You ever wonder how certain freelancers have a consistent stream of high-quality, high-paying clients while you’re left scratching around for scraps, despite your work being as good or even better than theirs?
You probably feel like a frustrated imposter at how unfair it is that clients choose to work with competitors rather than you, or an uncertain, stagnant failure who should go back to the real world and get a real job. Or maybe you feel envious and they’re overpriced con artists who rip off their clients.
And that’s completely normal, because the truth is we all have our moments of weakness and self-doubt.
That’s exactly why you need an effective website strategy that will convert visitors into buyers so you can create a stable and secure freelance career, and protect yourself against anxiety, stress, burnout and low paying, unappreciative clients.
Because what we want is to be able to live a happy, fulfilling life doing work we love, AND to get paid well by appreciative clients for helping them grow their businesses with the immense value our hard-earned skills and talents provide.
Here’s how to create a freelance website funnel so you can get more clients and stop being that anxious, overworked freelancer whoring yourself out to rude, over-expectant clients or low paying freelance marketplaces…
Table of Contents
1) Find Your Client’s “Neck Bleed” Problem…
You can’t find you ideal client if you don’t know who they are, right?
And you can’t help them if you don’t understand their biggest problem.
I like to call this big pain their “neck bleed” problem because it needs to be a problem serious enough for them to want to act and fix it immediately.
The key to determining this is asking yourself who your ideal client is and figuring out the most severe pain point for that person.
One sure-fire method of getting this done is to create an ideal customer avatar. It’s also known as a client persona and is a detailed description that helps you to attract clients who are a perfect fit for you and your services.
To create your client avatar, interview yourself and write down your responses.
Ask yourself:
- Where your strengths lie?
- What type of work you prefer?
- What you don’t like doing?
- What type of work is likely to earn you the most money?
- What similarities do your top five customers (or prospective customers) share?
At this stage, you should have a good understanding of the types of clients you want to attract. Now, you need to go deeper into the motivations of your ideal customers.
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To do this, create a list. It should include your ideal cleints:
- Personal data (employment information, educational background, marital status, earnings etc)…
- Passions and interests (including websites, brands, apps and books etc)…
- Worries, pains and fears (problems, blocks, challenges etc)…
- Biggest desires (dreams, secret wants and what will he or she pay for? etc)…
Use your findings to write up your idea client avatar and add information about what the largest problem facing that person is…
Now you’ve found your ideal client and their single biggest problem it’s time to…
2) Craft Your Main Offer…
As a freelancer, your main offer is a service that SOLVES your avatars largest pain point…
It’s possible that you already have an offer which fits the bill. If so, use that.
But it’s very likely that it can be enhanced so don’t be a lazy bum freelancer, tweak your offer to make it as relevant and good as it can be. Your customer persona and main offer should marry together perfectly.
Once you have your core offer it’s time to…
3) Sliver Off Your Conversion Tool…
A conversion tool is a small offer which is designed to entice a prospective buyer to purchase a more expensive and valuable service…
As a freelancer, it likely that you have some high-priced services and people need to feel they trust you before they will buy from you. Your conversion tool helps to build trust and familiarity and gets people to know and like you.
When a new lead decides to take your conversion tool offer, it changes the way that person thinks, by moving them from awareness to interest.
The most effective conversion tools will get your lead on the phone.
An audit or strategy session is ideal, especially so if you’re selling freelance services that usually require a consultative call so you can understand the business’s unique needs.
A great conversion tool will speed up the pace of your customer’s decision-making. You’ll create interest fast, show the value of your service and expert status, establish goodwill and build trust and rapport.
You can offer these types of tools for free or for a fee. If this is your first time creating a freelance website funnel, I recommend you start with a free conversion tool. A paid tool will require a proper sales page, good copywriting skills and far more setup.
Here are some great conversion tools you can use:
- Strategy calls
- Audits
- Consultations
- Webinars
You can go for something else if you wish. Just make sure your conversion tool offers a tiny piece of compelling information or advice that is related to your service and leads your prospect naturally to your main offer.
After you have created your conversion tool, make sure you create a compelling name for it that will appeal to your ideal customer.
Like this one below… ;-)
Now, it’s time to take your conversion tool and…
4) Sliver Off Your Lead Magnet…
A lead magnet is a small, specific piece of information that you give to your ideal customer in exchange for their contact details…
In exchange for your ideal client’s contact information, you offer something of value, in most cases a valuable piece of information.
The best lead magnets will give your prospect an “eureka” moment and establish you as an expert in your niche. It’s will also enhance trust and boost your chances of converting a prospect to a buyer.
