Note: The following is a synopsis of the notes from the summit. We were not personally there and the notes are a combination of information presented and our take on the subject. Some of the information was groundbreaking, other information was as useful as the toe jam between your toes.
Top Takeaway: If you’re not using data to drive your decisions and paid traffic to help you grow your business, you’re in trouble.
Traffic 2.0 – The Great Pixel Land Rush and Why UXO is replacing SEO – Ryan Diess
TLDR: Understanding retargeting is critical to your business this year. Learn it, test it and modify it to your specific needs.
Sending traffic to a landing page or opt-in form used to work great until Google and Facebook started slapping advertisers hard. You see, the advertiser isn’t their customer, their end user is and they don’t want to upset them as they are the lifeblood of their business. There will always be a supply of advertisers as long as there is a supply of consumers. Google and Facebook are smart that way.
So, what do you do instead?
Cold Traffic –> Pixeled Audience (content page) –> Lead Capture Page –> Tripwire
All ad buys go to content page. Repeat, all ad buys go to the content page. You aren’t worried about making money with the content page, in fact, usually you don’t pitch on the content page, it is for opening up your prospects eyes to the idea of your product or service. So, how do you make money?Money is made by retargeting the traffic with Facebook ads, Twitter ads and Google ads.
If you don’t know what retargeting is, you need to learn it. When a visitor comes to your page a tracking pixel is dropped. Whenever they go online and start to browse, your ads will be served to them. Your retargeting ad captures their interest, as long as it makes a connection to the content you pushed them to initially. The user then converts into a loyal customer. Retargeting works and accounts for half of front end sales for companies correctly applying this technique.
How the “Content First” Approach Works
The target reads the content page, and they are pixeled for a retargeting campaign. After they leave the page they will see YOUR related ads at the various websites they visit. The goal isn’t to convert them on the content page, it is to indoctrinate, engage and hopefully amaze. Your focus is leading with content and value first over trying to get the sale. Think of it as planting the seed of your product/service/brand and then they see it everywhere and their brain will just assume you are a big brand due to seeing you everywhere.
Goal #1 – Set a Retargeting Pixel
Once the retargeting pixel is set you can follow up with that potential buyer even if you don’t have their email address. Don’t stress that you aren’t “building a list” as retargeting is very similar to list building. Your “list” is the number of computers that have your pixel loaded.
Facebook’s Custom Audiences
Just like a list you can segment and Facebook and Google will never slap you for sending traffic to a content piece. The future of traffic isn’t who can get the cheapest clicks, it is how has the most people pixeled. Display ads will soon be taken by companies who are retargeting. The most important metric now is CPP (Cost per Pixel).
Also see Traffic Boomerang: Step-by-step plan to dynamic DB retargeting.
SEO is Dead
Do any of us get tired of reading this headline? It started cropping up back in 2005 – ten years ago and still being used. Yet, it is still around and doing well.
The new SEO is UXO (User Experience Optimization)
How to Turn Your Site into Google’s Lovechild
The Lift, The Float and the Dead Cat Bounce
Lift – when you put a piece of new content, Google will place you somewhere in the results based on URL authority.
Um, no. URL authority is not an issue here and is not a main criteria on how Google ranks pages anymore. Our Hummingbird training shows how that is done. This is why so many believe SEO is dead as they just don’t understand how it really works.
Good links can help you raise your position in the results (social shares/native ads to content).
Not the case either. On page is more of a push than every before and links, social shares and native ads do not make a push according to our testing. Just stick with our training on SEO as the recommendations. The best part about this section is you have many thousands of competitors all doing the wrong thing when it comes to SEO.
At the top is Float.
You are competing to win the page that you are on and move pages up. Things can hurt you: bad links, old stuff (take dates out of blog posts immediately).
This is where FreshPubDate completely kills it. Bad links don’t really hurt you if you continually build solid links.
How Does Google Know?
– click through rates
– scroll rate (did users go below the fold?)
– time on page
– bounce rate
– spelling and grammar (they run spell/grammar check)
How to Optimize Click Through Rates
Page Titles must Sell the Click. Meta Descriptions must sell the click. Use sales copy. Treat the page titles and meta descriptions as AdWords ads.
Use Yoast’s plugin.
Use star ratings to get attention. Recommendation: KK Star Ratings
If you use video – Ultimate Video SEO Plugin ($19)
You can outrank YouTube videos if you have a niche video on a nice site. Get your separate pages listed in Google. Do this by using Genesis Themes or WooThemes.
Scroll Rate
They can’t buy if they never see the order button. Most landing pages focus on “above the fold” but they don’t rank in Google. Have a “down arrow” at the bottom of the screen (increases scroll rate by 30-40%)
WP Plugin – Scroll Top and Bottom
HTML Codepen Scroll Arrow
Trick: Page Tease (half a video/image on the fold)
Tool to measure scroll depth
Scroll Depth (works with Google Analytics)
CrazyEgg.com – creates heat maps
ClickTale – individual behavior in videos
Time On Page
People invest time before money. Use infographics as people spend more time on them than with the content. Plain text blog posts are useless unless you are a fabulous writer. People don’t want to read just text. Use giant posts, large images, videos, infographics, etc. Use lists especially “43 off the grid survival life hacks” “13 eye makeup tips”. Lists are shared the most on Facebook and Pinterest and they also encourage scrolling and time on page.
Bounce Rate – “Please Don’t Leave Me”
Speed is everything and if your site is slow, you will get killed in bounce rate.
