Facebook ads ios 14 What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of The bPb podcast. And today, we're going to talk about Facebook and how Facebook admit defeat, and what Facebook used to be. There's so many topics that we are going to cover in this episode. So get ready. For those of you who do not know, Rory, and I've been running Facebook ads for what feels like a century, because we've got a
lot of experience in this. And Rory actually brought this to my attention of what is actually happening today, because I pulled all of my clients Facebook ads, because they were not performing well. And so we're gonna dive deep into what the hell is happening with Facebook, why it has turned into a giant dumpster fire. And what we can do to keep getting our clients the results that they deserve. So Rory, let's jump in. What do you got? What do you got for everybody?
Well, I think the big question everyone has, is Facebook gonna turn out like MySpace?
Oh, burn, even having that in the same sentence? Ouch ah, what's up? Tom? If you're listening? Yeah,
I remember my space. I mean, my space was like, no one thought it was going to go away. Like, and it was, it was great, right? My band, one of my bands was one of the first 1000 bands on my space. And we got so much sales and traction from it. And then just suddenly, you know, got bought out. And it just took a dive, because they just changed too many things too quickly. And the whole thing just crashed, and no one wanted to be on it
anymore. Yeah. Well, the question is, is that what's happening with Facebook right now? And? And the answer is eh, maybe? Maybe, right? We don't exactly know. But we are in this weird transition phase where Facebook is, in our opinion, is shooting itself in the foot.
A lot Yeah.
So if for context, what's going on? Okay, so Apple issued this statement at the beginning of 2021, beginning of the year, they say, we're going to make an update in a few months, that is going to make it so that our privacy is going to be the most important thing to our clients. And they're going to have to essentially opt in to receive any type of advertising from and, you know, almost singling
out Facebook, right? And saying that, that, you know, if you're if you're going to receive this, these types of marketing messages, you're gonna have to check a box
on the chopping block.
Yeah. And so so what happened is, Facebook responded and said, Apple's trying to stop marketers from being able to run their businesses, which is kind of true, they're not wrong in that, but at the same time, you know, Apple's looking at it from as a privacy issue, which they're not wrong about either.
Right?
Right. We've got these two extremes going on. And so it's created this, this issue where we've got Apple, trying to do the right thing for privacy, because everyone's been so concerned about privacy, especially in you know, the last few years, we've seen documentaries come out, like the social dilemma, you know, we had the Cambridge Analytica scandals, we had an election scandals, or, you know, hackings, and all these, these
things that have gone on. And and so they're, they're saying, we need to better control the privacy side of things. Well, Facebook's on the other side, going, whoa, we need to be able to market to people and to support businesses. In those those efforts, which we're going to talk about a little bit more, and what that looks like, and they're clashing Apple is not budging. Facebook is trying to
fight it. But essentially, they're admitting defeat, because that now they're scrambling to try and make their systems work for Apple. And the reason that we're saying that they are shooting themselves in the foot is because at least in our opinion, or you know, my opinion, at least, I'm not gonna include Dominica in this. This is my opinion, but if she can say so, is that Apple only accounts for about 20% of the
share of traffic online. Yes. Okay. So most of the other traffic comes from Android devices and desktop devices, and things like that, you know, Windows based computers Linux. So when you look at it like that Facebook has broken off One of their advertising systems, it's gotten to the point where you can't even really run ads on their platform at the moment, as of the recording of this podcast episode,
which is Thursday, March 12 2021.
Yeah. So they've broken all their systems that now you can technically run ads, you can go on some accounts can't choose conversions as an option to, you know, have for your ads. And if you're familiar with running Facebook ads, if you aren't able to choose conversions, well, you're not
going to get any results. Unless you know you're running retargeting ads to an audience that you've already run conversion ads to in the first place, right, though, so yeah, you can run retargeting ads to audiences that already exist. Not a problem there. But what do you do? What if you want to run to cold traffic? Well, you don't really have any options at this point.
Yeah, good luck.
Unless there are some accounts, some people are able to the majority of accounts, you can't. So that's what we're, you know, that's what we've run into. That's what we've been hearing from a lot of people that have been reaching out to us and saying, like, you know, we're running into this people that we've been reaching out to online are like, yeah, we're running into this, too. We can't do this. So that's why we wanted to have this
conversation. That's why we wanted to talk about this episode, what are we do, we got all these clients and we can't run these ads, we're not going to continue just throwing their money away, Facebook will take your money, they'll let you run the ads, right? Don't choose conversions. But you can still run the ads, right, but you're gonna get junk traffic. And we've talked about this before, how Facebook will let you run ads and send you junk traffic.
