I analyzed Marily Nika’s funnel and was shocked at what I found.

At a glance, she’s crushing it:

• 7000+ X followers
• 77,000+ LinkedIn followers
• No. 1 AI PM course on Maven

But she’s leaving $13,233 of monthly revenue on the table due to “leaks” in her marketing funnel (without realizing it).

She could easily be making even more if it weren’t for these costly mistakes:

The “leaks” in the funnel

Mistake #1 - Weak opt-in

She’s currently driving traffic from her social profiles to a newsletter opt-in form instead of a lead magnet (free gift).

These opt-ins have low perceived value since there are no tangible benefits for subscribing. The immediate reaction people get when they see “join my newsletter” is: “Oh no, more emails…”.

Also, they often get buried at the bottom of a website, which are easily missed.

Now I’m not saying newsletters aren’t valuable, but they don’t provide a quick + meaningful win.

Mistake #2 - Weak lead magnet

To my surprise, she does have a lead magnet in the form of a live webinar.

But there are a few problems:

• It was hidden/not promoted clearly on her website
• Live webinars require her to show up to deliver value
• The topic was not a clear bridge to her products (AI PM courses)

This indicates that her current lead magnet is not scalable or effective enough.

Mistake #3 - No segmentation

She has multiple courses on AI for PMs that look very similar:

• AI Product Bootcamp
• AI Product Management 101
• Advanced AI Product Management
• Generative AI for Product Managers

It took me a long time to go through each sales page to finally realize the AI Product Bootcamp is a bundle for 2 other courses 😅

Other readers are probably asking themselves:

• “Which course should I buy?”
• “What happens if I don’t buy? What will I be missing?”

These add friction to the buying process and decrease conversion rates.

A confused mind doesn’t buy.

The missed opportunity

These mistakes when stacked together are causing lower quantity & quality of subscribers (<5% opt-in rate).

And this has ripple effects on her overall revenue.

Some quick math

According to Similarweb, her newsletter website is getting ~4,733 traffic per month. Now assuming her opt-in rate is 5%:

If 1% of them convert to become a customer for one of the courses (e.g. Advanced AI Product Management & Leadership) at $699:

But a 5% opt-in rate sucks!

Let’s say we improve to a 40% opt-in rate (1,893 new subs per month) and maintain 1% conversion rate (selling the same course):

$1,398 → $13,233!

This is how much more she can make just from new email subscribers. This is extra revenue on top of other promotions she’s doing e.g. events, speaking.

But unlike other promotions, email is much cheaper and easier to scale.

How to fix it

There 3 steps to solve these funnel “leaks”:

1. Segment each course by using lead magnets

Build a free Educational Email Course (EEC) for each product that have:

• A landing page with room for copywriting
• Tangible outcome = high perceived value
• Hyper specific topic

This accomplishes a few things:

• Boost her opt-in rates (typically 30-50%)
• Educates subscribers on their problems
• Develop trust by displaying her expertise

Subscribers will be primed to reciprocate after getting so much free value so quickly.

Here’s a quick outline I drafted for an EEC related to Advanced AI Product Management & Leadership paid course:

The AI Leadership Playbook

Avoid These 5 Mistakes That Lead to Poor Strategic Tradeoffs, Struggling to Foster an AI-First Culture, and Missing Out on the Potential of Gen AI (Even with 0 Coding Experience)

• Day 1: Insufficient Understanding of AI/ML Technical Foundations
• Day 2: Making Poor Strategic Tradeoffs with AI Investments
• Day 3: Failing to Integrate AI with Existing Systems
• Day 4: Neglecting Ethical and Bias Considerations
• Day 5: Poor AI Team Composition

As you can see, the EEC is a “bridge” to the paid course.

2. Promote the courses on autopilot

Build a FOMO sequence that automatically promotes the specific product after subscribers complete their EEC.

This follows Gary Vee’s jab-jab-jab-hook approach (or as I like to call it: “give-give-give-ask”).

The biggest mistake creators make is that their free value is not meaningful enough. The value must be disproportionally bigger than the ask.

To sell without being salesy is to be OK to continue delivering free value EVEN when people don’t buy. After the FOMO sequence, we can automatically add subscribers to our newsletter sequence again, so they continue to get free value until they either:

• Buy
• Or unsubscribe

3. Optimize the CTA

Lastly, we want to avoid the noise and confusing people. We should follow the rule of one:

• Help ONE person
• Solve ONE problem
• With ONE solution

Over time, there will be multiple but hyper focused funnels:

• Segment 1: EEC 1 → FOMO 1 → Product 1
• Segment 2: EEC 2 → FOMO 2 → Product 2
• Segment 3: EEC 3 → FOMO 3 → Product 3
• Etc.

As a start, funnel people to one specific email opt-in page (which is the EEC), remove other links in bio and social posts.

When there are multiple EECs in the future, she can link specific EEC for each social post that relates to each segment/problem:

• Post on leadership → AI leadership EEC
• Post on general AI → AI 101 EEC

Present the right offer to the right people and they’re more likely to take action.

Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help:

I can build a well-packaged, high-value Educational Email Course (like this one) for your business that will:

• Boost your email opt-in rate by 30-50% (and accelerating email list growth)
• Educate leads on their problems before any sale calls (to warm them up)
• Build trust with leads in days instead of months
• Promote your products/services on autopilot

Interested? Book a free call with me.

See you 😁

P.S. In case you missed it, check this out - The email mistake stunting your revenue growth​