Hosting: WPEngine (DO NOT HOST HERE – Use WebSynthesis instead)
Cloudflare (We’ve had major issues with Cloudflare in the recent past and no longer use if for our main sites)
Plugin: WP Smush.it
Allow your visitors to “define” themselves. Give them two choices with engaging buttons. I am here to “improve my overall health” or “to lose weight”. Time on page will be low but bounce rate will be even lower, which is important.
Grammar and Spelling
It is vital that you are good at this. Google’s duplicate content engine is so good that it doesn’t just nail duplicate content across different sites fast, it nails spun content too. Check your writing through Grammarly.
Other factors:
1. Quality links
2. Relevant Images
3. Social Shares
4. Captions
5. Author Authority
Book Recommedation: Don’t Make Me Think – Revisited – Steve Krug
Black Hat Results from White Hat Tactics – Roland Fraizer
Anytime there is a headline like this you know it is all going to be white hat tactics with ZERO black hat.
One piece of carefully and correctly curated content can drive more visitors to your site than dozens of random pieces of original content. Create content for four different customer lifecycle stages:
viral –> discover –> consider –> customer
Viral Traffic
– Audience: everyone
– Goals: create general awareness
– Keywords (KW) – very broad
– “Can We Guess Your Real Age”
– “How to Make Cheese with Your Feet”
– “17 Bad Jokes Only Marketers Will Get”
Discover
– Audience: Interested in Your Brand/Content
– Goals: Create Brand Awareness
– KW – brand / broad queries
– “Who Really Gets Your Money If You Die Without a Will? The Answer Will Shock You”
– 23 Cheese Recipes You Can Make at Home”
– 10 Random Words That Are Killing Your Marketing Messages
Consider
– Audience: Potential Customers
– Goals: Provide Product Info
– KW: products/customer search terms
– “Which XYZ financial package is right for you?”
– “30 minute mozzarella – making kit live test (video)”
Customer
– Audience: current customers
– Goals: customer satisfaction
– KW: prodcut/brand names
Strategy #1 – 50% of content should be search query driven
Resource: SEMRush
Type in a keyword and SEMRush returns other keywords people are typing in
Look for modifiers like “cool”, “easy”, “fun” and “cute” and audience call out modifiers like “men”, “fashion” and “art”
How To Rank for Multiple Page 1 Keywords with 1 Post
Create a list post based on 25 or more search queries for your topic. In the description for each list item, include the search phrase, then link out to high authority sites with relevant content.
Example: 36 Paracord Projects for Preppers
Where do you get the content? Create it from YouTube or authority sites. Curated posts consistently outrank original content. This statement is not entirely correct. Create content based on the Hummingbird training that Michael laid out – that is how you do it.
Strategy #2 – Create Event or Trend Driven Content
Tie current events to your audience
holidays, movies, celebrities, sports events, trendy sayings / phrases / places
Resource: buzzsumo.com – analyze what content performs best for any topic or competitor
Resource: spike.newswhip.com – where news sites determine what to write about
What’s trending on broader sites?
What’s trending in your niche?
Match up search driven, trending and brainstormed content.
Strategy #3 – Create content around proven winners
Step 1 – find link-worthy content
Step 2 – make something even better
Step 3 – Let the links know about your content
Use Open Site Explorer (MOZ Pro) to find content with 25 or more referring domains. (You know my feelings about Moz)
Look for interested articles with lots of links.
Make it look better (improve design / add photos / make an infographic)
● Update it.
● Increase length (make a 10 things list into a 99 things list)
● Make it more in depth (video, pictures / do’s and don’ts)
Export the list to a spreadsheet to refine it.
Send the best prospects an email about it to see if they will link to it.
Strategy #4 – Create content to acquire high value links
Resource: ahrefs.com
Find a leading website in your niche. Look at the kind of content where they point links. Create similar content with a link back to them.
This really works.
You don’t need a lot of different posts when you use this strategy.
Strategy #5 – Amplify content by 100% to 1500% with “viral lift” from social shares and influencers
Problem: Getting people to share is not easy.
It’s hard to get shares across all social media.
Resource: sharetally.co – tally up shares, tweets, likes and more. (Viral lift stats)
What content do people share?
● Quizzes
● Lists
● Cute / funny
● Nostalgia
● Things they want their friends to think they like (TedTalks)
● Videos
● Infographics
Which formats get shared the most?
● Infographics
● Lists
● How-to
Ads should not be too heavy handed.
They should connect emotionally and tell a story.
Companies doing a good job – Barbie, Gatorade, JetBlue, Oscar Health, USAA, Virgin Mobile
Case Study: Up worthy’s 10 most viral posts
Tips: Everyone likes to learn mind-blowing stuff.
Everyone loves human interest stories.
Everyone likes it when you say what they’re thinking.
Headlines
● Wait til you see
● Will blow your mind
● You need to know
● The reason why is
● Look like a normal
Create a “curiosity gap.”
Biggest sharers are middle-aged women.
Don’t write an article that will make your mom shake her head.
Visual Website Optimizer – test headlines (or use Twitter)
Resource: Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer (you want scores over 20)
Numbers and how-to get shared the most.
Emotional headlines get a boost in shares.
