354 – Greg Cassar On Doubling Your Business With Digital Marketing – Preview

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Presentation topics:

01:04 – Working with hundreds of different businesses
02:33 – 5 principles for doubling your business
05:48 – Best practices in Web design
06:24 – Hook them in 10 seconds
07:23 – What’s the primary action you want visitors to take?
09:16 – Narrowing it down with junction boxes
11:12 – Adding this one box doubles your leads
13:39 – What you want to do with your sales copy
15:55 – A formula for explainer videos
19:38 – Social proof that makes sales super easy
20:58 – Is your site mobile-optimized?

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Tweetables:

To know and not to do is not to know. [Click To Tweet]
You can’t build a million-dollar business with a two-dollar mindset. [Click To Tweet]
Run your winners long and cut your losers short. [Click To Tweet]
Four magic words: How can we help? [Click To Tweet]

Transcription:

James: So our next guest is actually a homegrown local who’s another under-the-radar genius. Super technically competent, been doing things behind the scenes for huge companies, and has so many skillsets it’s ridiculous for one person. But in particular, conversions is the way that I actually met Greg, so I’d like to introduce Greg Cassar, and please make him welcome. We’re going to finish off for the next hour.

Greg: Thank you, James.

James: Have fun.

Greg: Excellent. Alrighty. Thank you. So in this session, the next hour we’re going to talk about how to double your business using digital marketing, sort of all facets of digital marketing. And then we’re going to finish it off with an example, step by step, of how we tripled a business. And in the unique case study which I’m going to show you, we doubled it in five months and then we tripled it in the following seven months, so up to 12 months.

How the concept came about

So basically, how this has all come about: I started getting good online, I used to work in corporate IT, and people started asking me, “Would you mind doing that for me?” and before I knew it, we were running an agency. We didn’t really even know what it was at the time, but we were running an agency. And then we started getting really, really good at traffic and we started getting really, really good at conversion and we sort of morphed it into a traffic and conversion agency.

And the great thing about running an agency is you get to work in so many different businesses. Like literally hundreds and hundreds of businesses, from startups through to things doing multiple, multiple tens of millions of dollars a year. And so you learn. You learn very, very fast. You also get to manage millions and millions of dollars’ worth of clicks, and you get to run hundreds and hundreds of split tests. So you learn a lot from that.

So what I’m going to show you here, nothing is guessed, it’s all based on hard data, out of our marketing agency, five years of our marketing agency, which we’re just in the process of winding down now. So there’s also going to be no real bright shiny objects, so for any of you in the crowd who are after the next big thing, this isn’t really it. What this is, this is the fundamentals done over and over again, really, really well.

Greg Cassar on stage

So yeah, not really that exciting but what it is, is just the fundamentals, traffic and conversion, and what to apply to your site. A lot of this, you’ll probably think, “Oh, I know that.” But to know and not to do is not to know, if that makes sense. When you look at all these things, just think about “Do I know that, and am I implementing it in my business?”

Let’s get started with some quick principles that really set up the framework for what you need to do for when we’re getting into the hands-on stuff. So these are principles for setting you up for doubling your business using digital marketing.

5 principles for doubling your business

OK, the first one, I know James is really, really big in this, the 80-20 principle, we use this with every aspect of our business effectively to get a whole bunch more done and to make really, really quick, easy, strategic decisions.

The second one is million-dollar mindset. So I think mindset really is a journey. It’s not like you can say, “Oh, I have my mindset now,” it’s really a journey. One thing I learned from Pat Mesiti, he said “You can’t build a million-dollar business with a two-dollar mindset.” And that sort of really, really stuck with me, and since then I’ve gone and learned NLP and a bunch of other stuff. So I think mindset is so, so important. Because one thing that I’ve found is that you can do everything here, but if your mindset’s wrong, then that can compromise the whole lot.

OK then, thinking about winning offers. So it’s really about math and psychology. I used to think that was all there was to it, but now really I think it’s more about psychology than it is about math.

So what this means is, we talk about the maths part first. If you’re going to spend one dollar, you need to make sure you’re making two or three dollars. You don’t want to be losing money on your offers, you don’t want to be losing money on your traffic. You want to be running your winners long and cutting your losers short. So I think no real surprises there.

And the psychology bit is about who is my exact target market, who is it that’s hitting this page, and what do they really, really want? When we’ve designed some of our best landing pages, highest converting landing pages, they’ve been about, we’ve got into the mind of the prospect and then thought, what the heck do they really, really want? It’s not that politically correct, but it really, really works when designing winning offers.

And the fourth one is speed of implementation. When we were first getting started, we missed a whole bunch of opportunities because we just were implementing way, way too slow. Now there’s great tools out there like LeadPages and OptimizePress and these sort of things that will enable you to build stuff really, really quick. So there’s sort of no excuses anymore, but this really, really makes a difference.

