AMY PORTERFIELD: Hello there! Amy Porterfield here and thank you so much for being here, I'm honored that you've tuned in today. Today is extra special because it is the very first edition of the Ask Amy show that I'm adding to the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast.
Every other week I'm going to be answering your questions all about online marketing, Facebook marketing, Facebook ads, webinars and email marketing. If you've got a question, I likely am going to have an answer for you. All you need to do is go to amyporterfield.com/askamy and leave me a recorded message. Your question just might be the very next one I choose for the show.
Before I play our first Ask Amy question, I wanted to be open with you about something I have been struggling with a bit lately. Here's the deal. It's not really my personality to create controversy or be the kind of person that calls someone out just because I don't agree with their opinion or I have a strong opinion one way versus another. It's just not me, and I'm not really polarising with my opinions or my messages either. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing, I'm just saying that's me. But I don't think my style or my personality, whatever you want to call it, has always served my followers and my customers.
Here's what I mean. Lately I've been on a bit of a crusade, to help those that are looking to build a business online to look at Facebook a bit differently and see some opportunities that they might not have seen before.
What I've noticed is that I've had to get a bit aggressive with my message, which usually isn't my style and it's not really comfortable for me, but I think it's necessary to support those that actually follow my training. I want to do right by you, so I've found that I've needed to get a little bit more aggressive. Here's the deal. I've noticed that I've gotten some pushback lately about the way I've been teaching Facebook marketing. In my Profit Lab, which is a program I'm wrapping up next week, some of my students have really enjoyed the course, they've said great things about it, but then they've also
added – some of them at least – have added that they wished I taught more “Facebook stuff”.
In the Profit Lab, I teach people how to build a system, so you can also call it a marketing plan, but I teach how you can actually use Facebook to attract leads and sales and with that I teach a system. For a while, I couldn't figure out why people weren't totally embracing this and loving this new way that I've been teaching Facebook, because again I was getting some pushback. I realized that people were wanting me to teach how to get more fans or how to get more likes or how to get more comments and shares on a Facebook post. They weren't necessarily wanting me to teach how to create a solid system to get more leads and sales on Facebook.
In my mind I'm thinking “That's crazy, why wouldn't they want me to teach a system versus just smaller ways to get more likes and comments and shares and all that good stuff?” But when I stepped back and I tried to put myself in their shoes, I realized why I was getting the pushback. I know first hand – it wasn't that many years ago when I started to create this business – I know first hand how overwhelming and scary that all can be. So if you're stressed and maybe in a place that everything you're learning seems foreign and you have a tiny budget you're working with and you're learning strategies like creating a lead magnet campaign, running Facebook ads, writing email autoresponders, all of that can seem very daunting when you're just starting out and you have a million other things to do for your business.
On the flipside, creating Facebook posts that will get you more comments might seem a bit more manageable. So I get it. At least I get it now. I understand that some of those strategies might just seem a bit overwhelming and other strategies, the “Facebook stuff” is not so intimidating or stressful, and quite honestly it's probably a lot more fun when you're just starting out. What you can't ignore are the more in- depth strategies that are available to you right now on Facebook. Just like everything in your business, if you don't push yourself out of your comfort zone and you don't test your ability to dive deeper into more strategic opportunities, you might never really see what you're made of and you might never get your business to where you want it to be.
Believe me, when I was building my business from day one, every single day I think I lived in an uncomfortable state. I was doing things that I wasn't necessarily loving, but I knew it was necessary for my business. So I tell you this because building a Facebook community is important, building relationships on Facebook is important, posting regularly, getting engagement with your post, also very crucial.
But that stuff, to be very honest, is the easier stuff. I'll continue to teach it, I think it's important and I work on it every day as well, but where I want to push you a little bit, challenge you a little bit, step outside of my comfort zone with my message and kind of get aggressive with it a little bit, is to encourage you to start to see Facebook differently. Start to look at it as a place that is a pure marketing platform for you. It doesn't mean you can't be genuine and build relationships. You also want to look at it as a place where you can build your business. That's not just going to happen with more likes and more engagement. There's a system behind it. That's what I really want you to get comfortable with. I know it's scary but it's definitely doable.
You might be thinking “Amy, why are you telling us all of this right now and getting so emotional about it?” I just think it's so important for you to hear it a different way and I hope I've sparked some curiosity or some fire in you to want to attack Facebook in a whole different way.