Viral Headline Generators
contentrow.com/tools/link-bait-title-generator
upworthygenerator.com
Tips
1. Write at a 5th grade level (hemmingway app)
2. Write 60 character headlines
3. 80-180 words in posts
4. Use compelling share images
Resource – DataWrapper.de
Use charts and graphs
Use negative superlatives – not positive (never / worst)
Use 5-8 hashtags. (Also use hashtags in ads)
Ask a question to double the share rate.
Use !!! to get a social share lift.
Post on Saturday and Sunday for most interaction.
Post between 6 PM and midnight for most interaction.
How do you find and persuade influencers to share your content?
Resource: AuthoritySpy.com
Feature an influential site in a “best of” post and tell them about it.
Dirt Cheap Traffic – Molly Pittman
Step 1. Run an ad targeting cold traffic and send visitors to a blog post
Use same image on ad and on blog post.
While you do this, you are building a FB custom audience.
Step 2. Run an ad to the pixeled audience making a relevant, specific offer (lead magnet)
Step 3. Set up dynamic retargeting throughout the funnel
Example: Create an audience. Tripwire sales page URL minus core offer sales page URL.
It’s dynamic! You only need to set it up once.
Example: Did life get in the way? You forgot to take advantage of this deal?
Download free ______.
Follow up at every step in the sales process.
Retargeting ads account for at least 50% of front end sales.
Proof: the Numbers
Sending traffic to the content page – $0.30-$0.50 per pixel
Lead capture – 58% CR on the lead capture page – $1.21 CPL
Tripwire sales page – 9.1% CR at $1.51-$1.71 total CPL
Example: dig them out of the sand… remind them who you are
Versus straight to cold traffic
Traffic —> lead capture 32% – $1.71 CPL —> 6.6% CR on tripwire page (vs 9.1%) – 30% higher sales
CPL for both methods was $1.71
Pixeled traffic converted 26% higher on lead traffic.
Pixeled traffic converted 2.5% higher on the sales page.
You’re building OWNED media.
This is WAY better than a random click to a landing page.
You’re indoctrinating visitors and establishing yourself as an authority so that they will BUY!
Fill in the Blank Sales letter – Perry Belcher
This template is AWESOME and uploaded in thee Facebook group section. Also go through our Kitchen Table Copy method as well on how to use competitor landing pages to your advantage.
Shocker Grabber: It grabs their attention, holds them by the throat and draw them in. “What is the one thing they wish they had more than anything else?” The answer is often the “Shocker Grabber”.
Headline designed to get into the vocabulary and mindset of your target audience and speak directly to them. If you know the “Tonalities of Scale” you can use it to speak to someone that is just like them or far worse off than them to make them feel better than themselves.
In the headline, point out a big problem they can identify with that they want to eliminate. You also want to tease at the solution without spilling the beans so they will actually read the entire letter. But understand that most people “scan” the page, so keep this in mind with your layout so if they do scan they get the pain points with headlines.
You can also use part of the headline to demonstrate their result and show them how they can accomplish something they want without doing anything they hate (overcome objections). Make it easy and fast when possible. This will start reeling them into your copy.
Spend at least 30 minutes writing your headlines as they are the literal backbone of your sales letter. Without a solid headline, people will not venture down to read your offer.
Once you have the headline, it’s time to start the main part of the letter by addressing them as something they identify with (“Dear Author” for example).
The opening few paragraphs of your salesletter should paint a picture of a better tomorrow using three questions they are going to answer yes to. Talk about their biggest frustrations, biggest curiosity, and biggest dream when trying to come up with those three questions.
Research tip: Google Who, What, Where, When, Why & How related to your target market
For example: Growing orchids “So Bad”. When you do that you’ll see stories from people who have had a bad experience, etc. Everyone talks about how awful something is and you can use that story as an example or an outline for you own.
Make an entrance with a bold statement to get the prospects attention. Show them a nightmare story and describe the big problem they will relate to, tell them how bad it was, and your rock bottom point Once you get to your first subheadline, you don’t need to be as aggressive as you do with you grabber, headline, and opening story.
The middle part of your salesletter needs to be as bland as boiled chicken. You want to keep people interested but not offended by the content with the ultimate goal getting them to the buy button.
Normally, people read the headline, scroll to the bottom to see the price and then they read from the bottom up or top down looking for a reason not to buy.
They are basically saying I want it, I can afford it, give me a reason not to buy in the middle of the sales letter. Once you described your nightmare story, you want to include the following:
Turning point story – what happened that turned this all around both in your determination and discovery then describe how much life changed from the previous nightmare story you shared with them. If you don’t have your own story, you can use a Blackie story – which tells a story of someone else’s success who is no longer living (or available) and you stumbled across this secret, etc. so credibility is on them, not you.
After you show them how you turned things around, it’s time to reveal the opportunity.
The Opportunity is revealed here – explain what’s so different about your approach, how it’s like nothing like they have ever heard of before and why there is a limited time for them to jump to the ground.
Perry explained that different is always better than better (especially in a market that is very competitive). Everyone wants to be different, but being better sounds like a lot of hard work. Prospects want to know why your approach is different, more than being better because being better is expensive and difficult, being different isn’t.
You have to explain why it’s different, something they’ve never heard of before and why there is a limited time for them to jump in on the ground floor of this new opportunity.
Show your track record and proof of success here with physically success – photos, videos, Amazing lifestyle photos, photos with celebrities, getting awards
If you’re in the MMO space, you should show them what you did with the money than the money itself. People want the lifestyle more than they want the cash. To showcase this you can use Screenshots, 3rd party data prove your argument and results.
