Do You ‘Need’ A Different Sales Funnel For Each Product?

I’ll be the first to admit it—

The way I run the email list for Simple Programmer is WAY more complex than most businesses need.

Multiple email courses, behavior-based automated triggers, segmentation…

Most people would do much better to take a simple approach.

Just how simple?

That’s what subscriber Javier is pondering:

If you have two products, do you have to create two lead magnets and two email courses?

Or you can create a lead magnet with one course and just go into another course when the previous course is ending?

Imagine that you have a product about photo editing and another about how to use lighting for better photos… The pain point of each course is different.

In this case I think that the best option is create two lead magnet (can be email courses) and two squeeze pages and sending traffic to those squeeze pages.

Just because you have two different products that solve two different pain points does NOT mean you automatically need to have two different lead magnets or email courses.

And just to muddy the waters further:

Just because you only have one product doesn’t mean you should only have one lead magnet or email course.

Sometimes you will do better with two, or even three or four.

The way to know how many email courses to create is to take one step back and think about who is the ideal customer “avatar” for each product.

In Javier’s case, he has a product about photo editing and one about lighting in photography.

For a moment, let’s assume that both are 101-level courses, and the ideal customer is a relatively new “shutterbug,” a hobbyist photographer who is just learning the ropes.

In this case, you can do just fine with a single email course as your main lead magnet.

Pick whichever topic brings you more traffic—either lighting tricks or photo editing, create an email course around that to sell your first product, then as soon as they finish that, you can start sending them emails about the other product.

Both products are likely to be relevant, because most amateur photographers have a similar level of skill and knowledge.

Now let’s throw in a curve ball here:

Say Javier is still selling Lighting 101, but his photo editing course is aimed at professional photographers who are retouching studio portraits.

This is where things can get more complicated.

Here you probably *do* need multiple sales funnels, because you’re talking to divergent audiences with different problems and different skill levels.

Pro photogs may be insulted by the basic Lighting 101 content, and the Photo Editing 401 content will sail over the heads of the shutterbugs.

A good “rule of thumb” is:

One email course and sales funnel per customer avatar.

One customer, one funnel.

Multiple customers, multiple funnels.

Don’t make it more complex than it needs to be.