The Minimum Viable Funnel

What is a Minimum Viable Funnel (MVF)? And why should you care?

If you’re a beginner at affiliate marketing, or you’re just starting out with making money online, and you just started your new online business, I suggest you focus on the minimum viable funnel first.

Here’s why:

You’ll Make Mistakes, And That’s No Issue

If you’re just starting out on your online business endeavors…

… You will probably make tons of mistakes.

But that’s not really a problem, because:

  • You can mess up parts of your traffic generation.
  • You can mess up huge parts or all of the lead nurturing.
  • You can mess up all your offers and sales pages.

But you shouldn’t mess up the lead generation / lead capture.

Why?

Once your visitors/content consumers are gone - they’re gone for good.

It’s almost a certainty that they will never come back.

Game over.

You’ve lost them.

To overcome the problem of “messing up the most critical part of your funnel”, let’s take a look at the MVF…

What Is The MVF? How Does It Look Like?

Flowchart - Traffic To Leads To Email Marketing

Let’s assume you’re following the following general strategy:

You drive traffic (through specific channels) to your OPT-IN page, to then make one or more offers to your audience.

So you point people (traffic) to a solution (offer) to solve their specific problem.

Awesome!

Let’s take a closer look at the most critical part of this equation:

Traffic To Opt-In

Why You Shouldn’t Mess Up The Opt-In

If your traffic (-targeting) is slightly off, you might pay a bit too much for your traffic.

That sucks, but usually, it’s not too critical.

Of course you shouldn’t mess up this part altogether…

If your lead nurturing is off, you probably don’t provide enough value or it’s not targeted enough, you might want to change it and try something different.

If your offers don’t convert, you will try out different offers or simply ask your audience about their biggest pain points - to come up with a better, more specific, and better-results-producing solution to a burning problem of them.

You’ll basically create and come up with better solutions.

But here’s the issue:

If you don’t capture the contact details of your traffic (lead generation/list building):

It’s GAME OVER

99.99% of people will never return to your website/blog/channel.

They’re gone, and they’re gone for good.

There’s simply no second chance to correct this error.

They’re onto the next thing and already forgot you and your brand seconds after they left.

The MVF: Capture Your Audience’s Contact Details

In the end, you’re trying to connect two things:

  • A highly targeted audience with clearly defined, burning, similar issues (leads)
  • A specific, results-producing solution or solutions (irresistible offer(s))

That’s basically how you provide value to the marketplace.

And that’s why you’ll get paid.

But all of that won’t happen, if you don’t capture the lead.

Sure, if you’re lucky, maybe 1% will buy your solution anyway.

Chances are, you won’t make any sales. (read this article for more info)

But, even if you are lucky and make a sale or two:

You’re simply leaving too much money on the table if you don’t have the opportunity to follow-up with your audience.

Most of them will not buy the first time they encounter you and your offer/solution.

I’d even say, without a list, you don’t have a business at all.

Closing Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed this short article on the minimum viable funnel.

You can read more about the importance of list building here.

Thank you for reading and stay awesome,

Tim for Online Business Dude

PS: Start And Grow Your Own Online Business, From Scratch, Today!

==> This Is How.