In this post I’m going to give you a no-nonsense guide to affiliate marketing – what it is and how you can get started. Lets dive in!

What is affiliate marketing?

Put simply, affiliate marketing is where you promote other people’s products or services and get paid a commission if your marketing efforts lead to a sale. That’s it in a nutshell. You find a product or service you’d like to promote, and you get paid a commission every time you generate a sale. The commission is normally a percentage of the sale value.

When you sign up to become a marketer of someone else’s products or services you are known as an “affiliate”. You can join hundreds of affiliate programs for every sort of product and niche you can think of. Most major retailers and brands have some sort of affiliate program. Amazon, Walmart, Target, and most major high-street retailers and online brands have some sort of affiliate program you can join which will allow you to start promoting their products and earn commissions.

You can think of affiliate marketing as commission sales – you don’t get paid a wage, you are paid solely on the sales you generate.

How does affiliate marketing work?

This diagram gives a great overview of how affiliate marketing works:

Lets say you want to be an affiliate for Amazon so you can start promoting their books and earn commissions from your efforts. You would join the Amazon affiliate program, which like most affiliate programs is 100% free to join. Once accepted you are able to start promoting any of the products that Amazon sells.

The first step is to find products you are interested in promoting. You are then given a unique link, known as your affiliate link. This is link is unique to you. Its normally a number or code of some sort, like in this example below:

Lets say you are reviewing a book on your blog – you can include a link to the book on Amazon for your audience to buy it. That link will contain your unique affiliate link or code, which means Amazon will be able to know that that visitor has been sent to their website via your affiliate link.

Because that person has been referred to the website via your unique affiliate link, any products that person purchases will be attributed to you and Amazon will give you a commission for your effort in generating that sale. The great thing is that once someone has clicked your affiliate link and ended up on the destination website, a cookie will be placed on their browser for a certain period of time.

This tracking cookie could be active for 14 days, a month, a year, or even for life!

This means if the person you sent to the merchant’s website or product page doesn’t buy right away, but buys a week or a month after that initial click – you still get credit for driving that sale and you earn a commission!

The cookie duration will differ depending on what affiliate program you join and the product you are promoting.

Amazon gives you credit for any sale generated within 24 hours, whilst more niche affiliate products or programs have longer cookie durations such as 30 – 90 days, or longer.

Not everyone you send to an offer or product page will be ready or willing to buy straight away, but as long as they do buy within the cookie tracking period you will still get the commission paid out to you.

Affiliate marketing definitions

Affiliates: The individual who is promoting the product or service in order to gain commissions from their effort.

Merchants: The individual or company who’s products or services you are promoting e.g. Amazon, Walmart etc.

Affiliate Network: Act as intermediaries between affiliates and merchants – find out more about affiliate networks below.

Consumer: The customer who buys the product or service you are promoting via your affiliate link.

What are affiliate networks?

Affiliate networks are organisations that act as intermediaries between merchants and affiliates. They handle all the sales, payments, reporting, and refunds.

Some merchants (product creators, companies etc.) don’t want the hassle, or don’t have the expertise of managing their own affiliate programs, so they use a network instead. Amazon manages their own affiliate program called Amazon Associates, but there are many well-known companies and brands that trust affiliate networks such as Clickbank , Share-a-Sale, or CJ Affiliate to manage their affiliate programs for them.

These networks also act as databases for affiliate offers. This means you can join an affiliate network like Share-a-Sale, Clickbank, or CJ Affiliate and get access to a number of different programs and products that you can promote.

Joining an affiliate network is a great place to start if you are unsure about what products or services to start promoting. These networks are free to join (there are some exceptions) and give you access to a wide variety of different products and services you can start to market. Major companies like MLB use Share-a-Sale to manage their affiliate program.

Some merchants work exclusively with certain networks, which means if you want to promote that merchant’s products or services you have to join that specific affiliate network.

Most of the major affiliate networks are completely free and easy to join, and they have staff members called affiliate managers who are on hand to offer as much help to affiliates as possible. This is great, especially if you are just getting started with affiliate marketing and need a bit of support, know-how, and guidance.

Affiliate managers want to help affiliates to make as much money as possible – because when affiliates win, the merchants win, and the networks also win. Affiliate marketing really is a win-win situation for all parties involved.

How and when do I get paid?

How or when you get paid depends on the merchant or affiliate network you are promoting for. Most affiliate networks or merchants pay out commission every 2 weeks. Some pay out every month. Each network and merchant will have different payment schedules.

How you get paid will depend on your preference – most merchants and networks allow you to choose between being  paid by check or by bank transfer.

How NOT to do affiliate marketing!

There’s no one way to do affiliate marketing. There are a number of ways in which you can promote your affiliate links and drive sales. But there are some ways that are better and more efficient than others, and there are some ways that you should definitely avoid!

Too many beginners that start affiliate marketing get their affiliate links and start plastering them all over the internet, anywhere and everywhere they can find.

I’m sure you’ve seen that sort of thing….

If you scroll down and read the comments on YouTube videos you’ll see people have posted links to certain products or pages – these are normally affiliate links. This is not a good way to do affiliate marketing. This is spammy and doesn’t create any lasting results. You can’t just post your affiliate link everywhere and anywhere and expect to make any sales!

This is what I call the “spray and pray” method of affiliate marketing: you “spray” your link all over the internet and pray that someone clicks and buys…..it simple doesn’t work.

An easy (and free) way to start affiliate marketing in 3 steps

One of the best ways to become successful as an affiliate is to create reviews around products or services in your chosen niche or market.

These are the basic steps you need to follow:

a. Pick a niche

This could be anything such as dating, health, tech products, etc.

The more specific your chosen niche the better. It’s even better if you pick a niche that you are genuinely passionate about and interested in. Try and go for a very specific niche and then dive deeper in to that niche.

For example: If you are interested in promoting camping gear, instead of focusing on everything perhaps you could specialise in sleeping bags, or tents, or torches.

The more specific and granular you can get within your niche the better results you will see.

b. Create valuable content about that niche or products within that niche

The main thing here is to add value to your audience. You are providing them with valuable information about products or services they are interested in and considering buying.

You can create YouTube videos or blog posts reviewing products or services that people in your niche will be interested in. For example: You could create a YouTube channel or blog dedicated to reviewing the best camping gear on the market.

Of course, you can review all the products in your niche such as all the different types of camping gear from tents, to lamps etc. but from my experience the more specialised you are the faster you will see results and the better your results will be.

Start by focusing on one core product within your niche e.g. sleeping bags and create content around that first, before branching out to wider areas and other products of your niche. The more specialised you are in one area or on one product category, the faster and easier it is to standout from the crowd. Once you have gained an audience you can start to expand out and cast a wider net by reviewing other products in your niche.

c. Add your affiliate link to that piece of content

If you have written a review about a certain sleeping bag for example, you can add your affiliate link for that sleeping bag which directs your reader to the merchants website where they can buy that product.

If you create YouTube videos you can add your affiliate link in the video or in the description. Anyone purchasing through your link will lead to you earning a commission. This is a very basic outline of an easy to implement affiliate marketing strategy. The best thing about this strategy is that it is evergreen, and you don’t need to spend any money to get started. You can create a YouTube channel for free, and you can use sites like WordPress.com or Wix to set up free websites.

As long as you are creating valuable and useful content, your videos and blog posts will start to get ranked by Google and you will attract visitors to you blog posts and videos for free.

Affiliate marketing using paid ads

There are other affiliate marketing strategies that involve using paid ads to drive visitors to your offers. The advantage of using paid traffic sources to promote your affiliate offers is that you will start to generate instant traffic to your offers, whereas free traffic takes a bit more time and effort to generate.

You can use paid traffic sources like Google search ads, Microsoft ads, YouTube ads, or Facebook ads to drive highly targeted traffic to relevant affiliate offers. In fact, using Facebook ads to promote affiliate offers can be one of the most lucrative and best ways to start making major commissions with affiliate marketing. This is because the targeting on Facebook is super powerful and effective at getting the right offer in front of the right people at the right time.

How to get started in affiliate marketing

I want to encourage you to start your affiliate marketing journey and learn how to start making passive income by promoting other people’s products and services.

You can promote products that you use yourself, or products and services that you are interested in. Do you have any hobbies? If so you can start reviewing products in the area of your hobbies and interests. There are a ton of great resources out there, but I understand that it can be very overwhelming when you are starting out.

My best advice is to find someone who has achieved success as an affiliate and do what they do. You may tweak the strategy as you gain more experience and you can start to try out new strategies and tactics, but at first try and follow a proven blueprint, that is the shortest way to success.

I will be creating more post on affiliate marketing which will go into more detail on various strategies. These will include strategies that use free traffic sources, and those that use paid traffic sources.

The post No-Nonsense Guide To Affiliate Marketing appeared first on .

I first learnt this concept from Russell Brunson, which he outlines it in his book DotCom Secrets.

In this post I’ll break down what a value ladder is, why your business needs one, and how to create one.

What is a value ladder?

A value ladder is a series of products or services you introduce to your customers as your relationship with them develops. Each subsequent product or service increases in the value it delivers to your customers and the price they pay for it.

Your customer starts at the bottom of your value ladder and ascends to the top as they purchase more products and services from you, each being more expensive and offering more value than the one before it.

A value ladder is similar to a sales funnel, with the stages of your funnel being the same as your value ladder. The fundamental difference is a sales funnel is the online steps you take someone through so they can ascend through the different levels of your value ladder.

Why does your business need a value ladder?

If you run any sort of business, having a value ladder in place is essential as it clarifies exactly where you are taking each customer you acquire.

To acquire a customer takes time and money, and once you have acquired a customer you don’t want to sell to them only once – you want to sell to them as many times as possible. Businesses spend a fortune to acquire new customers, and once they have them they want to retain them as customers for the purpose of selling them more products and services and increasing their customer lifetime value.