And number five is relevancy plus direct response. And if I look at all the money that we made through the agency, this is probably the thing that’s made the most revenue. What this is talking about is, say for example with search, if someone’s searching for something, that search term needs to be a hundred percent relevant to the ad. And then that needs to be a hundred percent relevant to the page that you take them to. And then on there, you need to be able to take direct response.

So in this case, if I was searching for a retail training solution, going to a page about a retail training solution and then having a direct response where they could quickly, easily call you or fill in that inquiry form. And on that inquiry form, it’s sort of hidden, but down here it says, our four magic words: “How can we help?” So that really, really increased the leads of our businesses and our clients’ businesses when we added that.

A lot of people have “request a quote” and that sort of thing, but that’s too far down the engagement cycle. If you think about it like dating, this is really early on. You just want to say, “We’re here, how can we help?”

Best Web design practices

Alright. So now let’s get into some best practices for Web design. So this is talking about making your website more effective. It says here, Web design that sells, but it’s not just about sales. Often it’s about capturing leads. A lot of this is focused on services-type businesses, so if you’re an educator, a plumber, or an electrician, any of those sort of sites, not really necessarily so much for e-commerce.

So as we go through each of these, just write down whether or not you’ve got it, whether or not you’re implementing it, because that might help you to come up with an action list at the end of it of things that you need to do.

1. The 10-second rule

Alright, the first one is the 10-second rule. So when someone first gets to your website, they’re not making a “Will I buy?” decision. They’re making a “Will I stay?” or “Will I go?” decision. OK? And the 10-second rule’s probably realistically closer to five seconds these days, with the way our attention span is.

In this example, up there where it says The Retail Solution, so that’s the name of the business, and straight underneath the logo, we’ve got a positioning statement of Retail Consulting and Training. So it’s really, really quickly and easily communicating what it is. So think about with your logo, do you explain quickly underneath it or right beside it who you are and what you do?

If you’re a Microsoft or a Google or whatever, it’s not relevant but for an SMB, you know, an average small to medium business, it really, really does help. And then you can see also on this slider here, it’s got this main message of Delivering higher sales and profits for retailers through leading edge consulting and training. So it’s very, very obvious that they do consulting and training for retail type organizations. So that’s the 10-second rule.

2. Primary course of action

The second one is the primary course of action. So this isn’t just about on your homepage, this is talking about your homepage, but really every single content page of your site as well. You’ve got to think about, what is the primary course of action that I want them to take on that page? And also what is the secondary, if there is a secondary?

So in this example, where the Play Video button is, it says, Start here. See the benefits of Mind Matters for your loved ones’ brains. Because these guys, they sell a really complicated service where they effectively analyze what’s going on with your brain and then use neuroscience to help you. So it’s really, really complicated. But if you watch the one or two minute explainer video, you’d sort of get it like that.

And then down where those, what I call junction boxes are, across the bottom, because your home page is really more like a roundabout, people aren’t going there to hang out on your homepage, they’re going there to solve a problem, will find something that they want. So that’s why I think of the homepage a bit like a roundabout. Do you want to go there, there, or there.

So junction boxes are great. And in that one we’ve been sort of a bit cheeky and we actually say, Step 2: See the most common mind and brain problems we can effectively treat. And if they clicked on that, it would go off to a page that says, like, Asperger’s or ADHD, that sort of thing. And when they click on the ADHD page, it will then be a page all about people with ADHD and how to overcome it. So it’s very, very relevant. You don’t want to talk in general terms.

Here’s our Bodytrim weight loss brand we’ve all worked with for several years now. And a lot of the traffic is coming from TV. And they’ve seen the free trial thing on TV. You know we want to do the “start my free trial now.” So we’ve got that in green, that’s very, very obvious.

That’s obviously the primary course of action. But we also knew that not everyone turning up there was ready to buy straight away, was ready to take action. So that’s why we’ve put a secondary action there of “learn more.” Does that make sense? All right. Worth really really well then.

3. Junction boxes

OK number 3. We’ve spoken a little bit about this already, which is junction boxes. I think Ezra was talking about this with like Wizardification of your sales process. And we’ve just been calling it junction boxes and nested junction boxes.

Who here would say they were turf experts? So not a lot of turf experts, right? But you could all be turf customers at some stage, if that makes sense. Let’s say you buy a new house, etc. So this is actually on this side, which turf is right for me?

That junction box is actually the most clicked button on the site. And the reason why is because people really don’t know what turf is right for them. So they click on that and then it takes them off to another sub-junction box page of Which turf is right for me?

Do you have a lot of shade with your lawn? Is it going to get a lot of play at home? Are you selling your house? Have you got grass allergies? That sort of things.