We talked about this in the organic marketing is dead episode. And so you don't want to do that. You don't want to just say, Oh, I can't choose conversion, I'm going to choose traffic or whatever, whatever it is. Okay. So right off the bat, we've got issues with with the Facebook account. Now. The next thing? OK. Why? Why are they shooting themselves in the foot? Because they're, not only did they break their systems, but they're adjusting everything, like we said, For to work for
20%. And you can't run for the other 80% of the people out there. Currently, if they had just left their systems alone and said, Let's leave it just exclude Apple, you know, we'll work on our systems. But you can run to the 80% of people who don't have Apple devices, they'd be still functioning system.
Way better off, that's for sure. Yeah.
So what we're going to talk about is, what do you do? What do you do when the we'll call it the number two ad platform in the world? comes crashing down?
Well, what's number one, AdWords?
Well Google.
Okay. So yes, AdWords,
Facebook being I mean, the most known and probably the cheaper version? easiest entry point for most people?
Well, let's back it up a little bit. Okay. So you know, this rate, I got my start in social media marketing from running Facebook ads. I just
back when, when we could get half a cent leads.
Yes.
And when you could target down to one person?
Yes. Oh, my gosh, ever. I know, when when geo targeting was efficient, it's not anymore. I mean, this was this was even before geo targeting where it was like you knew exactly who you were getting? Where they were, what was going on? I mean, it was so specific.
So we talk about privacy issues now like back then all of the things that that were that we're dealing with now like that we're saying, like things are actually not that bad, comparatively, like they were really bad 10 years ago
I know. And it's something that we didn't, who I can't say we it can speak for you. But it's something that myself and my agency and my clients where we're willing to kind of like, ah, whatever, kind of like, we don't really care about that, because we're getting good results. Might
we might even think about it. Yeah, it wasn't even part of the thought process. Because it wasn't part of the global conversation. No one was thinking like, we need to be thinking about like, privacy issues or anything.
It wasn't it wasn't brought up. But it was still one of those things where it was like, Is there something happening that we need to be paying more attention to, but Facebook kept coming out with these policies where it was like, oh, everything's safe, everything's fine, and it wasn't a big deal. And that's more scary, right? So my firm was responsible for millions of dollars of ad spend. On behalf of my clients. We ran every single month, and we got an insane ROI. I mean, it was month
over month, year over year. It was like we're crushing it and one day, all the sudden algorithm changes, privacy policy changes, and the switch turns and the light goes off. And it's like, What in the hell? Are you serious? And ever since then, that was like
2016.
Yeah, I was gonna say, like seven years ago. And all of a sudden, it just has been a dumpster fire ever since
it was like, there was the wild wild west, right? This happened with Google right before they, Google had their like, major update, where it was the wild wild west of Google. And it was insane the amount of money being made through Google ads,
which was great for me at the time.
And then Google had a shift. And they did this major update, and Russell Brunson is known, like it's part of his whole story. He's like, his whole business shut down. Luckily, I didn't. That didn't happen to me. I wasn't relying on Google Ads at that point, because I was doing a lot of SEO stuff. But for the people who were
it was brutal. Let me just share with you it was friggin brutal. And it sucked. Yeah. I had more conversations about how much it sucked to get to the point we are now.
But yeah, I mean, ad accounts just shut down. But you can't you can't run ads anymore. And you can't run ads to these types of websites anymore was like stuff like that. And they they change the whole model. Right? So and it's the same thing, Facebook did the same thing, right around 2016, massive changes, changes to how they do all the stuff. We're in that same thing with Facebook, right now, in the middle of in the thick of it is that we just don't know how it's gonna turn out in 2016. There
was a shift. And yes, it didn't go back to what it was, but it was still a usable platform.
Well, here's the problem, though, right? So back then there was like, Oh, you're doing millions in Facebook. Go over to Google ads and see what that does for you. Or go over to this other thing right now. Kind of not another platform. Okay,
so let's look at you know what your other options are? Yeah. Okay. So you you want to go from Facebook, or to Google ads. The why was Facebook so so great. Before all this is because for a smaller entry point, your your business could get started, say 500 or $1,000 a month.
Ad retargeting was cheap
ad retargeting was very was very cheap. Yeah. Right. So you could get started for that lower investment. So small business owners Yes, could get in the door and start building their businesses,
which was huge. And that was the entry point for me as as an online marketer, right? Where I was selling these packages on these platforms. So just like you can get it at this baseline, but it'll
and then build people's businesses up.
Yes correct.
Yeah. And that helps people and it helps them grow, right. But then, with Google, it's not like that,
Noooo
It's into 10s of 1000 to hundreds of 1000 to get into that market,
and it takes time.