The most successful businesses don’t just offer one product or service; they have a multitude of products and services they can offer their customers. Your value ladder is the sequence of products or services you will offer your customers, starting from your entry-level products to your higher-end products or services.

Let’s use some examples to make this more clear:

Value ladder for an offline business

Let’s say you run a dental practice, your value ladder may look like this:

The bottom end of the value ladder is a free teeth cleaning service, and at the top end are more expensive cosmetic procedures. The first product or offer (free teeth cleaning) is used to get people through the door, and once they are in they can be offered subsequent services like whitening, retainers, or cosmetic procedures like crowns etc.

You can also see the dentist has a continuity service of check-ups every 6 months. You get them through the door with a free offer and then you keep them as a customer by offering regular check-ups and more expensive treatments.

Value ladder for an online business

This value ladder concept works in exactly the same way online as it does offline.

In the online world, the first product can be a free product or lead magnet such as a free guide, report, checklist, or cheat sheet etc.

Click here to learn about the best types of lead magnets

In order to get your lead magnet someone has to opt-in to your email list, and once they are on your list you can develop your relationship with them and introduce them to the other products in your value ladder in ascending order.

Here is an example of Russell Brunson’s value ladder which he uses to promote his Dot Com Secrets book.

As you can see he gets them onto his value ladder with a free quiz, and eventually ascends them up the ladder until they become members of his inner circle, whilst paying for his ClickFunnels software on a continuity basis.

Benefits Of Having A Value Ladder

There are several benefits and reasons why your business needs a value ladder:

Sell more products to existing customers

Having your value ladder enables you to offer more value, products, and services to customers once they have joined your list or made an initial purchase.

Your best customers are the people that have already brought something from you! The more products or services you have to offer, the more likely it is that an existing customer will buy because you have already built up some goodwill with them.

It’s less expensive to sell to an existing customer than to acquire a new one

Once you have done the hard work of acquiring a new customer you don’t want to just sell only one product to them and let them go!

The key to having a highly profitable and sustainable business is to retain as many customers as possible.

Having a clearly laid out value ladder will allow you to retain more customers as you gently guide and encourage them to make further purchases from your suite of products and services.

Expand your business by expanding what you’re offering

If you only have one product to offer you’ll spend most of your money acquiring new customers to sell one product to them, after which you’ll never see them again! Your business will not expand much because you’re only offering a one-time purchase.

When you have a value ladder you can spend more time and money selling other products to existing customers AND acquire new customers at the same time – thus enabling your business to grow and expand.

Increased opportunities to upsell

At each level of the value ladder you have opportunities to upsell your customer.

In our dentist example, when they offer a teeth whitening session they may upsell their customers a home teeth whitening kit or teeth whitening toothpaste etc.

Increase customer lifetime value

Selling further products or services to existing customers increases your overall customer lifetime value – or how much a customer is worth to you over the course of their being a customer.

The more products or services you have to offer the more likely it is that an existing customer will buy, especially if you have delivered great value with your first offer.

Create highly specific and segmented marketing campaigns

Having your value ladder clearly laid out lets you to know exactly where each customer is along the ladder, and this enables you to create highly specific marketing campaigns and messages to target people at each level and move them along to the next.

When you know where they are on your value ladder, you can use the right messaging at the right time to get them to move to the next level.

Build long-term relationships with your customers

Another benefit of the value ladder is that it enables you to build a solid relationship with your customer overtime. As they ascend through each level they are purchasing products or services that increase in cost.

As they ascend your job is to serve them better and offer as much value to them as possible, further strengthening the relationship and trust they have in you.

By the time they reach the top end of your ladder and your most expensive offer, they will be much more likely to buy as you have demonstrated your ability to deliver huge value and service to them at each level.

Pre-frame them for buying more expensive products or services

Imagine if you didn’t have a value ladder and instead just offered someone your most expensive product first – your conversion rates will most likely suck. This is because you haven’t demonstrated that you can add value, deliver great services or products, or establish any sort of relationship or trust with them.

The value ladder gives you a logical step-by-step path along which you can lead your customers, gaining their trust along the way and building a solid relationship that pre-frames them to buy from you again and again.

Having a value ladder is the key to expanding your business.

How to create a value ladder

When you start to create your value ladder you should start with the top end – this is the most valuable product or service you can offer your customers.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself when deciding what to offer at the top end of your value ladder:

• Where do I want to take this customer?
• How can I deliver the maximum level of value?
• What is the highest level of service I can give them?
• What is the best result I can give them?
• What do they ultimately want?

Once you have established your most valuable offering you can work backward and start to fill in the steps in-between from your first step.

The first step of your value ladder is the thing that is going to get them into your sales funnel or on your list in the first place. This is normally a lead magnet or free offer like a check sheet, e-book, template, or anything that has a high enough perceived value for them to want to exchange their email address for it.

You then offer them increased levels of value with each progressive step until you reach the highest level.

Include a continuity program

You should also include a continuity program as part of your value ladder. A continuity program allows you to charge people every month or year (or whenever you choose) for ongoing service.

In our dentist example, the continuity program was the regular 6-month checkups. In Russell Brunson’s value ladder his continuity program was the monthly subscription to his software ClickFunnels.

What can you offer as a continuity program? You could offer membership to a group or site, subscription to exclusive content, regular coaching sessions, access to software, etc – whatever it is you should be able to charge for it on a continuous basis.

Conclusion

I hope you can see the tremendous “value” that there is in having a value ladder for your business.

A value ladder makes it clear where you are starting with your customers and what end result you want to give them. Having this clarity allows you to create effective marketing campaigns at each stage, with the messaging targeted towards understanding where they are now, and moving them up to the next level.

Segmenting and targeting your customers based on where they are on your value ladder or sales cycle will make your campaigns more effective and give you better results.

Mapping out your products and services and logically guiding customers through your value ladder will increase the amount of money you make per customer (your customer lifetime value).

Not every customer will ascend to the very top of your value ladder, and that’s fine. Every customer is different and has different budgets, but a value ladder will allow you to give the most service and value possible to each customer at the level they can afford.

Your value ladder will help you to identify the hyper buyers and people who are willing to spend more of their money with you. You can then create further products and services that cater specifically to these high-spending customers.

Once you have your value ladder mapped out you can start to create your online ads, sales pages, and funnels, and put your marketing strategy in place to acquire customers and ascend them up your ladder.

If you want to learn more about value ladders and sales funnels then I recommend you get a copy of Russell Brunson’s book DotCom Secrets. You can currently get a free copy of the book plus shipping so you should definitely take advantage of this offer.

Click here to get you free copy of DotCom Secrets

The post Value Ladder – What It Is, Why You Need One, & How To Create One appeared first on .

Here are the qualities of an effective lead magnet:

1. Highly specific

The most effective lead magnets are very specific – they solve a specific problem or offer specific information for a very specific market.

When you are creating your lead magnet you have to keep in mind that you are NOT creating it for everyone – you are creating it for a specific audience. The more specific and granular you can get with your targeting, the better results you will see.

You need to be specific and clear on:

• Who this lead magnet will benefit
• How they will benefit from it

Example: Let’s say you are in the financial trading niche and want to create a free trading guide as your lead magnet.

• A bad title for this guide would be something like: “Learn how to trade”
• A good title would be something like: “Learn how to trade Forex in 15 days even if you are a complete newbie with zero knowledge or experience”

The second title is very clear on exactly who will benefit from this guide (people who want to learn Forex trading but have zero trading knowledge or experience), whereas the first doesn’t make clear who this guide is for. The second title also clarifies how they will benefit from the guide: They will learn how to trade Forex in 15 days.

When you are super clear on what benefit you are offering and who will benefit, you will start to attract subscribers that are highly targeted and relevant to your niche, improving the quality of your email list.

2. Focus on one key benefit

This follows on from our point above about being specific.

When it comes to your lead magnet you want to make it about one key benefit or “one big thing”. What one big thing or key benefit can you focus on? What does your target audience want to solve, do, have, become, increase, or decrease?

When you understand your target audience you should be able to answer these questions quite easily. This may involve getting even more granular and diving deeper into a specific area within your niche or sub-niche.

Example: Let’s say you are creating a free guide that teaches internet marketing to dentists

A generic, non-specific example that doesn’t focus on one key benefit would be: “Free internet marketing guide for dentists to help grow your business”

“Grow your business” is very vague – it’s not clear in what way or how their business will grow. The benefit is not well defined. It also mentions “internet marketing” which is not specific enough. Internet marketing could be about SEO, Google Ads, YouTube, etc.

A more specific title that focuses on one key benefit would be: “Free guide to creating highly effective Facebook Ads to attract more customers to your dental practice”.

In the second example, dentists know that the lead magnet will teach them how to attract more customers (the one key benefit) by learning how to create Facebook ads (super specific).

3. Deliver instant gratification

As we’ve already covered, the best lead magnets offer a clearly defined key benefit that is very specific. Your target audience wants the benefit you are promising them – and they want it now!

Using multi-day courses or newsletters as your lead magnet can often lead to engagement levels dropping off after day one or two. Using this approach requires your subscribers to have patience, and many of them simply don’t want to wait. Subscribers want the solution you have promised them now, they don’t want to wait or be drip-fed it.

They are in some sort of pain and they don’t want to have to wait several days to get the solution, so just give it to them instantly and they will appreciate you more for it.

4. Have a high perceived value

Even though you are giving your lead magnet away for free you still need to make an effort to ensure it looks professional and is of high value.

Just because it is free, it doesn’t have to look free or cheap. First impressions are everything, and as the saying goes “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.”

If you can make your lead magnet look like something people would be happy to pay for you’re on the right track. People will be more likely to opt in for something that looks professional and has a high perceived value.

Make sure your lead magnet is well-designed and on-brand. Check for any grammatical errors or spelling mistakes, and make sure the information is laid out in an easy-to-read manner.

Paying attention to the little details can make a big difference to your opt-in rate.

5. Deliver real use value

Once you have made sure your lead magnet looks the part and has a high perceived value, you need to make sure it actually delivers some real use value.

