind the scenes video of how I’m going to use this sales funnel at Videofruit (Watch here )

Raise your hand if you have ever over complicated something?

*raising my hand*

I’ve been banging my head against a wall for the past 3 weeks trying to get a membership site for Videofruit completed.

I’m super pumped about it, but the technology side of it has been a massive pain in the butt.

Pro Tip™: If you ever want to setup a membership site, caching plugins will murder you in your sleep.

After spending more than 3 weeks trying to get the dumb thing up and running, I took a step back and asked myself:

“Self, how can you simplify this?”

EPIPHANY!!

Instead of trying to go super fancy in the beginning I decided to make the entire membership site one page…

I couldn’t figure out the payment system. So, I made it free.
I couldn’t figure out a caching plugin conflict. So, I disabled it.
I couldn’t decide on a design for my subpages. So, I got rid of the sub pages.

I made those decisions yesterday at 3:30pm. Yesterday by 6pm, the site was nearly done.

After 21 days of working on the site I had barely made progress. Now, it’s launching next week.

Simplification in action.

I’ll make it more fancy later. For now, simple.

Complicated has its place, but mostly its just a form of procrastination.

Sales funnels are the same way. You can make them infinitely complex.

Upsells
Downsells
Cross sells
Drip campaigns

Or, you could just ask your customer to buy your product!

Sometimes, you just need to simplify.

My current sales funnel is way too complicated and it really annoys me. So, I’m about to change it.

Before I went all kamakazi on my system I went out and studied two companies I respect and how they sell their products.

I mapped them out and have shared them below.

Company #1: Buffer

Notes: Buffer gets just over 750,000 readers to their blog each month. They have a very simple call to action on the sidebar of their blog. In fact, its the only thing on the sidebar at all.

It is also a sticky widget. So as you scroll down the page it goes with you. The copy is plain and easy to understand.

TRY. OUR. PRODUCT.

Notes: When you click through the blog widget you are sent directly to a signup page. No drip email campaign or free download. Just their product. Nice and simple.

Tips: I would recommend that you make sure the language on the landing page directly coincides with the call to action that the user originated from. In this example, it is slightly confusing.

The user clicks a link to ‘Sign up‘ but the landing page came to asks them to ‘Log In‘.

Case #2: CrazyEgg

Notes: Crazy Egg targeted me with this simple Facebook ad. The copy is clear and to the point.

Tip: You can be very targeted in using Facebook ads. Targeting competitors Facebook fans and tangential products is a very effective strategy (read how).

Notes: Just like Buffer, Crazy Egg kept their sales funnel very simple.

1. Click Ad

2. Sign-up form

The landing page has a very clear call to action and a demo video showing you more about the product. Nice and simple.

How do you apply this to your business?

I get it.

Everyone wants to be bigger than they are now. If you are just starting out, getting to $1,000 in monthly revenue is a MASSIVE milestone.

If you are at $1,000 a month in revenue, then $10,000 seems nearly impossible.

No matter where you are though, you have to maximize your resources.

Hubspot can afford to build out insanely complex sales funnels with lead scoring and followup drip campaigns. I can’t.

Not because I can’t afford the software, but because I can’t afford the time distraction.

Right now, I need to simplify.

You do to.

Before you spend time worrying about Marketing 401, make sure you have passed Marketing 101.

I’m taking my own advice and re-structuring how I offer my products at Videofruit. You’ll be seeing those changes in the coming weeks.

If you want a behind the scenes look at what I have in store, watch this video that gives you all of the details.