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Leadgen
- 2. Housekeeping • Housekeeping 1 •Housekeeping 2 • Housekeeping 3 • Housekeeping 4 • Housekeeping 5
- 3. Who Am? • KeithCommins • “Direct Response” marketer and copywriter • Just a marketer! • As are you. We are all marketers. If you want to leave your house in the morning, you need to know some level of marketing • Your level of success in business and in life is directly proportional to your success as a marketer and influencer Keith Commins, www.pearldesign.ie
- 4. What You CanExpect Today • It will not be a 5-6 hour lecture! Your participation is vital. Ask questions, get involved. • Get out of your comfort zone. Today will not be easy. But if you wish to know success in business, you must become good at marketing. There are very few exceptions. • If you do not have some kind of reliable means of regularly attracting qualified leads and customers, it is only a matter of time before you are in trouble. • We will examine different ways of attracting leads into your business, which ones are suited to your business, which ones less so. • Finish with creating a real life lead generation plan for your business to put into practice what you’ve learned.
- 5. What Today Isn’t •Intended as a general overview of how to successfully generate leads for SME’s/startups/solo entrepreneurs • NOT a copywriting workshop • NOT a workshop for specific methods of traffic generation. We won’t discuss Google Adwords, Social Media in any great depth, however we will touch upon them
- 6. Contents • Introduction • Directresponse advertising V Brand Advertising • The Three M’s – Message – Market – Media • Setting up your website to convert. Your lead generation hub • Lead generation follow-up, nurturing and relationship building using email marketing • Exercise, put into practice what you’ve learned. You will create a lead generation plan for your business
- 7. Round the Room:Introduction • Introduce you and your business • What marketing have you done and what success have you seen? • What do you hope to achieve today?
- 8. The Two Stylesof Marketing • Brand/image advertising (Madison Avenue “Mad Men” style advertising) V direct response marketing • Brand advertising is predicated upon creating awareness of a company’s brand via repeated exposure of the product’s or company’s brand imagery • Unless your company is well established, nobody cares about your brand. They care about receiving great value, a fantastic product and amazing service, which is best described via copy • Direct response marketing is about getting an immediate response from your prospect via a crisp, clear unambiguous message which spells out exactly what is it for them, should they use your product or service
- 10. Direct Response Advertising •AIDA – Attention, Interest, Decision and Action • Attention: get your prospect’s attention with a headline that appeals to his self interest or piques his curiosity • Interest: describe the problem back to your prospect, enter the “conversation happening inside your prospect’s head” • Desire: heighten the desire for your product by describing the benefits your product or service offers • Action: lead your customer by the hand to action (email opt-in, purchase, phone call, send an email). Whatever your “most wanted” response may be
- 15. Selling Off ThePage V Lead Gen • Instead of selling your product outright, we merely wish to get our prospects to raise their hand and say “I’m interested, tell me more…” • We attract them into our sales funnel by giving away something of real value, e.g. a free report which solves a problem or addresses a need • In order to get the free report, they must provide us with their email address or some means for us to keep in touch • From there we use regular follow-up to demonstrate we have the expertise to solve their problem, and that we are somebody they can trust • Best way to do this is via email, although direct mail and telemarketing can potentially be also used if needed
- 17. Why NOT GoFor The Sale? • Few people are in a position to buy right away • Most will need more convincing, more information, more time to think about it. Some may not be interested at all but could be with the right persuasion • By merely getting our prospects to express their interest, and then follow up on that interest we can increase our conversion rate by as much x20 • Getting the lead gives us the chance to create lifetime customers, not one off sales • By nurturing this lead it gives us a chance to develop trust , demonstrate expertise and generate authority • Even with low ticket items (€10 - €100) it is still essential to get the lead
- 18. Lets Get TheBad News Out of The Way First… • Get used to failure: most of what you will do WON’T work • Successful marketing systems take A LOT of work to run and maintain • Be prepared to work HARD. There is no magic bullet to successful marketing. It is just a case of application of the tried and tested fundamentals and hard, honest graft • It’s quite possible a pure “direct response” marketing style will raise eyebrows. People will question your approach. You must be ready for this.