And it takes time. I mean, you've got a minimum of 30 days. But then even on top of that, you've got to you've got to build up your ad account and all these things. So I mean, there's a lot that goes into
real quick pause, here's the deal. anyone listening to this, this is so important. And I've talked about this before, if you're a business owner, and you don't, or you're not currently working with a marketing agency, if you're considering doing Google ads, okay, it will take at least three months to see some results. Be gentle on the people that you are working with to get these ads started. It is not an
instantaneous thing. If someone comes to you, and they say, Hey, listen, I'm going to guarantee within 30 days you'll have results. Nope, No, you won't. It's going to be 30 60 90. Give it the 90 days, give it the 90 days before you start to see some results. Okay, resume. Seriously, because I, I can't tell you how many people come to me and say, Oh, so and so said they can give me results in two weeks. And I just laugh. I'm like, great. If you think they
can do that go for that. I'm not going to guarantee that because it's not a reality. I'm going to tell you the real results that I can get you because it's going to happen in three months. That's it. It's not going to happen right away. And here's why.
No, yeah, not only do you have to build up your your ads and and build up the algorithm, build up the ad account, but you have to test. We've we talked about this a lot on the podcast, you have to test your ads, you have to test your landing pages. You've got to you've got to test your follow up process.
Okay, well, wait, you have to build your landing pages.
Yeah, you got to build your ads. You got to build your landing pages. So great. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of times when people come in and say just run our ads, they don't even have any of the landing pages or the funnels or any of this stuff go to so then you're starting off, and you've got to build all that stuff on top of
it. So if you're wanting someone to just come in and just get run my ads, it's like, well, we're not going to run ads, the homepage of your website, you're not going to get any sales.
I can't tell you Rory I can't tell you how many times or I can, because it's you. And you know, I can't tell you how many times someone has come to me like, Hey, want to run these ads? I've got $500,000, can you do it? And even with that budget, I'm like, No, there needs to be systems put in place. I don't care how much money you have. I don't care millions and millions, there needs to be lead magnets and systems in place in order to
get the end result. And so if you're listening to this, and you're like, well, I've got all the money in the world. I don't care doesn't matter, because things need to be put in place properly, in order for us to be effective in order for you to be effective in what we're talking about.
Yeah, you wouldn't like open a furniture store and be like, okay, here's my showroom, that I'm going to show you furniture and then just have an empty warehouse. Exactly. But that's what a lot of people do online.
Yes. And they just assume, oh, I've got this A team. It's gonna be great.
Then people show up at your warehouse, and you're like, well, we have these nice couches. We can sell them to you for $3,000. They're like, Well, can I sit down? it? Can What What colors do you have? I'd like to see it. I would like to feel it. And you're like, Well, you know, we don't have them here. No, I
I'ts a concept Yeah. Nope. It's eye opening. It's humbling to look at these different things. And money is not King. Let me just say that flat out. If you're looking to run social media ads, and I know we're talking about Facebook, and we're talking about these updates and things that have happened and apple and all that all that jazz. Money is not King
here strategy is. And that is where Rory and I come in, where we are looking at these things every single day and going How can we get these results for our clients, even when these updates happen? And these different things come up where it's like, well, crap, Okay, wait a second. So we were getting epic results over here. But all of a sudden, there's none over here. So what do we do? So Rory, what do we do?
Okay, so yeah, a few things, the extremes, like we've got Apple wanting, you know, privacy, we've got Facebook wanting, you know, businesses, but what's happening is that the businesses are getting pushed out. And the consumers are being misled about information.
So the original purpose of Facebook, okay, or the Facebook is how it was originally positioned, okay, or how it was brought to the world. It allowed Harvard students to use their.edu email addresses and photos to connect with other students at the school. So it was like a school connection network. Then the student at the time Mark Zuckerberg, he foresaw a way of bringing the existing social experience of college on to the
internet. So I'm sure you've all seen that movie, social network or some, yes, thank you, where it showed the story of how Mark Zuckerberg came to be, and how Facebook came to be. And all of that a super simplistic way of connecting other college students together. And then it became this huge empire. And there was no advertising for a long time,
then they saw an opportunity there sort of thinking, Well, how do we take this public? How do we get this on the stock market? Well, you can't get a company on the stock market unless you can show that a company can earn revenue. Well, you know, Zuckerberg is famous for when that Senator asked him, Well, you know, how do you? How do you make money? And he's like, well, Senator, we run advertising, right, or whatever you said, you know, that's the foundation of the business model
that I just have to say, made me laugh out loud, so hard. When I watched Zuckerberg just sit in his chair, and he's like, well, Senator wheat, we run advertising, and that's how we, you know, earn revenue. And the senator was like, What do you mean? Are you kidding me? What are you talking about? Have you ever seen an ad it says sponsored is on the top? What are you talking about? You don't know. I just it my skin crawled with like, how do you not
understand this? And I just, I felt for mark in that moment where I was like, Oh, dude, have you ever gone to Amazon? Have you ever seen a jacket you wanted to buy and all of a sudden it was on the right hand column in the ads? That's called ad retargeting. It's so so for you and me, Rory, this stuff is so basic. And for all of our clients, it's so basic. But for the average consumer, or for someone in Congress, that doesn't understand. I mean, it's like, what is this? Where do we go from here?
