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Brittni Schroeder joins us again to talk about scaling businesses through effective automation and funnel strategies. She shares how her experiences in various businesses have shaped her marketing techniques and business coaching methods.
We highlight the power of email marketing as a tool for business growth, emphasizing the importance of growing and nurturing an email list. Brittni explains different funnel types and the necessity of adapting strategies based on audience behavior and digital trends.
We also discuss the significance of personal connections and consistent engagement in converting leads into sales. This approach not only simplifies marketing complexities but also encourages entrepreneurs to maintain persistence and adaptability in their strategies.
Watch the previous episode on YouTube ‘6-Figures as a Business Coach & Marketing Strategist Featuring Brittni Schroeder‘
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- Get her High Converting Sales Funnel Guide now!
Speaker 2:
Welcome back to another episode of the Art of Online Business. I’m here with my co-host, Jamie.
Speaker 1:
Hello, hello, hello, hello, we’re back with Brittany Schroeder.
Speaker 2:
So if this is the first time you’ve heard of her on my podcast, let me fill you in because you’re in for a treat this episode. She is a business coach and marketing strategist. She helps coaches automate their businesses, create systems, convert funnels and scale to six figures and beyond. We know and like her, because we just recorded the episode that you haven’t listened to yet maybe, where she shares a bit about her business journey up to this point, and let me tell you she is a true business strategist, a true marketer.
Speaker 2:
She cut her teeth in business on a photography business that she scaled up quite well in El Paso, texas, with tons of clients charging way higher than market rate and even like training and teaching. She had a magazine featuring well, let’s just call it a photography magazine. You might disagree with me because you actually had the magazine, brittany. I was thinking like an Aeropostale, like aesthetic. I’m really curious, actually, what the aesthetic was. Maybe you can tell us that later in the episode, but I want you to understand, listener, that she knows what she’s doing and she did it in a business first. That was not teaching people what she’s doing. I always love to have a guest that learned and practiced and used and profited and succeeded from a skill that they now teach, but they did it in a whole different line of work or business.
Speaker 2:
That’s Brittany Schroeder in a nutshell. I’m very happy to have you back on the podcast as we talk about marketing funnels. It’s going to be like a mini coaching session, because Jamie and I are doing our funnels right now or redoing them. We’re excited to hear insight and strategy from you. Brittany, Thanks for being back on the podcast.
Speaker 3:
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:
You’re very, very welcome. Well, the context is that. Well, do you want to ask us the questions?
Speaker 3:
You tell me what you want to know. What do you want to know?
Speaker 2:
So I mean, you’re here, you help folks build funnels, automations systems and email marketing, and we right now are building a funnel to sell our courses. The context is that most of my business revenue comes from Facebook ads management.
Speaker 2:
And yet last fall I created like a suite of courses which I expanded to five, and they’re just there. People find them. The courses are great. When people find them and take them, they leave good reviews, they get results.
Speaker 2:
One helps folks cut their lead costs in half and another one helps them set up that I guess the holy grail a tripwire offer, such that when somebody goes to an opt-in opt-in for the free lead magnet thing they see the offer on the thank you page.
Speaker 2:
Some buy, some don’t, and you can bring more qualified leads into your business and also get some more early wins for people inside of your funnel. A funnel off the back end of the lead magnet is one that we’re building and others that we’re actually slated to. Scheduled to start writing out this week are the upsell emails. Maybe you’ve heard of it called like the secret upsell menu, if you will. But basically somebody comes in maybe they bought one offer but they didn’t take the order bump or the upsell, and then they get the onboarding sequence for that offer they purchased upsell and then they get the onboarding sequence for that offer they purchased and then followed up by that is a sequence of emails that’s delivered logically to fill them the order bump and see if they want to get that one or the upsells if they want to get that.
Speaker 2:
That’s where we’re at, and we’d love to know, like what would you do? What would be the most effective way to go about selling the courses?
