Follow-Up Funnels Review: Clickfunnels’ Autoresponder
No matter what kind of business you have, whether it’s online or offline, email marketing is a must. If you don’t use an email service to nurture and ascend the relationship with your leads and customers, you’ll leave huge amounts of money on the table. A lot of people know this, but don’t do anything about it because they don’t know how to set it up and how to automate the emails. Follow-up Funnels does all the hard work for you.
Follow Up Funnels (previously called Actionetics) is ClickFunnels own email automation service. With Follow-up funnels you can schedule- and send broadcast-emails to deliver the right message to your leads at the right time. Follow Up Funnel is available inside Clickfunnels Platinum plan for $297/month.
There is a huge advantage to have your autoresponder and page builder under the same service: Clickfunnels. Because you have all the tools you need to handle your business under one roof.
To learn how you can start using Follow-up Funnels inside your Clickfunnels account then keep reading.
Disclaimer: This article may contain affiliate links where I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. For more information read my Disclosure.
What Is Follow-Up Funnels?
Follow-up Funnels was added into Clickfunnels in late 2019 after the update for celebrating their 5 years in business. It was previously called Actionetics, but changed name to Follow-up Funnels. Within the update came a lot of cool and new features which is shown in the video below…
To understand what the ”Follow-up” funnel is we need to know what the ”first” funnel is. The first funnel is you comeplete sales funnel which includes your landing page, sales page, OTO page, Upsell and downsell pages and the thank you page.
This is where you send your traffic from Facebook ads, Google and YouTube etc. When people go through your sales funnel they enter their email address at the landing page, then they move on through out the funnel.
The ”first” funnels’ main task is to turn your visitors into leads, and maybe customers.
The Follow-up Funnels’ main task is to nurture your leads (and customers) through an advanced automated email sequence, to get them become hardcore fans of your product or service.
The Follow-up Funnel service inside Clickfunnels will let you build highly effective email sequences based on the actions your leads takes. You’re able to send the right messages at the right time to optimize your sales. Sound amazing if you ask me.
How Does Follow-up Funnels work?
Follow-up funnels works in a really simple way. You can create email lists, select contacts and add contacts at any time and broadcast any email you want. Another unique feature is that it has its own scoring system with your contacts. Called Action score, it rates your contacts based on feedback and engagement. The Action Score feature allows you to really focus your products on certain groups in your contact lists.
Let’s look at the process in more detail.
The process is as follows: Action funnel, Create New funnel, add action funnel name, Create new action funnel, Add a new stop or use the existing one then select add rules
So, when you’re creating your email, you can create a smart list based on the contacts “Action score”. A smart list will automatically add or removed depending on what rules you want to use. The most common rules are the contact rules, funnel rules, product rules and the email step product.
All these lists mean that you can easy tailor the contact list that receives the email. For example, you might want to create an email list that will be adjusted for those people who engage with you the most. To do this, you just select the contact rule and select the highest engaging contacts. This method, once you’ve got used to it is easy and a real time saver.
This means you can have multiple lists for multiple products. It’s a lot easier to have your emails organised this way rather than having to individually send each email, wasting your time.
Automation is the key to all productivity
Is Follow-up Funnels Included In ClickFunnels?
The standard plan of Clickfunnels does not include Follow-up Funnels You need to upgrade to the Platinum plan. If you are looking at developing and expanding your business, then it is a really good investment/tool. It would also be a fantastic investment for an already developed business that just wants to get more customers, even if it is just to help with organisation of information.
However, I would offer caution to those who perhaps aren’t looking to add any expense or can’t afford the monthly cost. There are alternatives that you should consider that would be cheaper but won’t offer the quality and ease of use that clickfunnels Follow-up funnels includes.
So basically, you need to upgrade your package in order to get the autoresponder feature. Think about if this is something that you really need and will be beneficial to you in the future.