It’s no good if your lead magnet is all “sizzle and no steak” – you have to deliver on the promise you made (the one key benefit). Your target audience has subscribed to your list in exchange for the lead magnet because they saw some benefit and value in what you were offering, so make sure you give them what they signed up for. If you fail to come good on this promise you will most likely lose that subscriber forever.

Your lead magnet should ideally over-deliver on your initial promise – go the extra mile and get your relationship with your subscribers off to a great start!

If you are able to add real value to your subscribers, your engagement rate will be high and your relationship with your list will continue to grow in direct proportion to the value you give them.

6. Quick to consume

Even though you are going it away for free, your lead magnet is the first “product” in your sales funnel. You are using it to get subscribers on your list so you can build a relationship and eventually start selling your products or services to them.

You don’t want your subscribers to remain in the first stage of your funnel for too long – you want to move them along at a fairly reasonable and rapid pace so you can introduce them to your first offer. This is why your lead magnet should be fairly quick to consume and digest.

Your subscribers should ideally be able to consume your lead magnet in five mins. If you are creating an ebook or free guide you should make it quick and easy to read. If you’re giving away a free podcast or video don’t make them too long.

This doesn’t mean that you skimp on the quality – it just means creating something that delivers value and the key benefit you promised and making it as quick to consume as possible.

What types of lead magnets are there?

In this article, we covered the essential qualities that all effective lead magnets should possess, but we didn’t cover the most effective types of lead magnets.

There are various types of lead magnets you can use, and your choice should be based upon your niche and target audience. Choose a format that will resonate best with your target audience and is most suited to your market or niche. It could be a report, ebook, guide, checklist, video, or podcast. You can also offer discount codes, or create a survey or quiz.

Check out our list of the best types of lead magnets here.

Conclusion

If you create your lead magnets and incorporate the above mentioned attributes you should find that you are able to build your list quicker and more efficiently.

By being specific about who you are targeting you will only attract those subscribers who are in your target audience and who will be more likely to buy from you or take you up on your future offers. If you are using paid advertising to advertise your lead magnet, being specific about who the offer is for will help to deter any clicks from people who aren’t in your target audience – thus preventing your ad budget from getting used on unqualified prospects.

Deliver one key benefit or promise, and deliver it as fast as possible to prevent subscribers from becoming bored and unsubscribing from your list.

When you demonstrate that you can deliver the value you promised you will establish trust with the people on your list, and this will help you to create a long-term relationship with them.

Spend some time making your lead magnet look professional and high quality. The higher the perceived value, the higher your opt-in rate will be.

Making your lead magnet quick to consume will allow you to move them along your sales funnel at a faster pace, and start introducing them to your paid offers.

Once you have a lead magnet you are well on your way to start building and growing your email list.

If you are just starting out and are unsure about what you need to build your list, read our checklist of the 4 essential things you need to start building your list fast.

The post 6 Qualities Of An Effective Lead Magnet appeared first on .

Its ultimate purpose is to attract and generate a list of leads in your niche that you can add to your email list and start building a relationship with for the purpose of selling your products or services to them.

Lead magnets can come in various forms, and in this post I’m going to run through some of the most effective lead magnet ideas that you can use to start building your email list.

1. Free e-Book or Guide

This is one of the most tested lead magnets and one of the most commonly used among digital marketers.

If titled correctly, an e-book or guide will represent high value to your target audience, thus making it an attractive offer. In order to be an effective lead magnet your e-book or guide must contain information that your audience perceives as being useful and valuable enough to exchange their email address for.

You don’t need to write a full book with hundreds of pages – it can be just a few short pages as long as the information it contains is specific, concise, and actionable.

Your target audience will most likely prefer a short and easy-to-read ebook or guide that is full of actionable insights and practical information – rather than a long, boring book full of information that provides no use value.

Make the contents of your e-book or guide specific, fun, and easy to read, and have a clear outcome for the information you are sharing with your audience.

Example: if you run a dog training business you could create an e-book that outlines “The 5 Easiest Tricks You Can Teach Your Dog In Less Than A Week.”

Anyone interested in training their dog would know exactly what they are getting when they download this e-book because it offers a benefit that is clear, specific, and concise.

You don’t even have to create your e-book from new content; you can repurpose 5 or 6 related blog posts and include each post as a chapter in the book. If you are a podcaster or prefer to make videos you can get that content transcribed and turned into an e-book or guide.

2. Quiz or Survey

An online quiz or survey works well as it engages people.

In order to get their quiz or survey results participants must supply their email address and their results will be emailed to them.

These sorts of quizzes are fun and they can also encourage people to share them as they want to compare results with their friends.

Make the quiz or survey relevant to your target market and give them an insight into themselves or their business so that they will be eager to find out their results.

Examples:  Take our quiz to find out ……..

• What your parenting style is
• What sort of girlfriend/boyfriend you are
• What your preferred learning style is
• What career choices best suit your personality
• What sort of animal you are
• Which diet is best for you

3. Discount Codes or Free Shipping

Everyone loves a discount, so why not offer your leads a discount in exchange for their email details? You can offer them a discount on their first purchase if they subscribe to your newsletter, or you can offer a free-shipping voucher.

This sort of lead magnet works well for retailers and businesses that offer physical products.

4. Video Training

You can create something like an instructional video, or perhaps even a series of videos that your target market would find useful and which they would gladly exchange their email information for.

Video trainings have a high perceived value, and are therefore very effective at getting people to opt-in to your offer. You can create an informative video on your product or service, or on a specific topic or sub-topic within your niche.

Make sure the benefit of watching your video is mentioned in your call-to-action or headline so that your prospects know exactly what they are opting-in for.

Check out this great example from Wistia below:

5. Free Trials

Ahh the proven and tested free trial….it never fails to get people interested. Everyone likes something for free so take advantage of this and incorporate it into your offer.

This works particularly well if you sell software or SAAS (software as a service), but it can also work well for subscription-based businesses. Give your audience a free trial period and let them experience using your product or service.

Allowing people to have a risk-free hands-on experience with a product or service is a great way to increase your brand awareness and build a list of highly targeted prospects. Even if they don’t buy or subscribe after the trial period you will have them on your list and can follow-up with them as part of your lead-nurturing program.

You can offer free trials for a certain period of time e.g. 30 days, or you can offer free use of your software with limited functionality.

6. Checklists, Cheat Sheets, or Templates

Checklists, cheat sheets, or templates are great ways to entice people on to your list.

A checklist, cheat sheet, or template can be a valuable asset for your target audience. They are normally quite short and specific and therefore don’t take as much time to create or put together.

Conclusion

So there you have some of the most popular types of lead magnets that you can use to start building your email list.

You can create your lead magnet yourself, or you can outsource the work to a freelancer.

If you are not sure which type of lead magnet to use, you could always try two different types and split-test them against each other to see which gets the higher opt-in.

You need to really understand your target audience in order to know what sort of offer will appeal to them. When creating your lead magnet think about the sort of offer or information that someone in your target audience would find useful.

Your offer has to have perceived value in the eyes of your prospect, otherwise they won’t be motivated enough to give you their email details in exchange for it.

Once you have created a lead magnet you now have one of the key components necessary to get your list building underway. There are some key qualities that the most effective lead magnets have. If you can incorporate these into your lead magnet then you will have a better chance of getting people to opt-in to your list and stay engaged.

You can find out what these qualities are by checking out our post: The 6 qualities of an effective lead magnet.

For more info on what you need to start building and growing your list, check out our post to discover the other essential things you need to build your email list.

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Does link building still work? Should you be spending a lot of time on keyword research?

Here is a list of six things you can do to boost your SEO results.

1. Write for humans, not search engines

Gone are the days where SEO involves writing with the search engines in mind rather than the people that will read your blog.

It used to be considered good practice to write your content for the search engines in order to appease the Google gods and get your content on the first page. But with significant improvements in the way Google’s algorithm works, that’s no longer the case.

Google and other search engines like Bing prefer content that is written for humans, not for algorithms. Creating content that is reader-friendly, and which adds value is the main requirement for getting your content ranked well.

Stop worrying about creating content around certain keywords or keyword stuffing. Write naturally and include relevant keywords only where and when appropriate. The better the experience you can create for your readers, the higher Google and the search engines will rank your content.

If you write valuable content then the chances of your readers sharing that content on social media, or of other blogs linking to it will increase naturally.

2. Speed up your site by removing anything unnecessary

Your page loading speed is a critical factor in your overall SEO score. People want things fast nowadays, especially when it comes to their online experience.

Having a site that takes too long to load can mean losing customers and will lead to a high bounce rate. If Google notices that people click off within seconds of clicking through to your site, they will hold that against you.

Try speeding up your site by removing anything unnecessary which slows your site down. If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, then make sure you remove any inactive plugins and themes that you have on your site. If they are not being used and are outdated they could be slowing your site down significantly.

If you have a lot of images on your site then try using an image compression plugin to compress the size of those files and improve load time.

3. Link to other sites with relevant content

If you want to grow your blog and readership then it’s important to link to other blogs within your market. The more you link to trusted sites within your niche, the more likely it is that they will link back to you.

People often hesitate to link to other blogs because they want to keep their readers on their own site. But this is a negative way of thinking. Instead of thinking like that, your should keep your readers front of mind when it comes to linking. If you are writing on a particular topic and there’s some cool information that you think your readers will benefit from, then add a link to it.

Your readers will get more value from you if you can demonstrate your willingness to point them in the right direction, even if that means linking to other sources of information or authority figures in your market.

4. Write unique meta descriptions

Meta descriptions are what people see when Google shows your page on SERPS. They are the snippets of information directly under the clickable link or headline of your search result. Meta descriptions are normally paragraph-long descriptions of your content or page, or they can be excerpts from that page.

Effective meta descriptions should contain one or more of your main keywords, but most importantly they should be useful and compelling enough so that the user knows what they expect to see when they click on your link.