Yeah, and then you've got it. You've got Those two sides where you've got like people who are fighting for privacy, they think that all every single bit of information is being seen by everybody at any given point, like as marketers, the thing that understands that we don't see any of that information. We don't know that, you know, that Jimmy so an. so in Madison, Wisconsin is getting any, you know, is buying a pair of sunglasses, like we none of that we don't see any of that. And we
don't care. Right. But the thing to think about is, like, the other side of it, is that if, as an advertiser, you know, or let's look at as a consumer, okay, so let's say that you, as a consumer, you go to a website, and you're looking to buy a treadmill, and you say, you know, you get distracted, or like the kids come in, and you're like, Oh, that's, that's a cool treadmill. I'm thinking of buying it. But you have to leave the website. And you, you
forget about it. Well, the advertiser with what they're trying to set up with the current situation, why Facebook is fighting, Apple would only receive information like maybe they would say, this person, you know, might be interested in sporting goods. Okay, so they get that information. And they're like, well, we don't know what sporting goods. Let's advertise them a bowling ball. Right? And then you get an ad for a bowling ball. And you're like, Well, I have no interest
in bowling. Right? So that's the downside is that you don't get anything that's relevant to you and your advertising.
It's a retargeting mix up. It's like non relevant, good or bad. Maybe I'm interested in bowling. No, I'm not. But it's a privacy info issue. It's a retargeting mix up. And there's a few bad apples in what you're looking at, for sure. And that happens. But something I have to say, I cannot drive this home enough. Every single thing you post on the internet, I don't care what social media platform you're on Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, whatever. The second you upload and post
that it is forever there. I don't care if you go and delete it two seconds after it is for ever there. So know that as a consumer as an individual that is doing something. This is so important. And not only that, but forever, not yours anymore. Correct?
Yeah. So ever,
not yours. If you have never looked over the terms and conditions, the privacy policies of any of these social media platforms, let me recap it for you real quick. Basically, what it says, we can take any of your content and use it to our advantage and do whatever the hell we want with it. Pictures of your kids, pictures of yourself boudoir photos, whatever you're posting, okay. So whenever you click Post, be sure that you are very clear. And this is what I want to post and have it there
forever. I know it sounds very intense when I'm talking about this, but I preach this with my clients because they don't understand. Okay, it's so, so important. So please be aware of this. And think about the photos that you've posted when you were like 15 years old versus now.
That's where a lot of people have gotten in trouble. Because they'll they maybe a few years ago, they posted a photo where they're out with their friends drinking and then someone like they're looking for a new job, and then someone who's recruiting them goes and looks at their social media profiles. And like, I don't want someone like that.
That's right. Basically, don't post anything you wouldn't want Jesus to see.
Or your grandma.
Yeah, I mean, surely like grandma, grandpa, whoever, like just don't, because doing that damage control is so extreme. And that is something that both Rory and I do, we do a lot of reputation management. We do our darndest to look at the various things that have been posted and and and do our best to do SEO management and take things down if it wasn't couth or whatever at the time. But that that work trying to do that work and
backtrack, it is very hard. But that's been a big part of my business in the last five years is to track down things like that and to remedy it, but just think before you post that's the biggest thing here.
Yeah, definitely. Now, you know, so the other side of it is the, the the little little guys are getting squeezed out of the market. So what's gonna happen, you're gonna just have big players that are like
my little guys. You're talking about the small business owners, right? Small Business.
Yeah, business owners are getting pushed out of the market. Right? Yeah. Because Facebook has historically been the entry point for a lot of people and so on. It's gonna make the entry point for a lot of people who are trying to start businesses a lot harder. Yes. And so but we've had some solutions, that's solutions, because we got to help you out. But it's going to take some innovations, you know, willingness to do things a little differently than, you know, Facebook was, was great.
And we're not saying that necessarily. Facebook couldn't be great. Again, we just at this point, we just don't know, because the systems are all in disarray. But you have, you can't put all your eggs in one basket either. So let's look at some other stuff. What can what can you do? Okay, so the very first thing we're gonna say,
YouTube, it's still part of Google. But YouTube has their algorithms down pat.
The reason I, I'm saying a lot of this stuff, though, about like, you're gonna have to kind of step up is because getting in front of video camera, not everyone wants to do it. But that's the reason why there's opportunity with YouTube. Because if you're willing to get on camera, or even just do slides, in some cases you can get away with depends on the market. And you can put these videos together, then you can get in front of an audience. And you can do so at a lot lower cost than running.
search based Google ads.
