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My 7 Top Funnel Hacks in 2024 — Try Them!

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If there’s one thing you can count on in the online marketing world, it’s change.

New offers… new marketing tactics… everyone offering their own tips and tricks that they promise will change your life.

It’s noisy.

And it’s hard to know what to pay attention to.

The answer is… none of it 🙂

Actually, I’ve found the best way to discover what actually is working RIGHT NOW is to funnel hack.

What is funnel hacking?

Why is it such a game changer for your business?

Let’s talk about that!

By the way, you should know that I’m the author of three books about online marketing and entrepreneurship, one of which is a New York Times Bestseller! You can get my entire ‘Secrets Trilogy’ by clicking the link below 🙂

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What is Funnel Hacking??

Funnel hacking is exactly what it sounds like.

It’s all about looking at other people’s funnels in your niche — stuff that’s a similar mode (webinar, high-ticket, book funnel, etc.) — and studying them!

The hardest part to figure out what works… is to run your own tests.

It’s way more efficient and effective to steal (ethically) what’s working from other people’s funnels. If you know me, then you know I talk a LOT about funnel hacking.

And below are some of my top funnels hacks in 2024!

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1. Going The Extra Mile

Everybody wants a raise. Everybody wants success. Everybody wants more money.

But they try to do it by doing the least work possible.

They want extraordinary results… WITHOUT providing extraordinary service.

See how backwards that is?

Here’s how Earl Nightingale put it…

“Our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service. If you don’t like your income, you must devise ways and means of increasing your service.”

As marketers it’s easy to get caught up in… sell, sell, sell

…but as much effort that we put into marketing, we should put double that into our offer.

Always charge 1/10th of the value you bring.

This is how I think about literally everything I put out into the world.

I never want people to attend one of my events or use my software and think, “Ya I got what I paid for.”

I want them to think, “Wow! I got so much more value than I paid for!”

If you can consistently do that with the stuff you put out into the world… you’re going to get rich pretty darn fast 🙂

But it’s not just about the money…

You can apply this to literally everything in your life.

Parenting. Marriage. Fitness. Work…

It’s the cure-all.

When you become the type of person who over-delivers in every aspect of your life… you become someone that others want to follow. You become someone who others respect. And you become someone that others will be happy to give money to.

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2. Grow Your List

When I started in this business 18 years ago, business was completely different.

We didn’t have Facebook and Google and YouTube, Instagram, TikTok.

None of it.

If we wanted traffic to our offers, we had to get creative.

It was different then.

It was WAY harder.

We couldn’t just go out and buy ads and start making sales.

So when one of my first mentors told me that I had to build an email list, I built it.

As I started, though, this thing called Google AdWords came out.

If you’ve been around long enough, you know what I mean.

I had friends making $50,000, $100,000, even $500,000 a month on AdWords.

When I saw that, I didn’t want to do this email thing.

I wanted to do what they were doing.

It looks like they’re making a ton of money without actually doing anything at all.

And while I wanted to jump on that shiny object, my mentor said NO.

Instead of letting me jump on the next new trend (which, in hindsight, survived every other trend), my mentor convinced me that the foundation of every business is having an email list.

As disappointed as I was, I took his advice and started building my list.

Then slowly, but surely, the list started growing each month.

Month 1 was 217 people on my list.

I think month 2 was 1,000 people.

Month 3 was 3,000 people.

It was this really, really slow process.

While my buddies are over there making a ton of money.

And I’m glad I listened to him.

Because while I was over here building my list, Google AdWords seemingly came and went overnight.

I watched it essentially disappear as it got more competitive, rules changed, and people’s offers quit working.

The friends that I had who were making insane amounts of money essentially lost it all as AdWords changed.

They never figured it out again.

They went back to the real world and got normal jobs and missed out on all the power of internet marketing because they were focused on the shiny object that works for a little while.

What didn’t disappear, though, was email.

After 18 years, it’s still the most evergreen source of traffic we’ve ever used.

And it’s still the backbone of every single business I build.

It doesn’t matter what trends come and go if you’re building your email list.

What you have to do, though, is FOCUS.

Follow. One. Course. Until. Successful.

And if you understand a few core principles when it comes to building your email list, it really isn’t that hard to grow a massive list you can email over and over again.

So if you see all the shiny objects right now?

But you want to build your business on a strong foundation?

Learn these List Building Secrets now.

Because you’ll be grateful as the trends come and go while you still have your email list to fall back on.

