|
By Finn Lobsien.  I can admit it. When you get into marketing, you’re flooded with vocabulary: Content, targeting, CPA, paid ads, info products, retargeting, email list, etc…. Learning marketing feels like learning a new language. It certainly did for me. And when you’re confused, marketers take advantage of you by selling you eBooks, courses, audios, PDFs and seminars. It’s not your fault if you spend money on bad products. Really, it’s admirable you want to learn so much. But without a good understanding of the core principles, you’ll have a hard time learning how to do effective marketing. Today, I want to eliminate confusion and simplify marketing for you. You’ll gain a high-level understanding and an easy framework to assess all the different offers you’re getting. You see, when I started out as a copywriter, I didn’t know anything. Often, when I took on gigs, I found myself googling how to write that copy I’d just been paid for. Things changed when I stumbled upon a recording by an old business expert where he explained a simple formula for business success. A formula I’ve now adapted to simplify marketing. Something “clicked” and I gained clarity. After giving it a few minutes of thought, I had that comic book moment: I felt like a lightbulb lit up over my head. I was able to fit all the tools, gadgets and strategies into a bigger picture and gained a deep understanding. The only 2 components you need to do effective marketingHere’s my version of what I learned. You only need two things to do effective marketing:
Seems obvious, eh? Well, the concept is actually quite deep. Let me explain. A “great” product is something (could be a physical or digital product or a service) you show your ideal customer—and they fall in love with it. They start telling all their friends and don’t care about the price. By definition, when the product is *that* good, you just need to put it in front of the right people to make money. But not everyone is your ideal customer. Not even your email list is completely filled with ideal customers. And you can’t 100% laser-focus on ideal customers in *any* paid traffic strategy. And you wanna make money, right? I’m sensing a problem here. Luckily, you have component no. 2, which turns people into your ideal customers. A lot of marketing falls under this category. Each piece of content you put out serves the purpose of inching people one step closer to being your ideal customer. Let’s examine some popular marketing devices using this frameworkSince I focus on email marketing, let’s talk about email first. Every email has the purpose of moving people closer to being your ideal customer. And when they are your ideal customer…. $$$. Here’s a behind-the-scenes insight: The reason sales letters, VSLs and webinars work so well for making a lot of money (and are super-hard to pull off right) is because those tools can take people from barely interested to ideal customer in a single ad. So when you’re creating ideal customers for a great product in droves, you’ll be making plenty of money. And you’ll also have crowds of happy customers, who tell their friends, leave reviews or send you testimonials—and, by doing so, increase your revenue. If you don’t do this, reading this was a waste of time...Now, you know there’s tons of content creators who put content out there which has little practical value. In many content pieces, you might feel like you’re learning, but if you’re not executing, you’re wasting your time.
So let’s move from theory to practice, because execution is where you make an impact and earn your revenue. This will only make sense to you if you already run marketing or have a plan for your marketing—else you can bookmark this post and come back. I’ll be there for you. Think of one channel you’re using (or plan to use) and imagine the people who enter that channel. Reading comments or general feedback can help you get a better picture. Be honest with yourself—these people are NOT your ideal customer yet, else you’d sell 100% of them. Now, make a list. Write down everything separating them from your ideal customer. Boom. That’s your to-do list for the channel you’re thinking of. Now write copy and create marketing to reverse those differences… ...and you’re creating tons of ideal customers. Then, just show ‘em the product and your marketing will be effective (read: profitable). This is simple, not easy. You WILL see failure. You might be wrong in your assessment of people. All those things can/will happen, especially if you’re new… ...BUT you’ll be executing and you’ll grow. And eventually, you’ll get better and make sales. In the next paragraph, I hand you a free pickaxe. You’ll need to dig for the gold yourself. To make this dead-simple for you, I’ve created a fill-in-the-blank template for you. All you gotta do is fill it out and you got your marketing for one channel planned (I use this template myself). Cool? You can download it by joining my newsletter “Freelancing Tips From The Trenches”, in which I report what’s working for me as a freelancer—and what’s a waste of time. You’ll learn how to grow a freelance business and how to make your copy pull more profits. Click here to join and get the template. Finn Lobsien.
