A few years ago I was flown-in to Nicaragua to give a couple of presentations to a dozen or so financial publishers.
During some down time, I played a game of bocce ball.
Mark Ford and I were on one team, Porter Stansberry and Mike Palmer on the other.
It was a close match. Lots of smack talking.
And even though Mark and I lost, it was a lot of fun. Memorable.
On the second day of the trip someone from Porter's team gave a presentation. As I can recall, it had something to do with front-end marketing. Customer acquisition.
While I don't remember everything shared, I do remember a couple of gems. I jotted them down and still have them.
Here's one from my notes:
"The main purpose of marketing is to find who your customers are. And your customers are people who send you money, not the people who don't. So it's not about finding people, it's about finding buyers."
I remember writing this down because I liked the way he made the point. I still do.
Today, lots of entrepreneurs and marketers think of targeting in terms of getting their message out in front of their audience, their marketplace.
Few think about targeting in terms of getting their message out in front of the people most likely to buy.
Fact is:
Our job isn't to try to get out in front of our market; our job is to get out in front of the people most likely to purchase.
Our job isn't to try to find places to advertise where our marketplace congregates; our job is to find places to advertise where our buyers congregate.
Our job isn't to generate buzz or traffic or leads; our job is to generate buyers.
Find buyers. Target buyers. Acquire buyers. Focus... on buyers.
That's our job. All else is just a means to an end.
With that, let's get to this week's goodies...
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MY FAVS THIS WEEK
- Personal Leverage: How to Truly 10x Your Productivity
This is a great article about multiplying personal productivity by creating leverage through systems.
Nat, the author, shares a fantastic framework for doing this; what he calls The Personal Leverage Loop -- a pretty insightful four-step process. - Public Speaking – How I Prepare Every Time
I always enjoy seeing other expert's behind-the-scenes systems and methods for doing anything.
In this post, Tim Ferris shares his one-page cheat sheet for how he organizes all his speeches. He even shares some of the stuff he does right before be speaks.
While there's nothing earth shattering here, I still found it an enjoyable read. - How to Increase Sales Letter Conversions (Without changing a word)
Cosmetics and formatting are more important than a lot of marketers realize.
Here's a simple and basic overview of how to approach cosmetically enhancing your long-form sales pages to make the juicy bits pop more. As well as how to best communicate the important elements to page skimmers.
ODDITY FROM MY LIBRARY
Not at all your typical book on content marketing...
Impossible To Ignore focuses on a single aspect of content creation -- how to engineer content and marketing messages which prospects remember.
In other words: Messages which are easy to understand, hard to forget, and impossible to ignore.
This is more important than you likely realize. Because people rarely make buying decisions based on content or marketing messages which they quickly forget.
No. People make decisions and take actions based on what they remember, what resonates with them and stays with them.
Based on research from neuroscience and cognitive psychology, Impossible To Ignore explains how to engineer content and messages which influences other people’s memory.
Interesting stuff to say the least.
WHAT I'M TELLIN' MY TEAM
This week on our internal Team Marketing Training...
We reviewed a before-and-after version of a two-step Facebook Post written by a member of our team.
The after version was much better because it was softer (i.e. didn't come across as salesy or aggressive).
Today, prospects can spot a manipulative pitch a mile away.
If they sense you're trying to persuade or manipulate them, your message is dead in the water.
Like the saying goes, "A known tactic is a blown tactic."
Of course, our aim is to persuade and lead the prospect. We need them to have certain beliefs by the time we present the offer. That's an essential part of effective marketing.
But, if your prospects can see or sense or feel your persuasion or leading... you've blown it.
This is why I always say... good copy doesn't read or feel like copy. Good copy reads and feels like valuable education.
Your job is to move your prospect to think and feel what you want them to think and feel... without them realizing what's happening, without them being conscious of it, without it being apparent.
TEAM TAKEAWAYS IN THREE BULLETS:
- In our copy we want to reduce the volume of opinions, and increase the volume of facts. Opinions are disputable, facts are not.
- Prospects will often become resistant or lose trust in a marketing message if they feel they are being pushed or if the copy feels forced or like an aggressive sales pitch.
- We need to respect our audience and their intelligence. As David Ogilvy said, "The prospect is not stupid, she's your wife." And, today, prospects are a lot savvier. If we push too hard, they can sense it and will push back.
"Incredible marketing takeaways every week!"
👍🏽 Get the full unedited recordings of Todd's INTERNAL Marketing Team Trainings every week. See and hear everything Todd shares with this team -- every conversion tactic, copy hack, AOV booster, hook method, and more!
MY ADVICE
A question posted inside the MFA Nation Facebook Group...
Below is my response:
If you already have a full course, engineer a marketing campaign which sells the full course.
Starting with a low-priced offer (i.e. trip wire) is certainly not mandatory. Not at all.
In fact, for most entrepreneurs new to the online marketing world, starting with a low-priced offer is, ironically, harder.
Why? Because selling something inexpensive requires a higher sales conversion rate, and almost always, one or more converting upsells to pay for the traffic.
Whereas, at a higher price point you can usually recoup all your traffic costs with a sales conversion rate less than 2% without any upsells.
🤔Consider this...
Imagine you're paying $3 to get a visitor. That's $300 for 100 visitors.
At only a 2% sales conversion rate, you generate 2 buyers.
If you're selling something for $199, that's a total of $398 in sales. $98 in profit, without any upsells.
Now imagine you're still paying $3 to get a visitor, the same $300 for 100 visitors.
But, now, you're selling something for $20.
At a whopping 10% sales conversion rate, you generate 10 buyers and $200 in sales... which still leaves you negative $100.
Now, you'll need one or more upsells which convert well to hopefully make-up that negative $100.
Selling the full course at $199 requires only one offer not even converting that well.
Starting with a low priced offer requires several offers (i.e. core offer and upsells), each converting well.
Which is harder?
Yeah... that's why I recommend, if you have the course already, start by marketing and selling the course.
We can always come back later and introduce a lower ticket offer to scale your volume of buyers if need be.
***
NOTE: If you're not in the MFA Nation Facebook Group with us yet, you're missing out on the opportunity to have me answer your questions. Not too mention, some killer content and live streams only shared inside the Group.
Go here and join us inside the MFA Nation Group (it's FREE!).
ROCKSTAR RESOURCE
One of the beauties of direct response marketing is that it's trackable and measurable.
So, any changes we make to our marketing, in an attempt to improve our results, can be quantified with data.
Typically, we do this with A/B split testing.
When testing our optimization ideas this way it's critical we only draw conclusions from statistically significant results.
VWO has a free tool -- Split Test Significance Calculator -- which tells you when an A/B test is conclusive with statistically significant data.
And it only requires you to enter four data points: (1) Number of visitors to your control page, (2) number of visitors to your variation page, (3) number conversions from your control page, and (4) number of conversions from your variation page.
IMPORTANT: Don't ever make any decision from an A/B split test until you have statistically significant data. Without it... you may be, unknowingly, hurting the performance of your marketing long-term.
PIC OF THE WEEK
Yum. Banana pancakes with chunky peanut butter and maple syrup...
Last Sunday morning's cheat meal.
During the week I eat pretty clean. Chicken, rice, cauliflower, yams, some ground beef, that sort of stuff.
Sundays, though, I go to town. Usually one or two meals. And almost always pizza for dinner.
It keeps my metabolism from adjusting to the lower calories throughout the week. And gives me a needed mental break.
Then, when Monday's workout rolls around, I feel like a champ. You know... all the extra calories and carbohydrates and what not.
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