Once you’ve explained the opportunity, use 25 STRONG benefit bullets below. Use the So rule for every one of them. Example” “You’ll learn how to use double boiler SO you never burn your chocolate coating.”
Follow the “SO” rule when it comes to writing bullets. The difference between a feature and a benefit is the results you achieve. “Steal my one trick for always passing a drug test SO you can continue to smoke weed and make money at your day job” The trick is the feature, the benefit is you can continue making money while getting high all the time. Next enter testimonials and success stories here both about the course and the general idea (story in the Wall Street journal about a man who now makes more money selling hotdogs than when he worked on Wall Street. Aggregate third party trust (news stories instead of customer testimonials) When looking for testimonials, find them from people just like them who have huge success. Have them say it on Facebook and screen capture it from there to put in your sales letter.
After the bullet points, describe your product here, what’s in it and what’s in each part, how fast and easy it is you use, how is it delivered, how can they use it. Put a value on every major part of your product.
Total up the total value of each part in a grid, show the grand total, and then immediately discount by half. Next you want to add your bonuses and discount by half again and finally add your SUPER bonus and discount to the final price.
Thoughts on Bonuses:
Be careful with them – if you can do a physical product do it, make the bonuses something people want. Not more learning, but something that they really want. Yanik Silver use to send a coffee cup to people who bought his copywriting course that said “World’s Greatest Copywriter” and it was the only bonus he could do to improve sales.
After the bonuses you want to create your guarantee here – Perry likes to use the triple guarantee. It offers instant money back for any reason, double if they do part of the system, and triple money back if they do it all and don’t get the results you promised.
Next you want to create scarcity. People will not act without fear of loss to other. Opportunity in short supply, limited supply with a logical reason for the scarcity. Scarcity of limited supplies, prices soon increase, loss of bonuses after the first purchase.
Show people how much they are losing by not doing it your way (I make X a month if you wait a month you’ll already be $X behind me). Finally create a call to action and tell them exactly what to do. Explain exactly what will happen next.
A call to action is a command, not a request.
After the call to action end the letter and be sure to include a few different types of PS.
Create a warning PS here. Tell them exactly what will happen if they don’t buy and they how they will be stuck until they buy.
Create a reminder PS here. The last PS in a salesletter is the second most read part of the salesletter. You must recap the entire offer in a paragraph or two and finish with a strong last call to action.
Imagine how bad you’re going to feel when …. For just XXX you could be well on your way to making XXXX
The Laws of Automating Your Business – Brad Martineau
He was the 6th InfusionSoft employee and was laid off and created SixthDivision.
Presentation was basically an infomercial on his business. Nothing new or groundbreaking.
The Viral Content Engine – Russ Henneberry & Stephanie Butler
Top content can be created in less than an hour. You don’t need a ton of content, just a few good pieces.
How (be cool and link back to originating source):
1) The Embed Reactor – find a popular video from an expert, embed it and react/commentary
2) The Stat Roundup – compile a list of stats and write an article about it
3) The Interview – record audio only and give to a writer who will produce good content from it.
4) The Quote Post – Find a topic and round up interesting quotes and write about it and use infographics.
5) The Crowdsource Post – Ask 3+ experts the same question and aggregate.
6) The Compilation (the aggregators and winning) – Lists and other viral posts can be made from many sources (embed videos, infographics, proven images)
7) The YouTube Cutup – Find top performing YouTube videos with millions of views, use screenshots and explain with the screenshots
8) The Roundup List Post – Round up posts perform better than anything and get you to use other people’s top performing content.
How To Make a Crowdsource Post
1. Pick a subject and google
2. Use Amazon sales to find the influencer that just published a book – publisher will be trying to promote their book, making interviews and interactions much easier.
3. Send email to author
Big Takeaway: Aggregators are winning. Leveraging top quality articles, quotes, and Youtube videos. The work has been done. This is beating original content.
13 Sneaky Email Tricks – Richard Lindner
Measuring clicks inside the email is considered a violation of privacy and not considered an engagement metric.
Goal: Triple open rates, double click through rates, and increase engagement so your emails get to the inbox, opened and read.
That sounds awesome doesn’t it? Well, it was all downhill from there. I will spare you the abuse and give you a proof it sucked ass. His recommendations were to:
– Use Google+ for leverage
– Use gifs and animations in your email
– Use a countdown timer in the email (for scarcity)
Anyone who recommends the above should not be someone you take advice from.
The Amazing Hollywood 3 Act Story and How to Use It To Sell More of Your Product/Service – Ben Adkins
Act 1: Character and Plot Establishment
Act 2: Escalation and Confrontation
Act 3: The Climax and “The New Normal”
I couldn’t follow this presentation, but if you want to look at the slides, click here.
Traffic Hacks Panel – Molly Pittman
The Charm Bracelet Method – How We Generated 250,000 Free Leads from YouTube
The most important part is generating leads with your videos.
How to Find Your Bracelet
“What would your target market type into Google / YouTube, when looking for the solution to a problem?”
Examples:
1. Basketball Training
2. Basketball Workout
3. How Can I Shoot a Basketball?
4. How Do I Jump Higher?
5. How to Dribble a Basketball Better
Type each bracelet into YouTube search, removing the last letter.
Make a video for each suggestion that comes up on YouTube.
Each video will release one tip, trick or technique.
When you upload your video, change the file name to the keyword phrase.
Also put the keyword phrase in the title, description and tags.