A good meta description can give you a higher click-through rate than even those who are ranking in higher positions on the search results page. You should avoid using the same meta description for multiple pages. Instead, make your meta descriptions unique for each page.

You should consider your meta description to be just as important as your headline – it’s a chance to grab attention and persuade people to click on your link to read further.

Check out our post on how to write effective headlines for similar tips that can be used to write your meta descriptions.

5. Include the right keywords in your images

People search for images using keywords, so it’s important that you optimise the images on your site. The best way to do this is by using relevant keywords as the image title.

If you have an image of a brown puppy, then you should save the image file name as “brown puppy” and also title it when you upload it to your site. It’s often quite easy to get your images ranked for keywords, so take advantage of this by using the right keywords and driving traffic to your site via image search.

6. Have an easy-to-read URL structure

The URL of a page is the unique address of that page which gets indexed by the search engines. In order to have URLs optimised for the search engine bots you should make them easy to read, relevant, and short.

Using a shortened version of the page’s name is a good way to go. Avoid using numbers in your URLs as these look messy and won’t make any sense to your readers. e.g. www.fullsuitemarketing.com/article/98765

If you are publishing content that you want to be evergreen and that you may update in the future, then you should avoid having the publication date in the URL.

Keep your URLs simple, tidy, and easy to read.

Conclusion

So there you have 6 easy tips that you can start implementing straight away to improve your SEO.

If you start to use these tips you’ll start creating better content that is reader-focused and not search engine focused, thus giving your readers a better experience of your site.

When you create useful and valuable content people will start to share your content on the social platforms, and you’ll have more people willing to link to your blog, giving you more link juice.

You’ll start to drive more traffic to your site organically and will improve your domain authority ranking over time.

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The SOSTAC® marketing model is an easy-to-learn and highly effective planning framework that will help you to create a detailed marketing plan in 6 steps.

It can be used when creating your overall marketing or digital marketing strategy, or it can be applied to individual channels that you may be using such as PPC, Email, etc. It is easy to learn and has been voted as one of the top 3 marketing models in the world by the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s centenary poll.

What is SOSTAC®?

SOSTAC® is a marketing plan model that was created by PR Smith to provide an easy-to-follow framework for creating marketing plans.

It is an acronym that stands for:

S: Situational Analysis – Where are we now?

O: Objectives – Where do we want to be?

S: Strategy – How do we get there?

T: Tactics – How exactly do we get there?

A: Actions – What is our plan?

C: Controls – How do we monitor performance?

The SOSTAC model offers a clear and easy-to-follow logical plan that will give you a comprehensive understanding of where you are, how to get to your desired destination, and how to measure your progress and stay on track.

Let’s run through each part in more detail.

Situational Analysis – where are we now?

The first step in the model is Situational Analysis – identifying where you are now.

Before you can reach your objectives you need to know exactly where you are now and what your current situation is. A situational analysis will allow you to understand your capabilities, customers, potential customers, competitive landscape, and other external factors that may affect your market or business.

Two of the best ways to analyse your current situation are to conduct a SWOT analysis and a PESTLE analysis.

A SWOT analysis looks at the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of your market and business. A PESTLE analysis looks at the external factors that affect your market or business. These are the Political, Environmental, Social, Technological, Legal, and Economic factors.

Another important aspect of your situational analysis is conducting a Customer analysis to get a thorough understanding of your target market and audience.

Your customer analysis should ask:

• Who are you serving?
• What are their pain points?
• What results are they looking for?
• What are their interests?
• Where do they “hangout” and congregate online?
• What channels can I use to target them?
• What sort of messaging will resonate best with them?

For a more in-depth view on customer analysis check out our post on how to identify and understand your target audience.

You also need to conduct a Competitor analysis to understand your competitive landscape:

• Who are your competitors?
• What do they do well?
• What do they not do so well?
• How do they approach their marketing?
• What strategies and tactics do they use?

Once you have conducted your analysis using the frameworks mentioned you will have a good idea of your current situation and where you are at the moment relative to the rest of the market.

Objectives – were do we want to be?

Now you know where you are, you have to identify where you want to be. What are your objectives or goals?

Dave Chaffey of Smart Insights has created the RACE model which helps to identify 4 key objectives you should be targeting. These are:

Reach: Your objectives for increasing your brand awareness, reaching more people, and increasing customer engagement.

Example: increase the number of visitors to your website by 6%

Act: Your objectives for encouraging initial interaction with your content for lead generation and capture

Example: increase email newsletter subscription opt-in by 10%

Convert: Identify your conversion goals

Example: increase online conversion rates by 7%

Engage: Identify your post-sales engagement goals to create longterm loyalty and brand advocacy

Example: generate five star reviews from 60% of existing customers

Your objectives should also be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic

Example: increase online conversion rates by 7% by next quarter, to be measured via Google Analytics.

Strategy

Your strategy is the big picture of how you will achieve the objectives you have set out. Your strategy will ultimately drive your tactics.

“All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved”…….Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

STP is a model that can help you to get your strategy right. It stands for Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning.

Your strategy should outline:

• Segmentation: How do you plan to divide your market e.g. by demographics or by lifestyle?
• Targeting: Which segments of customers you will focus on – which segments of your target market are the most viable and relevant for your business, product, or service?
• Positioning: What sort of messaging you will use to communicate with each segment of your target audience? The messaging you use will determine how should you position your product, service, or offer.

Tactics

Tactics are the details of your strategy. Whereas strategy is the big picture of how you will achieve your objectives, your tactics outline the smaller picture and deal with the specifics of how you will implement the strategy.

This section of your marketing plan outlines the specific tools, marketing channels, techniques, data sets, etc. you need to execute your strategy.

Some of your tactics may involve using SEO, PPC advertising, creating a social media content plan, having an email marketing campaign, etc. You may have different tactics to target different segments, such as using social media to target a younger audience and email marketing to target an older demographic.

Actions

This section of your plan outlines the finer details of the implementation of your tactics. This is where you outline who will be doing what, where and how they will do it, and when they will do it by.

This is where you can set your deadlines for the completion of each task, times for progress updates, and implement accountability measures. You may decide to delegate certain tactics to internal departments, or you may outsource certain tactics to an outside agency or freelancer.

By being as specific as possible you ensure that everyone involved understands their role and their task. They should know how to do what they’ve been assigned and be able to complete those actions within an agreed timescale.

Control

Once you have identified what actions need to be taken you need to ensure you can monitor performance to track and measure your progress.

This is where you identify and set your KPIs (key performance indicators) so that you can measure your progress against the goals outlined in your objectives.

Example: If one of your objectives is to increase the number of visitors to your website from your PPC campaigns by 5% then the KPIs you may choose to monitor could be impressions, impression share, share of click, number of clicks, and CTR (click-through rate) of your PPC ads.

By having these KPIs in place you will be able to easily identify if you are on track or not, and if necessary you can adjust your tactics accordingly, or delegate those tactics to someone else.

Conclusion

So there you have it, a quick overview of PR Smith’s SOSTAC® model and marketing plan framework.

By following the framework and completing each section as thoroughly as possible you will be armed with a solid marketing plan that you can begin to execute and which can be clearly communicated with your team.

The SOSTAC® model makes creating a marketing plan easy and straightforward. If you implement a marketing plan and it doesn’t entirely go to plan, go back to the drawing board and analyse which part needs to be changed.

You may have to adjust your strategy, or perhaps tweak the tactics a little. Maybe your objectives aren’t realistic enough and have to be revised. By sticking to the framework you have a clear breakdown of all parts of your plan and can make adjustments when necessary.

SOSTAC® is a registered trademark of PR Smith. For more information on SOSTAC® Planning & becoming a SOSTAC® Certified Planner visit www.SOSTAC.org

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The attractive character is an important element of building a long-term relationship with your target audience and increasing the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and sales copy.

This post will break down what the attractive character is, and why it is an important element that will improve your marketing campaigns and help to grow your business.

What is the attractive character?

The attractive character is the persona you are sharing with your audience. This persona is how you communicate with your prospects, audience, or list. Your attractive character helps you to attract customers, build a relationship with them, and grow your following.

Most successful businesses have an attractive character at the heart of the business in some shape or form.

Why does the attractive character work?

We all love stories. Ever since we were kids most of us have enjoyed listening to a good story. Even as adults we are attracted to films, or the latest series on Netflix because we love to immerse ourselves in stories.

The best salespeople and marketers have long understood the power of storytelling and how to use stories to communicate with their target audience.

Storytelling is one of the most powerful ways in which to share your message, attract customers, and persuade them to buy from you.

One of the most important elements of a good story is the hero or main character, also known as the protagonist. The hero provides the eyes and ears through which the audience experiences the journey of the hero and their story. Think about your favourite movies. Now ask yourself why they are your favourite movies.

Most likely it’s because you fell in love with the characters, and you felt a deep connection with them and their journey.

The attractive character is the hero of your business, product, or brand.

It’s the persona through which you communicate with your audience, and it’s the persona whose story and journey you share with them.

Subway used the concept of the attractive character well when they shared the story of Jared, an obese guy who lost a ton of weight by switching to a diet of Subway sandwiches. By centering its marketing around Jared and his success story, Subway was able to grow its business and attract so many new customers.

These customers were attracted by Jared and his story. By seeing the results Jared was able to obtain, people switched to the Subway diet in an attempt to get the same results. Jared’s story helped Subway to become the number one sandwich chain in America and helped to position their food as a healthy, fresh alternative to junk food.

That’s the power of the attractive character and what it can do for your business.

The elements that make up the attractive character

There are three components that all attractive characters should have. These components are the essential building blocks of creating a character that your audience will like and want to follow.

The 3 components are:

• Elements
• Identity
• Storyline

Elements

Every attractive character has 4 elements.

1. Backstory

All good attractive characters have a backstory that you must share. This is where they came from, what they struggled with, and what their situation was before they discovered your product or service.

In the case of Jared, his backstory is that he was over 425 pounds and struggling to lose weight. He had low self-esteem and zero confidence which affected all aspects of his life.

