When it comes to having a truly optimized funnel for your business, integrations are the star performer and key player in how your funnel flows and operates. Funnel integration is the aspect of connecting the pieces of your funnel so that it’s automated entirely for the ultimate consumer experience from opt-ing in to your freebie to purchasing your higher-ticket offers. You want each branch of your funnel to make sense and flow cohesively from one step to the next through the use of platform integrations while leveraging the capabilities of those platforms to not only optimize your funnel and leads through behavior tracking, but to take your consumer journey to the next level.
In order to create a streamlined funnel, you have to first step back and look at the macro view to manage and plan the key steps (i.e. your optin, your low ticket offer, your upsell, your order bump, your high ticket offer, and the emails that would fall between). However, those key steps alone will not make your funnel any more robust than a stand alone offer. The way that you’re going to actually get the streamlined funnel you’re looking for is by taking a step closer to the funnel and breaking things down at the micro level to determine what pieces actually connect, how they connect, and where there is room to optimize based on your ideal consumer journey.
Let’s take that step into the micro perspective and start breaking down the top must-have integrations for a seamless and streamlined funnel.
Optin Integrations
Whether your leads are opt-ing in to a free quiz, a free resource, or registering for a free on-demand or live class, the key player in your optin integrations is going to be your email marketing platform. Based on each of the quiz results, the free resources, and the registrations, your leads should be driven to your email marketing platform to either deliver the resource or provide a confirmation so that they can enter into your funnel.
This integration is what kicks off your funnel. If you’re not appropriately integrating your optin with the delivery of the optin, you’re not even collecting the leads to be inside the funnel. This step is important not only for appropriate lead capture but to optimize the organization of your traffic so that if a certain path is taken, you can target your leads more efficiently and target their specific need, based on the optin.
A way you can optimize your optin integrations is to include tags and lists for the action taken during the optin. For the quiz example, you would want the contact to get a quiz result specific tag, be added to a general quiz takers list, and be added into your master contact list. For the resource example, you would want the contact to get an optin specific tag and to be added into your master contact list. For the class example, you would want the contact to get a registration tag, and be added into your master contact list. You can optimize even further by adding in individual lists for each quiz result, for the resource optin and for the class. Doing this will allow you to skip the step of making segments in your email marketing platform and directly email lists based on the optin that was chosen.
An email marketing platform that we recommend for funnel builds here at Litchfield Media, is ActiveCampaign. While there are a ton of different platforms to choose from, ActiveCampaign is the most intutive platform to use for robust funnel builds. However, you can absolutely create and manage a funnel using a different platform. We also recommend ConvertKit and Flodesk, however there are limitations to using these platforms for funnel builds. For more information on specific email marketing platforms, please contact us at support@litchfieldmedia.org and we can help suggest a platform that will be in alignment with your business. To try ActiveCampaign today, you can sign up here. (Litchfield Media Affiliate Link)
Purchase Integrations
Your purchase integrations are the connection between your lead conversions and the delivery to and the nurture of that lead. Whether you’re setting up your tripwire, upsell, low-ticket offer, or main offer of your funnel, your approach to purchase integrations should be identical so the consumer experience is cohesive at each step. What this means is that the way you set up your purchase of your tripwire is just as important and identical to how you set up your purchase of your main offer in the funnel. While of course you’re providing different experiences and assets to each, the overall goal is to maintain high level consumer experience while delivering consistently regardless of the step they are in so that it’s the same expectation across the board.
Key players inside purchase integrations are more robust than your optin because you’re incorporating many factors dependent on what your offers actually include. Generally, these integrations feature your landing pages, your payment processor, and your email marketing platform. However, there are instances where you will also include your course platform, your customer relationship management system, and your project management platform, each depending on how you have your business operating.
The overall goal of your purchase integrations are to provide a seamless onboarding experience, deliver the included assets, and to organize your leads through the use of tags, lists, segmentation, and nurture sequences. Since this is more customized to your funnel, the importance should be focused on providing your ideal consumer experience.
Platforms that we recommend for the ultimate consumer experience beginning at your purchase integrations of your funnel builds here at Litchfield Media are:
- Showit for your website and landing pages. To try Showit today, you can sign up here. (Litchfield Media Affiliate Link)
- ThriveCart for your payment processor. ThriveCart natively integrates with multiple course platforms and email marketing platforms. ThriveCart also has introduced a course platform feature making it a no-brainer investment for your business. And, it’s also a one-time purchase so you don’t have to spend countless dollars every month. Check, check, check! To try ThriveCart today, you can sign up here. (Litchfield Media Affiliate Link)
- Honeybook for your customer relationship management system (CRM). To try Honeybook today, you can sign up here. (Litchfield Media Affiliate Link)
- ClickUp for your project management platform (PM). To try ClickUp today, you can sign up here. (Litchfield Media Affiliate Link)
For more information on specific platforms for your funnels, please contact us at support@litchfieldmedia.org and we can help suggest platforms that will be in alignment with your business.
Lead Optimization & Behavior Tracking
Throughout your entire funnel, optimizing your leads and tracking the behavior of clicks and actions taken will be imperative in making sure you are actually qualifying leads and gauging interest so that you can appropriately target those leads in your funnel.
A way that you can implement this is adding an “interested tag” to your contact automatically inside your email campaigns and sequences when they click on a specific link. An example of what this could look like for you: [Interested] Program Name 2023. By doing this, you’re gauging the actual interest of your offer and determining where that interest lives in your audience. In order to keep this tag intended for warm leads only, incorporate automations inside your email marketing platform that remove the interested tag after they purchase that specific offer.
Another way to implement this in your funnel and take the “interested tag” a step further is by checking for interest between emails in your sequences. If you get to the end of your sequence, you can check to see who still has an interested tag and hasn’t purchased, plus send those people a special offer to convert the sale. After a specific period of time once the promotional period ends (between 3-5 days) check again for interest and purchase. If they are still interested and haven’t purchased, categorize them as a lead for your next launch of this same offer.
Keeping your leads intentionally organized based on the actions they take in your funnel will help you target the right areas of your audience and increase your overall conversions because you’re not just blasting promotional content to people who aren’t interested but on your list.
Reliable & Intuitive Platforms: Native Integrations VS Third Party Integrations
There are tons of different platforms you can choose from for your ideal and customized funnel experience inside of your business. But before you make any platform commitments, you should first look into the integration capabilities of the platforms you’re considering. The ideal scenario is to have your platforms natively integrate together. This means that you don’t need a third-party application to integrate your platforms. The more platforms you have that natively integrate, the more streamlined your funnel will be.
But, don’t think that third-party integration platforms are a no-go either. Having a third-party integration platform is great for data tracking and implementing automation capabilities at new levels of your business. A recommended third-party integration platform we recommend at Litchfield Media is Zapier. While we do recommend a native integration approach to platforms used for your funnel, having Zapier in your platform suite gives you a “bonus” in making new things possible. The intention is focusing on Zapier as an addition to your funnel and not a core player of your funnel. Still make sure that your platforms can natively integrate first, if possible. To get started with Zapier today, you can sign up here.
If you’re not focusing on the step-by-step actions and behaviors that should be integrated between the steps inside of your funnel, you’re not getting intentional within the consumer journey which will cause you to miss out on categorizing your leads for future purchases. Your overall goal for your funnel should be the ultimate consumer experience and journey through the use of appropriate and automated integrations.