Add annotation boxes – 10% in do a link annotation / 10% out ask them to subscribe
Use verbal call-to-actions in your videos. “Click here to get a free _____. When you enter your name and email, I will send you a free _____.”
GetMoreViews.com
Facebook Ads
High-conversion layout:
Logo – navigation – Header opt-in * (or whatever your primary goal is)
Left hand sidebar offer – secondary goal (no archives, past posts, etc.)
Content – 2-3 anchor links in the content (offer relevant to post)
Post footer offer – secondary offer again
How to Write Blog Posts that Sell
NLP Yes-Set – ask a no-brainer question – have them agree with you right away
Problem – mention problem
Agitate – other problems that are caused by that problem… “That means…”
Solution – offer them the solution to that problem
Where to Buy Traffic for Blog Posts
$100 “Flood the Market” Strategy – $25 a day on each of these four sites
Alexa Top Sites
1. Google.com
2. Facebook.com
3. YouTube.com
4. Twitter.com
Content upsell trick – put a relevant offer inside of the blog post (small opt in box)
● You don’t have to be a good writer.
● You don’t have to write lots of blog posts.
● You don’t have to own your own product.
Resource: GrowthGeeks.com
Stephanie Butler – Idea Incubator – Pinterest expert
Traffic Hacks – Pinterest
DIY Ready – 20k leads a day from Pinterest
7,893 leads last month on DIY ready
Pinterest is NOT just food, fashion and crafts
We also generated 26k leads for Survival Life on Pinterest.
Pinterest allows you to save visual content.
You can use it in any niche / market.
Average lifespan of a pin is 4-6 months.
People on Pinterest are often in a buying mode.
6-point Viral Pinterest Plan
1. Use a Hover – Pin It Plugin: Frizzly
2. Use Optimized Board Covers – the default is one of your images – stand out by using an optimized cover on each board – typography (light text on dark background works the best)
3. Use exact match keywords (Pinterest is like a Dumb Google) – Don’t name a cheese board, “Oh so Cheesy” use keywords exactly. Use Pinterest search suggestions in your pin descriptions.
4. Use “best” Pinterest images – put words on images – people have seen a sea of images… use text on your images to make them stand out. Use long “infographic” image made of several stacked images to take up as much real estate as possible. (736 x 3200) Sends 3 to 10 times as much traffic. Optimize the images for your top 10 blog posts.
5. Use a tool to schedule pins and monitor your results. (tailwindapp.com)
6. Promote the good pins by removing the bad pins.
Jeremy Shoemaker – Thinking Outside the Box
Shoemoney’s tip was “write a best selling book on Amazon and then write another one because 20% of the people that liked your first book will buy your second book.”
Can’t make this stuff up.
Typical Sales Funnel
Squeeze page —> Sales page —> Checkout Page
Step #1 – Bring the interested people back
The problem: they already said no (to your first offer)
The solution: improve your offer (by adding a bonus)
Examples:
● software —> give a free month
● info-product —> give an extra module
● physical product —> give a coupon code
Get them back by using a FB retargeting ad (highlight the bonus in the ad)
Funnel Hacks – Russell Bronson
Secret #1 Model What Works
Clickbank.com has 100,000 Successful Funnels for you to model
– Marketplace
– Find the bestselling offers (sort by popularity)
.
Buy their product!
$47 – $37 – $79 – $19.95 Take note of their Pricing, type of offer, layout, & design of their entire funnel.
Secret #2 – How to Clone Their Proven Funnel in Ten Mintues
Shocking, he uses his own ClickFunnels product to accomplish this.
Secret #3 – How Do I Get Traffic To My Website
SimilarWeb.com (Free website)
Put in your competitors website URL and it shows traffic data and which websites are referring traffic
Russell uses 20DollarBanners.com to create a similar banner and design. He then buys ads on the same websites by emailing & contacting the website owner and buy traffic to their site.
Sell More: How To Increase Webinar, Stage & Online Conversions With The Signature Presentation Formula 2.0 – Dustin Matthews and Dave VanHoose
Their Rule #1 was to “have fun” Rule #2, give 110%. We’ll just skip the rest for obvious reasons.
Fascinate Anyone in 9 Seconds: The Perfect Words to Captivate Your Customer – Sally Hogshead
People overestimate themselves.
60% of people think they are better looking than average.
80% of people think they are a better driver than the average.
90% of people think they are more intelligent than the average.
Only 30% of people think they are more fascinating than the average.
Winning is about knowing how the world sees you.
Brands have a choice – you can have the biggest budget… or you can be the most fascinating.
You are fascinating by being different in one, specific way.
The market doesn’t reward better – it rewards different.
People will pay up to 4x times for a point of difference.
Do you buy Morton salt? You are paying 187% more for the same thing.
Most people have had a shot of Jägermeister, but most people don’t like it.
There is drunk… and then there is Jägermeister drunk.
Around 2 AM, someone will say, let’s do a shot of Jäger!
Is it a bonding experience.
Different is better than better.
Jägermeister sales are growing 400% each year… and no one likes it!
7 Ways Brands Communicate
1. Innovation
2. Passion
3. Power
4. Prestige
5. Trust
6. Mystique
7. Alert
You don’t LEARN how to be fascinating – You unlearn being boring.
You don’t have to change who you are – you need to become more of who you are.
Different is better than better.
—————
Threats To Your Marketing
– Attention: the average attention span is a mere nine seconds.