Well on something that you've talked about a few times. Rory, you mentioned that we should have an episode, all based on, like, proper technique for being on camera and how to do this properly.
Yeah, yeah, we should do that soon.
We can help all of you guys with that. Because being on camera, especially for the first time can be really nerve wracking. Or maybe it's the first time you've really seen yourself. You're like,
nobody else. So Oh, it's the first time I was on camera. I was so bad.
Me Too. We all are.
I mean, I'm not necessarily great now. But I don't I don't have anxiety about getting on camera.
That's key
But back back. Even this was before I met you when I shot my first video for my audio engineering services. Oh, it was so bad. And Carly remembers. And she actually mentioned it a few days ago, where she's like, I can't believe how bad you were in it in shooting that video. Oh, yeah, no, because it was so bad. Because I didn't even have I didn't have a teleprompter or anything. I had a whiteboard, and I had to script it out. And I could only get one line at a
time. And then it was a cut. And then it was one light at a time and then a cut. And I was so like flat monotone and it was like, it was just so bad
that's part of the learning process, though. And look at you now Rory does these incredible YouTube clips at the very end of every video that we do. And you can just see, like, he means it. He's like, vibrant. He's on it. He talks about what we're gonna do next week. Like, dude, you're crushing it. But yes, that takes time. That takes confidence, right?
Well, yeah. And there's just like little things that you learn from doing video that that help out, and that a lot of people make some of these mistakes. And we still make these mistakes as well. I mean, I say I'm in like, probably 1000 times a day,
and I touched my face, which I shouldn't do. Yeah,
touching. touching your face is one of the things that you shouldn't I actually, I had to I don't know, if you notice a lot of times I'll I'll put my hands behind my back, I'll put my hands in my pockets. I actually learned not touching my face from working in restaurants. Because you, you're really really if you work in restaurants, you really should not touch your face. Even if you're going to go wash your
hands. People see you touching your face and they don't always see you washing your hands.
Haha. Okay,
and so what I learned to do is that even if I had an itch on my face, I wouldn't necessarily ignore it. But what I would do is I would use my shoulder, what it comes down to is like, hands like away from your face. Like one of the big things if that's going to be the video tip, or you know, for for this episode will go into more than one but yeah, hands hands away from your face. And the reason is, is psychologically, it's it's not that you are necessarily lying
or anything like that. It's the perception that you give people when someone touches their face. It makes someone question that you are potentially lying, or that you don't potentially believe what you're saying.
One of my favorite things to do is to watch shark tank and to see what they're all doing with their hands. It's like one of my favorite things. So Mark always says one of these right? You see this where he's like it's in his lap. It's like that. Yep. This it's like yeah, yeah, we're This is a very it's a triangle for those of you not watching on YouTube. It's like you put your, your fingers together and you put your thumbs right together.
Okay, so you make a triangle, and then you set it in your lap is the ultimate power. Yes. It's like the power like, yep,
power and dominance, people who do that. It's not only power and dominance, but they have a very high thought like they think very highly of themselves almost, in some places very conceited, sometimes negative You have to be, you have to be very careful if you're going to use that type of,
ah, interesting. Okay, so I've never experienced that. Because whenever I personally am doing interviews, my hands just fall into that position into my lap. But they're intertwined like this
and down?
Yes, always. Alright, so I know that it's fun to talk about body language. And I'm sure you all love learning what I do with my hands when I'm in meetings. But let's save that for another episode. Oh, my gosh, let's get back to the whole reason that we wanted to talk about this in the first place. And that is making sure that you guys have some really good tools, and how you can continue to help your business thrive, help your clients, businesses grow all of that, right. And so we didn't want to
leave you hanging. Alright, so let's, let's get back to some of that stuff. You may have heard some of these things that Rory and I do in previous episodes, the one that really comes to mind is how to get clients for free, we share so many tips about how we're gonna go about doing that in our own businesses. But some other
things that you can do. So we already mentioned YouTube, and YouTube's great, but you can also do some outsourcing and hire a VA to work for you on your behalf, like as an assistant while you're sleeping, to help you bring in some more leads. And if you're consultants, like podcasting is a great way to get in front of your target audience on like a super large level and meet some, you know, super cool people.
I also want to say just just to add that if you can't afford to get an assistant, if you're just at that place, like just put in the time yourself on on LinkedIn, right? But don't spam people actually build connections get to know people, that's the real key, just don't send out blanket messages to people. Okay, and build those relationships and, and get to know them and be
helpful. How can you help people, you can help people and build those relationships, then you can continue to grow your business.