Instead of getting caught up in the shiny objects like so many of my friends did 18 years ago.

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2. MIFGE

“But wait, there’s more!”

It’s one of the most cliche lines from infomercials for a reason — because it works!

I’ve been building sales funnels for over 20 years.

But last year I created the best sales funnel I’ve had that made over $1 million in 30 days.

The front-end offer was 100% free.

But… because it was so powerful and because the upsells were insane I got my AOV (average order value) up to $300.

So anyway here it is…

The ONE thing that made a $1 million funnel possible in 30 days…

It’s called the ‘MIFGE’.

“Russell, what on God’s earth is a MIFGE?”

Now, you might know I acquired Dan Kennedy’s company Magnetic Marketing last year.

Magnetic Marketing was down to just 1,000 newsletter subscribers and had no ads running when I bought it.

I knew we needed a funnel – and fast – so I asked the Magnetic Marketing team what had been their most successful way to win customers in the past.

“Oh, that’s easy, the MIFGE!”

“The what??” I said.

“The Most Incredible Free Gift Ever! It literally built the company.”

Basically, your MIFGE is an irresistible free offer which you use to get new subscribers into some kind of continuity program (e.g. a newsletter).

Think about Sports Illustrated.

A couple decades ago the business was going bankrupt, so they started including things like a free copy of the latest swimsuit edition.

When I learned about the MIFGE a light bulb went off.

I mean, I had 40 years’ worth of Dan Kennedy wisdom in a Google Drive in front of me!

This stuff had made Dan’s businesses and subscribers billions of dollars…

I won’t go into the exact details of our MIFGE, but let me just say the free content was valued at around $20,000.

The funnel included INSANE upsells too.

One of them was a 6-book volume of Dan’s entire swipe file and we sold physical copies for a price of $2,500.

So... once we the MIFGE ready, I pushed it out to the existing 1,000 subscribers plus a small network of affiliates.

Within 30 minutes someone had bought the $2,500 upsell!

That pushed my AOV up to $300 ..

In the first month 4,100 new subscribers came in plus the existing 1,000 meant 5,100 total subscribers... and at $300 AOV that was over $1 million in revenue.

It’s the best funnel I’ve ever had.

I’ve been running ads to my MIFGE ever since and I know I can spend up to $300 to acquire a new customer and still break even on my ad spend…

Isn’t that crazy?

So… what about your MIFGE?

I don’t want you sitting there thinking… “But I don’t have access to Dan Kennedy’s Google Drive, so I don’t got no MIFGE.”

Everyone has valuable information or courses or video training or live event recordings lying around.

And let me tell you this.

If something feels painful to give away for free... then it’s probably perfect for your MIFGE!

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3. Value Ladder

Imagine I just walked up randomly to someone on the street and said this:

“Hey! I’m Russell Brunson. Can I build you a funnel for $1 million?”

My conversion rate would probably be negative.

But the reason I can charge $1 million is because of this thing called a value ladder.

Value Ladder Graphic

So what’s a value ladder and how does it work?

Building a business that lets you charge $1 million for a single service is based on ONE principle.

Give value to people at every single interaction.

Here’s how that works in terms of a sales funnel:

  • You offer someone a free report
  • ​They want it and give you their email address
  • You offer them a video training
  • ​They want it and give you a small payment
  • You offer them a done-for-you service
  • ​They want it even more and give you a bigger payment

A lot of people think that a sales funnel is this overly complex thing… but it’s just a common sense approach to human interaction!

Think about it like you’re going on a date.

You go on the first date and the other person has a great time. So you go on another one. Then another one. Then you go on holiday. Then you move in together…

On and on you’re giving that person value until you get married! ❤️

This is literally the way I built my business.

I offer books, home study courses, webinars, video trainings, sales funnels, inner circle memberships… and then I offer a done-for-you funnel service.

I can go and charge $1 million because the people at the top of my value ladder trust me.

They’re still excited for more.

So… what about you?

Are you pitching your products to people and finding they’re not willing to pay the price tag?

It’s probably because you need to build a value ladder.

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4. Event Marketing

I’ve sold a lot of different things online — books, courses, software, coaching, t-shirts, supplements, potato guns…

You name it, I’ve sold it.

But of everything I’ve sold… events are the hardest.

Which makes sense when you think about it.

Because people can't easily “impulse buy” — they have to think about the dates, talk with their spouse, maybe request time off work…

It requires them to make a pretty big commitment.