Also, the question I have for today – finally I'm getting to it, I'll get better at getting to it a little quicker next time – but my first question for Ask Amy allows me to expand on this crusade that I've been on, but give you more specifics.
So first, listen to the first question, then I'll dive in.
Question: Hi Amy, my name is Chris Michalowski with realtennisnetwork.com and I just launched my website officially at Easter. I took your advice, I put a Facebook sweepstakes on the right side bar, and the resort I work at allowed me to give out a fantastic package, they're really helping me out and it's going really well. In the first month, I've got about 130-something likes and I just love to see that, but I want to keep the momentum going. I want to know what the next step for me might be, whether it's Facebook ads or whatever you think would be the most efficient thing for me. Any help you can give me will be very appreciated. Thank you for all of your direction in this past year and a half. I enjoy your podcast, I listen to every one. I really appreciate the work you do for all of us.
Amy: I love that Chris took action and created his sweepstakes. If you want to see what he's created, you can go to my show notes at amyporterfield.com/30 and you can actually see what he's put in his sidebar on his website and what it links to on Facebook. He's done a pretty cool job and it sounds like he's getting some good traction with it as well.
Chris is asking about next steps and I've put some thought into this. I've broken it down into two segments.
- What he can do with his new contest leads.
- What he can do to build on his new Facebook momentum and see bigger results.
First, let's talk about those new contest leads. Any time you get new leads from Facebook, whether they're opting-in to some kind of giveaway or a contest like Chris has done, you always want to make sure you are ready to nurture those leads. Welcome them into your email list and nurture them.
So for you Chris, I encourage you, if you haven't done so already, to make sure that they get an email instantly, thanking them for signing up and maybe giving them a little extra nugget, something specific about what you teach, so something related to tennis of course.
Then I want you to follow up maybe every week or maybe every 5/6 days, whatever you want to do. I just do once a week. Every week, follow-up with another email. Because these are brand new leads and because they opted-in to a contest, I wouldn't sell anything to them just yet, I'd build that relationship, kind of like what you would do on Facebook to build your community. Give them tips and tricks and strategies and tell them stories all related to what your business is all about.
So what might that look like?
After you send them an email to thank them like I mentioned, consider following up with let's say 4 to 6 weeks of just pure value. You might want to create a theme around it and say “For the next three weeks, I'm going to teach you how to do ABC, whatever it might be”, so email number one, you teach him one thing and you say “P.S. look for my email next week where I'm going to teach you how to do – whatever it is”, then you follow up with email two and email three.
Then you might want to switch gears and tell them a great testimonial of someone who's got great success using some of your strategies or your teachings. You don't have to get into promoting yet, you're just letting people know that you've helped some people get some huge successes.
From there, maybe after 4 or 6 weeks of pure value, you start to talk about how people can do business with you. Choose one single opportunity. If you have a few different products or programs, I might just choose one. I always say you might want to start at the beginning of your sales funnel. Like I have a $97 product. That's usually where I start with people that don't really know me or my content yet. You don't have
to do it that way. I have friends that start at a $1000 product. David Siteman Garland is a great example of this. He's a great friend of mine and he just goes for it and has huge success because his programs are excellent. He's one example of someone that doesn't necessarily start at the very ‘beginner, no-brainer price'.
So there's different things you can do, you can promote one-on-one coaching, if you have a service you can promote your service, online programs of course, physical products work here as well. What you want to do is you want to create a series of emails, maybe three or four emails that talk about this opportunity that they can actually work with you or buy one of your programs.
So if I say 3 to 4 emails, I don't mean that every email is ‘sell', ‘sell', ‘sell', but every email in a series that you put together after you've done your value ad series, those promotional emails tell stories, give testimonials, talk about the benefits, talk about the features of your offer. Make sure you make those emails about them and not about you or your offer.
You want to learn to write in a way that tells stories and weaves people into the different content that you're sharing with them. This is an art and a skill and it's one that I have to work on really, really hard.
I want to tell you two of my favorites, Ray Edwards and John Carlton, two people that are really good at this copy stuff. I'm sure they wouldn't want me to explain them like that. They really teach you how to write great copy that converts, that gets your audience to take action. If you're ever thinking “Where do I need to sharpen my skills?” Definitely copy writing is one of those areas and it will help you immensely as you write your Facebook ads, your email copy, your sales page copy. Even if you plan to hire someone to do it for you, knowing what to look for and knowing what elements that are important in that type of skill, that is something really good to know. It's something that I'm always trying to get good at. Copyblogger.com, the free website, another great resource.