So you can see how it’s taking you to the process. If you now chose shade because you have a lot of shade, then it would take you to a page that’s all about what are your options within shade. So think about this within your business, have you got a complicated sales process and should it really be broken down into junction boxes to help them choose the right one?

Because what happened here is instead of this business people ringing up all the time saying, “I don’t know what turf’s right for me,” people will ring up and say, “I need Sir Walter turf because I’ve got a lot of shade and the kids are playing on it a lot.” Does that make sense? So your buyer is already coming to you a lot more educated.

And here where you’ve got multiple options. You set the rules. So the Sir Walter turf is a preferred product that they want to sell and they make the best margins on it so we put it at the top. You want to look after the maths.

And then it goes off to a page that’s all about that product and obviously you will have the call to action off to the right as well. So all these is building into the next phase of there, where we show you the 80/20 of how you’re going to double your businesses. OK.

4. Lead magnets

So then the fourth thing is a lead magnet on every page. And traditionally, as Internet marketers, digital marketers were taught the lead magnet has to be the free book, the free report or whatever. But from our testing through the agency, what we found was the most effective for most businesses, except for maybe just a few info marketers, was just the online inquiry, name, email, mobile, how can we help?

Just adding that one box to many businesses really doubled the leads that were coming through from the existing traffic without even ramping up any traffic. Because we always want to focus on getting our conversion up first, and then scaling our traffic. The reason why is because every time we can double the conversion of the site, we’re effectively halving the cost per lead. Does that make sense?

Well there’s a lot of people I meet. They’re really really focused on we need more traffic, we need more traffic. Yeah, we agree. But let’s do that next. Let’s get the on-site conversion stuff really, really cranking first.

And from an eye track, if I go back to there, from an eye tracking studies point of view, we know already how their eyes are going to work. So they’re going to start up the top left, and then they’re going to go across. So that’s why we want these over here so that they’re going to see that inquiry form. And we know that when they get to the bottom, we need to tell them what to do.

So that’s why we always put this like “your next steps” at the bottom of the page. And this just really makes all our Adwords campaigns, all our Facebook campaigns, everything is just more effective ‘cause we’re telling them exactly what to do. And often it will just anchor back up to that form that was at the top, if that makes sense.

But you can do lead magnets you know, this normal traditional way. I publish an Internet marketing magazine, it goes out to a global audience now and several folks in here have featured it on the cover at different times. I think you can even see James up there, and Matty Clarkson as well. I think Ezra’s been on the cover. So, we’ve got a lead magnet there where people can subscribe and get the magazine.

And then I’ve also got another lead magnet here, which is like a banner ad, and then I click it and it goes off to what I call a Bing-style landing page. You know what I love about these Bing-style landing pages is it’s just a yes or yes code. You want it or don’t you? And this thing converts at 40% day in day out. Because it’s sort of a sexy offer to a lot of Internet marketers. You know, Seven Steps to Double Your Landing Page Conversion.

5. Benefit-ridden sales copy chunks

Number 5 is benefit-ridden sales copy chunks. We’ve all been to those websites, we turn up and it’s just page, goes on and on of just texts, and if you see that, it’s really, really hard to read and chances are, you’re not going to stay very focused on it. So what you want to do with your sales copy on the pages just for everyday product and service is break it up into sub-headlines and bullets.

Also include images as well. You see Apple were really the best at this, where they’ve got an image up to the left and then your image down to the right and then they sort of rotate like that. Alternate is a better word with what to do with their images.

Some of these services pages where we’ve got them really converting the best, again we got in the mind of the prospect and thought, what is it that they really want to know, what is it they really want? So in this, case, this is like a training organization. And we know in the mind of the prospect they want to know – what do I need to know about the training, and how is this course going to be delivered, and how many delegates can attend, who’s the trainer?

That sort of things. So you’ll notice that the subheads actually match up with what’s in the mind of the prospect and what it is that they would want to know.

One of the things that we use when we’re writing a sales copy like this, to do it really, really quickly is we use the Google preview tool. Is there anyone familiar with the Google preview tool? What it allows you to do is it allows you to set your browser to be in another country.

So say for example I wanted another city. So if I was looking at a training business like this, I could type into Google preview tool, and I could choose, say for example San Francisco, and then search for the same type of business on Google.com in San Francisco. And it’s effectively pretending that I’m in San Francisco.

I can find companies like these, and then see if they’ve got any good great sales copy or any great design elements that I want to copy from or leverage from, and basically put those in a Word doc and then take them over to your site, change them around, that sort of thing. Obviously, you’ve got to make it as your own unique content. But it’s a great way of getting sales copy down really, really quickly by grabbing it from other regions around the world ‘cause often they won’t rank in Google beside Australian listings. So benefit-ridden sales copy chunks.