Speaker 3:
Well, let’s start with the foundation foundation and the foundation is it’s a numbers game and you have to. You have to grow your email list. So I think that there’s different types of funnels and some and, and they work in different ways. So I had somebody not too long ago on Instagram message me and, like, do funnels work? Like, do they, do they really work? Can you really sell in funnels? And I think I think it’s tricky because you know, if you have, like you know, we’re inundated with so much information now you know, in this. So, and they used to say, if you have seven exposures, people have seven exposures before they purchase. Well, now it’s like 30 or 40 because we get so much information like thrown at us all the time, and so is it hard to sell it like to a cold audience, and a cold audience is somebody who is not familiar with you. It is, it is harder and so so. So funnel sometimes is just getting people in your network and then you have to nurture them and it might take them a little while to purchase from you. So we have this. You know, like, oh, can build a funnel and we’re going to sell. You’re not always going to get the sell and it and it depends on the offer too. So if you have something you know, say for example, you’re trying to sell something that’s like a pocket product or a tripwire, like an offer maybe $50 or less it’s a little bit easier to sell in a funnel than, say, something that is like $5,000, that you know it’s. It’s almost you’d have to spend a ton of money on like traffic, like ads, to get a sell for for something that’s like a high ticket, like that. But the goal is a lot of times is you want to get them in your funnels and you have to nurture them. Sometimes, a lot of times is you want to get them in your funnels and you have to nurture them. Sometimes, a lot of times, you’re not going to get people to go through five emails and then they’re going to purchase at the end, unless it’s something that they are specifically like looking for, like oh my gosh, I need this right away. There’s nothing else like that. So I think it’s kind of complex because it doesn’t necessarily always sell for. For me, my objective with my lead magnets and my funnels is I want to get them in my network because I want to nurture them. I want to build that know, like and trust factor, and sometimes it takes more than just five emails to build that. I will have people on my email list for years before they purchase something, but I’m nurturing them. Maybe they follow me on social media, they listen to my podcast. You have to build that know, like and trust factor. It’s a numbers game. It really is.
Speaker 3:
I recently was talking to a client of mine and she launched a digital course and she made a ton of money. I think she made over a hundred grand on on launching this course and so. But when we broke it down and we looked at her email list, she had a huge email list, like she had an email list of like 60,000. When we broke it down and we looked at what is okay, you have 60,000 and how many people bought the course? Guess what Her percentage is the same as like another client of mine that has 10,000 people on their email list, and the same. It’s the same percentage of people who have 500. And so it. It really is like a numbers. It really is.
Speaker 3:
They say, when you are launching something or you know, maybe you have like 30%. Like maybe you’re gonna do a webinar, they say 30% of your email list will sign up, 5% of them will purchase, and so do the math. If you have an email list of 60,000, 10,000 or 500, you still, a lot of the time, you’re still converting. If it’s a good offer and it’s a clean list, then you’re still converting at the same rate. So it is a numbers game and so sometimes your funnels is growth Like your strategy is growth getting people in your network to sell.
Speaker 3:
My most effective sales funnels is when I do live trainings. So I will say sign up for my webinar and they come to a webinar I teach and then I pitch at the end those are my highest converting funnels. You can do evergreen, meaning they’re just always running. Maybe you’re running ads to them, but for me that is what has worked for me. It might be different for somebody else, but those, those have been my highest converting funnels is because I like it’s this live element and I’m training and I’m calling them out and I do that sense of urgency.
Speaker 3:
Okay, by now you get this blah, blah, blah. So I think it’s different and it depends on the industry that you’re in and what your offer is and your audience. Like that. We kind of touched on this a little bit on our last podcast. But it’s just like everybody is different and you have to test what works. What works for me might not work for you. I like to be on social media, I’m comfortable on camera, I’m comfortable teaching, I’m comfortable going live, but that might not work as well for somebody else. They might be a really strong writer, and so they’re getting traffic through SEO. So your funnels are different. You have to try different things and what works for you, what are your strengths? What are things that you’re really good at? So I don’t know. I kind of went off on a tangent there.
Speaker 2:
Well, I do, like how you said, live tends to work the best for you, and I was saying it makes sense because that’s the quickest way to build trust is when somebody can interact with you live. Like I remember working with a person back this might’ve been almost three years ago and she had a huge social media following and wanted to do webinars. But like she kept pushing for the evergreen webinar but she wouldn’t own that was evergreen. So like she had like various softwares that she had found to make the evergreen webinar appear live. Yeah, it’s like, don’t go down this route.