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- 21. But It’s NotAll Bad News.. • Due to laziness, stupidity, ignorance or possibly all three, your competitors will usually have no clue whatsoever as to how to properly market themselves • If you are prepared to do the work, you can make your competition meaningless • And you don’t even have to be a marketing genius to succeed. You just have to “outrun the bear”
- 22. The 80-20 Rule(Pareto Principle) • Discovered by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1906 • 80% of Italy’s wealth was in the hands of 20% of the population • 80% of crimes are committed by 20% of criminals • 80% of your time is taken up with 20% of your friends • This ratio applies to your business too • 80% of your returns will be down to 20% of your efforts • With leads generation, 80% of your leads will come from 20% of your efforts • NOTE: This will be important later
- 23. The Three “M’s”of Successful Marketing • Market, Message and Medium • Most business owners start with the medium first, and ignore their market and message. This in a nutshell is why most marketing doesn’t work. • Start by identifying your ideal customer (market), why should they buy from you and nobody else (message) and then (and only then) do you worry about what medium to use.
- 24. Know Your MarketBetter Than Their Mother’s Do • Who is your customer? • What gender(s), age, demographic, social class, employment status, hobbies? • Right down to what they eat for breakfast • You can never have too much information about your market • What are their interests? • Create an ideal customer avatar • Your customer ISN’T everybody. If you try to be all things to all men and women, you will be nothing to nobody
- 26. Russian Brides andLong Distance Truckers • Site providing a match-making service for men looking for a Russian wife • Commoditized • Noticed the 20% of his market providing 80% of his return (truckers) • Rebranded as an exclusive site devoted to finding Russian wives for truckers ONLY • Because he knew his market, he was able to tailor his message exclusively towards truckers. This meant a much improved affinity towards his message • Was able to raise his fees 200 times from what he originally charged
- 27. Exercise I -Generate Your Ideal Customer “Avatar” • Identify your ideal customer • What is the deep, emotional need your product or service satisfies? • You need to empathize with your prospect and understand their pain • What age is he? • What is his day like? • Weight loss product. Typical age profile? Gender. • Get inside their head. • What is their reality like?
- 28. Message • USP (UniqueSelling Proposition) • Coined by TV adman Rosser Reeves in the 1940’s • What makes your business unique? Why would I do business with you and not your competitors? • Unless you can answer this you will be left to compete on price • Poor USP’s: price, length of time in business, great service, quality of product, your amazing “brand identity”, your mission statement, how great you think you are.. “we’re the number 1 in Ireland” • Unfortunately, none of these are in any compelling
- 30. Exercise II -Define Your USP and “Hook” • Why would anybody do business with you? • Unless you relish the pain, price is never a good USP • Think of the things your industry is notorious for, and promise not to do them. Easy, you would think? • Lawyers overcharge, tradesmen show up late if at all, banks being, well..banks, estate agents lie or exaggerate etc.. • Unconditional lifetime money back guarantee, eg Dominos USP, “Fresh, hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less, or it’s FREE” • USP doesn’t even have to be unique. But you can present it as unique.
