Clickfunnels and Shopify are two very different products that do very different things.
But what they both can do is be set up as a shopping platform for an e-commerce store.
You may have heard of these two services while researching how you can start an online store.
To help you figure things out, we will do our best to explain things and help you choose the best e-commerce platform you need for your online business.
But before that…
We are going to take a look at both tools and show you what they are good at and what they lack.
It’s important to understand that while they can both be used as an e-commerce store, Clickfunnels is really meant to be much more than that.
So instead of looking at Clickfunnels and Shopify as competitors, we choose to look at them as different tools that can actually be used together.
Let’s start by elaborating more on what the concept of the funnel is all about.
Spoiler alert: It is not as complicated as people assume. You will be surprised to discover that it is a concept that is not that foreign to you.
People use ClickFunnels to create landing and opt-in pages. You can also use it to manage various forms that you will use in your sales funnel. This means you can enhance the marketing techniques you wish to implement in your e-commerce online store by creating sales funnels.
some of the tools that ClickFunnels will put at your disposal include:
The sales funnels are, in simple terms, web pages that guide customers toward the checkout page.
You get this ready-made for you when you use ClickFunnels. This means that you can have dedicated pages or “funnels” for every type of product or service.
The funnels can be for eBooks, physical products, courses, digital goods, subscriptions, memberships, and even webinars.
It also is possible to have landing pages, sales pages, thank you pages, opt-in pages, and checkout pages. Your work will be to add the images you want for the funnels or pages, and then they are ready to go.
You will not need the sales funnels templates for this; you can make the funnels from scratch using this tool. With it, you can add, edit, and remove images, texts, opt-in forms, membership forms, payment integration, and checkout carts (and anything else you want for your web page.)
Adding payment integration to the sales pages or funnels using ClickFunnels makes things easy for you since it is integrated with different payment services such as Stripe, PayPal, and others.
This may be one of the unique advantages of using ClickFunnels: This tool lets you create custom affiliate programs for what you are selling. You, therefore, will be able to provide people that wish to sell your product or service with a link.
The principles of affiliate marketing will be applicable from that point on; you have to give a commission to anyone who sells your product or service. Think of it as having a tool that will help you build a sales team that will help increase sales.
With ClickFunnels, you can come up with an entire email marketing campaign. The emails can be organized and automated to be sent in a series to anyone who opts-in to your mailing list. It also is possible to send the emails in segments.
This is an automation tool that can be used to combine funnels with email campaigns making it possible to come up with a robust automated marketing engine.
You can use it to allocate a list for a user once they opt-in your funnel. And it can even be used to set up the emails they will receive.
Moreover, the action funnel tool can be used to set actions based on various triggers. For instance, if any of the opt-ins in your list buys a product or service, you can auto add them to a different mailing list for a new email marketing campaign.
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Shopify has also managed to create a significant buzz in the area of creating online stores, enough to earn a place among the top e-commerce platforms out there. It can be used to set up a website for selling digital and physical products. It has a ready arsenal of tools and resources that you can use to create and run an online store.
One of the strong selling points of Shopify is its easy-to-use interface and array of themes that can be used to build a professional-looking online store. It has resources that will help you create a seamless shopping experience for your customers.
Here are the features that make Shopify a top contender when it comes to using an e-commerce platform that offers the “brick and mortar” for building online retail stores:
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The list of themes on Shopify is exemplary when it comes to creating a personalized store.
Some are free, and others are paid. The platform uses a drag-and-drop implementation that lets you build elements of the theme so you can add color, text, and images you prefer.
For the tech-savvy guys, they have the option of adding custom HTML and CSS codes. If you are into blogging, you can use Shopify’s content management system to create blog posts.
But the icing on the cake with this tool is that every website and web page will be mobile friendly for customers to have a seamless shopping experience even when they are on the go.
It is easy to track your inventory when using Shopify. You can add new services and products with different variants and post a few photos of them, then assign each item a number.
Shopify will handle the rest from there including tracking the number of items sold, thus helping you know when to restock. It also allows you to choose to sell a product (or not sell) even when it is out of stock and you are currently in the process of restocking.