6. Video and explainer video

Number 6 is video and explainer video. We do a lot of explainer videos these days where it’s like hand-drawn animation or other animation. And often on those slide, a component of the site, just with the play button, ‘cause it still looks nice, modern, but it’s very, very obvious if you want to do it. I’ll show you an example of one.

(Video: The current state of retail is challenging. We’ve many retailers finding traffic counts go down. And most customers are spending less per visit.) So it’s going through a problem, aggravate, solution, proof, call to action.
(Video: … for you to get tougher. And customers are now buying online in droves.) So, he’s stating the problem.

(video: ..against this backdrop, it is challenging to recruit and retain the best talent. Research shows us that customer service levels are at an all-time low with nearly 60% of customers believing that customer service has declined over the past 5 years.) So aggravating the problem.

(Video: …More than half of these consumers didn’t purchase as a result of poor customer service. The retail landscape look bleak, but it doesn’t have to be this way.) So then he gets into a solution. I’ll just pause on that.

Those sort of videos we just make them on Fiverr, so often how we go on about it, if you don’t know how to write the script for yourself, you can go to YouTube and find explainer video that already have good scripts that you like to formula for, and then go to something like Speechpad.com and give them the link to that video. They will then effectively transcribe it for you, for like $2 or $3 and you’ve got a basis of a script. And then once you’ve got that basis of a script, you can then change it to be your own script.

Obviously you need to change it enough so that it’s unique for where they were stating their problem, you are now stating your market’s problem; where they’re providing their solution, you are now providing your market solution. And then once you’ve got that script down part, we then send on Fiverr, find a professional voiceover audio guy to get the voiceover going, and then once that’s done, send the script and the voice audio off to someone else on Fiverr who can animate it for you.

In all up, you’re looking at about 150 bucks to get the professional voiceover done, and about 250 bucks to get the animated video done. So all together, about $400, and you’ve got someone selling for you over and over on a scripted type way. We’re finding what works really well.

We’ve also had great success with these types of videos. (Video: …teacher is not just a job. It comes from perhaps a deep calling within, and a sincere desire to help not only yourself, but others whom you share this life with. So, I honor each and every one of you for taking these first steps to commit to this journey. So each morning, we’ll have a beautiful flowing Vinyansa practice…)

So what she sort of did there was set the scene and then was getting into how the product was going to be delivered and that one uses a lot of emotion and it’s very, very well done, a professional video. And I agree with what was said earlier in today that amateur video really just doesn’t cut it anymore in 2014. And when we added that video we doubled the conversion right off this site for inquiries anyway.

7. Social proof

So moving on from that, social proof; so putting social proofs on your site. Many, many different ways of doing this. This is one of ours. We’ve got a page on our old agency site, where it just goes on and on and on of social proof.

What we’ve seen with this often is that people aren’t actually even watching the video. They’re just really reading the headline. So think about that with your own testimonials. Have you got the best bit over the headline, or do you just have the testimonial update ‘cause that’s very, very common. We see that all the time.

I”ll move from that yeah, and this is more of ours, but just… if you can create a page that goes on and on and on of social proof, then selling becomes very very easy.

Here’s another way of doing social proof. So this is Upfront Communications. We were looking at their long sales page before. There was this Google-friendly sales page.

They’ve got up the top customers included, and then they’ve got Vodafone and Sony and Hyundai, that sort of thing. That’s social proof in itself because, say for example you’re representing Optus or another big company like that, when you turn up here, this is meeting the 10-second rule really, really well of you know that this company automatically plays in the right space for you. So you know that they’re not muppets, you know that they’re really, really playing in the right space. So that’s another great way of doing social proof.

8. Responsive site or mobile optimized

So number 8 is mobile optimized or responsive site. So I think we all know in this room what responsive is, where the site adjusts itself, depending on the size of the browser, the size of the screen. So responsive is great. That’s easier for SEO that sort of thing. But for a standard services site company, it just doesn’t convert as well as a dedicated mobile site if you really want calls and leads, people walking in the door and text and I’ll show you what I mean.

Example of a mobilized site
So here’s an example of where an older non-responsive site where we’ve mobilized it and this thing converts like crazy.

And you’ll see the main call to action buttons up there, actually got a bigger one of them. You know, call us, find us, and send us a quick text. We were already doing call us, you know I love that because straightaway they’re on your website and they just click it.

Call? Yep. Goes through in this straightaway, onto the door with you. A phone lead is always better than an online lead because it’s a richer sales environment. You’ve got more chance of closing them, moving them further down the relationship.

Find us – I know I’m a marketing geek but I find that really, really sexy when they can press a button and it’s going to walk clients to your door. I think it doesn’t get much better than that in marketing, that’s really, really great.

And this last one, send us a quick text – Google put us onto that at the Google partner event probably 8 or 10 months ago. And they said you’re definitely leaving money on the table. You’re not getting as many leads as possible, and why don’t we add a send us a quick text on there. And that works really great.

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