- 31. Media • Online – SEO –Social Media Marketing (Linkedin Groups, Facebook, Twitter) – Social Media Advertising (Linkedin & Facebook PPC) – PPC (Adwords, Bing/Yahoo adcentre) – Article Marketing – Youtube Marketing – Banner ads / media buys / remarketing – Amazon Kindle books • Offline – Direct Mail (postcards, sales letters, flyers) – Newspaper advertising – PR (Radio interviews, newspaper articles, public speaking) – Referrals
- 32. SEO (Search EngineOptimisation) • Process of affecting the visibility of a website in a search engine’s organic search results • There is no such thing as “free” traffic. You either pay with your time, or pay for someone else’s • Unpredictable. Panda and Pengiun updates cost many sites their rankings • Cannot be scaled. Often poor quality. • Little control over what traffic arrives. Random • Difficult to measure ROI accurately • In my opinion, SEO falls into category of 80% of effort that brings 20% of your return • However for local search results (eg Plumbers Dublin 15) it can be relatively easy to get results
- 33. Social Media Marketing •Difficult to measure ROI • Again, falls into the 80% of effort for 20% return category • Poor place to catch attention, people come to SM to waste time usually, not to fix their problems • Lacks intimacy. Broadcast medium, one to many. NOT one to one • Likes, friends, shares and re-tweets: aka “vanity” marketing • Unless they translate into cold, hard sales they’re meaningless • If you must use SMM, focus on getting your prospect OFF Facebook, Twitter etc and onto your list or website, or somewhere where YOU control the interaction
- 34. Social Media Advertising •Different to Social Media Marketing • Pay to see ads appear on the right hand side of users feed • Option of paying cost per click or cost per mille (CPM) • Cost is dependent on whom you are targeting • Ultra precise targeting options • Can be very effective for certain niches, usually business to consumer • Great for products/services with a high passion index • Again, the focus is getting your prospect off Facebook as soon as possible, and onto your website/list where you control the dialogue
- 36. Pay Per ClickAdvertising • Pay website owner to show an ad • You only pay when ad is clicked (pay per click) • Amount paid depends on keyword popularity, your quality score and your website relevance • Cost per click varies from a few cent to sometimes 10’s of Euros • Buying temperature is very high with PPC traffic, your prospect knows exactly what she wants • Trick is to send your traffic to a specified landing page designed to convert as many prospects as possible • Be wary of Google’s T&C’s. Unfortunately, they aren’t always clear and it can be very easy to get the banhammer • Privacy policy, disclaimer, copyright • Be upfront about the nature of your business and what your page’s aim is
- 39. Article Marketing • Notas effective as it used to be due to Penguin and Panda updates, but can still work • Write an article on a subject related to your niche. Eg a plumber might write different articles relating to DIY plumbing • Include CTA in your article • Traffic trickles from article site to yours. Traffic is usually highly qualified and with a high buying temperature • Not for every business. If your product or service is low on the passion index it won’t be a good fit • Not used for any SEO benefit • Content must NOT be a blatant sales pitch or else it will be rejected • Ezinearticles.com is the main article marketing site
- 40. Banner Ads /Remarketing • Banner ads. Purchase ad space on websites. • Remarketing. Cool new Google Adcentre feature. Once a prospect visits your website your ads “stalk” them around the internet
- 42. Kindle Books • Littleknown method of receiving highly qualified traffic. Write a mini book that solves a particular problem or fulfils a need (eg 10 DIY Tricks Every Irish Homeowner Should Know) • Make it specific to your demographic • Priced cheaply, 99c or €1.99 • Purpose of the book is straight ahead lead generation • Includes call to action at the end of the book to optin to your email/mailing list
- 43. Youtube Marketing • Makevideo solving a particular problem or need • Plumber makes a video about how to unblock a drain or sink • Call to action at the end of the video, “if you’d like to know more, click on the link below” • Keep it simple. Get straight to the point • It is about your solution (eg DIY bathroom plumbing tips) NOT your product (your widget or plumbing services)
- 44. Direct Mail (Flyers,Sales Letters etc) • In the digital era, direct mail has been largely forgotten. Represents a golden opportunity for the savvy marketer • Direct mail often converts better than online media • Long form sales letters, lead generation postcards • Shock and awe direct mail (Kindle fire, iPads and laptops, iPhones, dustbins, canoe paddles) • David Ogilvy and his live doves campaign