You will notice some nice-looking data graphs you can use. The charts will let you have a glance at your orders, sales, and traffic.
This means you will be able to know where your customers are coming from, the time they spend on your site, the items they prefer, and any other thing they do while at your online store.
All this is possible because the analytics dashboard leverages Google Analytics. You, therefore, will be able to know which products are selling and which are not, then use that information to do your inventory.
With the information regarding your customers’ shopping behavior at your disposal, you can use it when creating membership pages or sites that you can use to woo loyal clients or build your mailing list.
The customer management system lets you organize your customers, categorizing them in groups based on factors such as what they buy, how much they spend, and where they are located (country or state). It also is possible to set up a system for refunds.
Shopify has an app store where you can find all sorts of plugins and add-ons you can use to improve the functionality of your store’s site. You can use the apps to create opt-in forms, improve the landing pages, add analytics features, and even have a better grip on your email marketing campaigns.
With the payment integration that Shopify offers, your customers can transact via different payment providers, including 2Chekout, Mastercard, American Express, PayPal, Discover, Visa, Stripe, and more.
The payment system will handle taxes for your city or country and will make it possible to offer options such as free shipping to your customers.
On Shopify’s shipping and delivery roster, you will find that Shopify has partnered with three of the leading global couriers, UPS, DHL, and UPS, so that you can offer your customers shipping at affordable rates.
Shopify also is in partnership with Oberlo, which allows you to buy, sell, and ship products to your clients and not have to handle the inventory yourself.
With Shopify, your store will have different sections where it can show variations of a product (or products). And you can even include the product description and short story about the item or the company.
By adding such information, you will be branding your business, thus making it a trusted entity. This will keep the buyers coming back or referring their friends to your online store.
With statistics not favoring the high-ticket offers, there is a need to improve the user experience to woo people directed to your site or product to buy.
For this, you need to invest in things such as adding an About Us page, a short biography about you or the company, concise product descriptions, and clear images of the items being offered.
Since you are selling products that are worth $200+, people will need an extra nudge, something that convinces them they are making the right purchase.
This then brings in the need to consider value addition to the customer experience to better the deciding factor for the purchase of high-ticket offers.
If you consider the two and they are implemented the right way, then the outcome should be the customer adding the item to their cart, heading to the checkout page, and pushing the “buy” button. A purchase is often an indication of good user experience, and that is what you should strive to ensure for your online store offers.
Let’s assume you intend to sell items worth $20 and $30 respectively, and you will offer free shipping. As the seller, you will pay for click ads that are scattered online on different websites, search engine pages, and social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.
Based on this example, you will have to cover CPS (cost-per-sale), CPC (cost-per-click), or CPL (cost-per-lead).
If a potential customer decides to click an ad, they will be sent to a page with a product, and this means they may be intending to buy or are just window-shopping. Now, that’s what known as Direct Response Marketing.
Regarding the click ads, some of them will direct a customer to low-ticket products. Such a customer is referred to as a Cold Lead. This is a term used to imply that the potential customer may have been directed to a particular product or page from an ad that’s promoting a freebie or a very cheap item.
This means that they probably were not looking for such a product or offer, so it most likely is something that sparked their interest. As such, that should be a reason to get their name and contacts (email address) and add them to your mailing list and sales funnel.
But you may be asking: why the low-ticket products? According to statistics, a cold lead clicking an ad and purchasing a high-ticket may be an improbable thing, but it’s not impossible. We at Hustle Life consider this a rare occurrence and do not invest much on such an approach.
If you are thinking along the lines of funnels for your online business, then ClickFunnels is one of the best options to consider.
It is an ideal choice that works well with low-ticket items and free offers. Why are we saying this? It is because a low-ticket offer is still a sale in the making, and every cent made from a sale counts.
You need to create avenues that will see you make the most money from such offers and then focus on the high-ticket items. Therefore, low-ticket items will require you to consider using ClickFunnels.