A good lead magnet should be specific, quick to consume, easy to understand, extremely valuable, solve a problem, explaining the why rather than the how, have great copy, a killer headline and be IRRESISTIBLE to your ideal client.
It’s particularly important to make sure your lead magnet is specific and easily consumable. The more specific your lead magnet is the more appealing it will be to your target audience.
And the quicker your lead magnet is to consume the more people will accept your included conversion tool offer and take action when they’re most interested (remember, I’m explaining this in reverse).
Good, easy-to-consume lead magnets you should use include:
- Workbooks
- Blueprints
- Videos
- Guides
- Templates
- Checklists
- Cheat sheets
Now, it’s time to tie this all together on your freelance website and …
5) Build Your Website Landing Pages…
A landing page is a webpage that you use to collect leads or sell a single service…
An excellent landing page will focus the attention of your visitor and remove distractions, such as sidebars and menus.
It is designed to increase conversions and the number of people who act. A conversion happens when a visitor does what you want him or her to do.
To tie this all together, you’ll need to make a lead magnet, success, and confirmation landing page.
Your lead magnet page is a landing page where a visitor is sent to view your lead magnet offer and then enter his or her contact information to take advantage of your offer.
Your success page should thank the prospect for taking part and offer your conversion tool along with a form to complete. The form is designed to collect the name, email address and telephone number of that person and to enable them to accept your conversion tool offer.
Your confirmation page should then thank your lead for requesting your conversion tool and inform them they will receive a call soon to discuss a suitable time to deliver your conversion tool.
After you’ve made and linked these 3 landing pages together, you’ll be ready to…
6) Drive Visitors to Your Website…
You need to drive people to your website and lead magnet offer to convert them to leads…
So you need to decide if you want to pay for website traffic or use your own time to generate free visitors and traffic.
Remember, you can always make more money but you can’t get back your time, so balance your desire to save money with your desire to have enough time to handle other aspects your business and life. Everyone has different needs though so ultimately it’s your choice.
There’s certainly no shortage of ways to get website traffic though.
Popular FREE traffic methods include:
- Cold phone calls (offer businesses your conversion tool directly)
- Cold email
- Partnerships
- Content marketing
- Social media or email outreach
- Guest blog posts
- DIY social media marketing
- DIY search engine optimisation (SEO)
…and…
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Popular PAID traffic methods include:
- Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
- Retargeting (shows an advert to people that have already been to your website)
- Search engine optimisation (SEO)
- Print and offline advertising
- Facebook advertising
- Banner adverts
- Social media marketing / management
- Content marketing
Once your driving visitors to your site and lead magnet landing page, if your offer is compelling, you will start to generate leads and sales.
But what about your prospects who don’t go for your conversion tool or convert to customers immediately?
These are people who have expressed an interest in what you have to offer. If you neglect warm leads your wasting money.
So if you want to increase sales the next step is to…
7) Nourish Your Warm Leads with Email (on Autopilot)…
Certain customers take longer than other to make decisions about buying…
It’s perfectly normal. But these prospects shouldn’t be forgotten. Instead, you should continue to nurture these warm prospects over time with emails that add value and convince them your service is the right choice for their business.
A good place to start is with an initial campaign of three to five emails over a two-week period.
These emails can all be set up in advance and sent out on autopilot using an email autoresponder. I use and highly recommend Active Campaign for its ease of use and excellent marketing automation abilities.
Once you have this rocking it a good idea to segment your emails. This means writing different emails for each segment on your list. One segment could be clients who have expressed interest but haven’t bought. Another might be VIP clients who buy a lot. This is very easy to do in Active Campaign with the use of automatic tags.
That’s it! Now, you know how to create your freelance website funnel and get clients on demand, it simply down to you to…
Finalise the Deal…
Sales and closing the deal is often the part freelance and creative people dislike most…
No one wants to “salesy”. But the best thing is, with this freelance funnel system you don’t need to be.
If you’ve optimised your freelance website funnel well, you’re going to stand out from your rival freelancers and become your ideal clients top choice. Your “sales” call will be just like talking to a friend and doing your utmost to provide them with help.
Of course, you can’t win every project. But with some practice, you’ll have a reliable system to generate clients on demand, stabilise your career and finally remove the dreaded anxiety, stress and “freelance fear” you can often experience as a self-employed individual.
If you enjoyed this article or you’d like to discover more about how to increase YOUR website leads and sales and avoid expensive website mistakes from the beginning, click here to get your FREE website plan: “9 Things You Must Know Before you Build a Website” now!
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