- 46. Newspaper Advertising • Again,purpose of your advertising is to direct your traffic online or to a place where you control the interaction • Offer a free report or something else free of value • Must give details to claim free offer
- 47. PR (Radio Interviews,Newspaper Articles) • Radio stations are crying out for content • As our newspapers • Direct traffic to your list if they want to know more
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- 49. Testing and Analytics– Is It Working? • Google Analytics, statcounter, Get Clicky • How many conversions are you getting? • A/B Testing – test different combinations of headlines, body copy, offer until you get a decent conversion rate • Answer is (frustratingly..) ALWAYS to test if you unsure. The market will give you your answer • Know your numbers. How many clicks does it take to get a conversion? How many leads convert into sales? Understand how much
- 50. Is Your WebsiteMade To Convert? • Website is your most valuable marketing weapon you have in your arsenal, it should be treated as such. • Aim is to convert as much traffic as possible. It is not an online brochure or mindless brand building exercise • Be careful about your copy. It should be focused on solving your prospects problems, not boasting about great you are. Nobody likes a braggart! • Look for all instances of we, us. Replace with “you” and “your” as much as possible • Remember: it’s about the solution to your prospects problem, not your product. It’s a subtle distinction which makes the world of difference
- 51. Why Email Marketing? •If you meet someone for the first time, you won’t propose marriage straight away • Takes time to build trust and to demonstrate expertise • Best done via repeated dates (follow-up) • Only 1-5% of prospects are ever in a position to buy your product at that time. • The rest need more information, more time to think it over or perhaps they need to trust you more • Regular follow-up builds trust and demonstrates expertise within your niche • If you’ve done your job, when the time comes for your prospect to buy, you and you alone will be top of her mind, nobody else
- 53. What NOT todo • Embrace BDC (aka “Big Dumb Company”) email marketing and pretty but pointless HTML “newsletter” style emails (good rule of thumb, the bigger the company, the worse their email marketing) • Make your prospect do any more work than they need to, hence the problem with HTML/image emails. HTML emails scream marketing • Constantly push the hypey, hard sell, be all mouth and trousers, e.g, “Buy Our Stuff Now! Save 25% If You Buy Before Friday!” • St. Patrick’s Day Sales. • Selling is fine, but you must give value first and foremost, whether it’s via entertainment or education. If you are 100% pitch, you’ll burn your list • Show no empathy or understanding, make it all about you, your company and your product. Remember: nobody cares about you, they care about themselves first and foremost, remember “WIIFM” – what’s in it for them • Be boring, or be just another crappy email people receive in their inboxes telling your prospect about how great your company is • Worry about open rates. They’re irrelevant, and a distraction
- 54. Email Myths andMisconceptions • “I will be labeled a spammer!” • “Nobody wants to read daily emails from me” • “Writing daily emails is a lot of work” • “What will I write about?” • “My customers are a sophisticated bunch. They won’t appreciate conversationally driven emails” • “And I certainly can’t sell to them!” • “If it’s so great, why don’t more companies do it this way?”
- 55. “I Will BeLabeled A Spammer!” • Be upfront from the get-go about what someone can expect when they sign-up to your list. Collect email addresses in a legal and ethical way. If you are going to be controversial or embrace touchy subject matter, tell your sign-ups from the very start. • Actively discourage prospects from entering your funnel if they are a bad fit – your market is NOT “everyone” • This ensures that the only people on your list are quality prospects who want to hear what you’ve got to say, which also has the side benefit of ensuring quality customers • Reduces risk of whiners, freebie seekers and tyre-kickers • If you are upfront and transparent about what to expect and apply sound “permission marketing” principles, you won’t have a problem with spam
- 56. “Nobody Wants ToReceive 5 Emails a Week!” • Its all about relevance. People will read the Koran backwards if it interests them (Koran memorising niche) • If you’re emails are boring, corporate sounding and you write like a self-obsessed stuffed shirt, then you’ll be ignored • “Most people live lives of quite desperation” – Henry Thoreau. Be the highpoint of their day by bringing some humour, education and entertainment into their otherwise dreary, drab and unexciting lives • If you give value and entertain –it changes the game • People will become addicted to your emails • Tell stories, weave tails, make people laugh. BOOM! Suddenly you’ll have a following.. • We ALL can do this. ALL of us…….
