How to increase your ROI. How to Gain Green with your Production.

How to Create a Sales Funnel

By Wendy Piersall from Mom Blogging For Dummies

Mom bloggers who are selling services should building a formal sales funnel, which builds the most solid online business possible. A sales funnel works by attracting potential customers with free or very-low-cost items, and then convincing these potential customers to sign up on your mailing list or subscribe to your RSS feed.

When you have their contact information, you can start to build a relationship with them, ensuring that when they’re ready to make a purchase, they come to you. Offering your potential customers a range of products at different prices helps build up their trust, eventually making it easier for them to invest in your higher-priced items or services.

If you normally earn your income by charging by the hour or by the project, a sales funnel also serves to create diversity in how you bring in your income. That protects you against putting too many eggs in one basket.

See how the sales funnel works: You have your largest number of potential customers on your mailing list, and gradually smaller numbers of actual customers as the price of your services increases.

Attract leads

This is how you attract clients interested in your services to your website:

• Post blog entries that offer free advice.
• Get mentioned in the press.
• Meet potential clients on Facebook and Twitter.
• Ensure your content can be found in search engines.
• Publish articles on other websites.

Free product or service

In exchange for your potential clients’ contact information, offer items such as:

• Audio recordings
• White papers
• Newsletters
• e-courses
• Mini e-books
• Resource lists and forms
• Free graphics
• One-time teleseminars
• Free consultations

Low-cost items

Offer a range of low-cost products you develop that offer your expertise without having a client work directly with you. These products let your clients know what it would be like to work with you without risking a large amount of money. They include

• Workshops
• Consulting packages
• e-books
• Group coaching
• Membership sites
• Video or audio series

Medium- to high-cost items

When people hire you for large projects or ongoing work, you’re selling them your medium-to-high-priced items. These are the clients you want most of all; they pay you well for your expertise and also give you valuable experience to build your portfolio of work experience. Your medium-to-high-priced items might include

• One-on-one coaching or consulting
• Monthly retainer clients
• Project management work

Television On All Platforms (The OVNIO Experience coming closer to a device near you)

 Binge-Watching Is Fundamentally Changing TV

With viewers using multiple devices to binge not just on new shows but old ones, the TV landscape is more competitive than ever, say reps from Facebook, Starz, National Geographic, and more.

By Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen
Posted on January 6, 2016

Binge-watching is nothing new, but it is radically changing how networks and other content owners are approaching TV shows. That was the consensus at a panel today at CES called "The Future of TV: From Primetime to Multi-Platforms."

"People have binge-watched for a long time," said Brad Dancer, EVP of research and program planning, National Geographic Channel. "We used to call them TV marathons. I'm from the original MTV generation, and I'd spend all Saturday watching 9 episodes of Road Rules. But it's different now. Ten years ago people would watch stuff that was just OK, but you can't get away with that anymore. The question 'Is it binge-worthy?' is really just another way of saying 'Is it good?'"

With consumers accessing multiple platforms, viewing on multiple devices, and able to easily watch entire seasons of not just current shows but archival ones, the landscape is more competitive than ever, said Michael Thornton, chief revenue officer at Starz. "You have to make that show be not just the best show of that season or that year, but the best show of all time," he said. "If someone is binging on Spartacus or The Sopranos, they're not binging on your show."

On the other hand, that access to previous seasons on Netflix or Amazon Video means that rightsholders can take a long view when it comes to commissioning or buying TV shows. "You have to trust the producers, you have to trust the writers," Thornton said, "because it may take a year or two—or three or four—before it catches on."

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are becoming increasingly important, as it becomes harder for viewers to find content they want to watch than in years past. "The whole concept of discovery and how people find stuff could not be more important," said Lisa Hsia, EVP of digital for Bravo and Oxygen Media at NBC Universal. "Show websites are of limited use, because people already have to be a fan of the show to come to the site. Facebook is a great way to reach bing audiences."

Sharon Mussalli, U.S. industry manager, entertainment, global marketing team at Facebook said that the social media platform can bring an up to 20% increase in audience for TV shows, typically by offering short-form videos that show up in Facebook users' feeds, particularly ones who are looking at their feeds on their phones or tablets.

"It's all about mobile, mobile, mobile" Mussalli said. "A year ago we were talking about the shift to mobile, but today the shift has happened. Facebook gets 8 billion video views daily, 70% of which are on mobile. For TV, majority of consumption is still in the living room. Television marketers have been looking at short-form content on mobile to encourage consumption in the living room."

Using digital marketing and distribution as a way to get viewers to the television is still the goal of most content owners, as revenues from OTT have yet to catch up to broadcast and cable. "The television bundle generates $150 billion annually, half from advertising, half from subscription fees," said Laura Martin, managing director and senior research analyst for Needham and Co. "With Hulu and Netflix, all the money goes back to the same guys that make the content for the linear TV channels. There's not an economic model for digital, For instance, WWE generated 7 billion impressions on YouTube, but only generated 7 million dollars revenue in the last year."

Martin said that the average content owner makes 30 cents per hour per viewer from TV, 3 cents an hour from YouTube, and 11 cents an hour from Netflix. It's important that content owners look at online revenues as supplemental, and not primary, she said.

By targeting "high-value viewers" on platforms like Facebook, though, broadcasters can see significant gains in both viewing and awareness. "Broadcasters can build audience for the screen that matters for them," said Mussalli. "We've seen broadcasters use 15-second videos on Instagram, then re-target on Facebook with a 30-second video, then push to the third screen. They exhibited 18-point lift in recall, and a 7-point lift in awareness."

And no matter how popular binge viewing is, passive viewing isn't going away. "Out of 100 million TV homes, 50 percent have a DVR, and 40 percent have Netflix, and some of those Netflix homes are also DVR homes," Martin said. "So half the homes can't binge watch."

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