You MUST focus on the first nine seconds of your message to build a relationship with the prospect or risk losing them forever.
—————
The Funnel 2.0
Ryan Deiss
There are 12-steps in a successful relationship. While you can move through the 12-steps pretty quickly, but if you skip two steps, it can change everything and you can lose the prospect. Sequence is everything.
A marketing funnel mirrors normal, human relationships which is why they are effective. Remember, selling is a relationship.
– a website alone is not enough
– a product/service is not enough
– traffic alone is not enough
If you want to win, you need a great funnel. The purpose of the funnel is customer acquisition at a break even point or better. If that happens, your company will grow. You can lose money on your trip wire if you know your numbers.
Original 5-step funnel:
Lead magnet —> tripwire —> core offer —> product maximizer —> Return Path
Lead magnet – “Hi, my name is ______.”
Tripwire – “Can I get you some coffee?” (Prospect to client / customer) – Example: Columbia House – $0.01 for 12 records / cassettes
Core Offer – “Would you like to go have dinner?” (Flagship offer)
Profit Maximizer – all profit
Return Path – if they fall out at any step, the return path brings them back (exit offer, retargeting, engagement series, ascension series, consumption series, newsletter)
1. When architecting a funnel, you don’t start at the beginning… you start at the end.
● Step 1 – Identify the core offer (what will bring your prospect from sad to happy? before —> value —> after
● How to impact before / after. Have (before hard baby tub, after squishy tub), Feel (before scared, after confident), Avg Day (before bath time is terrible, after bath time is a breeze), Status (before unappreciated, super mom)
● Once you’ve identified your market’s “desired end result” your message will have IMPACT!
● Just because you know they want it, doesn’t mean they want it from you or that they want it right now.
● Step 2 – Create a splinter offer – Little victories that lead them down the continuum of belief.
2. Your funnel must overcome the biggest hurdles – self-doubt and fear
They are afraid to try, especially if they have tried and failed in the past. That’s why your lead magnet and tripwires must give your market a “little victory.” Build stair steps for them.
Examples:
● back pain clinic that offers hope that relief is possible
● weight loss product that makes users feel thinner in 7 days
● kitchen remodeler that lets its customers see how beautiful their kitchen can be
● allowing a lonely person to feel like they’re a part of something bigger
3. Funnels are not “one-size-fits-all”
● Acquisition – splinter offer funnel, make people optin for coupon code (lead magnet) Goal – quantity NOT profit. You make money on the activation funnel.
● Activation – flash sale funnel (turn leads to buyers), survey funnel (engage them)
● Monetization – mini-class launch, perpetual webinar launch
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5 Phases of Invisible Selling
Ryan Deiss & Richard Lindner
How to be invisible to everyone except your potential / current customers
The Great Big Lie – “The money is in the list.”
Fact: Most marketers focus on growing their email list, and spend very little thought or effort on how they’re going to make money once they have it. Your time is much better spent thinking about how to monetize your list. You should write your auto responder before you even have a list.
Your #1 Priority – How will you monetize a lead once you have it?
Mistake #1 – They fail to follow up.
Mistake #2 – They send the same email to every person on their list.
Not every subscriber is the same. Some are very interested… some are somewhat interested… more just don’t care at all. (at least, not yet)
Question: Should all these subscribers receive the same emails… or the same number of emails?
Of course not!
More interest = more emails
Less interest = fewer emails
“Sounds good, but how do I do it?” Simple, you need a machine that will turn a stranger to a friend, and a friend into a fan.
5 Parts of the Machine
Part 1 -Indoctrination – for brand new leads
● 3 emails
● Turn strangers into friends
● Ask them to whitelist you (increases deliverability)
● Show them your best stuff
● “Bounce” them around
● Get a little personal
● Welcome mail is the most important
Subject Line: “Welcome to ______! Here’s where to start…”
“Hi, my name is ___ and I’m the _____ of ____. I wanted to take a second to say hello and welcome you to the family.”
I want you to know that we’re truly excited and grateful you decided to join us. Here’s what you can expect from us.
(Content description)
(We’ll also send you emails about (products)
Here’s what you need to do to get started:
1. Whitelist us so you won’t miss anything. (explain how and include URL) it helps deliverability and gets them to comply with a request from you – increases your authority
2. Join the _____ Facebook page and follow us on Twitter. It will be our primary method of updates outside of email updates, and again you won’t miss a thing. (The act of them moving to your different social media sites will increase your reach, engagement and intimacy).
P.S. The next few days are going to feel like Christmas…
Because as an added bonus for subscribing, I’m going to be sending you my “best of best.” (Blog posts, articles, case studies, tools, etc.) Tomorrow you’re going to get the first of the “big three.”
It’s about [hint at benefit and end result without revealing the exact topic].
Keep an eye out for this subject line… __________________.
Stay tuned… it’s gonna be good.
—- P.S. #2 if you don’t have content – it’s for bonding
P.S. Do you know the #1 reason to ______? (Or… do you know why _____?)
I bet it’s not what you think.
I’ll give you the answer tomorrow, but for now spend a little time thinking about what it could be. If you’re anything like me, you’ll get more benefit from the “thought experience” than from the answer itself.
See you tomorrow…
Part 2- Engagement
● interest-based follow up (lead magnet-centric)
● This is where the $$$ is made
● Product price determines sequence length (avoid super-long email series)
● Example: gain / logic / fear
Gain – “Subject Line: Did you see this? Or yep, this actually works”
“Yesterday you requested my ____, and I just wanted to make check back to see if you had a chance to read it. More importantly, I wanted to make sure you saw this:
LINK
If you’re really serious, this is the ideal first step.
