A sales funnel for an eCommerce store? It doesn’t sound right.
The first reaction of entrepreneurs, especially those who already know ClickFunnels, is that it is a tool that should not be used for eCommerce sites.
Many people believe that sales funnel is best used for services for affiliate marketing. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.
A sales funnel can be used for anything—anything that aims to get a sale at the end of the process.
In this post, I will share with you how to use ClickFunnels for eCommerce. In specific, building an eCommerce store.
Technically speaking, every website that sells something is an eCommerce enterprise, but for all intents and purposes, we will use the term eCommerce to refer to a retail store.
At the end of this tutorial, you should be armed with the right information on how you can use ClickFunnels software to build an eCommerce store.
More importantly, you should be able to see the advantages of building a ClickFunnels eCommerce store over a contemporary website.
Contents
What is ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels is a sales funnel builder. A sales funnel is a series of web pages that has the following things:
- A landing page
- A sales or checkout page
- An opt-in page
- An upsell page
- A back-end offer
As you can see, the structure is different from a typical website. A sales funnel is built to make a sale—and that is what ClickFunnels does. It is a system that allows you to do the following things:
- Use pre-made Clickfunnels ecommerce template for a funnel
- Create and customize the sales funnel with a drag-and-drop editor
- Capture email addresses and send automated responses
- Take payments
- Offer product upsells and bonuses
Just to put an emphasis here: ClickFunnels is an all-in-one tool that lets you build a hard-selling store. A website, on the other hand, is not built to do that.
Why Should You Use ClickFunnels For Ecommerce
The typical ecommerce store is built like Amazon. It has categories, sections, and rows of products. Upon clicking the product image, the website takes the site visitor to the product page where he can check out.
This rarely works. Many ecommerce entrepreneurs scratch their heads trying to figure out why, despite having a lot of traffic on a normal website, their websites or product pages do not convert.
And this is one of the reasons why you should use ClickFunnels for your ecommerce store.
But here are more reasons:
ClickFunnels For Ecommerce Is Built For Sales
The ClickFunnels system is like an ecommerce store builder on steroids; the trouble with many ecommerce store builders is they do not drive sales. They are like ordinary shelves where you stack your product, but they are not “inviting” the customers to buy.
ClickFunnels on the other hand, is like a salesperson who asks people to come to your store, explain the product, and do hard selling.
ClickFunnels For eCommerce Is Easy To Use
Many ecommerce platforms are like skeletal systems. They provide the framework so you can build your store, but the rest is made of plug-ins and apps.
You are essentially building a Frankenstein store where you use parts are not compatible—you pick the best apps to stitch to the body, and the resulting store is ghastly.
ClickFunnels For eCommerce Has Complete Suite of Tools
ClickFunnels has a complete suite of tools—all of which were designed for only one thing: conversion. Many ecommerce site builders have fancy stuff that you do not need—they slow down your website and degrade the customer experience.
ClickFunnels is not like this. If cars have F1, then ecommerce platforms have ClickFunnels. All the tools in the system were built for each other, and they are all built for one purpose—to win the race.
ClickFunnels For Ecommerce Can Save You Cost
If you build your ecommerce store on typical platforms like BigCommerce, Shopify, or WooCommerce, you would be surprised that you have to keep on paying for some apps and plug-ins. For example, you have to pay for:
- Email autoresponder to build your email list
- Upsell and bundling apps
Before you know it, you are spending more than $100 a month just to sustain the “rent” on your platform and tools.
With ClickFunnels storefront, you do not need to spend on all of these because they are already part in the system—and you only have to pay one price.
Benefits of Using ClickFunnels For eCommerce
Now that we have established why you should use ClickFunnels for eCommerce, let’s find out what are the benefits of the ClickFunnels system over other platforms?
Affiliate Marketing
ClickFunnels system has what it calls BackPack. It is an affiliate marketing software that allows you to create an affiliate program.
