Sales
February 9, 2024

The Selling Power of Deadline Funnels

Gabriel Ryan
I am Head of Revenue at Deadline Funnel & Voma, two SaaS products that help course creators increase sales.

Are you ready to unlock the secrets behind deadline funnels and skyrocket your conversions? 

In this article, we're diving deep into the world of our other company Deadline Funnel and revealing the strategies that have helped over 18,132 other creators like you (and growing) to boost their sales.

The Impact of Deadline Funnels on Conversions

Deadlines drive decisions.

Without a deadline, most of us tend to put things off unless they are critical (or at least FEEL critical) in the moment.

This is why any marketing campaign… any funnel… any sales process that does not give their potential customer a deadline is losing sales (probably without even knowing it).

I call this the leaky bucket syndrome.

You’ve got leads coming into your funnel. Visiting your website. Peaking in on your social media profile. And maybe even checking out your offer.

But if they don’t have a legitimate reason to make a buying decision NOW, it’s too easy for those folks to get distracted or leave, without paying you.

Without becoming a customer.

Let’s fix that today.

Meet Gabriel Ryan: A Journey into Deadline Funnel Optimization

But before we jump in, let me introduce myself. I'm Gabriel Ryan, a growth strategist and digital marketer at Deadline Funnel. Over the years, I've had the privilege of working closely with our founder and CEO, Jack Born, to analyze and optimize our sign-up flow.

Understanding the Challenge: Tackling Abandoned Carts

One of the biggest challenges we faced was tackling abandoned carts. 

Did you know that up to 68% of potential customers start the buying process but never finish it? 

That's a lot of missed opportunities! 

So, we set out to implement an abandoned cart strategy that would help us recapture those lost sales (which is just 1 of the 5 deadline types).

We instantly saw 22% more new trials coming back into our deadline funnel just by adding this 1 deadline type.

You can copy and paste our entire strategy by getting our free Abandoned Cart Saver™ playbook here (just click and tell us where to send you the free template).

But what about the other deadline types?

And how do you determine deadlines in your marketing campaigns?

Exploring Deadline Funnel Types: A Closer Look

Let's delve into the five types of deadline funnels that can revolutionize your marketing efforts:

1. The Tripwire Offer

A tripwire funnel is designed to convert leads into paying customers by offering them a low-cost, high-value product or service. By providing an irresistible offer, you can entice prospects to take the first step towards becoming loyal customers. Typically, these deadlines show up right after someone opts into your free lead magnet or subscribes to your newsletter. These tripwire deadlines are typically 15-60 minutes (I prefer 15 minutes) and we’ve even seen some creators use a 7 minute tripwire deadline with success. Think impulse sale.

2. Live Launch Campaigns

A live launch funnel involves creating buzz and excitement around a new product or service through a series of live events, webinars, or workshops. By leveraging the power of scarcity and urgency, you can encourage prospects to make a purchase during the limited launch window. You’ll see most of your sales come in the final day of your sale. I have a former client who helps wedding photographers get more leads and increase their prices, and we more than tripled his best live launch ever, simply by adding in a deadline and focusing our entire strategy around what would NOT be available after the cart closed on the last day.

3. Evergreen Funnels

An evergreen deadline funnel is an automated sales funnel that runs continuously, generating revenue around the clock without the need for manual intervention. By leveraging evergreen deadlines, you can create a sense of urgency and drive conversions year-round. The deadline is personalized to the individual prospect or lead. You can use anything you want to trigger the deadline. Maybe you trigger the deadline when they reply to a specific email, or optin to a specific lead magnet, or join your list or group, or some other trigger point. It can really be anything you want. The key is that their deadline starts based on the specific trigger. And typically 3-5 days is a good deadline length for evergreen campaigns.

4. Optin to Offer

An optin to offer funnel is designed to convert leads into customers by offering them a valuable incentive in exchange for their contact information. By nurturing these leads through targeted email campaigns, you can guide them towards making a purchase. This is probably my favorite deadline type to include in social media profiles (aka “Check the link in my bio for my special offer… it’s going away soon”). With an Optin to Offer deadline, you can take traffic from platforms you don’t control like TikTok, YouTube or Instagram, and turn it into traffic you own (aka YOUR email list) and funnel people into a specific offer just for them, just for joining your list.

5. Abandoned Cart Emails

Like I mentioned at the top of this article, an abandoned cart funnel is specifically designed to recapture lost sales by following up with customers who have quit the checkout process before they finish buying your thing.

This is what I did for Deadline Funnel that saw an instant 22% return conversion rate for leads that started to sign up for a software trial but didn’t finish setting up their account.

This is also probably one of the simplest deadline types to get started with, especially if you’re using a tool like Voma.ai. Voma automatically detects abandoned carts, so all you have to do is tell Voma what tag to apply to a contact when they abandon the cart and Voma will trigger the deadline and emails to go out to that lead to win them back to your offer.

By sending targeted emails with compelling incentives and deadlines, you can encourage these customers to complete their purchase.

Your Path to Success: Access the Abandoned Cart Saver™ Playbook

By implementing these five deadline funnel types, you can optimize your sales funnel and maximize your conversions. And with the Abandoned Cart Saver™ playbook, it's easier than ever to get started.

Let's Unlock Your Sales Funnel Potential Together!

Want our exact Abandoned Cart Saver™ playbook?

Click HERE to download it instantly (FREE)

So, what are you waiting for? 

Click the link. Get the playbook. And start optimizing your conversions today.

Let's unlock the full potential of your sales funnel together!