And we have met so many of our guests through LinkedIn. And it was those people that were very specific about the personal side of what we do. It wasn't just like, Hey, here's all my information. Can I be on your podcast? It was, Hey, I really loved that one episode where you mentioned, you know, affiliate marketing, or I love the episode where you talked about how organic marketing is dead. And they were so specific, that it made me go, Okay, let's, let's check, because we received so
many messages. And so anytime you can insert, like a personal factor, I think we even talked about this with Matthew Confer on learning to lead that episode, where, again, like we're saying, the more you can build relationships, the better your business will be off because nobody wants to be spammed all day long. So we've got affiliate marketing opportunities, as well, that takes some time to build out if you're not familiar with like the technical side of that.
There's also the referrals, though, so big part of my business and I know Rory for you, too, like we thrive on getting referrals. And we always give like really large incentives, and large kickbacks, those people who bring us those clients, because we wouldn't have them right without them.
And that all comes back again, building relationships, we've built these epic relationships, we've been so fortunate to have these awesome clients that actually want to bring us the business and know that we're going to support their, whether it's their friends or family, their colleagues. And so don't forget about the power of referrals
and think about why you can offer these incentives. It's because you don't have to pay any marketing.
Right? Exactly
that person in the door. So if you would normally spend, say, $2,000 to get a client and you only you know, and you can spend $1,000 to give them a referral fee. I mean, you're doing really well, you know,
yeah, absolutely. Yeah. When you start to break down the customer acquisition, like, yeah, okay, so I just had one conversation, versus like, waiting around to see what Facebook would have not done. I don't mean to crap all over Facebook. Facebook was really good at one point, as we know, but right now,
yeah, just at the moment, it's not working out. But yeah, what we'd like to emphasize is that it may kick back into gear, and we're hoping it will.
Yeah, definitely. But something else that I think is kind of fun. It's fun for me, because I'm not very good at it today. And we're always great at it. So it's it's fun for me to continue to learn about it. And for the longest time, I always thought that email marketing was kind of dead, right? Kind of dead. Too many emails, too much spam. I'm not excited when emails come through anymore, but it's starting to get a lot Better.
And Rory has been teaching me some just awesome techniques to get me like excited about it again. And so Rory, do you want to let everyone know what the hot tips are for email marketing right
now? Sure. So well, that's, that's the thing we're going to talk about is that you should be building an email list. And you know, like, you were just saying, a lot of people think that email has been around so long. And so many people have said, Oh, email, emails that but compared to social media, people are a lot more engaged. And they actually tend to buy from their email, compared to social media.
significantly more, I think it's like 139%, or some crazy number more so than then from social media,
because it's personal. Right? It's right there. It's much more personal.
Yeah. And because social media, as we talked about, tends to be so much more interruption marketing versus intent based marketing. So that's, that's step one is, is build an email list. But how do you build an email list if you if you don't have one? Or if your email list is on the smaller side? Well, you've got to have something of value to give people. Now sometimes it's
free. Sometimes it's lower ticket, like, in some cases, you know, like, with Dominica, like we you have your book that sometimes you give it away for free, sometimes you're you're charging, shipping and handling for physical version. Sometimes it's, you know, $1 $5 or $10, audio book, things like that this low ticket items, right, that you're promoting. And those offers are things that are easy
entry points for people. So when you drive advertising in any form to it, it's something that because it's so low barrier of entry, if it's enticing enough, people want it. And they're just like they're making that snap decision. We've talked about this before is that when it's low ticket, it's it's got to be an instantaneous snap decision.
Yeah, a no brainer micro commitment from them.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just get them to the next step. Right. That's, and that's when you use the free the free offers just to get them the next step. But it's got to have value. And it's can't be misleading. And that was what, you know, when we were talking about the gurus, misleading people, that's what we were talking about is in another episode is that a lot of times, they'll say, download my, my PDF, and you'll earn $10,000 in the next hour, or whatever it
is, right? You don't want to mislead people in that way, just give them solid value, something that they can take action on. Right away, it's got to be short to the point, something that they can consume within about five or 10 minutes, nothing longer than that really, is unless it's in the case of a book where that's a high value item that you're giving them. Okay. Now, the ways that we can look at for driving traffic to an offer like that. Okay, so
if don't have an already well established list like this is this is part of the building process, right? Yeah.
Yeah. Now, okay, let's let's start with what do you have to have to do something like that? So we talked about what what is your offer, you have to have a landing page, you have to have somewhere where you can capture the email address. Okay, so that's step one. That's the page where people arrive that that says, This is what you're going to get. Okay, so you capture the email address, and then you take them and give them email address, well, then you have to have a really strong follow up
email sequence. This includes like, welcome emails, and then follow ups to who you are and what you're about and other offers that you have to work with you in some form. And learn about other products and services You have webinars you might be might be doing, okay, that are always
of value.
Yes. Value value. Yes. That's the key. What else? Okay, so, once you've got your foundation, that's, that's your foundation, you have to drive traffic in and so that, you know, that's what we've been talking about. Right?