Speaker 2:
I’m telling you, like you’re paying me to coach you don’t try to make something that’s recorded appear live she’s like no, but I can just log in on my phone and respond to comments as I see them pop up on my phone, but I’m not actually there. It’s a recording. I’m like people can detect that and then your trust is shot, like because they realize it’s not live and you’re trying to fake it. I was like, just own that, it’s a recording, make up some reasons like why it has to, or just share the reason why it needs to be a recording and then say that you’re there to respond to questions. But you know, own it and so, anyway, that’s my own little rant about hearing people who are green and try to make it appear black.
Speaker 2:
Don’t do it.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, it’s definitely tricky. Well, and I think I think there you again. You have to like evolve with times and I feel like that people you know, like even growing your email list. You know, I think of some of like the pioneers, like Amy Porterfield and Jenna Kutcher, and they were doing like all these freebies Now there’s a million, everybody does freebies and so people are like oh, you just want my email address, like you know what I mean, and so you have to be like. You have to roll with the punches. You have to be able to like change and try different things, and people are onto it. You know we used to. I say I always say the days of sign up for my newsletter list, those are long gone. People do not sign up for newsletter lists. You got to give them something. They want something. So I think it’s just you have to be.
Speaker 2:
you have to like know what’s going on in the industry know your audience well, like what do they need and and find that so. So I’m curious what your thoughts are on something that we’ve done and are thinking about rolling out across everywhere that the lead magnet is available. But the context is, I did an affiliate let’s call it a bundle launch, if you will where me and several other people that also serve the online course creator niche got together and we just counted some of our lower ticket offers that were from 27 and 37 down to $1. And it was a limited time week discount and then we each promoted each other’s offers in email and then I thought this went really well for me, by the way, and so I thought you know, why don’t I just take that and that mini course that I call the ad testing cheat code? You know it’s very specific result Like this is the framework that I use to cut my lead costs as low as I can for clients.
Speaker 2:
What if I just always had that as a lead magnet, but it’s a dollar and I just get rid of all three lead magnets and it’s just, it’s a dollar? Any thoughts? What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3:
No, I think you have to see what works, because I think that’s in the same boat as like doing these online summits where you’re cross marketing and I think cross marketing is very effective. I’ve done similar things where I’ve done bundles with people and I think it depends on who you’re doing it with, honestly, because, like, I’ve done it with people and it’s been really successful with me, for me, and then I’ve done other times I’m like, oh, I’m never doing that again. That was like so much work and I didn’t get a return on it. So I think it just depends on who you’re doing with.
Speaker 3:
I, personally, I’ve done an online summit where I hosted I hosted my first online summit last year and it was a learning experience and I learned that, like man, people like don’t promote the way that I’m promoting and I need to, I need to vet them a little bit more. So I I’m a huge believer in doing cross-marketing and try, you know, like if you if the same ideal audience but you’re not in competition, if you can find those collaborations, they’re golden, they’re so they’re great growing your email list. So, yes, I do think it depends on the. That’s kind of a loaded question, but it depends on who you’re doing it with, but I think, yes, it can be very effective.
Speaker 2:
Awesome. And what about like having a lead magnet for a dollar versus just for free?
Speaker 3:
I mean it’s tricky because people are well, a dollar is not that much, so it probably it probably would work. But I think I think people are getting to where they expect stuff for free. You know what I mean? I don’t know, that’s a tricky one. I don’t know. I don’t have experience with that. I have, I have a library of lead magnets. I have a lot. Some work better than others, obviously, but I think that there’s not a lot of resistance in a dollar so it could sell. But also I think people think, oh, I can find that for free too. So I think it’s tricky. It depends on what it is. I guess you know what.
Speaker 2:
I mean In my mind, and this is like what I’m kind of just really thinking on is I look at the open rates?