Logic – “Subject Line: Call me crazy, but…” or “I’m a little surprised”
Call me crazy, but I’m a little surprised that you haven’t taken advantage of this…
Fear – “Last chance?” or “You’re about to miss this…”
“I’m done talking to you about this… LINK
I’ve been encouraging you to get in while you can, but now time is up. After today, you won’t hear me talk about it again.
“Are you still…?” follow up campaign
Free report —> are you still?
“Are you still biting your nails?”
Subject line… negatives… Are you making these mistakes?
Lead Magnet… positive… “The 3 things you can do to…”
No one likes to feel stuck.
“Have you ____ yet?” variation
● Have you lost those 10 pounds yet?
● Did you run that marathon yet?
Engagement series – (when they sign up for tripwire)
Day 1 – Deliver the lead magnet / welcome email (2 emails)
Day 2 – Gain
Day 3 – Logic
Day 4 – Fear
Day 7 – Are you still? / Have you yet?
Part 3 – Ascension
● Turn ordinary buyers into multi-buyers
● Establishes a “value loop”
● Doesn’t need to be your own products (affiliate offers)
● Upsell Abandon = G / L / F
Part 4 – Segmentation
● general broadcast list
● One job: segment subscribers into “engagement series”
● re-consummate and pixelate (ask them to re-optin)
● “Value First” strategy
● Money is made in engagement and ascension phases
● This is how you make more while mailing less
Day 1 – Blind – Pick the low-hanging fruit who are excited about your brand
Day 2 – Direct – Segment topic-engaged subscribers
Day 3 – Content – Establishes goodwill and builds interest (link in content / ad below content)
Day 4 – OFF
Day 5 – Wildcard #1 (cleanse the pallet / affiliate offer)
Day 6 – Wildcard #2
Day 7 – OFF
Part 5 – Re-engagement
● Wake up dying leads
● Send to non-opens / clicks after 60 days
● Goal: get them in an engagement series
● Tip: one-question surveys
● If they don’t respond… go win back / passive aggressive – “Did I do something wrong?” or “Is this good-bye?”
● If they don’t respond again, take them off of your main list. They are just lowering your Gmail “sender score.”
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Email Copywriting Secrets
Perry Belcher
First step is to study the general avatar of the client – who they are, what they do, vocabulary of that marketplace.
First step – Search youtube for instructional videos. Sort by popularity and then look at the video title of the most popular video. Chances are you can’t beat that video title as a subject line to use.
Next, go to Digg.com search for the same subject/topic – look for weird stories and headlines that you can use as subject lines.
Go to Amazon.com – put in your keyword and look at the best selling book titles along with specific keywords or language for your subject matter.
Google – put your keywords in there as well and look at the top ranking page titles for subject lines.
FreshKey – which is a keyword tool to help find additional keywords or popular topics that can also be used with subject lines. Look for weird and strange attention getting words (cheese curds for example) that help build curiosity and increase open rates.
Buzzsumo.com to see what content is going viral and what is getting talked about and shared the most
● What gets watched
● What gets read
● What gets bought
● What gets searched
● What gets shared
As a result of all of this research here are a few sample subject lines.
Subject lines:
● Make Cheese Curds at home in 5 minutes
● 13 5 minute mozzarella cheese recipes
● 21 Page PDF: Cheese making for beginners
● [Survey] Which Cheese Take 5 Minutes To Make (Quiz, Poll)
● [Poll] Can Cheese be made at home?
● [Video] How to make cheese with your feet? [Pic] Homemade Cheese Disasters
Perry suggests to use a lot of current events and weird news to get people’s attention and here are a few places he searches for the news.
AOL Weird News (Huffington Post) News site that Perry just found that takes all the weird news going around the internet.
Alexa.com/whatshot the homescreen shows what is currently hot and trending
Google Trends is another place to see what is going on in the world
Populrs.com shows the hottest story on the web
You should use whatever your prospect is currently thinking, reading, or watching and find a way to tie into your marketing message.
Top of the news stories across the web (jokes, videos, pictures, etc.)
Use all these programs to help give you popular headlines and stories your target market might be interested.
Use data to help make your decisions on popular headlines to use as subject lines.
Positive subject line words (% numbers are all positive increases)
– Exclusive (12.3%)
– Free delivery (50.5%)
– Gift (12.4%)
– Latest (8.3%)
– New (17.2%)
– Sale (23.2%)
– Alert (38.1%)
– News (34.8%)
– Video (18.5%)
– Daily (27.8%)
– Weekly (27.1%)
– Editor (28.7%)
– Update (26.8%)
– Breaking (35.4%)
– Limited (28.7%)
– Review (37.1%)
Negative subject lines (% numbers are all negative decrease)
– Free (-3%)
– Only (-4%)
– Learn (-35.5%)
– Report (-23.7%)
– Today (-15.5%)
– Webinar (-16.6%)
– Win (-2.1%)
– FW; (-14.3%)
– Forecast (-34%)
– Subscription (-8.2%)
– ??? (-16.9%)
– Discount (-38.8%)
– Trial (-45.6%)
– Facebook (-6.7%)
– % off (-3.6%)
Sneaky little tricks
● Big numbers always do well!