Can I interrupt a super question? Okay, so we've got the foundation, but then you also need the systems in place, right? to like, help that foundation be super even more solid? So we love action, right? automation? Exactly. So we love Active Campaign, right? That's, that's who I use, we're gonna use activecampaign. And it's one of the best automations put in place tagging. It's not that complicated. It took me a little while because I'm a slow
learner. But anyone can really take the time to learn how these automations work to make your life easy. The last thing you want to do is, you know, drive a ton of traffic. And then you're like, oh, gosh, what do I do now? Do I respond to each one of these emails? No, you automate some things, like think of couple steps ahead before building your list or buying traffic or any of that. So anyways,
go ahead, read don't just don't just only have a welcome email, and that's be the end of it.
Yeah. Right.
But also, you know, yeah, think about like, what is the next step? Like, where do you want to lead people?
What's the sequence?
Yeah, like, how are you going to monetize? If you're giving them something for free? How are you going to monetize? Don't just send them offer after offer after offer, you got to have value. Right?
And timing.
Yeah. And yeah, don't send 30 emails in two days.
Timing is so important. It's crazy, like, psychology around the timing between emails, oh my gosh,
the other side of it is, then don't just send one email a month, or else you're, you're forgotten. people get scared to not send emails, or to send too many emails, you have to find the right balance. And tricky to find that balance every markets a little bit different, different expectations. So you have to test that and start seeing where that drop off point is. And you start to find it, you can't be scared to to have people unsubscribe, okay, you have to be willing to take some of those
chances. And, and that's when when you have traffic coming in consistently, you're less and less scared to take those chances to figure out where you should be
100%. Just a quick story, client of mine sent an email just yesterday, and was really sad and saying, oh, I've gotten so many unsubscribes What's wrong? What am I doing wrong? And I said nothing. Because what you're sending and what you're doing today is different from six months ago, which is the last time she sent an email. And those people aren't interested in what you have going on today. That's perfect. You don't want to continue paying for these people to just open your emails and not
do anything. So anytime you see an unsubscribe, you're like, Okay, awesome, thanks. Hopefully, we can connect again. But if it's not catering to what you're doing right now, don't worry about it saving you money in the long run and saving their time too.
So Well, yeah. And if you have a list that you haven't emailed, that ends up being a lot of people who they built up email list, and then just for whatever reason, just didn't email them for quite a while. Well, you have to warm them up. You have to reintroduce yourself to them.
I think one of the ways or the funniest ways that you you said this before Rory, he said, Hey, Rory want to get married? Right? It's like we want to back it up. Let's have a little discussion. Yeah, let's get to know one another again. Okay. So once people have started to put systems in place, and they're in that process of testing, let's say they don't have a list, like a decent sized list, and what do you recommend people do from here?
Okay, well, one point I want to hit just on what you said they're decent sized list, you can do a lot with a small list, meaning like a few 100 people. So don't worry, if your list is not massive or anything like that.
It's targeted, right? Being targeted
a targeted first targeted list quality list, build your relationship with your list, which we've talked about small list, you can build, like if you've built the relationship, right, you can make a lot of money from that list, okay, so don't worry about that. What matters most is are people opening and clicking the links on your your emails, clicking the links is, is what matters the most and going to where you want them to go. So that's what we pay attention to. Okay, so driving traffic, that's
what we got to look at. Okay, first off is partnerships with other people. And you can build relationships with people who have email lists, in first instance, says some people have email lists, and they're willing to allow you to pay for promotions to them, you can do joint venture or swap promotions
with them. So meaning that if you have some email list of, of similar sizes, you could say, Hey, I'm going to promote you promote me or a mutually beneficial relationship like that and promote each other.
But it has to make sense, right? Like, it's easy for me to share with my email list your services, because it's something my list would have an interest in. Yeah, you're not gonna be selling jewelry through my, like, email list that doesn't, right? Like what is this doesn't make any sense, right? Like, where is that mutually beneficial, but it has to make sense. It's not you're not just going after large lists or large followings. It's gotta make sense.
Yeah, it's got to be the right the right list the right people, but you can, you can build these partnerships for people. And there's a lot of people who are looking who have big lists who are just looking to monetize it. They don't know how to actually market to their own lists properly. We've talked about this with influencers where they have these huge, huge audiences, but they just don't know how to monetize that
audience. And you know how to monetize an audience, but you just don't have the audience. You're in a great position, because you can just partner with these people and build relationships build, build businesses even together. Yeah. Yeah. So there's definitely opportunities around that. Now, the other side of that is
something called solo ads. And this is where you can buy into people who have lists and you can kind of test the waters with people who have lists, where you can buy specific chunks of traffic from those lists that may Now, now the the other thing is, is media, so many companies meaning like Forbes, entrepreneur, stuff like that, you know, like traditionally magazine based companies, where they actually allow you to advertise through their email that to their email subscribers.