What it means is that you can attract marketers to promote your eCommerce product. If they register, they will receive an affiliate link.
You can set the commission for the sale they make—you can track their performance, too.
With this tool, you can save a ton on marketing because you only pay a commission if a sale is made.
Actionetics
This is a software that allows you to capture the email addresses of your cold traffic. In exchange, they get a lead magnet from you.
In a typical ecommerce platform, you are unable to do this. What you could do is to capture the email, but the system is not equipped to send anything to the subscriber.
Webinars
You can upload videos in ClickFunnels system and invite people to subscribe to watch it. You can use this to demonstrate your eCommerce product you are selling.
Once they have registered, you can start using the Actionetics tool to consistently send them email marketing messages.
The last that I want to mention is membership. In the ClickFunnels system, you can ask people to subscribe and pay a monthly subscription—best for products that you want to send on a monthly basis like food supplements.
Steps To Use ClickFunnels For Ecommerce Store
Here are the high-level steps on how to build an eCommerce store using ClickFunnels platform.
Step 1: Choose Ecommerce Funnel Templates
When you sign up for ClickFunnels Free Trial you get access to choose an ecommerce funnel template or build it from scratch; this step involves building a landing page.
Step 2: Upload Your eCommerce Product Image
The next steps is to upload your images to the system, and then drag those images or videos to the areas where you want them to stay.
Step 3: Ad Copy For eCommerce
You need to write ad copy. The ad copy is a long series of text that do the following things:
- Mentioning the problem
- Include your stories.
- Telling the reader that you have the solution to the problem
- Explaining how your product is superior to others
- Offering bonuses
Producing a great ad copy can be though, you can either write it or use a copywriting software.
Step 4: Add The Parts To Your Ecommerce Funnel
The parts of the funnels you add are your checkout page, your upsell pages, and then programming your email capture and lead magnets.
Step 5: Edit The eCommerce Funnel
Polish your sales funnel, correct spelling mistakes, and then go through each step one by one to check if you have missed out on something.
Step 6: Launch Your eCommerce Funnel
Lastly, test your funnel before launching it. Make sure that the domain name you integrated with it works.
Utilize the Launch Checklist to ensure all funnel steps are correct. If possible, make two versions and then run both—see which funnel converts better, and then scale up on that.
Tips To Market Your ClickFunnels Ecommerce Store
Now, here are some tips on how to drive traffic to your eCommerce store build using ClickFunnles :
Social Media
Build social media pages such as Facebook page and consistently post content to build a following; make sure that your sales funnel is accessible from your posts.
Tutorials
You can publish tutorials on YouTube, and then share them on your social media channels. The tutorial must show a demo on how your eCommerce product works.
Pais Ads
If you have no experience in running paid ads, you need to take things slowly. There are various platforms such as Google AdWords or Bing Ads.
Choose a platform and learn. Pay a small amount to run live ads, and then see how they turn out. You can also do A/B split testing, so you know which kind of ad is driving traffic.
Blogging
The last method is blogging; you can integrate your ClickFunnels sales funnel to your WordPress blog.
Blogging is a great marketing strategy because you are building an asset that will be online forever—you will get free organic traffic from Google, and you will save on the cost of paid ads over the long term.
It is up to you to choose which ones you want to use. My general advice is that you pick only one—make it work, and then become a master of this traffic source.
After mastering the first one, you can move on and use other traffic channels. Find out more about online advertising.
How To Use ClickFunnels For Ecommerce: Conclusion
ClickFunnels is better than an ecommerce platform. It has everything you need to build and run an ecommerce store.
Now that you know how to use ClickFunnels for ecommerce, you need to make a hard decision.
Will you focus on selling a single product that has a high likelihood of converting, or will you use a typical store builder and cross your fingers to make a sale?
Calvin Lim is a professional blogger and founder of TheCalvinLim.
He enjoys helping others learn about various internet marketing tools and dedicated to helping people achieve success online.