🥷🏻 Funnel Breakdown #4: The Ad Professor

My favorite creator on X right now:

The Ad Professor.

It’s a pseudonymous account that’s been posting sick marketing content (and growing pretty quickly) over the past few months.

I’m completely obsessed with his work.

In fact, my idea of creating a niche pseudonymous account/newsletter talking exclusively about email marketing was inspired largely by him.

So this week, I decided to analyze and break down his lead magnet/newsletter funnel to see if his email marketing was as good as his content…

And turns out, it’s even BETTER.

So in today’s Funnel Breakdown you’re going to get:

• A masterclass in landing page copywriting
• A crash course on effective email list segmentation
• And a framework for creating a word-of-mouth marketing flywheel.

So, strap in and let’s go!

Funnel Piece #1: The Landing Page

Let’s start by breaking down the Professor’s landing page.

This is easily the best lead magnet/newsletter landing page I’ve seen this year.

So many small (but super smart) tactics worth stealing here.

For starters, he’s able to get your attention with a 3-word headline, implying your advertising is broken (and you might be wasting $$$ as a result).

And granted, the headline could be more specific and attract a more targeted audience—but that’s okay because, as we’re going to see shortly, he’s using a quick survey to segment (and qualify) his audience right away.

Then, in the sub-headline, he tells you exactly what you’ll get in just 3 bullets.

But that’s not it—he also assigns a monetary value to each of the things he’s “giving” you, increasing the perceived value (and the urgency) of opting in.

The best part, though, is how he completely reframes the sales call.

Instead of hiding the fact that he eventually might invite you to hop on a call with his team (like most marketers do), he positions it as a benefit you get when you sign up.

Then, he puts a $10,000 price tag on it.

And finally he adds scarcity and exclusivity with a disclaimer:

“Only a few slots available a week. We will add you to a waiting list and winners will get notified by email.”

Brilliant.

And in case you're still not sold on signing up after reading these first 2 sections, he also includes a quick “what to expect” bulleted list underneath the sign-up box.

Here, he makes the benefits of the “offer” even more tangible by listing out the “assets” you’re going to get as part of his free advertising course and re-emphasizes the value (and the scarcity) of the 1:1 strategy call:

• 7-part checklist for every ad you create
• 49 creative ads I’ve collected
• Deep dive consultancy session on your advertising strategy from the Professor team. Minimal slots available per week.

🤌🤌🤌

And in addition to having phenomenal copy, the page nails all the other “must-haves”:

• Social proof (at the bottom of the page)
• Minimalist design (but beautiful branding)
• Rule of One (only one CTA, no distracting buttons or navigation bars)

Funnel Piece #2: The Thank You Page

After typing up your email and hitting the subscribe button, the Professor redirects you to this Thank You page with a segmentation survey:

But he doesn’t just ask you to answer the questions.

Instead, he explains that by answering the questions, he’ll be able to “personalize things for you.”

These are the 6 questions he asks:

• Which of these best describes you?
• What’s your seniority level?
• Is your company doing over $1m in revenue or investment?
• Where is your company based?
• Does your company have a website?

Now if you pay enough attention to these, you’ll realize another smart thing he’s doing:

He’s using this survey as a way to not only segment his email list (and personalize things), but also as a way to pre-qualify subscribers.

Remember the “we will announce the consultancy call winners” disclaimer?

Guess who’s “winning” the chance to have one of these calls…

Yup, people who respond the survey AND meet certain criteria.

The only caveat here is that 6 questions might be a little too many questions. (I usually recommend asking 3-5 questions max.)

So, I’d be curious to see what’s the completion rate for his survey.

Lastly, once you answer all the questions, he sets expectations (again) and hypes up the fact that you just joined his email list (while injecting a little bit of humor).

Once again—masterfully executed.

Funnel Piece #3: The Welcome Email

Next, let’s take a look at the Professor‘s welcome email.

His email is short and sweet.

And it can be broken down into 3 sections:

• Welcome (with personality)
• Credibility
• Expectations

But there’s also a subtle tactic in play here that’s worth pointing out:

Instead of sending you the usual (boring) “click here to confirm your subscription” email, he sends you his welcome email right away.

But in this email, he includes a button to get the first freebie.

And when you (as a reader) click the button, you’re essentially taking an action that confirms you’re a real human.

This is a great way to do a “double opt-in” without adding friction to the experience of the real humans that really do want to read your stuff.

(Bonus) Funnel Piece #4: The Freebie

Last but not least, let’s take a look at the Professor’s first freebie.

When you click on the “Read Now” button, you’re redirected to a “public” ConvertKit broadcast.

If you’re not familiar, this is a cool ConvertKit feature that allows you to share emails you’ve sent to your list as if they were a blog post.

I think this is the first time I see someone using this feature to deliver a freebie, but it’s actually pretty smart.

• Super easy to set up.
• No need to create files.
• Easy to share (it’s essentially a website).
• And—very important—it has an embedded form to capture emails.

This means that if someone shares this link with a friend or a colleague, and the person who was forwarded the link enjoys the read, they can easily sign up for the Professor’s newsletter…

AND easily share the link again.

Which in turn creates an amazing flywheel.

The only thing is that he’s not asking (or somehow incentivizing) people to share the link.

So that’s definitely a small upgrade that could go a long way in increasing shareability.

Recap

And that’s a wrap!

As usual, we covered a lot and there are a bunch of tactical golden nuggets in this Breakdown.

So I’m going to quickly recap them all below so you can get a quick refresher and decide which one of these nuggets you’re going implement in your own funnels this week.

Tactics Worth Stealing From The Ad Professor’s Funnel

• Be concise—but don’t be afraid to inject humor and personality to your copy.
• Assign a monetary value to your freebies and communicate it on your landing page.
• Use your thank you page to segment your email list, personalize your emails, and pre-qualify leads.
• If you have a “book a call” funnel, reframe your sales call as an exclusive consulting session that only a few people will get access to.
• Have your subscribers confirm they’re real humans by clicking on a button to download your lead magnet (instead of having them click on an useless confirmation email button).

Potential Upgrades He Could Make (That You Can Learn From)

• He could reduce the number of questions in his segmentation survey (to increase completion rates).
• He could incentivize people to share his “How To Fix Your Advertising” with their friends and colleagues to accelerate his list growth.

Boom—now the ball is on your court!

Which of these are you going to implement over the next week?

Hit reply and let me know!

Also, if you have any follow-up questions after reading this issue, be sure to let me know too!

I’m here to help :-)

Until next week,

~The Email Marketing Ninja

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