But the strategy here will not involve your potential customers clicking on links; therefore, you will not be directing them to your website. This means if they visit, they will buy or leave the site. Such a scenario is where ClickFunnels thrives.
If you want to create a next-level-looking online store, then you need to work with Shopify. With this e-commerce platform, you can create a website that gives you the administrative right to control the buyers’ shopping experience.
In short, you will be able to amply customize the store, ramping up for your customers so they have more than enough reasons to buy high-ticket offers.
Scenario: A potential buyer clicks on an ad and is directed to a page for a high-ticket product only to be met with related products that they can choose from.
In essence, you are giving your customer more features and options, thereby addressing their every possible interest and need. Therefore, Shopify will provide variety while ClickFunnels is all about offering a single product.
The answer is no. We mentioned that low-ticket offers are also a money-making opportunity worth capitalizing on even when focusing on the high-ticket ones.
Therefore, you cannot ignore the role of funnels or say that you will never need them. The best strategy, and what we recommend, is tweaking and adjusting the funnel so that they can be leads for high-ticket buyers.
If the concept of funnels does yield a significant purchase, which we said is not an impossible thing but highly rare, you then should look into how you can turn that order into a more substantial purchase. This is where e-commerce Lead Value Optimization (LVO) comes into play.
Before delving into what LVO is, we need to clarify a misconception. People often mix up CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) with LVO (Lead Value Optimization). The two are very different things.
The disparity is in their approach. CRO is more about getting as many visitors as possible to make a purchase (or buy the main products). It focuses on maximizing the number of people purchasing items for the traffic you get.
With LVO, the focus is on making more money from each purchase, whether it is from high- or low-ticket items.
The long and short of it is that LVO is all about making as much money as possible from every visitor. For this, you need to know where to source potential buyers, especially from social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
So, once you identify potential buyers and capture their emails, you will increase the probability of them growing interest in the high-ticket offers using the following strategies:
You can employ various methods to turn that $500 customer into a $1,000 customer. At times, you may get a visitor, but they leave without buying. Appreciate this as a sign that the concept of funnels is working.
You may not have gotten a sale, but you receive an opportunity to follow up with the potential buyer to woo them to shop again.
Overall, bagging significant sales that translate to profits will need you to focus on effective marketing and the sale of high-ticket items. This is how we guarantee your business will make money.
Having covered the bases, we believe you are now in a better position to know what best suits your online store. You should set up a site that offers an exceptional customer experience.
This is why we recommend using Shopify and then relying on ClickFunnels to refine the minor areas. You will need to use the Privy app to capture the information of your visitors so that you can come up with a follow-up plan.
It is highly unlikely to find a cold lead from Instagram or Facebook heading to or buying a high-ticket product. But then the question to ask is: How can the Facebook Ads be turned into profitable leads for high-ticket offers?
The answer is ClickFunnels. Send the ad to a funnel page (low-ticket item page) instead of the high-ticket product page. But they are to be directed to an opt-in page if they decide to leave.
The objective being to ask why they did not buy and request them to give you their contact information and email in exchange for a freebie. The free item can be an eBook, PDF, or discount voucher for their first purchase.
You do not have to spend a lot of money to collect leads. Direct the cold leads to the ClickFunnels opt-in page, and then use the information to create an emailing list. For the listed potential buyers, send them promotional materials about new products, and then funnel that list to the product page where they then can buy the high-ticket item.
Shopify is the better choice if you are a seasoned online marketer and the running of your online retail store is a full-time gig.
Shopify has robust inventory management and delivery features that surpass what ClickFunnels has to offer. However, the trick to achieving success with Shopify is in knowing how to set up various integrations when building opt-in and landing pages, as well as running email marketing campaigns and automating the business operations.
On the flip side, ClickFunnels is the ideal option if you are new to selling products or services online or if you are only selling a few products. It takes away the need for extensive marketing experience since it handles much of the work for you, including hosting.
Note: I am an independent user of ClickFunnels, not an employee. The opinions and results expressed here are my own and are not official statements of ClickFunnels or its parent company, Etison LLC.
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