How I Add Passive Income to My Sales Funnels
4 Quick Ways You Can Add Passive Income to Your Sales Funnel Too
“Passive income lets you earn money while you sleep…”
Over the years I have built several sales funnels in various niches from the “make money online” niche to the “self help” niche.
One thing I’ve discovered all those years, is that it is becoming more difficult to generate profit from the regular sales funnel.
Whenever you manage to get a prospect into your funnel, you have to generate as much revenue as possible from that prospect in order to make your entire funnel profitable or self-liquidating.
Many businesses and freelancers decide to add a passive stream of income to their sales funnels as a natural, next step forward as they grow.
The idea of passive income is often sold as “getting paid while you sleep,” but there’s actually quite a bit more to it than that. However, if setup properly, it can be highly profitable and make you experience the feeling of “being paid while you sleep”.
Passive income, is a stream of revenue that flows even if you’re not actively working on it. In other words, you set it up and, with little maintenance, it runs on its own.
You create something once and your customers can buy it through an automated system, which means you can take payments 24/7.
This is a dream for businesses, and it’s much easier to do nowadays with the help of the Internet and the wide variety of automated tools available online.
However, the quote at the beginning of this post illuminates a common misconception people have about passive income... It does take some effort initially to set up and there is occasionally some light maintenance.
So it’s not a “setup once and forget about it” system. For most passive income generating systems, you create something (ebook/course) once and sell it over and over again with little to no maintenance involved.
To demonstrate how this works, consider the example of music royalties.
A composer writes a piece of music and every time the piece is licensed or plays on the radio, the composer gets “mailbox money.” The composer had to first put the time and work into creating the piece, but once it’s made and starts selling, the money rolls in.
Why Add Passive Income To You Existing Funnels?
It Releases You From The Cycle Of “No Work” = “No Money”
Passive income releases you from the grind where you work and receive money just for the hours you put in.
You no longer have to trade time for money. It’s a great way to reduce burnout and it allows you to earn more than you can earn through your regular 9–5 work.
Your Customers are Primed to Buy
Your existing sales funnel is a great place to add a passive income because your customers are already there, already qualified, and already primed to buy. It offers a wide variety of opportunities for up-sells and cross-sells.
Reduced Anxiety
If you’re selling online, you have to be constantly on the lookout for opportunities and aggressively trying to get sales.
A passive income gives you some additional revenue, which reduces your anxiety about whether or not you’ll make the next sale.
If you’re a freelancer, passive income can serve as a buffer when you have a slow month. For anyone, a passive income provides a buffer against economic uncertainty caused by financial trouble, illnesses, or lack of a social safety net.
Opportunities for Change
If you’re working for every penny, you don’t have time to focus on marketing, look for new jobs, learn new skills, or seek new clients.
With a passive income source, it’s much easier to weather the lean months.
Raise Awareness of Your Brand
Many businesses create a passive income through downloadable information products. If you’re putting out info products, they’ll not only offer you an income, but also help to raise awareness and spread your brand. More people will know about your expertise and knowledge.
How to Add Passive Income to Your Sales Funnel
There are many areas of a sales funnel where you can add an opportunity to generate passive income. It depends largely on the contour and design of your funnel. But here are four ideas of areas where it can be added for the best results.
Idea 1: Add a Recommended Product to Your Download Page
Your download page is where the customer downloads your product. If the customer is already at your download page, it means they’re already in a buying mood.
You have a highly qualified lead and you can possibly find them a similar product that they might want to buy as well. Here, you can recommend another product and offer it for download.
The other product must be related to the one they’re interested in. It should be something of high value and could be a supplemental product, something they’d buy next.
For example, if you have a product on building websites for beginners, you could recommend a product on how to create and write a blog. You can connect the two by suggesting that the customer build a site and add a blog to it for SEO benefits.
Like your download page, your recommendation should have good copy that emphasizes the benefits and a strong call-to-action.
Let them know why they might also like the other product and price it reasonably. You could also offer a bundle packaging deal or extra bonus product to entice the customer to buy.
For a product on blogging, you could offer a collection of free blog templates, a blog hosting deal, or free membership to an exclusive forum where other website builders discuss and ask questions.
Idea 2: Add a ‘Latest Product’ to Your Email Signature
One of the challenges businesses face is customer retention. How do you get customers to keep buying from you? One way to overcome this challenge is to add ‘Latest Product’ information to your email signature.
Email is a very personal way to reach people. If you’re running an email marketing campaign, you have a list of subscribers that are already keyed in to your message.
If your email subscribers are past customers, this is a great strategy because you’re more likely to get past buyers to buy again than to get new customers to buy for the first time.
