How to Increase Profit by Optimizing Each Sales Funnel Stage

Hey Friend!

Do you wish that online business could be simple? Are you overwhelmed with the millions of strategies and fancy business language? Maybe trying to do everything right, you have overcomplicated your business. But business doesn’t have to be hard, complicated, or overwhelming! In today’s blog, I break down my simple three-step marketing funnel from the Stefanie Gass School to show you how easy it can actually be. I also walk you through what to analyze and how to optimize each sales funnel stage so you can increase profit and get more sales!

Learn to Optimize Each Sales Funnel Stage to Increase Profit.

What is a sales funnel and how does it increase profit?

First, you might be wondering what a sales funnel is. A sales funnel is simply the process of lead generation (getting someone into your world) through to them becoming paying customers.

How to create my simple sales funnel (or check out the graphic below)

1. Draw an upside-down triangle and call it Stef’s Simple Sales Funnel. 
2. Divide the triangle into three parts, a large section at the top, a medium section in the middle, and a smaller one at the bottom or point of the triangle. 
3. Label the top, largest section, Podcast; the middle section, Email and/or Community Group; and the last section, Student or Client. 
4. Next to these labels, add another label. At the top: Cold Leads (Lead Generation). In the middle section: Warm or Hot Lead. And, at the point, Converted Lead. 
5. Congratulations, you now have a sales funnel! 

I teach this simple three-step sale funnel throughout the Stefanie Gass School. Starting in Clarify Your Calling, I help you create the business plan you need to start your podcast. Because, as you see in the sales funnel, your podcast is how you generate leads. Step two is Podcast Pro University which teaches you how to launch, start and scale your podcast. Your podcast will grow your audience which will then generate leads. 

Finally, step three is Podcast to Profit, my 90-day immersion mastermind group coaching program for podcasters that will teach you the last two pieces of the funnel. By cultivating warm and hot leads into an email funnel or community group (often a Facebook group) and then into a paying student or client. To get or increase your profits, you need to analyze and optimize each sales funnel stage. 

Sales funnel stage one: your podcast

Step one of analyzing and optimizing your sales funnel is your podcast. We want to look at all the different metrics and see what’s working and how we can do more of that. The truth is that 99.9% of you have one of two problems.

1. Lead generation problem. If you don’t have enough people at the top of your funnel, your podcast needs optimization.  

2. A conversion problem. This means you are having trouble converting cold leads to warm or hot leads and/or converting warm/hot leads to converted leads, which are paying clients or customers.

Almost everybody has one of those problems; you could also have both. We can fix both of these issues by optimizing your sales funnel. If you don’t have your sales funnel set up yet, please check out my website to get started!

This is not an overnight promise; this is how we scale a business with longevity. It creates a sustainable business that allows you to get rid of socials, DM conversations, and the hustle-harder culture. I cover the extra, optional pieces, like Pinterest marketing and website copy, to augment this simple sales funnel in Podcast to Profit, but all you need to start is this three-step funnel.

Podcast audit

The first step in optimizing your podcast is a deep and honest look at your podcast home page. You want to make sure the following areas are clear and professional.

• Podcast artwork
• TSO (tactical specific outcome) – your punchy, 10-words or less tagline
• SEO Keywords
• Description

This is the first thing anyone sees when they find your show, so you want it to be super hard-hitting. If you need any help on this, check out my live coaching podcast episodes, which go into great depth on podcast strategy. Some great ones to check out are:

• LIVE COACHING! Title, Tagline, Description & Brand Clarity with Mara Richards
• LIVE COACHING! Mapping Out a Brand Title, Tagline, Description, & More with Maxy Jimenez!
• LIVE COACHING! Unstuck Strategy Session. Create the Four Tiers of a Brand & Podcast with Michelle Castro!
• LIVE COACHING! Podcast Strategy Session! Mapping Out Title, Tagline, Description, Episodes & MORE with Angie Tonini-Rogers

Analyze your podcast analytics

Next, you want to go into your podcast analytics on your podcast host and look at your top downloaded podcasts of all time. You want to be doing an audit like this, monthly, no less than quarterly. You want to look at your top ten episodes and why each episode made the list. Look at: 

• What keywords did you use?
• What did you have in the title?
• Similarities between episodes:
  • Did you ask a question?
  • Were you triggering?
  • Use a particular keyphrase?