The backstory should demonstrate to your target audience that your attractive character has been where they are now, and has experienced the same struggles, pains, and adverse circumstances they are experiencing.

People that were overweight and struggled to stick to a healthy diet could relate to Jared and his backstory, and this made them even more attracted to him.

Your target audience has to relate to your attractive character’s backstory.

2. Attractive characters speak in parables

Parables are short stories that communicate messages or important life lessons. As I mentioned above, stories are powerful vehicles for sharing messages and imparting important life lessons.

Your attractive character should also use parables or stories and experiences from their own life to impart their wisdom, knowledge, and hard earnt lessons to your target audience.

3. Attractive characters display their character flaws

Nobody is perfect. We all have flaws and things about us that we don’t like and wish we could change. When we try to hide these flaws and present a perfect image of ourselves people will see through it.

You’ve probably seen tons of people who present an image of themselves and their lives as being totally perfect on social media. Whilst this may gain you some followers, the real win lies in actually sharing your flaws, not hiding them.

When we share our flaws and display the vulnerable side of our personalities with our audience, they will be able to relate to us so much more. They can relate to us more because they can see that we are not perfect and have flaws just like them. No one can relate to someone who is perfect, but they can relate and connect with someone who has flaws and doesn’t try to hide them. When your attractive character is able to share their flaws your audience will be more attracted to them.

4. Attractive characters use the power of polarity

Being polarising means taking a stand on something, sharing your opinion, and not being afraid to share that with the world even if it means you will alienate some people.

For every person you alienate, you will attract loads more who share your views. The people who share your views are the ones that matter, because they are your target audience. Neutral people or people who sit on the fence and try to please everyone usually don’t get too far.

Attractive characters are not afraid to divide opinions and stand up for what they believe in. When you are able to do that, people will rally behind you.

Identity

Your attractive character needs an identity that your audience can relate to. This identity is how you share your message and communicate with them.

The identity of your attractive character will dictate how you share your message and your story. Your attractive character will usually have one of the following identities:

1. Leader
2. Adventurer
3. Reporter
4. Reluctant Hero

1. Leader

The leader is someone who leads their followers by hand to the destination they want to reach. They can lead because they have successfully made the journey themselves and know the best route to take.

Leaders know the shortcuts that will help to get their followers to their destination quicker. They also know all the obstacles on the path and how to overcome them.

If your audience wants a specific result, your attractive character can lead them to that result by sharing their experience and knowledge of the best route to get there.

2. Adventurer

The adventurer is someone who is very curious but doesn’t have all the answers yet. They set out to discover the truth and come back to share what treasures they have found along the way with their audience.

Whereas the leader leads their audience to their desired goal, the adventurer shares their journey and brings back answers to share with thier audience.

3. Reporter

The reporter is someone who hasn’t quite made their journey yet, but they desire to. The reporter shares what they learn along the way, and their audience has the benefit of watching in real-time as the reporter moves forward on their journey.

As a reporter you don’t have to be an expert in your market or niche, you just have to interview those who are. Reporters interview the experts in their market to get insights and answers that they can share with their audience. The audience gets to discover things at the same time as the reporter.

The reporter identity is a great way to start a business in a niche that you may not know a lot about. By interviewing people who do have the answers you gain credibility by way of association with the experts in your niche.

4. Reluctant Hero

This is the identity of someone who has made the journey, reached the goal, and has the answers. They are humble by nature and don’t want to be in the limelight. They don’t see themselves as a leader, but they feel a moral obligation to share what they know so that other people can benefit.

They reluctantly step out of their comfort zone for the benefit of their audience, and in doing so become heroes in the eyes of those they help.

Attractive character storylines

There are several storylines that businesses use over and over again in their marketing campaigns and communication – whether via emails, sales letters, social media, print advertising, etc.

Each one has a basic plot structure that you can follow.

They are:

1. Loss and Redemption
2. Before and After
3. Us vs Them
4. Amazing Discovery
5. Third-Person Testimonial
6. Secret Telling

1. Loss and redemption

This is a story of having it all, losing it all, and winning it back again.

These stories share the story of your attractive character’s hardships, struggles, and path back to the top. It enables you to share the lessons and insights they learned along the way.

2. Before and after

This is the story of how you “went from  ___________ to __________”.

This is the plot Subway used when telling Jared’s weight loss story. Before and after stories are stories of transformation and are highly effective.

3. Us vs them

This storyline uses the power of polarity, which we mentioned earlier as one of the elements of your attractive character.

Use these stories to draw your target audience and fans closer, and get them to rally behind your cause. This story helps your fans to identify with your cause and strengthens their bond with the attractive character.

4. Amazing discovery

This storyline describes the amazing discovery your attractive character has made. This discovery is normally the thing that finally solves the problem they have been experiencing. The discovery should be the answer to the problem your audience is facing.

Example: “After so many failed attempts and coming so close to giving up I finally discovered the solution!…..”

This story arouses curiosity in your audience who will be eager to find out what it is you discovered that can also help them.

5. Third-person testimonial

This is where you share the stories of your customers who have been successful in obtaining their desired results using your product or service.

These stories are effective because they use the principle of social proof which is a powerful motivator.

6. Secret telling

These storylines involve telling secrets that will benefit your audience.

Example: “Finance expert reveals the never revealed before industry secrets to winning it big on the stock market.”

The allure of secret information is a great incentive that makes people curious and eager to know what you have to share.

Conclusion

So you now have the building bricks that you need to start molding your attractive character.

Your attractive character doesn’t have to be you, it can be someone who has successfully used your product (like Jared).

Think about the personalities and stories of your customers or clients and use them to start bringing your attractive character to life. When you have an attractive character you can start to communicate with your audience and build your relationship with them.

Your attractive character helps your audience to connect with you or your brand at a deeper level. You’ll be able to share your stories in a much more powerful way and establish trust which will make selling your products and services much more easier.

If you found the concept of the attractive character helpful then check out Russell Brunson’s DotCom Secrets book where he goes into more depth on this topic.

Click here to get a free copy of DotCom Secrets

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Having a steady stream of traffic to your website, opt-in pages, offers, and webinars is every internet marketer’s dream, but internet traffic can be a daunting subject to understand.

There’s so much traffic out there – traffic from blogs, forums, YouTube, social media, paid advertising, SEO, etc. It can be daunting to try to understand each traffic source and how to get that traffic to where you want.

Thankfully there’s a much easier way to think about traffic, and when you understand this lesson it’ll make the subject of internet traffic a lot less intimidating.

In this post, I’ll go through what I learned from internet marketer Russell Brunson about the three types of traffic. If you don’t know Russell Brunson, he is the founder of the popular funnel-building software ClickFunnels, and is a huge influencer in the online marketing world.

He has written a series of online marketing books called:

DotCom Secrets, Expert Secrets, and Traffic Secrets.

If you haven’t read them I can highly recommend you buy them because the information Russell shares is priceless. You can currently pick up the books for free – you only have to pay for the shipping and handling. Click on the links above to get your copies now.

What are the three types of traffic?

In the DotCom Secrets and Traffic Secrets books Russell talks about there only being 3 types of internet traffic.

1. Traffic you earn / Traffic you don’t control

2. Traffic you control

3. Traffic you own

Regardless of what specific platform or channel that traffic has come from it can be classified as one of these three types.

Let’s take a closer look at each traffic type.

1. Traffic you earn / Traffic you don’t control

Note: The first book Russell Brunson released was DotCom Secrets, and when he released that book he called this type of traffic “Traffic you don’t control”. In his latest book Traffic Secrets, he has amended the name and now calls it “Traffic you earn”. They are both referring to the same traffic type, but for clarity purposes, I have listed both names down to avoid any confusion.

Traffic you earn/don’t control is normally traffic that has found you via organic means – this could be through the search engines, or a Facebook page, a blog post, or even word of mouth.

You don’t have control over this type of traffic. This traffic normally just shows up and you can’t really control where it came from or where it goes.

Example: If someone mentions your website on their Facebook page, one of their followers may visit your website and land on some random page on your blog. You have no control over that sequence of events, hence why Russell Brunson initially called it “traffic you don’t control”.

Russell also refers to this type of traffic as “earned traffic” because you will have to put in the work to earn this type of traffic – writing a blog post takes effort, so does posting regularly on your social media platforms, or getting ranked for certain search terms on Google.

2. Traffic you control

You control traffic when you have the ability to tell it where to go. This is traffic that is generated via any sort of paid advertising such as Facebook ads, Google Ads, banner ads, video ads, solo ads, etc.

If you use any of these ad platforms such as Google, you don’t own the traffic – Google does, but you control it by directing it to where you want it to go. This type of traffic is a lot more manageable than the traffic you don’t control, and you can predict the amount of traffic you can generate by looking at your analytics data.

If you want more of this type of traffic you will have to increase your advertising budget and be willing to spend more.

3. Traffic you own

This is the holy grail of traffic.

Traffic you own is any sort of traffic of which you are in full control. This consists of your email lists, followers, fans, subscribers, existing customers, etc.

This is called “Traffic you own” because you can send out an email to your list or post something on your social media page and generate instant traffic that you can control and direct to wherever you want. You don’t have to spend any more money to get this traffic – you own it, and you have permission to market and communicate with this type of traffic.

When you have a list of customers, subscribers, followers, etc. you have your own ready-made audience that you can reach out to at any time to direct them to an offer, blog post, or sales funnel.

This is why the following statement still holds true for marketers today:

“The money is in the list”

Your list refers to any traffic you own.

Your goal as a marketer is to convert traffic you earn/don’t control, and traffic you control into traffic you own. Once you own that traffic you have a targeted audience of people who know you, and who are more likely to buy from you compared to the other two types of traffic.

Convert all traffic into traffic you own

In order to convert traffic you earn/don’t control, and traffic you control into traffic you own, you need two things:

1. Their contact information
2. Their permission to be contacted

You can obtain these two things by directing both traffic sources to an opt-in page or squeeze page where you offer some sort of lead magnet or free product in exchange for their email address and permission to contact them.