Follow-up Funnels Pricing
The standard package costs $97 per month which is relatively affordable. For this, you get 20 funnels, 100 landing pages and 20,000 visitors a month. This represents pretty good value for what you’re paying. This would be perfect for a smaller business and the idea is to gain a little bit of traction.
If you want access to the more advanced features, then you need the Platinum plan as previously discussed. For this, you get an unlimited amount of sale funnels and unlimited landing pages. You also get an unlimited amount of traffic to the pages and funnels. This really helps if you’ve got multiple products that you want to sell.
The cost of this is $297 per month which is very pricy, but it is a premium tool. This is the only package you can get the Follow-up funnel features.
It really depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re looking to move your online business into a more professional set up with a variety of produce, this would be an ideal tool to use. If you just want a tool that’s perhaps not as complicated or detailed but still does a decent job, then I would suggest looking for an alternative option that’s a lot cheaper.
Follow-up Funnels Best Features
There’s an absolute mountain of features that Follow-up funnels has to offer when you get access to the dashboard. I’ll go through each of these in turn. Another fantastic feature that Follow-up funnels have are that their help page is fantastic, so any issues you might have, just go on the ClickFunnel website and you’ll find what you’re looking for.
1) Contact Profiles
So, this is the first feature you’ll see in the dropdown menu. The contact profiles are the main point of contact for all your clients. Each subscribed contact’s information will appear in a neat and organised table. You also get a little bit of data to go along with that too. You can see the number of subscribed contacts, number of new contacts and those who have unsubscribed as well as the ability to import contacts via the import contact option. You can also view the purchase history of each contact if you want which is handy for using the tag feature.
2) Email Lists
So, like traditional email autoresponder software, you can separate contacts for your specific needs. As stated previously, you can create new and add email lists, but you can go into more detail by using the smart list feature. This means you can automatically adjust your contacts depending on a variety of filters that you might want to use. This can be based off their tag, previous products bought and previous interactions. This can take a little getting used to at first but once you get used to it, it’s a great feature!
3) Broadcasts
This basically means sending messages to a large amount of people. The good thing about this is that if you miss something or need to send something specific to a client, you can easily send it to them via the broadcast feature. You can send an email to a targeted email list as you think that the product will suit the client in that email list. You can also schedule this ahead of time so you can send emails without worry.
This is ideal if you’re handling multiple products at once. It’s another quality of life feature the Follow-up funnels offers that means you’re a lot more time efficient and less stressed.
4) Action Funnels
Very quick and easy to explain. This feature basically lets you set up all the automation. It also lets you look more analytically and critically at your contact list. This is what you’re mainly paying for when you get the Platinum package.
These are the main four and most important features that Follow-up funnels provides. As you can see, they have a real ability to generate more business, but it is something you’ll have to take time to learn. There are also a few other detailed features that aren’t particularly necessary, but it would be a good
idea to have a look at them as you might be able to make use of some of the lesser used features.
Clickfunnels Alternatives
So, it would seem sensible to have a look at a few alternatives to Clickfunnels first.
Clickfunnels vs SamCart
It’s best to discuss SamCart first because it’s very similar to Clickfunnels. It allows you to design high quality webpages as well as supporting a lot of paymwnt features. There’s no difference between the systems that they use as they both have an easy to use click and drag system.
Where Follow-up funnels excels though is with its creativity. Being a more powerful software than SamCart, you can design any page you can think of compared to SamCart’s template layout. You can also add upsells and downsells on Clickfunnels which is another feature that SamCart does support also, but its easier accessed on Clickfunnels. SamCart’s templetes does make the process of creating the ideal page a lot faster mind you.
Overall, Clickfunnels seems to have the edge over SamCart simply because it’s a more powerful tool which allows you to be more creative. SamCart has the same base cost of $97, I would definitely go for Clickfunnels.