0 Comments
How Stesha Gulick Use a Simple Sales Funnel To Get High Quality Leads Chasing Her Everyday6/24/2017
If you’ve been marketing your online training services, you probably understand what funnels are.
You are probably curious about email responders, tripwire offer. And you will end up complicating yourself and got lost in the process. Here’s the thing. It doesn’t have to be complicated. This article is for fitness trainers who are just about to get into online training… … but you don’t know where to start the marketing process. It could be because you don’t know what to do, or are overwhelmed with so many information on how to market your services online. You’ve been told to create 5-7 days email auto-responders, get some landing pages, learn some FB ads high deep targeting. In this article, I am going to show you how Stesha Gulick, use a simple funnel to get clients to chase her every day. 
Here's a quick info about Stesha Gulick:
Stesha is a certified strength and conditioning specialist, precision nutrition coach, Level 1 CrossFit trainer and a part-time engineer. She helps CrossFit athletes to achieve health, fitness and performance goals by unleashing their inner bad ass. Becoming the best version of yourself outside the gym. She takes care of your life outside the gym with nutrition. Top athletes seek out custom nutrition coaching for peak performance - so should you. You’ll improve your physical and mental performance in all aspects of life, inside and outside the gym. Here are Stesha’s simple funnel:
First she ran a Facebook Offer:
One cool thing about using Facebook Offer is that it shows how many people are getting the offer.
Psychologically, if there are too many people taking up the offer, it means it’s something good inside. And your audience might be compelled to check it out. Another thing is, the deadline. It provides a sense of urgency for her audience to take up the offer NOW. When you are not so familiar with Facebook Ads, here’s a golden rule: Keep it Simple. Don’t worry about advance targeting and all that stuff. Facebook ads it’s pretty common sense. You just have to know what’s the purpose of the ads. Most of the time, you want to show it to your targeted audience and you want them to click it to see what you offer. Let’s say Stesha’s targeting crossfitters, she can just put in: ‘CrossFit’, ‘CrossFit training’, ‘High-Intensity Interval Training’ & ‘The CrossFit Games’ targeted to men and women around 20 years of age up to 45. And that’s it. How I would improve this: I would add some copy below the headline mentioning the main benefit they will get when getting the guide. For example: Inside, you’ll learn the secret top athletes use to achieve peak performance through nutrition and keeping your body in great condition off the gym. Then, once people click this offer, it leads to the landing page: 
The cool thing about her landing page is that, she doesn’t have to put a lot of copy in it to convince people to sign-up.
The real secret why it’s effective here is the headline. ‘For CrossFitters Only’. It’s specifically mentioned the audience. Imagine a CrossFitter, whether new or advance, they will relate to this. One thing I will change in the copy, probably explain what will happen when you unleash your inner badass, improve performance and get lean. Probably just a sentence below that sub-headline. So once people subscribe, they go through her email responders and that’s where she started selling her main services. That’s it. It’s pretty simple. Facebook Offer → Landing Page → Emails Automation → Sales Page 3 things you can learn from Stesha: #1 Use her own result as a living proof Proof is a big thing in marketing. People won’t believe your claims once they see some proof. It could be testimonials, statistics or show by example. For Stesha, she uses her own body and her results in Crossfit competitions to prove that she’s doing things right apart from her certifications. This works really well especially when advertising to the local markets. Of course, this works wonder online too. #2 Your sales funnel doesn’t have to be complicated When you look at her offer and landing page, she doesn’t have to put in a lot of copy in it. Plus her funnel wasn’t complicated at all. Yet, there were trainers who over-complicate this process which resulted in not getting anything done. If you are new to the online marketing world, it’s basically just a matter of doing it without thinking that much. Put your ads out there and start offering to people. The moment you stop advertising your stuff, that’s the point where you won’t get any leads because people don’t know what you offer. This kind of simple funnel can be done in less than an hour. You don’t have to craft 15 days email-autoresponders if you don’t know how. A simple welcoming email will do. All the advanced marketing funnel stuff can be done in the future once you get the hang of it. #3 Highly targeted niche makes it easier for the audience to relate When she mentioned ‘For Crossfitters Only’, I knew that her landing page will work wonder. That’s because, the deeper you niche your audience, the more relatable it is for your audience to relate. Here’s what Stesha offered: Apart from this simple funnel that you can model, if you are a fitness trainer and you want to help your client to achieve a better result. Stesha offered help in basic nutrition principles, macronutrient ratios, workout nutrition, nutrient timing, mindset practices, and counseling clients… etc. Why this will be great for you is that you can use what she shared with you and use it to get results for your clients as well as adding more value to your services. After all, you can try what she teaches to your own body as well. You will be able to advertise your personal training services by advertising your own body (just as she did in order to get all of her local clients). People desire that and if they see that you have it, they are already bought in to your program. It’s incredible how easy it is to sell your services when you are lean, radiant, healthy, and happy. If you think this is something for you, go ahead and click here to hear what this is all about https://www.strengthbynutrition.com/services To conclude: If you’ve been wondering how to get clients online, and you’re stuck with not doing anything… it’s probably because you are overwhelmed with all these ‘tactics’ of online marketing. Marketing doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s a matter of you doing stuff. All the advance stuff can come up later on in the process. Goodluck!  Do you feel that you’ve been sending the same email contents over and over again?