Then, write down what you found; you want to do more of what’s working because that will generate more leads.

Scrub Apple and Google Podcast analytics

Go through and scrub the analytics from the podcast playing platforms. This will tell you a lot about your audience, did they like long episodes, short episodes, etc. Once again, you want to find out what’s working and do more of it.

Audit your podcast content

Finally, you audit what you are saying on your show. While having a great net with the visual elements, keywords, and copy is important, you will lose conversion if you don’t have killer content. They won’t stay or subscribe.

A great way to do this is to get other ears on your podcast. You want to get people who will be super honest with you and give you a genuine critique. 

The point of your podcast is impact, but what’s the point of impact if you aren’t capturing the lead? This brings us to sales funnel stage two.

Sales funnel stage two: email marketing/community group

Now it’s time to optimize the second part of our sales funnel, email marketing, and/or a community group. I’ve said “and/or” because you have permission to have some flexibility around collecting your warm or hot leads, particularly if you can’t deal with social media right now.

Analyze email marketing analytics

I love email marketing; it’s quick, easy, and not social media. If you aren’t on my email list yet, get on my list, here.

What should we look at?

• Which emails have the highest open rates? (if you have really old stuff or targeted emails, you want to look at emails to the entire list.)
• Like the podcast, look for any similarities in subject lines, keywords, titles, etc. 
• Figure out the click-through rate of the most opened emails. Which links (if any) did they click on? 
• Any other ways they interacted with your email, such as replying to it.

Examine community group engagement

Your community group can be a Facebook group or Mighty Networks group, or completely nix it. Inside the group, you want to check the analytics.

What are we looking for?

• What does your engagement look like?
• What posts are getting the best engagement?
• Look for similarities between the top posts.

Sales funnel stage three: students and clients

If you aren’t selling or don’t think you’re selling enough, based on your super fan number, you need to look at these three things, your pitch, checkout/sales page, and top sellers.

How are you pitching?

You can convert cold leads into paying students or clients in two ways. First, you can convert cold leads into customers straight from your podcast by simply pitching on the show. Second, they can become converted leads from your warm leads in your community group or emails. People on your podcast become warm and hot leads too; they don’t go away. We just also capture their email address. 

Ideally, you want a combination of these two but depending on how comfortable you are with pitching and your ability to write versus speak; you may favor one or the other.

Examine your checkout and sales pages

You want to look at:

• How many people landing on your sales page go to the checkout page? 
• How many people are getting to your checkout page but leaving without buying?

The goal is to find the conversion break. If people are getting to a page but not making it to the next step, that’s where the problem is.

Investigate your top sellers

• What offers are your top sellers? 
• Are people paying in full or using the payment plan?
• Do you only sell during live launch versus through evergreen strategies?

Figure out what people really want and then speak to that, showcase it in your marketing. An advanced but beneficial strategy is to track where the customer has come from. Did they click through from your podcast, email, or Facebook community?

If you don’t have an offer yet, don’t worry! If you want to start coaching, check out:

How to Start Coaching & Profit Immediately in Your Biz

Want More Clients? Discovery Call Tips to Grow Your Online Coaching Business.

Or, if you’re ready to start an online course, check out:

3 Things You MUST Do Before Creating an Online Course

Possible to PROFIT When Just Starting!? Should You Create a Course?

How to Sell an Online Course When You Have a Small Community

If this sounds amazing, but you don’t want to do it alone, don’t worry! There is a way for me to hold your hand and walk you through this entire process. Please apply for my immersion mastermind group coaching program, Podcast to Profit. We cover everything you need to grow, scale and optimize your podcasting business. 

All of the data you will collect during a full brand audit will be extremely valuable when you put on your CEO of growth hat. The primary goal of our businesses is to create impact and income for the glory of God. To do that, we need to reach more people through our podcast, create a safe space for them to feel seen, heard, and encouraged through your email or community group; and finally, get them the result they have been praying for, which is your offer. It is possible to have a simple, world-changing business!

I pray this blesses you!

Xo,

Stef

P.S. Also, listen to podcast episode 502 for the full training on Want to Increase Profit?? My Simple, 3-Step Sales Funnel + How to Analyze & Optimize Each Sales Funnel Stage to Get More Clients

APPLE PODCAST | SPOTIFY | GOOGLE PODCAST

Ready to start or grow your business God’s Way instead of the World’s way?

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