It's amazing how easy it is to actually find
that information. So for those of you who don't know how to do this, right, you go to these websites and say, like forbes.com, you scroll all the way down to the very bottom of the website, we're like the footer is, and you'll see a link that says advertisement, or advertise, and you click that, you'll see their media kit, you open it up, and then they show you exactly on the digital side or the email side, that's what you're focused on, you're not focused on the print, right,
you're sending an email, you can see the different segmented lists, and you can see how many dedicated email subscribers are there. And these are people that are highly targeted. And some of these publications have millions of people. But it's really easy the information that you send these, these companies, you give them the URL, the landing page you want them to go to, and then the email swipe, like the main email that you want, hyperlinked and have everything ready to go,
I would test with solo ads before doing anything with the media buying.
See, that's why you're better this.
With the solo ads, you can, you can actually buy in in small chunks and scale up and and test your landing page and your process your follow up process through it. And then when you go to something like Forbes or entrepreneur, and you run a larger promotion, you already know that all of your your systems are converting
all this stuff takes time to really develop and like remember, there's there's a lot of moving parts to email marketing, but all that to say, I'm feeling like that is a super good direction, I know we're seeing a lot of success with that, again, goes back to providing value. And it takes some strategy for sure. It's not the good old Facebook days where you can just put up a simple ad and you're getting conversions right away. Like it takes more strategy now. But I don't see
that as a bad thing. Like we don't get to be lazy, you know, it's it's taking the time to really continue to cultivate those relationships, make sure the foundation is being laid properly. It's one thing to get a sail through an ad. But that doesn't mean that whoever bought that product or service knows you or knows the business. It's just kind of like a great
product. But the email marketing really allows you to really get to know your audience, which I think is important, and a lot of people forget about.
Yeah, and you own that relationship. Whereas when someone is just a Facebook friend or whatever is just in a Facebook audience. Facebook goes away, you know, then you don't have the audience anymore. And that was always one of my things when people were like so focused on Oh, I'm just going to build my custom audiences and things like that. I was like, Yes, do that. That's great. Don't rely on it, though. Because they can go away. We've seen it. Hmm. Yeah, that's what we're kind of seeing. Yeah,
exactly. No, not necessarily that it will completely go away. We just don't, we just don't know. And is better, better to be prepared and diversify, so that we're not stuck in a trap?
I never want to feel like I did ever again. When the algorithm shifted so intensely in like 2016. Right. That's what you said before? Yeah, it was just like, what do I do now? Time to reinvent and learn new things, which I was able to do quickly. But that was a big chunk of my business anyways. Well, this has been fun. Thank you guys so much, again, for taking the time to listen to what we have to say.
Because we put a lot of time and a lot of effort into continuing to just find out what's working and what's working right now. So we'll continue to bring you some great content. I know we're gonna have an episode coming up here soon, all about SEO. So that'll be fun. Rory is going to be on the seat for that one. Again. Anything else for this episode Rory?
Well just realize that there are solutions, like we've talked about that there are some solutions, right? So if you've been relying heavily on Facebook, and you're just freaking out, like there are other things you can do. Okay, so it's not it's not all doom and gloom. Okay,
it's not even though I'm pretty passionate about how Facebook did me wrong. Still, yeah, there's there are always there's always going to be other alternatives and other things. You just have to think outside the box and find what's gonna work and learn something new.
Yeah, sometimes it's just going back to the basics, like what what has been working and looking at the trends and of things like email, like what is what has happened since the pandemic happened and then when we looked at the, the data, it just it's like, emails been the thing that has been going really well and and foundationally business wise what has always worked for us. relationships, building partnerships, referrals, these types of things continue over and over and over to fuel our
business, no matter. whatever is going on in the world, no matter whatever's going on in advertising, we've always been able to continue to go because of that. But you can do the same thing too. So just think of think of that, build those relationships, build the partnerships, and then look into some of these other advertising.
And if you need help, and if you're, you're looking for some help in the media, buying aspects, you can reach out to us we have our teams that work on that, and we'll help you.
Yeah, we'd love to, we would love to meet each and every one of you who want to have an event soon. be really fun. Yeah, I'm really
looking forward to that. When it's safe. We will.
Alright guys, that's it for this week. We will see you next time.
On the next episode, we speak with Matthew Yahes, about scaling through outsourcing. Matthew is not just an agency owner, he runs an e-commerce business completely with remote staff, including his chief of staff who now oversees two companies for him with over 50 people. We discussed the truth about companies, hiring people overseas, what you need to focus on as an entrepreneur. No, it's not operations or social media. Why you should not hire a VA and a whole bunch
more. And remember, Apple podcasts. Yeah, you know what I'm gonna say? review, review, review, review, review, Subtle enough? Alright, see you on the next one.