If you bore your audience with your emails, there’s no way they are going to open your next email promotions. When email marketing used properly, it will build some sort of special relationship with your audience which made the decision to buy from you easier for them. In fact, most of my clients are the results of me sending regular emails that made them trust and hired me. A simple formula you can follow when writing an email is to make your email 90% contents and only 10% pitching your products. Here are 73 interesting email ideas that I compiled for Fitness eCommerce businesses that you can use for your next email promotion: 1. Tips Share a quick actionable tip that they can do today. For e.g. 5 pushups variations you can do right away. 2. News Share what’s going on in your business, or in the fitness world. Perhaps you can share stories on whether GSP is going back to the ring for Gregor? 3. Opinions Share with your audience that news clips from top leaders in the Fitness industry. 4. Industry Research Do a quick research in the Fitness world to see what’s going on. Subscribe to your favorite fitness magazines or look for some academic journals on Fitness and share your findings 5. Show conversations with readers If it’s not confidential, take a screenshot of your conversation with your customer and show it to your email readers. It could be a question on your products or services. Great way to build trust. 6. Content excerpts Take a piece from your blog and share it in your email. And talk more about it. Works well especially if you had produced a ‘Lists Of’ Contents. 7. New Blog post The best place to promote your new blog contents is your audience. Share your new stuff with your email subscribers. 8. Recycle blog post Just go through your blog post, and share it with your readers. 9. Popular blog post Try this once in awhile, your popular blog post. 10. Guest blog post If you have people posting on your sites, share it to the email audience. Or when you had written a guest post for other websites. 11. Interview-based post Share your interviews or people you had interview. Snip bits or the full stuff. 12. Evergreen contents - yours or others You got a favorite content? Perhaps it’s the famous Arnold book. 13. Podcasts Have your favorite podcast? Share it with your audience. 14. Case studies Sharing a case study is one of the best way to prove to people that you have great stuff. 15. eBooks Got an ebook of your own? Don’t be afraid to re-share it cause your readers might lose it or have not read it yet. Even better, if it’s paid, sell it and make some cash. 16. Compilations of articles You can compile 5-10 articles you found on the internet and share it with your audience. Best if you pick a specific topic and find 5-10 best articles written on it. Your audience will thank you for this. 17. Articles from other host If you don’t want to find 5-10 articles, sharing just one article can do the trick! Plus it’s fast to do this. 18. Links to resources You can set up a page on your website where you compile links of your favorite blogs. Once in awhile - lead your readers to this page. 19. Links to tools Share some workout tools that you used. Perhaps those punch bags, jump ropes you prefer or the interval timer that you use. 20. Links to softwares/apps If it’s some digital stuff, share it to them. Sometimes, most apps will give you bonus when you share their fitness apps. 21. Review of tools/softwares Don’t just share it, but have a review on it as well. 22. Talk to influencers Try talk to influencers in your field asking questions that your customer wants to hear. It’s one good way to develop connection with the influencers too! 23. Links to communities If you have set up your own community like a Facebook Group, share it with your audience so you can have better interactions there. 24. Blog comments Other than email replies, if you have questions on your blog, share your answer or the statement to your email readers and talk about it. 25. FAQ If you received the same questions over and over again, write an email about it and address it to all your audience. 26. Weekly roundups If you send regular emails like 4-5 times, you can round up the end of the week on what was your previous contents and share some more insights that you haven’t thought of before. 27. Tutorials Demonstrate how to use your products or some of your services contents 28. Industry predictions Do some research to predict what’s going to happen in the future in the Fitness market. New social media platforms? New trends? 29. Top lists Share your top 5 blogs, or any lists with your readers. 30. Book recommendations Have a favorite Fitness book? Or the new fiction you had just read? Share them! 31. TV and movie recommendations Do you watch the new series of Luke Cage? Then share with your readers and tell them how to get that kind of body! 32. Documentary recommendations Some segments of your readers will appeal to a documentary more than TV series or movies. Share them too. 33. Playlist You can go to youtube, create your own playlist or simply list down your top 5-10 workout songs! or cooling down songs. 