Hello, CEO teachers. Welcome back to the show. Today, we get to talk nerdy and you know, I am
here for it. But before we get into what today's show is all about, I want you to know that we
have a very special announcement coming up at the end of the show. And if you stay until the end
of the show and listen, you will be the first person or part of the first people that will hear
about this top secret exciting announcement that we are sharing just with our podcast listeners.
First, today's episode is the best marketing funnels for teachers. If you have already started
your email list, then this is for you. If you haven't started your email list just yet,
I think that by the end of today's episode, you're going to see the reasons why we say you must get
people on your email list. This is one of my favorite parts of my job. I get so nerdy about
funnels. And I remember the first time that I ever heard about an email marketing funnel.
I was listening to Jenna Kutcher's podcast and she was saying that they had like 10 or 15 funnels
running at all times. And I was like, funnel, what is a funnel? And so I downloaded her free opt-in
and I got like the basic most generic version of a funnel and was blown away. And then my very first
experience with a very large funnel that I paid someone to do for us was one of the most successful
parts of our business. And so understanding the power of what funnels are and what they can do
for you is a way that you can work smarter instead of harder and your business can run on autopilot.
This is a non-negotiable friends. If you're listening to this, I think that you must have
really good marketing funnels in place in order to be successful in your online teacher business.
So stick around. You don't want to miss it. Hey teachers, welcome to your home away from the
classroom. Whether you are a full-time educator, just getting started and thinking about the
possibilities to advance past your current pay scale or you're a seasoned CEO teacher looking
for extra strategies to make money online, you're in the right place. No impressive tech skills
or marketing experience necessary. Just the passion and desire to transform your life by doing what
you love, leaning into your unique teaching magic. I'm Casey Morris, a former eighth grade
ELA teacher myself, mom at a five teacher marketing expert and while I am the visionary behind the
CEO teacher movement, this amazing community is continually being built by you, one beautiful
dream at a time. Coming your way every Wednesday as an extra credit bonus exclusively for teachers,
welcome to the CEO teacher podcast.
The most successful teachers looking to make extra money online all have a few things in common,
a solid foundation, a community that supports them and a proven plan to follow. The teacher
income challenge was made just for you, an educational rock star who is looking to turn their passion
into profit online. If you're ready to finally make your worth and go from teacher on a state
pay scale to creator of your own future, the teacher income challenge is for you and it starts
right now. The world's only proven pathway for success made for teachers by a teacher. The
Tardy Bell is ringing, so grab your seat and head on to the front of the class by going to
kacymorris.com slash challenge. That's K-A-Y-S-E-M-O-R-R-I-S dot com slash challenge. Rory Vaden,
one of my favorite authors said funnels aren't easy to build, but they are simple to build and
you only have to build one successful one to be able to change your life and he is so right with
that. I'm a very visual learner and so the first time I saw a funnel mapped out, I was like, holy cow.
Is this what this looks like behind the scenes? Is this what people do? I and I don't know if you
are in that same boat today, but for me, I just couldn't believe that people set emails up to
trigger at a certain time and there was a huge web of if you open this email, you get this one.
If you don't open this email, you get this one. I just thought people were literally manually
pressing send on emails and that's what I did for the first 10, not 10 years, the first five years.
But the best marketing strategy ever, according to Gary Vaynerchuk, is care and what a funnel does
is it allows you to care for your people on autopilot. It allows you to be present and to nurture your
audience without feeling like you have to be inside of your direct messages every day or
inside of your inbox every day. It's the conversation starters. It's the little bit of nurturing that
you get to do on a daily basis that doesn't require you to put out more effort in exchange
for a conversation with someone. Marketing funnels are also called pipelines, conversion funnels,
sales funnels, or even simply part of the customer journey depending on the nature of your business.
But a marketing funnel is a clear path for your customer to have an idea from maybe a freebie or
a download to go from that idea to a paid product. It's a way to make this entire journey streamlined
and it makes purchasing easy peasy. I don't want to lie to you though and I want to be serious.