Clickfunnels vs LeadPages
Both remarkably similar and high-quality software’s, it’s really hard to choose between the two. They both use similar click and drag systems. The main difference between them is that Clickfunnels allows you to have more creative choice when designing your pages. However, the trade-off for this is that LeadPages allows you to make sleek looking designs a lot faster.
The major advantage that LeadPages has over Clickfunnels is their LeadBoxes feature. It does the same job as the Follow-up funnels email automation features but its far easier and simpler to use. With only a twostep opt in process, it’s a far easier process to Follow-up funnels, but not as advanced.
This one is down to personal preference. If you’re looking on lead generation, LeadPages is the better product but if you want to sell, Clickfunnels is the better product. They’re both quality products but Clickfunnels probably just takes the first place.
Is Follow-up Funnels Worth The Money?
Compared to Follow-up funnels main rivals, I would suggest that it’s worth the money. It’s an all-around more powerful product compared to SamCart which provides a lot more options. When compared to LeadPages, they are very similar and which product you choose to use depends on what you want the product to do. If you’re looking at more of a faster design process and lead generation then LeadPages is the better product. If you’re looking for quality when selling, the Follow-up funnels is the best product for you.
It seems that the best-balanced software to use would defiantly be the Clickfunnels.
I would encourage you to do your own detailed research on each product though. I would also make a list of what requirements you are asking of the software and then find the best suited product for you. Remember to consider the cost too!
How To Access Follow-up Funnels Inside Clickfunnels?
Accessing Follow-up funnels is really easy. Theres a process to accessing the program and then eventually sending your own emails. I’ll go through this in order.
1. Importing Contacts
This is the first step you need to do. All you do is go to Follow-up funnels, contact profiles, click import contacts, upload them and then organise them into the columns. Then review the list and then you’re good to go. You can also import old email contacts too. This process is a lot easier when compared to other products.
2. Create New Tags
You can detail your contact lists even further by creating a tag. They basically allow to you classify your contacts further by using the funnel features. To do this, all you need to do is go to settings, integrations, Follow-up funnels as an integration, add tag and then you can add whatever tag you want. You can also use tags further by using them as a trigger. I would suggest you have a look at this in your own time as this isn’t a particularly vital feature, but non the less good to know about.
3. Action Funnels
The first part is to use the social tab. This means you can set up what groups you want to use, even if this is for a particular social media following. Next up is the contact tab. This lets you organise your action steps in a variety of ways. Funnel is the next step and that lets you set up your group for those who have visited or not visited the page yet. Products allows you to see who has and who hasn’t bought the product and you can inform those who did not buy then again.
Theres plenty more to have a look at. Perhaps the most important one is the email funnel. This allows you to see who has opened and not opened the email and adjust accordingly. Feel free to do your own research on the lists and email steps features. These aren’t the most important features, but they can be useful.
If you want try out Clickfunnels before considering jumping on the Platinum plan and Follow-up funnels, you can start a 14-day free trial. Click the link below to create your Clickfunnels account now and start building your sales funnel.
Final Words
I think it’s fair to say that Clickfunnels is a very good product. It’s one of the best marketing tools out there at the moment. With an easy to use, click and drag system and a lot of creative freedom, its an absolute fantastic product that is perfectly designed for creating traffic and converting that into sales.
With so many features, Clickfunnels pretty much offers everything a business of any size might need. The main objective is to get the message about your products out there. With the in-depth data that Follow-up funnels offers, its easy to target who you want to get particular information too. Follow-up funnels provides some of the best features on the market that’s for sure. Another nice feature is that theres a really good instructional section of the ClickFunnels website. You can find out anything you want out about the product and have your automated email sequence setup in no time.
Are there cheaper alternatives? Yes. Are they as good? Probably not but I would struggle to justify spending nearly $300 a month on a piece of software that perhaps might not pay off. I would recommend thinking about what you really want out of a product like Follow-up funnels.
Remember you can still integrate almost any email autoresponder with Clickfunnels, so you can decide for yourself if you want to use Clickfunnels own service or someone else’s.