34. Gift Ideas You can suggest some of your cool stuff as gift ideas, use this towards the holiday like the New Year where people are ready to change their bodies with their new resolutions. 35. Data visualization If you have interesting statistics, create a graph or a pie chart to demonstrate to your readers. 36. Infographics Even better, use infographics to represent data as well as lists. Infographics are easier to consume. 37. Image quotes One quick way to shoot an email, look for an image with a quote, and start talking about it in the email. 38. Fan/customer photos If you have your customers showing their transformation pictures or picture of them enjoying your products, share it with your other readers. 39. Action shots of your products/services If you yourself have a picture of using your own products or doing your own workout, video or take a picture of it. 40. Memes Laughter is the best medicine. Find those funny memes on Chest Day or Leg day. It’ll break a laugh and build relationship. 41. Cat pictures Seriously. Cat pictures are cute. Have you watched Shrek? 42. Comic Strips This is very entertaining. Find a quick funny comic strip that you can relate to and talk about it. 43. Motivational Images Show pictures of transformations plus quotes. One interesting subject to talk about. Especially on a Monday. 44. GIF Take advantage of the moving features of GIFs and relate it to your readers. 45. Vine Clips Or look for that funny “Monday is International Chest Day!” It’ll break a laugh and build relationship with your audience. 46. Youtube Videos Too many things you can share, you can share motivational stories or some workout variations. 47. SlideShare presentations Or look into some presentations made in the Fitness field of study and share it. 48. Polls Polls are one easy way to get your readers to interact. You can make a poll on the content you are going to deliver, or what kind of problems they are facing 49. Questions Asking question is a more specific approach to get your readers thinking and asking what they really wanted. Great way to do some quick market research. 50. Votes Ask readers to pick between what kind of contents or new product creation in the future. 51. This or That? Do the ‘this vs that’. Great way to engage your readers. 52. Caption this photos This is fun. Reader’s digest does this for every publication. Find a picture and let your readers create some funny and interesting captions. 53. Prediction games Ask your readers to what they think about the industry’s future. 54. Fill in the blank… Make a blank statement and let your readers fill it up. E.g. “I want to…” 55. Request for contents Other than asking questions, you can straight away ask what kind of contents your readers want to get. 56. Opinions on public posts Share your opinion on a public post (not directed at you) and tell your readers what you think, and ask them what they think about it as well. 57. Contests If you’re feeling good or have leftover stocks and you feel like giving it away, run a contest. Ask your readers to share it. One good way to build a list. 58. Jokes If you’ve just watched Kevin Hart show, you might wanna share it with your readers and break a laugh. 59. Story! Share stories that you think your readers will appreciate. In fact, I use stories in all my emails. People relate to stories. Make use of it. 60. ThrowBack memories Share pictures of when you just started the business or before you did your transformation. 61. Celebrity’s life Imagine you are in the life of a certain celebrity. This was meant to be engaging and humorous. Role play people! 62. Behind the scene looks Share bloopers of you recording your youtube videos or some pictures of the team doing the work. 63. Desk shares Share how your office desk looks like when you were writing your email. 64. What’s on your mind post One quick random way to post an email. In fact, you can ask back your readers what’s on their mind. You’ll hear some funny stuff. 65. Milestone celebrations Perhaps it’s your 10 years in the business or your newborn daughter? Share it! 66. Reviews Don’t be afraid to share reviews about your products to your other readers. You might receive an email for another good review! 67. Testimonials Ask for testimonials from your readers and share it. 68. Business news Got new products coming? Or new collaboration? Share it! 69. Sneak peeks Even better, show off that new chapter of your ebook or the trailer of your new workout program. 70. Customer interview Get your customers to go on a quick chat with you, and let them share what they think about your products! 71. Rival comparison Bold but will be very effective. If you have flaws in your products, don’t worry about it. It shows how truthful you are. 72. Shout-Out If it’s one of your reader’s birthday or a new transformation, give them a shout-out! 73. Thank you! One best way to show appreciation to your readers is to say thank you for whatever reasons. It will build relationship and trust. They will appreciate you for it. The Wrap-Up All the tips above should help you write interesting email contents. What's next is for you to download the 1 Page Cheat Sheet by clicking the button below: 
How many emails do you receive every day?