I'm inside of a lot of Facebook groups through kajabi or through teachers pay teachers and I read
people that say no one bought for my funnel. It is not as easy as plug and play. It is not as easy
as here is the five email funnel that's going to make you a hundred thousand dollars. However,
there are strategies that you can implement that will help you make money on autopilot. But
nothing in this world of online marketing is plug and play and nothing in this world is ever green
meaning that you'll never have to go back and revisit it. If it were that easy, everyone would
be doing it. 96% of visitors are not ready to make a purchase when they come to your website for
the first time. However, they are willing to provide their contact information in exchange
for valuable content, which is why you must get their attention for a reason. You want to give them
something of value. The average landing page conversion rate is only 2.35%. We have a formula
for our CEO teachers and most of our students, especially in the beginning, are converting
much higher than that anywhere from 25 to 60%. But here's the thing is that your conversion rate
is going to depend on the amount of traffic that you get. For example, if a hundred people come to
your website, your conversion rate might be a lot higher than someone who has a hundred thousand
people that land on their website. It is kind of difficult to understand at first, but once you get
it, don't worry, you'll be like a pro. Nurtured leads, meaning people that land on your email list
that are loved on and taken care of make 47% larger purchases than what we call cold traffic or
non-loved on people, non- nurtured leads. 44% of marketers give up after just one no. But the average
number of touch points to make a sale online in 2023 is five. I love saying this and I say this
every launch. I say this every time we are selling something. If someone is in my email inbox or
someone is in our direct messages on Instagram or on Facebook or on TikTok and they say,
Casey, I just can't afford this right now. I always say it's not a no. It's just a not right now.
And even if someone blatantly says, I don't think your product works, I never count them out because
they may need to see what our product does. They may need to listen to my podcast for a year before
they're ready to say, I think I can do this too. I remember when I first started listening to Amy
Porterfield and Gary Vaynerchuk and I thought that what they did was a pipe dream. I never,
ever in my wildest dreams thought I could be like them. And that might be you as well. On average,
only 23.9% of sales emails are actually opened. So remember that as you grow your list, 63% of
consumers need to hear a company's claims three to five times before they actually believe them.
So keep showing up. Keep saying the same things because you never know when it will resonate with
someone. Now, keep saying the same things maybe in different ways if they're not working. This is
an excellent strategy for your podcast episodes. So we take all of our podcast episodes and we know
which ones have the biggest day of downloads, the biggest week of downloads. And I will speak on
that same subject in a different way if it did really well because it tells us, Hey, our listeners
want to hear more of this. Now don't use the same keywords. I hope we know this by now because that
will not help you. You should potentially turn your content and ideas into an audio version that
reaches more people. We are putting these on YouTube, these podcast episodes. Now, we want as
many touch points with our people as humanly possible, you know, just like we have students that
learn in a lot of different ways, adults also learn and consume content in different ways.
For example, one of my favorite YouTubers is Jacqueline Hill. I've been watching her since I was
18 probably. And so she's gone through a lot of ups and downs. But for me, when I get on YouTube,
I'm always going to look up to see if Jacqueline has more videos that I can watch. I follow her on
Instagram. I follow her on TikTok, but I don't really keep up with her there because she is who I
like to watch on YouTube. She is kind of like that old faithful person for me because I've been
watching her since I was about 18 years old and I'm 36 now. So that tells you she's been showing up
on YouTube for that long. Teachers can sniff out in authenticity real quick, y'all. So be prepared
to be uniquely you and connect with them where they are rather than where you think they should be.
Go back to the beginning of what you did and where you were at that specific time as a teacher
and start your content creation there. When you first get started, you're going to have more
pushback because people don't have any social proof. Rarely, very rarely knock on wood. Do people
come at us anymore? And that is a really great feeling because we have a proven pathway to success.
So someone might say we had a recent Facebook ad which people don't know me that see our Facebook
ad mostly where people were like attacking me about me saying something about teachers work from
730 to 330 because that was my schedule. My husband's a principal. That is still his schedule. But
apparently that is not most teacher schedule. And I misspoke when I assumed that it was.