Speaker 2:
right, and open rates are decent for a free lead magnet. Yeah, right, and open rates are decent for a free lead magnet. Yeah, then, how many people are actually using a free something? For example this the same thing. I had it for free and because it was a mini course, I could see you know you never look at the progress of a course, right, but I could see, like that, so few of the people that had gotten it for free ever even watched. Yeah, like the four lessons and they’re like good value.
Speaker 3:
They say if you don’t pay, you don’t pay attention right.
Speaker 2:
So I’m wondering one like on the brand level, am I and it’s very selfish play but like, am I really helping my brand if there’s not, like people who are getting success from my lead magnet, you know? And then out there like, oh yeah, I got Quajo’s thing, you know. And then two like they’re on the email list If they didn’t do the lead magnet that they needed help from, then like how well are they actually going to respond to?
Speaker 3:
emails.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. What’s been your experience?
Speaker 3:
I mean my highest converting lead magnet is I have a course called how to Grow your Facebook Group and it’s 50 free viral Facebook posts and their Canva templates. It’s probably my highest converting, meaning highest converting to my email list. And then I try to sell them on my group to my email list. And then I try to sell them on my group and it does. You know, there’s a I call it, there’s a leak in my funnel because they’re getting the freebie but they’re not buying the course and the course is not really that expensive and it’s a great course. So I have a leak in that funnel but it converts to email.
Speaker 3:
So I am like, oh, I need to, it’s my funnel. I have a tweak in my funnel but I, I want people on my email list, you know, and so I think it. I think it’s tricky because you know like you want them on your email list. Again, I think it goes back to you have to nurture them and get them on your different platforms Like I want. So I have people. So my funnel is a freebie, whatever my freebie may be, and then so this is kind of the funnel strategy that I use is Tell us about it.
Speaker 2:
The high converting sales funnel guide. I’m linking that up in the show notes below.
Speaker 3:
So it’s, you deliver the delivery of your freebie. Then the next email is trying to think is you’re about, you’re about me? And in this email I really believe you have to include a picture because I want you to think about your behaviors. I sign up for there’s one specifically, there’s somebody that I signed up for something on, and I don’t know what a freebie. And I’m getting the emails and I cannot remember who this person is. I’m like who is this person? What did I sign up for? Because there’s no connection there. Like I haven’t built the connection, I have no idea who it is. So we have to use visual. So I want them to build a connection to me. So I always include a picture, if you feel comfortable, a picture of your family, because then there’s that even more deeper like connection there. But I like to include a picture of myself on a majority of my emails because I want people to build the connection not just with, like my content, but that, that visual, that visual connection too, so they know who I am. Oh, yeah, yeah, I know who Brittany is blah, blah, blah, like so. So then it’s, and then it’s so, then it’s the about me, and then it’s like I want to get them in my other networks. So I say, hey, join my Facebook group. Hey, here is my Instagram, follow me here. So I want to get them in my other networks because, even though I’m active on Instagram and my podcast, I still am on LinkedIn, pinterest. I’m everywhere. I’m on Facebook. I just repurpose my content and so I don’t know where my audience you know my audience could be at any of those places. I want them to follow me in all the places because I don’t know where they spend their time Right.
Speaker 3:
Then my next email is value, value, value, value, offer. So I’m giving them value, I’m positioning myself as an expert. I’m giving them, like, good resources. And the way to see if your funnel is working is you go to your analytics and you see what. What is your open rate? What is your click-through rate? Your open rate is highly dependent on your subject title.
Speaker 3:
So if people are not opening your email, it could be one of two problems. It could be they’re not your ideal client, but more often than not it’s. You don’t have a good subject line and it’s not enticing enough, so you need to tweak that. That’s your open rate. Your click-through rate is your call to action. What’s your call to action? So your call to action can be like hey, click here to follow me on Instagram. They’re clicking on a link in your email.
Speaker 3:
So is your click-through rate? Is it enticing enough? Are they clicking on it? And those are things that you look at through through your analytics is are they opening my stuff? Are they, you know, clicking, clicking my calls to action? And now and then, when you go to that, if they aren’t converting, then it could be the copy on your sales page or whatever you’re offering. So understanding the analytics is really important to know you know what’s working and what’s not. If people aren’t clicking on your stuff, it’s one of two problems they’re not your ideal client or your your copy isn’t compelling enough. You need to look at that. You need to look at those things.