● Get my secrets … works better than learn
● Complementary works better than free
● Your 43,626 pre-approved loan is on hold
● Play guitar in just 10 minutes a day
● I am sooooo sorry
● [Pic] Obama to seize all gun shipments
● [Video] Mexicans Torch Border Security Trucks
Using Unicode character tables helps improve email open rates. You can get the code you need to make the characters appear here Unicode-table.com
Getting it read
Once you get your emails opened, you have to get them read. Here’s how to emotionally suck people into your message and make them do things. You need to be able to spin current events and stories to your need. Using a thumbnail of a video will get a huge click through rate. Another way to get more people reading your emails is to ask their opinion and you can even use a fake email survey as well.
Subject line: We need your opinion
Should 50 Shades of Gray Be In Public Schools?
People love quizzes and use it to reengage people who haven’t opened your emails in a while.
Use a image of a survey and then when they click on it, it goes to another page and sells a tripwire product.
Thumbnails, mystery, and mistakes are all great ways to get people reading your emails.
——————–
How To Construct an Optimization Calendar or 10 Magic Tests
Justin Rondeau
Step 1: Page identification is the first step to a great test.
“Not all pages are test worthy.” – Don’t test everything.
● Don’t test low traffic pages.
● Don’t test pages with volatile traffic.
● Don’t test overly targeted segments.
● Don’t test “duh” pages. (Known problem? Don’t test it – just fix it)
New to testing? Try a “bottoms-up” approach. For example, start with the shopping cart or a lead generation form. Other places to test are the search results page and the thank you page.
Have a 5-step funnel? Test your front end offers first. (Lead magnet and tripwire)
Step 2: Your Optimization Strategy
Develop a prioritization scale. Pay attention to Potential Lift, Impact on KPIs, Ease.
Why big lifts?
Bigger lifts require lower sample sizes to test. These are underperforming pages.
Why KPIs?
A big lift in clicks, doesn’t mean a big lift in sales. It contextualizes the conversion.
Why Ease?
Your lift potentials on main KPIs is worthless if you can’t go live.
Step 3: Your Optimization Plan
Create a Hypothesis. We believe that changing A for visitors B will make C happen. Tests without hypotheses aren’t scalable. You select your test element during this stage. Choose wisely – use both analytics and UX data to pick big winners.
Resource: Click / Scroll testing tools: Hotjar, ClickTale, CrazyEgg, Attensee
What is making your visitors leave?
Resource: User survey tools: Hotjar, SurveyMonkey, Qualaroo, KISSinsights (better to leave open ended than choices)
Resource: User Testing Tools: Ethnio, UserTesting.com, UsabilityHub, Loop 11
Step 4: Your Optimization Strategy
Schedule your tests and stick to it. Why? No two days are the same. Always complete the week. Test periods should be in line with your buying cycle if possible. Things that determine how long you test:
1. Lift percentage
2. Confidence level (industry standard is 95%)
3. Number of variations
Step 5: Your Optimization Strategy
Develop standard reports – focus on dollars not marketing metrics. If learnings are scalable – use as inspiration for new changes / tests. Finally – notify invested parties.
Part 2: Building your optimization calendar
Testing calendars are fluid – schedule monthly with wiggle room. Break pages down by funnel location
● Home – top
● Product – mid
● Cart – low
Use coloration to dictate status:
● Active
● Pending
● Complete
● Broken
Part 3: Tests to Try Right Now
1. VSL vs. Long Form Sales Letters
2. VSL Length
3. Headlines
4. Cart Form
5. Call to Action Buttons (Use GET not Order / Use MY not Your)
6. Form Fields
7. Security Seals
8. Privacy Policies (Use Your information will not be shared NOT We will not spam you)
9. Images
—————————–
Data Into Dollars: Crowdsourcing Virality
Roland Frasier
Facebook Retargeting: stitcherads.com can help you get the most out of Facebook advertising.
Audience intersect (audienceintersect.com) is another great tool that will allow you to see how related industries can help you find new niches and expand your reach with cross marketing.
More Recommended Tools:
Twitter Advertising
Marketing Land
Facebook Insights
Rapportive
Towerdata
Chartbeat
Intent HQ
Alexa
Follower Wonk
Gigya
Moat
Mailchimp
FullContact
Mingly
MineMyMail
Riffle
Using a tool called Spike you can find and following social activity around millions of stories daily. Another tool is Buzzsumo to find out how many shares and likes the most popular stories and posts have gotten on any particular subject.
CBengine: Monitors activity on Click Bank
TeraPeak: Shows you what is trending on Ebay, including price point, & product images.
MerchantWords: Amazon Trends
FreshKey: Amazon Trends
Amazon Best Sellers By: This is an amazon tool, to research on how to determine which books sell the best and why. For instance know what titles are catching people’s attention. Other things: back cover, subtitles, even the graphics and “look inside” setup. Knowing exacting what is selling and why is paramount to making the most effective offer possible.
Use Jordan-Whitney to do research on the most successful infomercials in any given category. Launch DRTV also has a list of the top 50 infomercials.
Similarsites.com and Similarweb.com are two tools if you want to dig deeper in comparing sites. These sites will allow you to find extensive information about several related website. Including audience interests, whois information and more.
AdBeat.com
WhatRunsWhere.com
Adclarity.com
Boxofads.com
Ispionage.com
Check what is trending on Alibaba.com and even checks direct mail offers using Whosmailingwhat.com.