And so people were attacking me in that Facebook ad but our students came on and were like,
look, it's not that deep. This was just kind of what she was saying. It actually helped us with
our Facebook advertising because that ad took off. But what I'm saying is in the beginning is that
people might not really believe you. And so you're going to need that consistency in order to
have some social proof. So let's talk about the action tips that you can take to help you with
your marketing funnels as a teacher. Each of these steps could potentially be part of their very
own detailed funnel. But for today's purposes, let's take a look at the big picture here. The
30,000 foot view, if you will, and I'll walk you through the overview of what a potential
marketing funnel will look like. If you're interested in really digging down deep in the
specifics of this and knowing what funnels work best for specific niches if you're podcasting or
if you are selling on TPT or if you are launching a course or a membership. And I encourage you to
join us in our challenge. If you go to caseymoras.com slash challenge. Now, if you're curious about
what marketings look like specifically for one of our 10 different pathways like podcasting or TPT
or selling physical products through Etsy, then I encourage you to stick around to the end of
this show because I have a very special exciting new announcement for you. Basically, how your ideas
lead teachers down a path towards your signature content is in funnel form. So first and foremost
is that you must have a lead magnet. This is your opt in. This is your freebie. This is your
awareness stage. This is when you tell people, Hey, I can help you with X, Y, Z. We call this
the top of the funnel. This is where you want to reach the most people here. If you're imagining
what a funnel looks like, the opening of a funnel is larger than the bottom of the funnel.
You're trying to bring as many people into your world as you can to throw them in the top of your
funnel. Now, you're going to weed some people out because you're not always going to find your
people here. But if you're able to fill your funnel by giving people something of massive value,
a lead magnet, an opt in or freebie, I'm not talking about free resources here. We'll talk about that
in just a second. Being able to fill your funnel with warm and cold traffic will help you offer
something big later on down the road. Where and how are you going to share your lead magnet,
your opt in or your freebie? Something that says here is what I want you to be aware of. So,
let's say that you are a teacher that's teaching English and language arts. You're going to help
teachers really map out the writing instruction from middle school. So, what you could give them
for an opt in or a freebie is a 10 step guide to have your students ace next year's standardized
testing when it comes to writing. What you did is give them something of massive value to help them
solve a problem that they may be struggling with. As an English teacher myself, teaching students how
to write was something I wasn't necessarily great at. And so, any opportunity that I could get
to make that better, I would do that. Let's say that you teach kindergarten and your students
really excel in learning all their sight words. And so, you want to create an opt in. You're not
going to give them sight word cards. That's not helping them solve a problem. That's just giving
them resources to aid in a problem that they have. So, if teachers are struggling to teach their
students, maybe new teachers don't understand the quick and effective strategies on teaching
sight words. You could say you could have an opt in that said my foolproof method to teaching sight
words before Christmas vacation every year. Something that gives them value that they can
solve a problem with immediately. Now, how do you deliver this? You're going to put it on a landing
page and then you're going to get it to them through their email. And you're going to share
this with the world. You have to bring awareness through this entire web of blog posting, podcast
episodes, YouTube videos, social media posts. Am I talking too fast for you? Is this overwhelming?
It's a lot. It is. But in order to sell your stuff later on down the road, this is the proven
pathway to marketing success. So, I like to share our links verbally. You've heard me say
kacymorris.com slash challenge a lot this year. And that pretty link allows you to give a link
that you say verbally. That's easy to remember so that people can download something quickly.
Once you get them on your email list, it's time for you to send them nurturing emails. These are
multiple emails that will help send your customer along a pre destined path once they have entered
into your world. This is where I live for the nerdy funnel stuff. And so I have a huge whiteboard
and I will map out the next funnel. And I have all these little squiggly lines that go from here
there everywhere to get them to come down to the next part of the funnel, which is our next action
tip. And that is a low ticket offer, something that you can see. Are they in it to win it? Do they
care enough to keep continuing this journey with me? And that is a low ticket offer. This could be
something like a digital resource from TPT. Here's where you transfer people from awareness stage.
Now they know what you have to offer. It's time for them to see if they show a little bit of
interest. So this can be woven into those emails inside of that funnel of your nurture sequence.
I want you to think about resources that are bundled together or printed items like stickers
or planners or mini lessons or trainings. Anything under the $50 mark, I would consider a low ticket
offer. You can skip this piece if you feel that your audience isn't quite ready for a sale yet.
And let me just say that nurturing people without an ask is a huge underrated thing. People will tell
you you must have a low ticket offer first. I didn't ask people for anything for five years.