- 57. “Writing Emails isA lot of Work..” • It will take a lot of your time at first • But really, you DO have the time. How much time do you waste watching TV or messing around Facebook? • When you start writing emails, expect to find it tough • Like exercising, or anything which is difficult at first it gets easier the more you do of it • Unfortunately you just have to have faith you’ll get better
- 58. “But My Businessis Different..” • No it isn’t. • Whether you’re selling sophisticated financial products or low-rent sex toys, people are people, and are motivated by the same motivational drivers regardless.
- 59. “My prospects don’tlike to be sold..” • True. But nobody likes to be “sold” anyways. • We’re not in the business of selling outright. • We’re instead in the business of developing a solid relationship with our prospects via educational and entertaining conversationally driven emails, so that when the time comes to buy, your prospects will not look anywhere else..
- 60. “What Will IWrite About?” • Anything you like so long as it’s relevant. There are endless possibilities • Your family, your thoughts on the price of tea in China, missing Malaysian airplane, crisis in Ukraine. Look for the hidden lesson or moral, tie it into your product or service • DO NOT be afraid to ruffle some feathers and to annoy people, but don’t do it just for the sake of it. Be authentic • If you have an opinion on something, say it. DO NOT fear polarization. You want to arouse emotions. • People will complain, but equally there will be those who love you for it • Its better to be hated and loved than to be outright ignored. But the people who don’t like what you say, were they going to be your customer anyways? Even if they were, would they be good ones? A rule of thumb: if you’re not getting complaints, then you’re NOT pushing hard enough.. • Your aim is to develop a relationship with your prospect. Some won’t like you, some will. But those you do like you, will be loyal to the last.
- 61. Anatomy of aHigh Converting Email • Reawaken your creativity and imagination • Get hip to direct response copywriting , resources at the end of seminar. Study the masters… • Keep your eyes and ears peeled for the bizarre, the weird, the unusual and the interesting. Build your “fodder” database. Be constantly taking notes, and be on the look for things that will make intriguing subject matter. A-list direct response copywriter John Carlton gets you to think of your prospect as a “giant slug glued to the couch”. You need to pull out all the stops to get him to act. • Ask yourself, how can I link my product to one of my interesting topics?
- 62. Email Writing 101– Warming Up • Regain your long lost creativity • Time to re-awaken your “inner child of creativity” – NOT new age nonsense • The adult world KILLS creativity! • The Artists Way – Julia Cameron • Write for one full hour every day if possible • Stream of consciousness, gibberish, nonsense..doesn’t matter • Aim of this is to get “outside your head” and to kill your “inner critic” stone dead • Practice this exercise often enough and you’ll find your creativity will cast off the shackles imposed by your adult existence and begin to see creative angles in places you didn’t know existed, it’ll work with joyous abandon.. • Imagination work..
- 64. Imagination “Gym Work” •Ever felt completely “in the zone” where great stuff just came naturally? Want to know a hack to “replicate” this? • First warm up your creativity by using stream of consciousness • Take a random simple object in your field of vision, could be a pillow, a wall, a tree, anything simple.. • Taking a pillow for example, what could the pillow be? • Eye-patches for a giant? • Elephant slippers? Hemorrhoid pads for a REALLY big person? • Frisbees for the “athletically challenged?” • Mind mapping for ideas • The purpose of this exercise is to throw off the constraints that have imposed on us by adulthood, and regain the unrestrained child-like imagination we all had at one stage in our lives, but has since atrophied. • You need to look at things in an entirely different way. Lose your conditioning! This is how you begin to find new ways to talk about your product or service..