According to DMR, an average worker receives 121 emails a day. That means you have to compete with other 100+ other emails every time you sent an email! How can you battle these other 100+ emails and win your readers attention? The only way to stand out from the other 100+ emails is to win attention through your subject line. Here’s a research made by Neil Patel on the most important thing about email marketing: 
So you need to get your reader’s attention from your subject lines.
That’s the only way to get your emails opened. If you are suffering from low email open rates, then spicing up your email subject lines could be the solution for you. Spice-Up Your Email Subject Lines With These 11 Tips:
#1 Use Curiosity
If your friend gave you a present for your birthday. All wrapped in a big box and it feels heavy. Don’t you feel curious and dying to know what’s inside? You might ask “Hey, what’s inside?” even before opening it. Curiosity kills! That’s just an example of how curiosity works. There are lots of psychology at play when using curiosity kind of subject line. It makes you itch and want to know what’s inside the email. Which then will lead to people opening your email. John Caples mentioned in his book ‘Tested Advertising Method’ that curiosity is a powerful selling tool. Here are some examples of curiosity-driven subject lines: Don’t Buy These Supplements From Bodybuilding.com! Don’t Go To The Gym Until You Watch This Video 3 Reasons Why You’re Not Losing FATS! Will Push-Ups Every Night Gives Me A Bigger Chest? How Often Should You Train Your Abs? #2 Mention The ONE Benefit This one is pretty simple, fast and easy to come up with. All you have to do is to mention the ONE benefit of your products or services in the subject line. One simple way is the ‘How To’ subject line. Here are some examples: How To Lose 12lbs In 3 Weeks Safely How To Grow Your Chest Muscles Fast How To Get 6 Pack Abs With No Diet How To Workout At Home And Still Get Results Like Professional Bodybuilders How To Build A Complete Home Gym Under $50 For the sake of examples, I added some ‘Punch’ after every benefit. Take ‘How To Lose 12lbs In 3 Weeks Safely’. I can still get away with ‘How To Lose 12lbs in 3 Weeks’. But I added some extra punch to make the subject line more interesting. The idea here is to answer the question: “What do your readers want?” The benefits will be different for each of your products or services. It will make a great email idea when you are able to list down all the benefits of your products and services. And saves your time coming up with subject lines too! #3 SHOCK! Your Readers Shocking your readers with extreme statements is a different level of curiosity. That’s why it really works. But don’t overdo this as your readers will notice and gets tired out of it. Askmen.com really does create shocking and intriguing email subject lines which can make a good example. The most shocking email subject line from Askmen.com in my opinion is this: Free Weed At Trump's Inauguration + America's XXX Habits and Strippers At A Funeral? I’ll be thinking “Free Weed at Trump’s Inauguration? And strippers too?” Since people scan through subject lines real fast, people might think that there will be free weed at Trump’s Inauguration plus strippers! Extra tip: You can use the + sign when you have more than one thing to announce in your email. However, I would stick to tips #8 Short & Sweet but there’s no harm in trying to do longer email subject lines.
