Empire builders, not only is it possible to turn $10 to $100 with your ecommerce business, but you can do it again and again. Ecommerce and dropshipping are great opportunities to predictably expand your profits, week by week. Learn how to hack your sales funnel for more streamlined — and repeatable — profits.
How It’s Commonly Done
When it comes to ecommerce and dropshipping, there’s a pattern that most entrepreneurs use in order to sell their product. This usually involves increasing traffic to their website and to a single product through advertising, social media, influencer promotion, and whatever other means suit their product. This is a service that is paid for and therefore cuts into profit margins.
Take a company that sells their merchandise for $20. Increasing traffic to their website, and therefore getting a consumer to look at their product, will generally cost around $10. Now, this initially seems like a great deal. They just made $10.
However, this isn’t looking at the bigger picture. The initial potential for revenue is $20. This is immediately halved due to the cost of advertisements and increasing traffic. Then, you also have to take into account the cost of the product, as this is an example involved with dropshipping a physical product.
Even if the product and shipping costs only come to $5, the company is left with a net of $5. That’s not exactly a number that inspires, and this is what scares people always from starting their empire. There’s an easier way to make a profit right away and create a successful dropshipping business.
A Better Way: Hack Your Sales Funnel
The key is controlling the narrative and how much you’re able to make. Let’s look at this another way, but with the exact same initial setup. You start with a product that has a potential revenue of $20, and the cost of advertising is still $10. This is where I want to mix things up and introduce something new.
We don’t want to just leave things as they currently stand, with the potential to make $5. We want to grow this potential.
To do that, I’m going to add a simple one-click upsell — nothing too complicated or technical. If you want to dive into the meat of why this works, I’ve extensively covered the topic before. If you want to learn how I took a brand-new business and turned $0 to $1000 a day in only three days, click here!
How to Add an Upsell to Your Sales Funnel
For our purposes now, just view the upsell as an opportunity for your business to make more money without spending more on additional advertising. It basically allows a customer to buy more of your product and to do so easily. This is important for any business, no matter what you’re selling or in what format.
Your first sale is likely not going to amount to much of a profit. In fact, even the previous example is optimistic. Breaking even is a pretty good goal when you’re first starting out. So, if you offer a $40 upsell, then your revenue just jumped up to $60. After subtracting $10 for advertising and maybe $20 for the cost of goods, your net is now $30. That’s a lot better than $5.
While not every customer is going to purchase your upsell, you’re allowing yourself the opportunity to make more money per sale, and some consumers will decide to go for it. The best part is, the potential doesn’t stop there. You can customize this funnel and how things sell to fit your company’s needs.
You don’t have to just have one upsell. The first sale you make, once a consumer decides to use their money on your product, dictates the rest of your profits. Once you learn this, it’s almost like magic.
Subscription-Based Sales Funnels
That first sale you make — our $20 example — is going to be the hardest. It’s also going to be the most important, as all the pieces start from that sale and are put together to maximize your profits. The amount you’re going to make all stems from what you do behind the scenes.
In this subscription-based sales funnel method, things start in the same way. You have your traffic coming into your store for your front-end product. However, this time visualize an order form, which is where someone buys something from your store. Your $20 product will be on this order form. Then, you’re going to want to implement the following hacks to increase the amount of product a single customer will buy from you, or your average cart value:
Step One to Hack Your Sales Funnel: Encourage Bigger Buys
My first suggestion is to add quantity discounts. If a consumer buys 4, or 6 of your products, they should get a discount. You might be questioning if anyone would actually buy multiples, but studies show they do. People love a good deal. Take advantage of this and offer a better discount as the quantity goes up. It’s going to make you more money by increasing the likelihood that more of your product will sell to a single customer.
Step Two to Hack Your Sales Funnel: Create Order Bumps
Next, consider adding something called an order bump right under your front-end product. This is basically a no-brainer you offer a customer to buy alongside your product. Your local grocery store already does this by enticing you with little treats as they’re ringing up your groceries. Think about how often you take advantage of those.
If you’re a company selling toothbrushes, your order bump would be toothpaste. Why wouldn’t a consumer take advantage? When they do, that’s more money for you. This can help you break even or make a profit from the very start. Then, you can move to other tactics.
To summarize steps one and two: I recommend offering more of what they just bought at a discounted price and then a complementary product. This is any product customers frequently buy alongside your type of primary product, and you can easily figure out what this product might be through Amazon. Make sure you’re giving them a good deal on the product as well. Offering these two upsells should be simple, allowing the customer to either choose yes or no and then move on.
They won’t have to navigate throughout the website or click through multiple pages. They can buy lots of your products with two clicks, as there are no cart pages. That’s the beauty of this funnel.
Step Three to Hack Your Sales Funnel: Create Subscription Upsell Sequences
The third upsell is key. I refer to this upsell as the continuity upsell, and it’s the subscription aspect of your funnel. Offer your customers a monthly incentive, such as a subscription box or digital access. This will give you recurring revenue and a loyal customer base. Here’s more information about subscriptions, because they really are gold for your company. The subscription upsell should be another one-click option, and customers automatically get billed. Aim for a 50% margin here, as this is where you’ll want to pay yourself and invest in other assets for your company. Always, always, always offer a subscription option!
Here’s something else to keep in mind. When you pay for advertisements on Facebook, you’re not paying for customers. You’re paying for data that will help you understand more about what consumers want. A simple upsell sequence will help you get more of that data and make more money. It’s easy, fast, and beneficial for someone’s first business.
Hack Your Sales Funnel and Grow Your Business Faster
When you put all of these pieces together, you can really start to see a potential for great profit. The original example of $5 in net profit can easily be turned into hundreds if not thousands of dollars when you implement these funnels and sequences. You can also check out my YouTube channel for more tips and insights.
If you enjoyed this information and are looking forward to starting your own dropshipping business and maximize your product, check out my free ecommerce masterclass. You’ll learn how to make a 5-step ecommerce funnel without building a website and turn it into your full-time income. Reserve your seat today, and remember: your empire starts now!