- 65. What To WriteAbout? • Your product or service is irrelevant. The important thing is determining the hook, and how • Politics: “How to stand out like an honest man in Dáil Éireann” • Marketing: “Rarer than a sober Irishman” • Breaking Bad: “From mild-mannered cancer victim to meth- slinging badass” • Web Design: “The beauty in butt ugly” • Copywriting: “The Copywriting Gun Under Your Pillow” • Business: “Beware buzzword-Bingo Loving Consultants” • Me: “A corporate stooge rotting in a cubicle” • Humans are hard-wired for stories ever since the days we crawled out of the cave and clubbed our first wholly mammoth for dinner • Write a captivating story and you’ll have people’s attention, link them into the product or service you are selling • Lets take a look at how a high converting email might work..
- 67. Start With TheSubject - HTML5 • Lets think about HTML first. Describe it in detail. Get as much down as possible, even if we don’t use it in our email • Been around a while, invented in 1990 by Tim Bernars-Lee • Originally a simple markup language used for web authoring, has evolved into something far more powerful, capable of graphic intensive 3D and high-quality audio • Historically not seen as a proper language by many developers • Something which has since changed. Its now taken far more seriously by developers right across the spectrum • And therein lies our hook • Its underwent a “transformation” from not being taken seriously by many developers to being treated with “a lot more respect” • Now is there something or someone that has a story that mirrors HTML’s transformation? • This is where you need to dip into your ideas database, and make notes of ideas and what you see around you. With practice, you’ll start seeing ideas for emails everywhere.
- 68. So How DoWe Tie in Breaking Bad? • Takes practice to recognize how to tie a vanilla subject into something more interesting. • Always be building your email fodder database • TV shows and films, news, books, public figure or famous person, a phenomenon, an event. Challenge existing dogma. Anything which a large number of people can relate to. • Hone your storytelling chops. • Watch standup comedians like George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Bill Burr, Patrice O’Neal, Jim Norton, Seinfeld • Write out classic sales letters by hand to hardwire your brain for story writing. The style of writing must become part of your muscle memory. • Unfortunately, HTML in and of itself won’t be interesting to many people bar hardcore nerds. However making HTML into a story that our brains can absorb will.
- 69. I’m Interested, tellMe More… • Embrace anti-professionalism and rogue entrepreneurship! • Professional but without the wimpy ass-kissing • Get hip to direct response marketing and copywriting first • John Carlton (john-carlton.com) • Gary Halbert (www.thegaryhalbertletter.com) • Anything by Dan Kennedy (www.nobsbooks.com , gkic.com) • Claude Hopkins – Scientific Advertising • Victor Schwab – How To Write a Good Advertisement • Robert Collier – The Robert Collier Letter • John Caples – Tested Advertising Methods • Drayton Bird – Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing • Robert Cialdini – Influence • Breakthrough Advertising – Gene Schwartz ($500 on Amazon)
- 70. How To WriteEmails That Sell • Develop your ability to spot interesting subject matter. Create an email fodder “database” of material you can dip into • Learn to hone your ability to notice things that people would be interested in hearing about. Keep a sharp eye out for the weird, unusual, the bizarre or anything that make a great email. • Anything is fair game. You make the rules. • Iconic characters in TV shows • Classic rock • Public figures , “Charles Haughey’s X-Rated Persuasion Secrets” • Quotes by famous people • Develop your imagination. • What annoys you, things that excite you • There is no end of material you can use in your emails
- 71. Email Marketing SpecificResources • Ben Settle (bensettle.com ) • Jon McCulloch (jonmcculloch.com) • Andre Chaperon (autorespondermadness.com ) • John McIntyre (themcmethod.com)
- 72. Download This Slide •Slideshare: www.slideshare.net/pearldesigndublin/leadgen • Twitter: @comminskeith • Email: [email protected]
- 73. Autoresponder Companies • Aweber •Mailchimp • Infusionsoft • Sendpepper/ Office Autopilot
- 74. Your Lead GenerationStrategy • Who is your market? • Message? How do you intend to communicate with them? What is your USP? • What enticement are you going to offer to get them to join your list? • What media will you use? • How will you follow-up with your leads? • How will you know it’s all working?