In this series, we’ve been talking about email funnels to earn some revenue while you’re away on vacation, but are you sure you’re not missing any monetization ideas? The emails, of course, are monetized with your offers but you might be surprised at the amount of Internet Real Estate that goes wasted when it could be earning you money.

Here’s how to make sure your funnel is full of opportunities for your newly acquired customer to buy from you when they’re most excited about you. Let’s monetize this funnel in all the ways!

In this episode, I’m going to show you the best ways to monetize your vacation campaign funnel.

Welcome to another episode of Systems Sunday. We are wrapping up our theme this month of Profitable Vacation Campaign Funnels. A vacation campaign is any automated email sequence you can turn off and on while you’re busy doing other things, like dancing the night away or, like me, gambling your money away. Turn on your campaign before you get to the airport and turn it off when you get back home.

I am Lisa Wells, your Virtual Assistant Trainer.

We’ve been talking about email funnels to earn some revenue while you’re away on vacation, but are you sure you’re not missing any monetization ideas? The emails, of course, are monetized with your offers but you might be surprised at the amount of Internet Real Estate that goes wasted when it could be earning you money.

In today’s episode, I’m going to show you the best ways to monetize your vacation campaign funnel.

Here’s how to make sure your funnel is full of opportunities for your newly acquired customer to buy from you when they’re most excited about you. Let’s monetize this funnel in all the ways!

1. Are there upsells available to your offers? Upselling involves having multiple levels of your program and convincing your purchaser to buy the more expensive option. Very often you’ll see this with membership programs or various levels of services. For example, your membership program may have a base price that includes a monthly live group call with you; however, at the next level of membership, members receive two or three calls with you each month.

Or consider your VA’s pricing. One-off projects will command a certain hourly price whereas her monthly retainer price is higher but provides more value. Upselling is wooing the customer to make a more expensive purchase. Don’t worry; upselling is completely ethical because you’re adding increased value to the levels of membership or your services.

2. Are your “thank you for your purchase” pages monetized with cross-sell opportunities? A cross-sell is a product that’s offered for sale that complements the initial purchase, such as a workbook or planner that goes along with the ecourse they just bought. That cross-sell makes sense as the planner can help your customer stay organized as they go through the ecourse.
Your customer will see the Thank You page once their payment is processed. Underneath that message is a lot of space for cross-sells. Let that space serve as a reminder to your customers of what else you have for purchase.

Another opportunity for a cross-sell is before your customer gets to the checkout process. Once an item is put in their cart, create a pop-up window to offer a related cross-sell. Sometimes these offers are at a severely discounted price to make it an easy decision. Or you can still charge full price and let the relevance to the initial purchase win over your customer. No matter the price, you still run the chance of increasing your sales by utilizing cross-selling wisely.

3. Prepare a downsell for those who aren’t ready to make a bigger purchase. Don’t run the risk of alienating customers simply because they don’t have the budget or desire to purchase your higher-priced item. They will give you a multitude of reasons why now is not the right time to buy it, but can they refuse a less-expensive item in its place?

When those who aren’t ready to commit exit from your sales page, create a pop-up that offers a downsell item instead. A downsell is still a high-quality product but at a lower price point than the original item you’re selling. So, if your $97 ecourse isn’t swaying one person, maybe a $37 eBook will do the job. You’re still making a sale and your new customer will still benefit from your experience and expertise. You never know when that new customer will be able to spring for your more expensive programs, so don’t run the risk of losing them because of a price differential.

4. Are your product download pages monetized? If you’re delivering your product via a separate download page (as opposed to a download link in an email), here’s another opportunity for cross-selling. Do you have another product that relates to the original item purchased? Do you have a customized journal available for members of your group mentoring program? Consider this space for affiliate products that naturally complement your product. Just don’t offer more than one cross-sell on each download page. Confusion will only lead to zero sales and possibly customer service headaches.

5. Do you have cart bump offers set up? Cart Bump Offers (or Order Bumps) are extra items for sale that appear on the checkout page. These are generally cross-selling opportunities, but the cost is significantly less than the original item purchased. Think of cart bumps as the candy and gum selections at the grocery store. It’s no mistake those items are placed right in the checkout lanes. This is the last-ditch effort to entice your customer to spend more money.

Once your customer is at the checkout page, they are firm in their decision to spend money. Why not add an extra bit of value to that checkout page with a high-value but low-priced item that will ultimately help them? Think of it this way: Adding extra pepperoni to your pizza would be a cart bump. Spending a dollar at the movie theater to upgrade your popcorn size is a cart bump. Do you have any cart bumps that you can implement on your checkout pages?

6. Are the post-purchase emails monetized with a PS offer? We have focused so much on the pre-purchase emails in this training, but we don’t want to forget about the post-purchase emails. Not only are these building a strong rapport with your new customers, but it serves as another way to include a link to another offer that ties into or complements the one they just purchased. “If you liked this, then you’ll love this!”

As you can see, you have more options for monetizing your sales funnel than just in your emails. Test out your offers, track your upsell, downsell, and cross-sell results, and then tweak some copy to maximize your profits even more.

If you enjoyed this episode and want more tips and strategies for building a profitable vacation campaign, check out Vacation Campaigns Business Building Action Kit. In this kit, I show you how to set up a vacation-specific autoresponder series that gets delivered to your email subscribers while you’re away. All my action kits contain a full done-for-you action plan to give you guidance, resources, and keep you on track with a done-for-you calendar, checklist, and worksheets. You can find a link to the product below or visit my VA Business Builder Boutique by clicking on Shop in the menu bar.

Stay tuned for more Systems Sundays coming your way soon!

Catch up on other Profitable Vacation Campaign Funnels episodes + resources mentioned in the video:

• [Video] How to Pick the Perfect Profit-Producing Offers to Promote While You’re Away
• [Video] Mapping Out a Simple Hands-Off Money-Making Email Sequence
• [Video] How to Write Irresistible, Profit-Producing Emails for Your Vacation Campaign Funnel
• Vacation Campaigns Business-Building Action Kit

Did you enjoy this episode and want to put it into action? Grab this Business-Building Action Kit!