Speaker 3:
So, but again, I think that you have to nurture a little bit longer than than than normal. I, like I said once a quarter I do. I launched something that I already have, whether it’s my membership, my program. I always do a live training because I it’s it’s the highest converting. I have tried evergreen before. Here’s the thing with evergreen that I believe. And because you’re an ad specialist, it’s probably you might have luck and it might be effective. You have to spend a lot of money on ads to like for evergreen, and that’s something that people a lot of times don’t like, aren’t transparent about, is it’s an investment, it’s a numbers game and you have to spend money on ads. If you’re going to do evergreen, you have to constantly be promoting it in some shape, way or form, and that’s how evergreen is effective. So you know it’s a complicated equation.
Speaker 2:
There’s many variables in the evergreen not to mention the first. One of the first things you told us on this episode was live works best for you and live does build trust the best. As soon as you go to evergreen, it’s like might as well cut your stats in half and that’s like the rosy scenario. So you have to be very on point with all the variables in the equation messaging jamie had a question.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, what is? Can you tell us what a good open rate is? Yeah, yeah, click through rate. Yeah, what are you seeing with your?
Speaker 3:
yeah, so so it depends on your industry. It’s different across different industries. 30 is the minimum that you should be striving for, 30 open rate and mine, like I’m happy, between 40 and 50. That I’m happy. And and I want I talked a little bit about growing your email list and the difference between email lists and social media.
Speaker 3:
The average open rate is 30% and, and I okay, say, for example, you have 10,000 people on your email list and your average open rate is 30%. That’s 3000 people are opening your email. Say you have 10,000 people on Instagram, right now, it’s less than 5% of people who are seeing your stuff. And so do the math. Here I have, I have an Instagram of 10,000 people. I can tell you, right now, my email list has a way higher conversion rate than my social media. So that’s why I’m always pushing like email, grow your email list, grow your email list. People are opening emails. They’re seeing your name, they because of the algorithm, it’s it’s so unpredictable you don’t know what you’re going to get. So so then your click-through rate should be around 5%. If they, that means once they’re in your email, are they clicking the call to action. So 5% is a good number to shoot for For the click through rate.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, okay, great, yeah, we’ve. We’ve talked recently with other guests about just in this past year, kind of being in this trust recession and so, yeah, just having that. I think what you were saying about going live, finding out what is what is building that know like and trust for your, for your audience and your ideal clients.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
So what else are we going to ask you? Oh, back to the, the dollar, the dollar thing, selling our, our offer, our course for that. I think our thought on that was that because it’s cheap enough, right that it, it gets people in. Because, oh you think, oh, a dollar, it’s not a big deal, Right?
Speaker 1:
But, then it’s also kind of qualifying people that are willing to pay something. Hopefully, like you said, if you pay even a little bit, then you’re more willing to put in the time and take action, open the corners, do the lessons and then possibly get some of the other offers that are available, so that was kind of our thought on there as far as and I agree with that.
Speaker 3:
I also think it’s tricky because I’ve put things for cheaper, sometimes, like I’m like, oh, I’m going to try this for cheaper and I think it gets. Because it’s like, are you also devaluing what you’re you’re offering to? You know what I mean, like sometimes that that price point, maybe people are like, oh, this, well, it must not be that good if it’s only this much. You know what I mean. So I think it’s one. It’s like marketing you have to test and you have to see, like, what’s working for you and what’s not.
Speaker 3:
And I told you that I did an online summit not too long ago and I, you know, I had great content in there and I and I thought I’m not getting to do it for free, I’m going to pay, I’m going to charge people, and I think it, I think it shot me in the foot, to be honest, like if I’m going to do it again now, I’m not going to do it that way. I’m going to offer it for free at the beginning and then there’s going to be a deadline and then they have to pay after that, because I wanted more people to, why would I pay? And so I think I think it just gets tricky and you have to test. I tested and I was charging and I’m going to do it again and I’m not going to charge. I’m not going to, I’m going to charge, but I’m going to offer it for free for like two weeks and then after that I’m going to charge. But I think it’s one of those things where it’s like what is your goal, what is your objective? And that’s what marketing is is it is testing and failing testing and failing testing and failing figuring out what works, what speaks to people.