But if you get it right… it can also be extremely profitable… AND it’s one of the best ways I know of to really build a loyal audience and following.

Because spending time together in-person is REALLY powerful.

So for those of you who’ve hosted events before and plan to host events in the future, I wanted to pull back the curtain a bit.

Here’s what you have to remember when selling events online.

Thing #1. You’ll need to use urgency or scarcity. You can either raise the price… or take something away (like a bonus). Set the date for when you’re going to do it and stick to it.

Thing #2. Dedicate 90% of your marketing efforts to the last three days before that expiration (the price raises or the bonus gets removed)… because 90% of ticket sales will come in during those last few days. We often sell 500+ tickets during that time.

Events are the hardest thing we sell…

But they’re also one of the most powerful things we sell.

​Remember those two things when you’re trying to sell tickets to an event… and you’ll have a much easier time. 🙂

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5. Offer a “New Opportunity”

It’s not that difficult to get someone to buy from you once.

The trouble is getting them to buy over and over and over again!

So… how do you do that?

This question bugged me so I studied a whole bunch of mass movements literally from the beginning of time – things like religions, cults, founders, businesses and political campaigns.

They all had one this ONE thing in common.

​They offered people a totally new opportunity.

Your Movement Graphic

In 2001 Steve Jobs didn’t say: “Hey you! Want a nicer CD player?”

No…

He said: “This amazing little device holds 1,000 songs and it goes right in my pocket.”

In 6 years the iPod was the best-selling digital music player of all time and generated $3.5 billion in sales in just one quarter.

The problem is most of us are giving customers an improvement offer.

As soon as I figured this out…

ClickFunnels went from a ‘better-converting website’... to this totally new ‘sales funnel’ idea which has totally changed the game for entrepreneurs.

This is literally how we did it.

And then I put this idea to work for my inner circle members… and it worked for them too.

So…

Are you offering your customers a new opportunity?

Or are you offering them an improvement offer?

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6. Free Books

What if I told you that, on average, it costs me about $23 to sell just one copy of my book, DotCom Secrets, through ads?

You’d probably think I’m losing money…

Because you can get the book for free on the landing page!

But I have a secret ;)

Even though the book is free and only requires you to pay $7.95 for shipping and handling… I make $15 every time I sell a book.

Here’s how…

At checkout, we have an order bump for people to add the audiobook to their order for an additional $37. That has a 20% conversion rate.

After people confirm their order, there’s a $97 upsell to one of my courses, which has about a 9% conversion rate. Finally, there’s a second upsell for $297 that has about a 4% conversion rate.

Let’s do the math…

Our average cart value is about $37.71. Subtract the $23 it costs me to sell one book, and I’m left with a $15 profit…

on giving away a book for FREE.

Not only that… but those customers now have access to tons of my content, my ideas, and my help… and they’re very likely going to come back in the future and maybe even sign up for ClickFunnels :)

See how this works?

A book funnel… isn’t just about the book.

It’s just as much about the order bumps and upsells.

​My mentor Dan Kennedy once said, “Whoever can spend the most money to acquire a customer… wins.”

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7. Just Break Even

I love to set big ambitious goals.

But as much as I love that… I ALSO love to set “breakeven” goals — where just breaking even on our ad spend and our revenue is a massive win.

For example, I often think about Funnel Hacking Live this way…

I just want to break even.

Everything else is gravy.

That takes the pressure off of being perfect or making millions of dollars in one fell swoop…

…because there’s a really important mindset shift you need to make…

It’s this…

“Breaking even”... is always more than “breaking even”…

You get to speak in front of thousands of people…

Share your knowledge…

Build a loyal following of people who love you…

Get your word out…

Sell your book…

Share your course…

Start a movement…

Change the world…

FOR FREE.

Do you get it?

Breaking even isn’t just breaking even… because it’s building a future that is more exciting, more meaningful, and more profitable.

And those people who buy from you… who listen to you… who hear your story or read your book or consume your course or buy your services…

Now they’re on your email list… they follow you on social media… they love you… and you can sell to them in the future without running ads.

It might sound counterintuitive

But if you become a master of just “breaking even”... you can become extremely wealthy.

Because you’re going to get to do all of this amazing stuff for free.

Which will put you head and shoulders ahead of everyone else!

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Want To Learn More?

Then I’ve got good news!

You can get my Secrets Trilogy (with a free bonus) by clicking the link below — I share all my best secrets and funnel hacks inside 🙂

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