As both types of traffic are different you will have to go about this in a slightly different way for each type.

Converting traffic you don’t control into traffic you own

As you don’t control this traffic type you can’t directly lead them to your opt-in page, so the best way to get their contact details or permission is to have an opt-in form highly visible on all pages of your website to make it more noticeable.

This means if a random person does a search and your blog comes up on the Google search results and they click through to your site, they should see the opt-in form on whatever page they land on.

You can’t control whether or not they decide to opt-in but you can make it easier by making your opt-in offer highly visible and by offering something they will want. You should have the opt-in form on your homepage so it’s nice and visible and also have it as a side banner so that it is visible on all pages.  You can also use a pop-up form that will ensure that all visitors see your opt-in offer, regardless of what page they land on.

Your opt-in offer could be for a free report, e-book, or to join your newsletter. Regardless of what your lead magnet is, you have to offer them something of perceived value in exchange for their email address and contact information. Read our article for more information on the qualities that all lead magnets should have.

Converting traffic you control into traffic you own

This is a lot easier as you are in direct control of where this traffic ends up.

When someone clicks on your ad you should direct them to your opt-in form or squeeze page where they will be presented with the offer of your lead magnet (free ebook, report etc.) in exchange for their contact information. Once they have opted-in they are now on your list and have become traffic you own.

You can now reach out to the people on your list whenever you like, and direct them to wherever you want such as an offer, webinar, blog posts, etc.

The importance of list building

Converting all types of traffic into traffic you own is the key to building your list, which is your greatest asset as a marketer.

If you use any social media platform and have a number of followers and subscribers on those platforms, it’s important that you also have their email addresses and other contact information so you can contact them outside of those platforms via email, direct mail, SMS, etc. The reason is simple – those platforms can shut you down anytime.

If you have a successful YouTube channel with millions of subscribers, what would happen to your business if YouTube banned your channel tomorrow? This is not totally out of the question and has happened to many people whose channels were banned for some reason or other. The same thing also applies to Facebook, Google, and any other platform you may be using to build and communicate with your audience.

If you solely rely on traffic from SEO and Google, what would happen if Google changed their algorithm tomorrow and your 1st-page rankings suddenly dropped to page 10? How much traffic would you lose, and how would your business be affected as a result?

These things have happened time and time again to countless different business owners and internet marketers. Just do a quick search on how Google updates have affected search ranking – there are literally hundreds of stories of people losing their businesses overnight after a Google algorithm update caused their traffic to disappear.

This happened because those people didn’t own their traffic or lists. Facebook owns your fans, YouTube owns your subscribers, and Google owns any traffic it sends you via its search engine.

If you rely solely on these platforms you are effectively putting your business in the hands of those companies and are at the mercy of algorithm changes, policy changes, or whatever else they decide to do.

But if you turn that traffic into traffic you own and build your own lists you don’t have to worry about losing your presence on those platforms because you have a direct source of traffic that you own and can reach out to anytime. When you do that you will be building a business that is truly sustainable and is not at the mercy of any one platform or company.

This is why it is essential that you start to convert any traffic you don’t control and traffic you control into traffic you own.

Get the Traffic Secrets book free

If you have found these ideas interesting and want to learn more about traffic, I can highly recommend you get Russell Brunson’s books.

I recommend you read all of them but if you want to learn how to get more traffic from a variety of different channels such as Instagram, Google, Facebook, SEO, etc., and how to turn that into traffic you own, then you need to check out the Traffic Secrets book.

The book goes into a lot more detail on traffic, building your list, building a sales funnel, and how to structure your offers.

You can get the Traffic Secrets book completely free, all you have to do is cover the shipping.

Click here to get your copy of Traffic Secrets now.

The post Traffic Secrets – 3 Types of Internet Traffic Explained appeared first on .

Getting your product in front of the wrong people can also be very costly. This is why it’s so important to really understand your target audience.

What is a target audience?

Your target audience is the people most likely to be interested in your product or service. They are the people that you want to focus your marketing efforts towards as they are most likely to become customers.

Your target audience may share certain demographics such as age, location, gender, socio-economic status, etc. Your business may have more than one target audience if you sell a variety of different goods and services.

You may have one target audience per product or may have several target audiences for the same product, each segmented according to those factors that makes sense to your business e.g. location, age, etc.

Target audiences are not one-size-fits-all

It is very unlikely that you will be selling something that everyone wants or needs. Even though you may feel that your product will revolutionise the world and is something that everyone needs, the truth is most people don’t care, need, or want your product.

The majority of people don’t care about you or your product. Harsh but it’s true. If you try to market to everyone you will end up blowing through your marketing budget very quickly without seeing much returns.

In order to spend your budget wisely and sell more products, you need to focus your efforts on the people who will see value in owning and using your product. The sooner you realise that the majority of people don’t care, want, or need your product the sooner you will start to focus your attention on those that do.

In order to do this you need to know who your target audience is.

Breaking down your target audience

1. Firstly you need to identify what market you are in.

Examples of different markets: health, finance, relationships, personal development, travel, etc.

2. Then you need to identify your sub-market within that market.

Sub-markets are categories that exist in your main market.

Example: If you are in the health market your sub-market may be weight loss, muscle gain, physiotherapy, mental health, etc.

3. Once you identify your sub-market you then dig a little further by identifying your niche.

Your niche is the specific segment of your sub-market that you are targeting.

Although you may feel that everyone in your sub-market is your target customer, if you dig further you will find niches within your sub-market that are more refined and targeted – this is the specific group or distinct segment of your sub-market you want to serve.

Example: 

• Market = Health
• Sub-market = Weight loss
• Niche = Weight loss for women

You can see how much more targeted “weight loss for women” is compared to “health” or just “weight loss” which are too vague and broad.

Once you have identified the niche of people that will buy, use, and benefit from your product you can now take a more focused and targeted approach to your market research in order to understand your audience better.

What do you need to know about your target audience?

Ideally, the more data points you can gather on your target audience the better. There are some key questions you should be asking.

The general demographic information you may want to know:

• Where do they live?
• How old are they?
• Where do they shop – what are their favourite brands?
• What websites do they visit?
• What online platforms do they use?
• Are they married?
• Do they have kids?
• What job do they do?
• What is their annual income?
• What are their interests?

More specific things related to your audience and niche you may want to know:

• What other products are on the market? What do online reviews say about those products?
• What are their goals for using your product – what result do they want?
• What emotions do they want to feel when they achieve that result?
• What other products can you sell to complement your main product?
• Who are the influencers in this market?
• What websites do people in my niche visit? What blogs do they read/subscribe to? What social media platforms do they use? What groups/forums do they belong to?

Example of how this would look using our “weight loss for women” niche:

Using our “weight loss for women” niche example, here are some questions we may ask about our target audience:

• How old are they?
• Are they a member of a gym?
• How often do they exercise?
• What is their current diet like?
• What weight loss and exercise groups/forums do they belong to?
• What other weight loss products have they used previously? What did they like/dislike about those products?
• What are their goals for using your product? – How much weight do they want to lose? In what time span?
• What other products can you sell to complement your main product? – Exercise equipment, Diet plans, etc
• Who are the influencers in this market?
• What websites do people in my niche visit?: What social media platforms do they use? What blogs do they read? What search terms do they type when browsing for weight loss information?

By asking the right questions you will get a deeper insight into your target audience and ideal customers, and armed with these insights you can more effectively target them with your marketing efforts.

Understanding your target audience = highly targeted marketing

When you truly understand your target audience and niche you will be in a position to create highly targeted and super-relevant marketing campaigns. You will be able to reach them at the right place, at the right time, with the right offer.

When you know what websites they visit or where they congregate online you can target them with paid ads. By knowing where they “hang out” online you can start joining in on the conversations they are having within these online communities, and start to build trust and awareness of your brand or product.

You can also reach out to the influencers in your market and see if you can promote your offer to their audience or list. These influencers have already gathered large followers and congregations of your ideal customer, so doing some cross-promotional campaigns will get your product or offer in front of a highly targeted and super-relevant audience.

The more you understand your target audience the better you can serve them

As marketers, salespeople, and business owners our focus should be on serving our customers to the best of our ability.

Instead of being solely focused on how we can market and sell our products, we should focus on how we can be of better service to our customers. Taking a customer-centric view will help you to put yourself in their shoes. You will understand them better – their pain points, their desires and goals, and the obstacles they are facing.

You can then use this information to create marketing campaigns, ads, and sales pages that resonate and connect with your target audience, thus helping to establish understanding and trust.

When you understand your target audience you can offer a better service, better products, and better after-sales service. You will build longer lasting relationships with your customers, helping to turn them into raving fans and brand advocates.

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But how the heck do you effectively communicate all that with an image? Designing or creating a logo can be hard work if you don’t know where to start.

In this post, I’ll run through 5 things you should keep in mind when designing an iconic logo for your business and brand. But first, let’s take a look at the different types of logos you can choose from.

The 7 types of logo

1. Pictorial Logo

• These logos consist purely of images without any words
• These are used by a lot of companies that have a wide presence and are well-known
• Examples: Twitter, Apple, Facebook

2.  Wordmark Logo

• This type of logo consists of your brand name
• These logos help build brand awareness, increase brand recognition, and make your brand or company name more memorable
• Examples: Google, Yahoo, Coca-Cola

3. Lettermark Logo / Monogram Logo

• These logos consist of abbreviations of your company name or brand initials
• Typically used by organisations with long names
• Examples: IBM, NASA, HBO

4.  Mascot Logos

• These logos use mascots or characters that represent your brand or company
• Used a lot in the food industry, and also in businesses where the target audience is young
• Examples: KFC, Pringles, Kool-Aid

5. Abstract Logos

• These logos consist of images that don’t necessarily directly link to your brand, or your products or services
• Are used to communicate brand values, or to tell the story behind the brand/company
• Examples: Nike, Pepsi, Adidas

6. Emblem Logos

• Consists of text inside a symbol or an icon e.g. badges, crests, and seals.
• Tend to have a traditional appearance about them that denotes formality, history, and tradition
• Work well for intuitions such as universities, government departments, or public services
• Used by many sports teams, particularly teams and clubs that were established a long time ago
• Examples: FBI, Oxford University, Manchester United Football Club

7. Combination Logos

• A combination of a wordmark or lettermark with pictorial, abstract, or mascot.
• The image and text can be stacked on top of each other, laid out side-by-side or integrated
• Helps consumers to build associations between your pictorial or mascot and your brand name
• Examples: Puma, Burger King, Red Bull
  

  

5 tips for creating an iconic logo for your business

1. Choose a logo that best matches your product and your market

When designing your logo you need to keep in mind the industry or market you operate in, and the nature of your products and services. Are you a food retailer? A fashion designer? Do you create and sell tech products?