#4 Challenge Your Readers
If your readers have some kind of belief towards one way of doing things, then challenging their beliefs will make them curious or even furious that they will open the email. Let’s take a quick example from ATHLEAN-X: You’ll Be Sore in 6 Minutes… (SHOULDERS!) If you’ve been working out… there’s no way you are going to believe that you are going to be sore in just 6 minutes upon entering the gym. It took at least 30 minutes to be completely sore. You’ll probably laugh and challenge what Jeff (ATHLEAN-X) are trying to say to you. The idea here is to CHALLENGE your reader’s thoughts with a SHOCKING statement. #5 Use Numbers Using numbered lists is a very popular approach for viral blog posts which you can use on email subject lines. If there are 7 ways to do things, I would want to know what the 7 things are. Here are some examples: 5 Ways to Improve Muscle Gain 7 Ways to Lose Weight 3 Pushups Variations You Need To Know Another way to use numbers is by showing statistics. It shows that the claims are true and you are being specific and people tend to believe it. For examples: Proven Way To Lose 30lbs In 28 Days Safely Without Any Harmful Drugs! 276 People Had Transformed Their Body Using This Method. Do You Want To Be The 277? How To Do 100 Pushups In A Clip #6 Mention Celebrities, Athletes & Authorities In Fitness When you mentioned the big players in fitness, instantly it will make your subject line much more interesting and stands out from the rest. It’s like some kind of endorsements towards the celebrity, but it will make people open the email because you mentioned the big names. Here are some examples on how to mentioned the big names in your subject lines: Vince DelMonte’s Secret Warm-Up Never Revealed Before Vin Diesel’s Chest Routine For Fast & Furious 8 Dwayne Johnson’s Secret Squat Technique For Explosive Jumping Power Mike Tyson’s Knockout Punch Drill Usain Bolt’s Secret Training Routine Leaked Of course you have to share the Usain Bolt’s secret training and explain how you get it. If you fail to explain yourself, your readers won’t trust you and won’t open your emails ever again. So be careful when using this tactic.
#7 Ask Questions
If you run out of things to email, try asking questions. It’s a good way to build relationship with your readers. Not only that, it’s like a market research. They will tell you what they want and need. So you can use whatever information they told you and connect it with your products or services. Some ideas on things to ask: What’s YOUR one single biggest challenge when it comes to losing weight? Do you prefer Indoor or Outdoor to exercise? How long do you usually do your cardio? Did you know the myth about the “Batman” push-ups? How many push-ups a day can you do? #8 Short & Sweet If you write a short email subject lines, it’ll be easier and faster for your readers to grab. That means, there’s a high probability it will get your reader’s attention. Remember, your subscribers are so busy and are always distracted when checking their emails. In fact, a simple “Hello”, “Hey” or “Hi” works well as a subject line. Try to keep your email subject lines less than 9 words. Take a look at my client’s welcoming email: 
It has 48.4% open rate.
The subject line is “Hello <first name> :)” The reason why this work is because it’s short, fast and personal. #9 Avoid Overused Sales Word Avoid using words such as Free, Discount, % Off and [REMINDER]. Those words are boring and your subscribers had seen it countless times. In fact multiple times every day! It makes your emails looks like promotions and you are selling something. Remember, people don’t like to be sell to. It’s annoying to see % OFF all the freaking time. Start delivering some value using the email subject lines tips above. However, you can use these sales words once in awhile. It will really make your discounts seems real, scarce and a pretty good deal! #10 Use Personalization Using personalization will make your readers feel that the email was written for them. Even though your readers know it’s automated, it will still give that personal feeling. Other than using your subscriber’s first name, you can use the name of cities or country your subscribers are in. Here are some examples: Dean, have you tried these pushups variations? Bootcamp in NYC this week. You coming? We’re coming to Singapore next month. See you there? Here’s this month workout routine for you John Chris, do you run every day? #11 Seasonal Subject Lines This is a great way to build relationship with your readers as it shows your readers that you are up to date. It tells people you are not just writing some automated emails and keep sending promotions. Here are examples of holiday email subject lines: Merry Christmas to you! Happy Eid Mubarak To You! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Chinese New Year! This is one great way to connect with your readers especially when you mentioned these specific holidays. It shows you are a business who respects and are aware of these special day. You can as well play around the seasons. Here are some examples: 4 weeks left to summer. Are your body summer-ready? How to stay in shape this winter 8 ways to avoid winter workout rut
The Wrap-Up
All the tips above should make your subject line spicy and interesting which will make your readers open your emails. After all, the goal with curiosity-driven, spicy and interesting subject lines that stands out are just to get your emails open. |