And then when I did, I made $100,000. So think about that as you're planning out what you want
your business to look like. You can skip this piece if you feel your audience isn't quite ready,
or maybe you're not quite ready to try to sell something first. Next, I want to do a quick recap.
It's first, you want to give them something free and opt in in the awareness stage. Second is,
you want to give them something that is a low ticket offer in the interest stage. Third is,
you want to transfer them to the consideration or intent stage. This is where you can offer a
webinar, maybe a master class, a training, a Facebook live. This is a way for you to connect
with your audience live. Whether you want to or not, people like who they can see and who they can
trust. And it's not going to be easy in the beginning. I have someone that I admire so much.
I have loved her forever on TPT, like shout out to Angie from Lucky Little Learners. I think she is
one of the most coolest humans ever. I have just loved her website. I've loved her designs.
If you've never checked her out, you should. But she messaged me the other day and spoke about how
well I was on how well I speak on camera now. That was like the ultimate compliment first coming from
her. But second, because it has not always been this way. If you go back and look at some of my
first YouTube videos, they were really, really a struggle. And so it takes time for you to master
really working on webinars, trainings, Facebook lives. I've been in this line of work talking to
this camera now for four years. And it's allowed me to build this snowball of continuation. So
Angie, just to shout out to you, thank you for saying that. But a live training, it follows a
typical pattern. You're going to teach a single topic. And then you would use a Facebook live to
further the connection. Maybe your people are getting stuck on how to use a product. I think
about one of our students, Tara. She's been on our show before, but she helps children with autism.
And so she has these books that she gives in her membership. And she does these Facebook live
challenges where she shows you how to create the books. And then you share your book with other
people as she goes live, being able to show people how to use something and how to apply it in their
own lives is really what's going to allow them to make that transformation and to step in and join
your program or service. You could pitch your low ticket offer in this step as well. This is what
we call the middle of the funnel. So the top of the funnel is that awareness stage going back to
your lead magnet and freebie. As people move down the funnel, you'll take them into the interest stage.
Then you'll move them into that webinar training consideration intent stage. And then the next step
and a lot of you are not ready for this. A lot of you need to prepare for this. This is not something
that just comes overnight. But the next stage is the purchase stage. And here is where I want you to
make the biggest bang for your buck. This is where you should have your big ticket offer. Now,
what we do as teachers is a lot different than what online marketers are going to teach here.
If you were to Google Big Ticket Offer, what I'm going to say to you right now is going to sound
ludicrous. And this is why you listen to my show as a teacher. And you listen to what I say and go
with it or you can find another coach and listen to what they say. But understanding where we are
in our space is very, very important. A big ticket offer for teachers doesn't necessarily mean
something that's 10, 20, 30,000 dollars. Most online marketers are going to tell you that you
need an offer that is 20 to 100,000 dollars, which blows my mind. Have I bought big ticket
ticket offers from people? Yes. Have they been worth the money? Absolutely not. If I ever have
a big ticket offer, please know that whatever I ask of you will be what you get times 10 in return.
But big ticket offers for teachers, like, come on, let's get real. Teachers are making 30,000
dollars a year. Some of us, I know that other places in the United States make a lot than we do
here in the South, but we are not asking people for that much money. So for us, a big ticket offer
could be your membership, your course, physical products, books. Can you guys tell I'm in my zone
right now? I was put on this planet to teach this type of stuff. And so you may be listening to this
going, Kasey, I cannot relate at all to what you're talking about right now. This is definitely a
higher level strategy that I'm sharing, but I am living for it. So many business gurus will call
your big ticket offer your signature product. This is the one that you become known for. Mine,
right now is the CEO teacher membership. It is not going to be my big ticket offer forever.
It is a $59 offer or $590 for the year. But this is the biggest value offer I have ever had.
And that means something I spend all my time living in that offer right now. And this is where
you get people to the bottom of the funnel at the very top. We threw people in, we moved them down,
and now it's time to make a decision. You're either in or you're out. It's either a heck yes,
or it's a no. Do you need to know the end destination today where you're going to send them? What that
membership, what that course, what that physical product, what your book looks like? Absolutely not.
Do you need to know what it'll be before you begin your funnel? No, remember not asking people
for anything and just being consistent will pay off 10 fold. Should you at least know who you serve
and how you will show up? Probably. But does it always happen this way? No. I was chatting with
our team today and something a big project we've been working on. I use prayer to guide me a lot.