Speaker 3:
I did. I had a course this was when I very first started and I it was called it was my Instagram course how to grow your Instagram and I called it convert was the name of it Convert, how to convert your followers to clients. And I and I launched it and I was like wow, this is such a good course, why is it not selling? And so I was. I was so bummed out about it because I spent a lot of time on it, and then I decided, you know what, I’m not going to just like give up on this. So I decided I was going to rebrand it and I was like and I changed the title to grow your gram how to grow your Instagram. I learned you have to sell people what they want and you give them what they need.
Speaker 3:
It doesn’t matter how big your Instagram is. It matters if you know how to sell on your Instagram. But I had to change my marketing and that was a good example of testing where I you have to. You have to sell them what they want and give them what they need. I coach a lot of like health coaches or weight loss coaches and everybody’s trying to get away from losing weight, or you know what I mean? We’re trying to be like live healthy, but I’m just like at the end of the day, people are Googling how do I lose 10 pounds? Like you have to mark. You have to give them what they want, which is how to lose fight. Tell them I’m going to teach you lose 10 pounds and then you give them all the mindset shifts and all the things that you know. That is marketing is like what do people want and you sell that to them and then you can give them what they need, but you have to sell them what they want and that’s that’s marketing, is testing and figuring that out it’s christmas time right now.
Speaker 2:
I want Christmas level eating all year round and to lose weight. That’s what I want. If you ever happen to coach a health coach that has exactly exactly. What you say is it’s very, it’s very, very true. Like, yes, we’ve seen that from your story in the previous episode, but like we’ve seen that from your story in the previous episode, but also we’ve seen that with the various businesses that we’ve tried, the failures that we’ve had and the successes that we have, you absolutely speak the truth.
Speaker 1:
You know what you’re doing.
Speaker 2:
What’s the last thing you would say to somebody if they didn’t happen to go down into the show notes below and get your guide, your free guide, high converting sales, follow guide. And they never heard from you again what’s like the final thing you would say to them on this episode right now high pressure, throw your email list, make email list a priority and then just be consistent.
Speaker 3:
Just you know like it’s just show up, be committed to showing up and and just consistency, just trying all the things testing. Get good at failing that’s what I’d say. Get good at failing. The more you fail, the more you succeed.
Speaker 2:
So why does consistency and getting good at failing matter so much in success?
Speaker 3:
Consistency and getting good at failing matters so much in success. You have to show up and you have to be present, and if you can’t, you know I had this experience with my daughter this weekend. My daughter is a wrestler and she has worked so hard and you know she lost. You know, the first day, it was a two-day tournament. She lost the first day. The second day she lost, she went. She’s good the. You know, the first day it was a two day tournament. She lost the first day. The second day, she, she lost, she went, she’s good the first day. It lost the second day.
Speaker 3:
She was so in her head about about losing and I had to say her hon, it is not about perfection, is about progression, and how you progress is through consistency, and so I think that that is just so important. Like, if you want to progress, you have to. It’s like anything, it’s practice and it, it. It doesn’t just stop when you know it goes your whole entire life. If you want to get good at something, you have to practice, and consistency is how you do it.
Speaker 2:
There we go.
Speaker 1:
There we go.
Speaker 2:
Keep showing that Words of wisdom, and and you’ve lived it, you’ve lived it, we keep hearing.
Speaker 1:
It takes like five years or so to really get in a good spot in your business, because it’s like the first several years are just showing up, people knowing who you are and kind of figuring out what’s working for you here’s to success for you, brittany and for us and for you too, the listener alright.
Speaker 2:
So thanks for being here on this episode. Thanks for having me. Awesome. Well until the next time we hear from you or see from you, take care, be blessed and we’ll see you in the next one.
Speaker 1:
Bye.
Speaker 2:
Bye.