The market and industry you operate in will indicate which type of logo you should go for. There is flexibility with this of course, but in general, you want to align your logo closely with your brand name, the products you sell, or the industry you are in.

If you are a luxury goods manufacturer then you want your logo to communicate attributes like quality and luxury –  so make sure you use the right type of fonts, and make the correct use of colour etc.

Think about what message you want your logo to convey – how do you want people to think or feel when they see your logo? This will help you to select which type of logo from the 7 logo types you should use, as well as select the font type and colour scheme etc.

2.  Make your logo timeless

When designing your logo you should avoid designing it around any current trends or fads in your marketplace. Trends can change very quickly so you don’t want your logo to become outdated and obsolete within a short period of time.

Make your logo evergreen and timeless and think long-term about how it will be perceived in 2, 5, 10, or 20 years time from now.

You want it to still be relevant regardless of what is happening in your market right now, or what will happen 10 years from now, so think about a design that will stand the test of time.

3. Make use of colour psychology and choose your colour theme wisely

Colours have meaning behind them and can communicate certain qualities or attributes.

It is therefore important to understand the psychology of colour and what these colours say about your brand when deciding which colours to use in your design.

Click here to read more about colour psychology in marketing and branding.

When you are deciding on the colour scheme of your logo you should first make sure that it is “on brand” with your product, your market and industry. If you are in the wedding industry then having an all-black logo probably wouldn’t be a good fit.

Here are a few qualities and attributes most associated with each colour. There are both positive and negative associations for each.

Red: danger, warning, emotional, aggression, action

Blue: intelligence, calm, stability, passive, cold

Green: fresh, life, nature, sick, envy, greed

Yellow: energy, vibrant, happiness, sickness, cowardice

Purple: royalty, wealth, prestige, spirituality, moodiness, introvert

Orange: creative, warmth, happiness, despair, discordance

Black: bold, courageous, elegance, serious, death, mourning

White: pure, simplicity, sterile, emptiness, void, isolation

Try not to have too many different colours in your logo. A maximum of 3 colours should be enough, with 1 being the major colour and the other 2 being minor or background colours.

4. Make your logo distinctive

You want your logo to stand out from the crowd. There are literally millions of logos out there, and as a marketer, you want to make sure your logo gets heard above the noise.

You need to make your logo distinctive enough so that it doesn’t get confused with another brand or company. Making your logo distinctive also means your logo will be easy to remember as we tend to remember things that are unique more than things that are overly similar.

Being distinctive also grabs attention, which is important in today’s crowded marketplace. When your prospects can easily identify and remember your logo they’ll be able to establish a better connection between your logo and your brand, your product, and your company values.

5. Make your logo simple

The most iconic logos are simple. Think about some of the most iconic logos that are super simple in design – Nike, Apple, or Twitter.

In general,  simple logos are more easily recognisable, more memorable, and easier to build brand affinity with. “Simple” does not have to mean boring – it just means that you are including only those things that are relevant, and you are getting rid of everything that is irrelevant.

Declutter your logo by removing anything that is non-essential and that could potentially cause a prospect to lose interest or confuse them. The other benefit of having a simple logo is that it makes it easier to be versatile, which brings us to our next point…

6. Make it versatile

With so many channels and platforms available to advertise on it’s important that your logo is functional and looks good across various mediums.

Think about all the places your logo is likely to be: business cards, email signatures, display ads, social media, TV, billboards, on labels, vehicles, and branded merchandise such as pens, keychains, hats, t-shirts etc.

A versatile logo will look good in any size, in any colour, and in any medium.

Try to keep the fonts clear, simple and easy to read. People should be able to read your tagline (if your logo has one) regardless of what size the logo is. Also, try to stick with a relatively simple colour scheme so that it’s not too much of an eyesore. There may also be instances where you can’t use your full-colour logo, so make sure that the logo is versatile enough that it still looks good in black and white.

A final note on designing your logo is to ensure that every element on it means something and communicates something positive about your brand. If it doesn’t then you may need to think about removing it. Keep what work, and remove what doesn’t.

Once you have a few designs you can do some market research to find out which one people prefer and why. Sometimes it’s best to put our own opinions aside and listen to the people we are serving – our customers and those within our target market!

You can create a survey, create a blog post, or post the designs to your social media pages. Ask people to rate each design and give you some feedback on each one.

If you follow the tips above you’ll have an iconic logo for your business and brand that will help you grab attention, grow your brand awareness, and communicate your brand values.

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If you need some inspiration for your next digital marketing or offline-marketing campaign or strategy then look no further. There are some great companies out there that know how to target the right prospects, get their message heard, and communicate their brand values and offers in a seamless way.

This article takes a look at 3 companies that are bringing their marketing A-game to the table and putting their competitors to shame.

1. Dollar Shave Club – From 1$ to $1B

Who said shaving had to be boring? Definitely not Michael Dublin, the founder of the Dollar Shave Club!

The Dollar Shave Club is responsible for one of the most viral marketing campaigns of recent years. If you haven’t yet seen their iconic launch video you can watch it here: Dollar Shave Club launch video.

Instead of doing what the traditional razor blade manufacturers like Gillette were doing (and have done for the last few decades), they decided right off the bat that they wanted to differentiate themselves.  The way the ad is shot, the copy, and the tongue-in-cheek theme of the ad were enough to let people know that they were not the average shaving company.

Using dry humour and wit and with a real sense of self-confidence, the Dollar Shave Club made a launch video that made them instantly memorable – whilst also doing a great job of telling people who they were, exactly what they are all about, and why consumers should use them. They even managed to take a cheeky swipe at their competitors and the shaving industry’s trend of creating and selling over-engineered razors with features that nobody wants or needs, for prices that are too high.

When the video was launched it went viral and attracted an unexpected amount of traffic to the company website, causing their server to crash in the first hour. The server was soon back up and running, and the orders kept coming in – approx. 12,000 orders within the first 48 hours!

To date, the video has over 27 million views, and the company keeps going from strength to strength, having since launched in Australia, Canada and the UK. But their cheeky approach to marketing didn’t stop with the launch video. Throughout their rapid growth, they continued to post funny content such as “Do I really need to wash my hands after I pee?” and “Is it bad to pluck my nose hairs with my fingers?”

Their brilliant approach continued to attract the right attention, and their marketing campaigns have become legendary amongst marketers and consumers alike. The company has amassed over 3 million subscribers and in 2016 was acquired by Unilever for a cool $1 billion!

Takeaways:

• Don’t be afraid to break the mould and do something different
• Forget what your competitors are doing – break with tradition and create something new and fresh
• Even the most established of industries and markets can be disrupted when you think outside the box and are willing to take risks
• Humour and cheekiness can endear you to a lot of people if done right
• Good marketing can do wonders for you even if you don’t have the best product in the market

2. Slack – Using a killer marketing hook

Slack has become one of the most popular channel-based work messaging platforms, with over 3 million paid customers to date.

Slack allows you to instantly message your colleagues, share files, host video calls and make communication with your team a lot more easier and fun.

It has become the workflow platform of choice for 77% of Fortune 100 companies, boosts 8 million active users daily, and have become the fastest growing SaaS company of all time.

Their rise in popularity has not only come about due to the ease of their technology but most importantly their dedication to their customers and their marketing.

Initially Slack was able to generate huge interest simply with word-of-mouth marketing. The company’s founder, Stewart Butterfield, the guy behind the photo sharing app Flickr, used organic marketing to get the word about Slack out to some key figureheads in different companies.

By allowing these companies to have free trials of the software and then leveraging their positive reviews and testimonials on social media, they were able to persuade other companies to give it a try.

Another key aspect of their huge growth was their positioning and marketing hook. Stewart Butterfield wanted Slack to be known as the “email killer”. He knew how much people hate emails, especially for workplace communication, so he decided to leverage that and position Slack as a more efficient, easier, and fun alternative.

This marketing hook proved to be a great success, and many media outlets and publications wrote articles about how Stewart Butterfield was going to “kill company emails with Slack” and “replace emails at the office”.

This led to further exposure and more companies signing up to use the platform. But Slack doesn’t just focus on its software, the company have also launched a popular podcast, and uses its Facebook page and other social media channels to promote that.

They also created a brilliant TV ad which showed an office full of animated animals using the Slack platform to collaborate on a project to create a flying umbrella. The ad was different and unique, and it was able to effectively demonstrate the potential use value of Slack to teams and companies worldwide.

View the “Slack teams do amazing things” ad. The website URL displayed on the ad was displayed as “slack.com/animals” – and this generated a lot of curiosity among viewers who clicked through to find out where this link would take them.

Another big part of their overall digital strategy is their dedication to customer support. Slack has a support team of 18 people with 6 members of staff dedicated to Twitter alone, ensuring that they are offering support 24/7.

Takeaways:

• Never forget the importance of good ol’ word-of-mouth marketing
• Get your product into the hands of people of influence within your market
• Ask for positive reviews and testimonials
• Use a bit of creative marketing, coupled with curiosity to drive traffic to your website
• Having a great marketing hook can really make you stand out from the crowd

3. American Express (AmEx) – Creating an online community

American Express is a well known brand across the world, but that doesn’t mean they rest on their laurels! They are constantly trying to improve the way they communicate and interact with their customers.