Anyway, getting back to this, what you want to do Chris is you want to create email autoresponders and nurture those new leads that you're getting and then eventually, once you've really put the effort in to build the value, let them know how they can do business with you, but make it a no-brainer decision, meaning offer them one thing. You might have five different things that you could offer, choose one. After three or four emails, if they don't buy, put them back into a value ad series, where every week you're sending one email that is giving immense value and letting people learn more about you and who you are, what you're all about and what you have to offer, as well
as what you can teach them. So the value comes from the lessons and the stories that you tell. When you're ready to promote again, you can start that three or four email series.
This is just one way to do it. I just wanted to introduce you to the idea of nurturing those leads and actually taking the opportunity to introduce them to how they can do business with you.
Let's talk about what Chris can do to see even bigger results and continue the momentum he's getting now that he's done a sweepstake. As you know, I am a big fan of Facebook ads, but I'm not a big fan of Facebook ads until you have your lead magnet.
A lead magnet, also known as a free giveaway is something that you can promote with your ad. I'm not a huge fan of going straight to a sales page. If you feel that it might work for you, by all means experiment with that. The way I teach is to use a Facebook ad to drive to a free webinar or a 25% off discount, where people give you their name and email in exchange for a discount code that you have for them, or a free e-book or a cheat sheet or free video series, whatever it might be for you. The goal here is to attract leads and grow your email list with quality subscribers through your Facebook ads.
That is truly and I mean this passionately – it's a little weird how passionate I am about this – but that is how you grow your email list and that's how you turn your efforts into profits, you use Facebook ads with a quality giveaway and then when you get those leads, what do you do? You nurture those leads with value ad emails and you eventually tell people how they can do business with you. So the goal for you on Facebook Chris, is actually twofold.
- First, build up your authority by creating a community on your Facebook page, and you do that by posting regularly and engaging with your fans. Even if you're not getting a lot of engagement because organic reach is down on Facebook, it's hard to get engagement. That doesn't mean I want you to stop. There are people listening and even if it's 50 people, there are 50 people that are genuinely interested in what you have to say, give them what they deserve. So every day engage on your Facebook page, post a few times a day, answer questions, be that go-to source, build your authority.
- But at the same time and the second goal for you Chris, is that you want to build up your email list with new leads. This is where you have that lucrative
opportunity, because when you turn leads into customers, that means more revenue for you of course. Create a lead magnet – which I saw on your website, you have one, so that might be the way to go, you can use something like that – but create a Facebook ad and lead people to a lead capture page.
Here's the deal, email is more intimate than Facebook when you know how to email right, when you really understand a subject line and how to get people to open up your emails, when you really know how to craft an email that will get people to take action. You're never going to know how to do that until you just dive in and experiment with it.
I started emailing my list way before I knew any of the tips and tricks that I know now, but I had to do it in order to kind of push myself to learn more. So I encourage you Chris, to continue to build your community and start running Facebook ads to a free giveaway. That free giveaway that you promote in your ad, when people click your ad they link to a lead capture page where you grab their name and email in exchange for whatever it is you promised. Then of course, make sure you're nurturing those new leads and eventually selling to them as well.
It's useless to have a big email list if you don't ever promote what you've got. Just don't do it to you soon, you want to make sure you build that relationship. That's different for everybody. Too soon might be after three emails you're not ready, or for someone else that might be three emails and I know that they're going to be really excited about what I have to offer, I'm going for it. Just experiment.
I'm a big fan of just do it, see what happens, tweak it, make it better. That's how I've seen all of my success, I just kind of dive in. I encourage you just to do it, even though you might not know exactly how to craft the email and do all that good stuff in terms of adding value and promoting, just start emailing your list when you attract those new fans or those new leads, in order to start building relationships outside of Facebook.
We own our email list, we don't own our Facebook page. That could go away at any time, but that email list is yours and that's why it's so powerful.
If you want a little more detail about the system that I've been talking about here, I want you to go to amyporterfield.com/28, because episode 28 of my podcast gets into more step-by-step detail of this plan, so you kind of see how it all comes together a little bit more. So definitely go check out that episode if I've peaked your interest at all with Chris's question.
So Chris, I truly hope you find that valuable. Keep me updated, I would love to know how things go with your Facebook ads, where you send people to a free giveaway. I think you could do some really cool things there.
So there you have it. If you have a question for me, don't hesitate to leave me a recorded message at amyporterfield.com/askamy.
Until we talk again, I hope you have an incredible week. Take care.
