Planning for future changes in your marketing funnel helps plan for marketing success!
Detours are not always fun, and in business detours or changes can affect how our marketing works. When we make changes in our business, and especially in our marketing funnels, if they are not implemented properly you may end up causing a detour or wreak havoc with your marketing results.
Changes happen in business all the time.
We change content all the time on our websites, content in our lead magnets, content in blog posts … life is changing always.
But when you make changes in certain aspects of your content online, other areas may be required to change too and sometimes we forget these extras!
How many of you have updated a lead magnet to a new one and then forgot to update the links online that go to the old one? 🙋 Yep! Me too!
For me, the most common thing I see in this area is changes to lead magnets. The lead magnet may get updated in many ways:
- The cover image
- The file where people download it
- The lead generation page URL (where people can sign up for it)
Or… replaced altogether with a new one! And everything is new.
And more often than not, we forget to update all those places online. So, people going to signup for our lead magnets will now be met with a detour! Or worse yet, a total roadblock.
I get it though, it can be hard to remember where you have all those pieces for the lead magnet so you can remember what to update.
What do I mean? Well, let’s say you decide to update your lead magnet and create an entirely new one. You have it all ready and want to promote only the new one and stop promoting the old lead magnet.
Great. Change is good! But as you go about to promote and market this new lead magnet to get people on your email list, have you forgotten anything about the old one? Is there anything you need to change or take down?
If you haven’t been keeping a File or List with the Lead Magnet setup and all its elements (I do recommend this for every lead magnet), you probably will have forgotten some places where that signup link is online. And those forgotten items can lead to missed signups. A detour for people who want that new lead magnet. Or can be helped by it.
When you create a new lead magnet, you always need to think about where you had positioned the older lead magnet and does anything need to change? What Calls to Action have you got setup online that need to be updated to the new one?
I wrote an article about the 7 places to effectively market your lead magnet so you may want to start here: https://www.pepperitmarketing.com/email-marketing/7-effective-email-marketing-tips
These are the 7 places where I would start to prevent a detour happening, blocking your online audience who may want to act on your marketing content promoting the new lead magnet.
- Email Signature
- Call to Action in Blogs
- Facebook Page About area and website link
- Facebook Page Signup tab
- Twitter/Instagram BIO and website link
- LinkedIn Website URL
- YouTube channel About area and on every YouTube video you share.
Now… does this mean you have to go back and edit every blog post that had a call to action to the old lead magnet or every link you had online?
Not necessarily. That is a lot of work, but it may be needed (see below). You should decide what is a higher level of importance and what should change.
I’d definitely change numbers 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 on this list and number 7 in the about area yes, but not the link on every video used. And those are all quick fixes.
But, as you look at this you realize there will be a lot of links out there going to your old lead magnet. In blog post Calls to Action (#2) and links on Youtube videos and social media content too. If it is really important that people do not go there, a quick alternative to changing every potential call to action and link online is… adding a redirect URL.
Redirect the link of the old lead magnet to the new one!!
It takes all of 30 seconds to setup. Then when people click the old link they found somewhere online it will take them to the new lead magnet signup. (You do risk that the Call to Action may not fit, but it does ensure people still get the new lead magnet option especially if it is very important they do not get to the old one.)
Not sure how a redirect link works? You can check out this article, How to use a Redirection Plugin on your WordPress website. It will explain how redirect links work overall and how to use one on a WordPress site.
PRO TIP — I would not recommend this redirect option if the lead magnets topics are sooooo far apart that the ideal client looking for your old lead magnet would be confused or not interested in this new one.
The biggest lesson in all of this is the most simple one: Keep Track of your Marketing Funnels.
Have a document for every lead magnet and/or funnel that lists out all the links, the files, the landing pages, thanks pages and all the places where you have positioned that lead generation page URL where you send people to sign up. Then, when you need to update it you can and know what to update for the new lead magnet!
Here are the steps I like to use to keep track of my marketing funnels:
- Have a “Funnel Setup” document that saves all aspects of the funnel
- Update the document when you update that funnel
- Use it as a reference point for changes when you add something new.
When you plan for your marketing instead of being derailed by small errors you will improve your marketing results rather than having those errors make a big impact on your marketing.
Keeping track of your marketing funnel is important, but so is tracking your stats and numbers. They will be the top way to gather data to know what and when to change your marketing.
You can grab a copy of my Stats tracking template here.
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