They are fully invested in providing value to their customers and prospects. They understand that giving value upfront translates into trust, with translates into greater customer retention rates and an increase in customer acquisition.

AmEx understands their audience and one way they are able to provide value to their target market is via their “OpenForum” website, which was originally created with the goal of “helping small businesses succeed.”

AmEx invites industry experts and professionals from the business and finance sectors to create and share content that their audience finds useful. This has proven to be a huge success and has helped to create and foster an online community of AmEx users and prospective users. The content attracts a lot of traffic from the search engines due to SEO, and because the content is created for their target audience, it acts as a great way to attract new customers and get them into their sales funnel.

The forum has calls-to-action requesting visitors to “click here to apply for your AmEx card”, and also has useful features such as financial calculators and other features their target audience and existing customers find useful.

Takeaways:

• By leveraging the expertise of others, American Express has shown that it is possible to create value for your market without having to only rely on internal resources, or do all the work yourself.
• Create content that your target market finds useful and you’ll be able to keep attracting new customers in to your sales funnel
• Creating great content allows you to create and grow an online community of customers, prospects and brand advocates, which will have huge benefits on your customer acquisition and retention rates.

Summary

If you are stuck for marketing inspiration take a look at what other companies are doing. Try not to limit your research only to those companies in your niche or market – you will often find great examples and ideas from other industries and sectors not related to yours.

Don’t be afraid to try new things and break the mould. This can help to establish yourself and penetrate a saturated or mature market. Don’t forget about offline marketing channels. If your budget permits then investing in offline marketing channels can do wonders for you.

Television, print, and word-of-mouth are still just as valuable today as they’ve always been. The approach may be slightly different, so you will need to develop a good understanding of your target audience to know what they will respond well to.

Provide value up-front to your customers and target market. Like AmEx, this can help you to create a community of like-minded people and leads who you can nurture and usher into your sales funnel.

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Even before language was created, human beings have been telling stories. Ancient caves and tombs are full of engraved cave drawings, hieroglyphics, and symbols that communicate stories and tales from the past.

Human beings are fundamentally social creatures. We love to be around other people, and we love to communicate and share ideas. Long before radio, television, the internet, or even the printing press was invented, stories were the way in which we shared ideas, passed on valuable lessons, and entertained each other.

Stories are not just found within the pages of a book, they are literally everywhere. Our favourite TV shows, films, and plays are all stories communicated via different mediums. Adverts and commercials tell the stories of brands and products. Even our news channels are dedicated to storytelling and broadcasting non-fiction stories of daily events happening around the globe.

Storytelling is a fundamental part of human society and the way we communicate, and this is what makes story-based selling so effective.

What is story-based selling?

Story-based selling is where you use stories to promote a product or service. There are various ways in which you can do this, but they all involve telling a story or narrative that includes your product or service as the hero or the catalyst for change.

Selling is a psychological process at heart. It involves influencing people and gaining their trust. People buy from people they like and trust, and they like and trust people they can connect with.

Storytelling is one of the best ways to build a connection with people and trigger their emotions.

Most people put up a mental defense barrier whenever they feel they are being sold to. There are many reasons for this including experiences of buyer’s remorse and other deep-rooted negative ideas and beliefs we have about salespeople.

Think about the last time someone stopped you on the street to canvass you for something. Normally when this happens, we are immediately aware that this individual is trying to get us to buy something or sell us something we don’t need or want. We hate these “confrontations” and try to get away from the salesperson as quickly as possible, often feeling a sense of relief when we escape their clutches.

Over time we have developed an almost automatic response whenever we feel someone is giving us a sale pitch or attempting to pitch something to us. This is where story-based selling proves to be effective. By dressing up your sales pitch within a story you are often able to bypass the defensive barrier of your audience.

A story makes people more receptive to listening and allows you to communicate your message in a non-threatening way.

Stories enable us to tap into the power of emotions. We know that people buy on emotion and justify with logic. Tapping the emotional buttons of your prospect is the key to selling to them, and nothing elicits emotion better than a well-crafted story.

Stories are the best way to captivate, engage, persuade, and motivate leads, prospects, and customers into taking action on your offers. If you can tell the right story to the right people at the right time, and tie in the right offer, you will make more sales more frequently.

More and more brands now use the power of storytelling to position and market their products more effectively. Storytelling is also a chief component of the popular Hook, Story, Offer framework used in marketing.

Story selling templates you can use

Here is a list of some of the main story templates you can use when marketing and selling your product.

The “Origin” Story

This is the story of your beginnings – of how you came to be the person you are today, or how you started your business, lost weight, etc. You start by talking about the hardships, challenges, failures, and setbacks you experienced at the start of your journey.

You detail how the product helped you to get back on track and finally make that breakthrough to give you the desired results you so eagerly wanted,  and allowed you to become the person you are today, living the life you are currently enjoying.

Origin stories can be used on “about pages”, whenever you give talks or presentations as an authority in your field, or as part of your early email autoresponder sequence. They enable your customers to resonate with you, your starting point, and the end goal (which they also desire for themselves). They want the result you achieved, and having learned about your humble beginnings and the challenges you faced before finally getting the breakthrough, establish a deep connection with your target audience as they are also on the same journey and want to hear from someone who has successfully made it the destination they too want to reach.

Example:

Perhaps you are a business consultant that helps people start their own home-based online business. You can tell your story about how miserable you were in your corporate career, and how working a 9-5  job prevented you from spending time with your family and doing the things you truly love.

You can then describe how you decided to start a business to change your situation, and you detail all the shortcomings, failures, and setbacks you experienced in your quest to become an entrepreneur. You then describe the “aha moment” where you discovered the key to success or the missing part of the jigsaw, and how implementing that changed everything and led you on the path of success and gave you the lifestyle which you are now enjoying.

Your customers will be able to relate to your story and when they hear it they will mentally be going on your journey with you, re-living all the highs and lows until the happy ending where success is achieved.

Some people try to leave out all the negative and sad parts of their stories, but these are the moments and parts of life that your customer will connect with on an emotional level. Don’t try to make your story all happy and perfect because that’s just not how reality is, and your customers know this.

If you have experienced the pains of life whilst in the pursuit of your dreams (which we all do) then talk about those moments. Share the lessons you learned from them and how they made you better and stronger and more motivated to reach your goal.

If you do so your story will be emotional, motivational and will endear you to more customers.

The “Amazing Transformation” Story

These stories help to sell products based on the amazing results they give and the ways in which they can transform your life for the better. These transformation stories make customers feel that they too can get the same incredible results and transform their lives in the same way.

When you detail your starting point (where/how you were before using the product) and the incredible transformation you achieved (as a result of using the product), you inspire hope and confidence among your customers.

They may also consider their current position to be useless and may not be able to see a solution to their problems. Hearing your story of transformation gives them hope that they too can achieve the same transformations and positive results in their lives, even though they too may be starting from a position of hopelessness as you did.

These stories dramatise the benefit of your offer whilst demonstrating the validity of your product’s claims and big promise.

These stories normally follow the following formats:

• I was……….. , now I’m …………….
• I tried everything on the market, but nothing worked
• That’s when I discovered the amazing secret/product/solution

Example:

• I was severely overweight and out of shape, now I’m a size 9 and in the best physical shape of my life.
• I tried every diet and exercise routine you can think of, but nothing worked.
• That’s when I discovered the product – “Dr. Diet’s Ultimate Guide to Losing Weight and Feeling Great”.

These incredible transformation stories are effective at turning cold leads and traffic into customers and work well in problem-solution advertising. This story shows that you understand the frustrations many of your potential customers may be feeling from not having found a solution to their problem yet.

They will be able to relate to the experience of having tried multiple solutions that have all ended in failure. The story then leads them to joy and hope when you demonstrate that your product or service is the solution that they have been looking for and will give them the results or outcome they want.

The Case Study Story

These stories detail the experiences of one of your clients and the success they have achieved as a result of using your product.

Case study stories utilise the principle of Social proof, which is a powerful principle of influence and persuasion.

You can read more about it in our article on the principles of persuasion, and also by reading Robert Cialdini’s excellent book: “Influence! The Psychology of Persuasion.”

In your case study story, you want to introduce your prospects to your client and demonstrate that they are just like him/her. They have to relate to the hero of the story and their predicament. You then detail how your client’s life and situation were before they started using your product, which should mirror how your prospects are feeling and living right now.

Then you take them through your client’s discovery of your product and how they started to use it. You then describe the immediate impact the product had on them and their problem and the results they were able to achieve. You then detail the long-term impact and positive benefits using the product has had on their lives since.

Subway used the case study story to perfection when they told the story of Jared, the guy who lost a ton of weight and improved his lifestyle as a result of eating a diet consisting only of Subway sandwiches.

Case study stories are great because they provide real-life examples of clients who have used your product to get the results they desired. There is nothing more powerful than Social Proof to persuade and convince prospects about the validity of your product claims. Case study stories can be long or short. Having client testimonials on your website is a great way to use them. The more testimonials you can collect, the more stories you can share.

Summary

Stories are a powerfully effective way to share your message, attract more customers and ultimately make more sales. With the right story, you can inspire people, educate them, and touch them emotionally, all whilst planting the seed of your product or offer as a viable solution to their problem.

If you have an interesting story then it is your responsibility to share it with your target audience. If you have a client that has experienced tremendous success with your product or service then make sure you tell their story and shout it from the rooftops! People don’t usually remember drab sales pitches, but they do remember a good story.

Story-based marketing and selling are here to stay, and the way in which we can tell these stories and engage with our customers is constantly evolving, with new social media apps and platforms making the process easier and more accessible for everyone.

Your customers will like and trust you more if you inspire them with a story first before gently and naturally leading them to a sale or offer. Tell the story of your product or brand using of one the templates above and you’ll start to attract more customers and make more sales.

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