And I listen to my gut and my intuition. It's never been wrong. And so we have a big project
we're working on. This is part of the reason why I'm really probably going to work for it. But if
God tells me no, it's done. I pull it. God says get out. That's what I do. I don't always know
where we're going, even though I think it feels right when we start. Sometimes you have to start
moving in order to find that clarity to know that it's a win or you need to change a little bit.
You have to be flexible in the entrepreneurial world. This is where messy action comes into play.
I love it. I heard Jenna Kutcher. I brought her up a few times today. But once say that the
difference between her and some other people is that as an entrepreneur, if she's on a boat and
someone says jump, people will normally say, well, I will, if there's a net, like you can throw a
net to me or if I have a life vest on. And Jenna said, I'm just going to jump. I don't need any,
I just going to, I'm just going to jump. And I do that in the business world. And I thought, wow,
it's a really good analogy to realize that sometimes you just have to have that leap of faith to say,
I'm confident in who I am and who I serve and that this will work. And when you can undeniably
know that in the gut and in your soul and your being, it will always work. I just want you to think
about the ways that you can help your audience. And then I want you to ask them, what do they need?
That's meeting them where they are. That's really streamlining your process. While you are deciding
how you can help, don't forget to think about the ways you are most comfortable showing up
consistently ready to share your knowledge. Podcasting might be your platform. If you are the teacher
who loves to paint a picture with words, who loves to chat with your teacher besties and needs to
reach an audience that may not be social media or have time to sit down and read through an entire
blog post, this is still my favorite way to deliver content each and every week is by showing up
and chatting with each of you. Maybe you're going to share about all of the things we talked about
today through blogging. This really goes hand in hand with podcasting. And it is basically the
visual form of your podcast. Plus, it helps you rank higher in search when you have a written form
attached to your audio files online. Now, think about blogging, which is a way to record your videos
and share them with the world. Social media, professional development, online programs,
services in person programs. There are so many ways that you can share your vision. If my students
jump on a call with me that that's a coaching call and they say, Casey, I don't have anyone
downloading my opt-in. I will hit them with are you podcasting? Are you blogging? Are you showing
up in person? Are you passing out flyers? Are you sending out emails? And they say, well, I did this.
Well, I want you to try all the avenues until you know what really works. You can apply funnels
across your entire business and automate them. So what you do really is begin to bring in income
while you're poolside while you're with your babies at a doctor's appointment or while you're
even teaching a class. Once your funnels are set up and running smoothly, you can begin on retaining
those customers. But that's another topic for us to tackle another day. As we switch gears,
I promise to give you an exciting announcement that's coming your way today. If you are listening
today, this is May the 24th tomorrow morning, we are going to be launching the brand new CEO
teacher. We've been working on a refresh of what our brand looks like. My mission has been to allow
each of you to see yourself as a CEO teacher, not just to see me. I've gone for 10 years now,
being Casey Morris and the person that helps you develop all these things and make money as a
teacher. And I want to be able to say, I want you to be a CEO teacher. You have been the reason why
my life has been so wonderful. You are the reason why I get up every day and say, teachers deserve
more. You deserve to make your worth. And tomorrow we are releasing our brand new branding and showing
you what that will look like as you begin to take a deep dive into becoming the CEO teacher of
your dreams. So check us out tomorrow, Casey Morris dot com. You'll be able to see that brand
refresh plus will be rebranding all of our social media to hopefully embody the CEO teacher and
every teacher around the world as we embrace each of you that come into our world and cheer you on
and know that the best is always yet to come. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you
right here next week. The most successful teachers looking to make extra money online all have a
few things in common, a solid foundation, a community that supports them and a proven plan to follow.
The teacher income challenge was made just for you, an educational rock star who is looking to turn
their passion into profit online. If you're ready to finally make your worth and go from
teacher on a state pay skill to creator of your own future, the teacher income challenge is for
you and it starts right now. The world's only proven pathway for success made for teachers by a teacher.
The tardy bell is ringing so grab your seat and head on to the front of the class by going to
kacymorris.com slash challenge. That's K-A-Y-S-E-M-O-R-R-I-S dot com slash challenge.
.