When you create a new product, add a blurb emphasizing its benefits and a quick call-to-action in your email signature. Make it stand out with colors and fonts so that you can get your subscribers’ attention.
It’s important to keep it in the signature, not the main body. It’s okay to promote sometimes, but most of your email content should be purely informational and helpful.
If you segment your list, you can offer different new products to different subscribers based on their interests, their persona, or what they’ve bought from you before.
Idea 3: Add a Recommended Product to a Follow-up Email
You can easily add a recommended product to any of your post-purchase follow-up emails.
When following up with a buyer and thanking them for their purchase, asking if they need further help, seeking feedback, or any other purpose, you can also add a bit about a new product you think that person would like (the recommended product doesn’t have to be yours, it could be a product that you are an affiliate for).
You can automate this, but the more personal, the better. It’s important that you make an offer that’s relevant to the customer, or else it will be ignored. At worst, it might seem intrusive. Try to match the customer with something they will actually want after making the first purchase, and use purchase data to do this.
Idea 4: Add a Resources Page on Your Website
Another way to add a passive income opportunity to your sales funnel is by adding a page on your website that offers resources. There will be free resources here designed to help your potential customer, as well as your other products which are related to areas where your customers need help.
A resources page might include things like web hosting, blog themes, plugins, stock photos, books, eBooks, related websites, online training programs, and so on. Mixed in with these resources, add your own products.
This is a good place to put links to affiliate products. Affiliate marketing is a great way to generate passive income. This is where you advertise the products of other vendors for a commission. You’re essentially doing their promoting for them, and reaping the benefits.
A resource page is usually a static page, not a blog, so it takes little maintenance. Make it well-organized with good SEO and you can drive traffic to it from other sources (although it’s important to remember that your best customers are those who are already buying from you). Make your resources page honest and transparent; let visitors know that these are premium products and not free resources like the others.
Passive Income Tips and Best Practices
Don’t offer these products from a place of greed. Sure, you want to earn money while you sleep. But if you’re doing it just for profits, it’ll show and you’ll earn less than you otherwise would. Instead, come from the mindset of helping other people. Create products that will truly help your audience. Offer these in an authentic way to give them more value. If you approach it this way, you’ll see higher conversions.
Keep in mind that, although a passive income can pay you while you sleep, you don’t just set it and forget it. Any passive income stream will require set-up and some regular maintenance. Work this into your overall plan and try to ensure there won’t be a great deal of maintenance. For example, if your passive income involves offering a forum or social media group, this will require regular moderation. An information product involves less ongoing work on your part.
Listen to the voices of your audience. If you listen well, you can get ideas for information products and other passive income opportunities directly from your audience. Try to find out what they need from you. How can your expertise help your audience solve the problems they’re having? Use this as a starting point for ideas.
Finally, add one passive income stream at a time. Try out new ideas and monitor your results. If the first one doesn’t generate much in the way of earnings, try to figure out why and apply what you’ve learned to your next effort. It often takes businesses a little trial-and-error before they hit upon a passive income plan that works for their sales funnel.
It’s true that you can get paid while you sleep by building passive income streams. But before you start getting that “email inbox money,” you need to do some background work and learn. It takes a bit of planning and effort to set up your passive income streams, but it offers a great opportunity to supplement your income and grow your business.
Key Take Away/Action Plan For Adding Passive Income To Your Funnel
- Brainstorm ideas for creating a new product, relevant to your main/existing offer, and choose one to recommend on your download page. If you already offer a wide selection of products, choose the one that is most relevant.
- Draft a paragraph of sales copy for your relevant product offer that you can use on your download page.
- Once you have it ready, go ahead and add that recommended product and link to buy it on your download page.
- Take your latest product and create a short paragraph with a call to action that you can add into your email signature.
- Add in the information to your email signature, making sure to use colors and fonts to make it stand out.
- Take your follow-up email series for buyers of your main offer and add in the relevant product that you recommend, along with a very short paragraph of sales copy explaining why you recommend it.
- Make a list of all the tools, software, and other services you use that you can put on a resources page for your audience.
- Research each item on your list and see if they run an affiliate program.
- Sign up to any affiliate programs that are available.
- Create your resources page with your non-affiliate and affiliate recommendations.
- Make sure your resources page is optimized for a relevant keyword. You can use a tool like Yoast to help you.
- Take a look back through the ideas you came up with and the initial passive income you put into place so far. Then plan which ones you will put into place next.
- Schedule time on your calendar to put your next passive income streams in place.
- While you’re in your calendar, also schedule times to review the revenue results for each type of passive income and which ones have been most successful. That will tell you which to focus on in the future.
