AMY PORTERFIELD: Hey there, Amy Porterfield here. Welcome to another episode of The Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I hope you’re having a wonderful day and thanks, so much, for tuning in.
Today’s style of show is just a little bit different. Today I’m doing a Q&A. I went on my Facebook Page a week or so ago and asked what questions you have about Facebook marketing or online marketing in general about growing your business, where you are stuck, where you have questions, and what you want to know.
You might not be surprised to hear that about 99.9% of the people asked questions about Facebook. Something really interesting happened and I decided to jump on the opportunity to start reframing how you are looking at Facebook. The questions that were asked are questions that are going to send you down a rabbit hole when it comes to getting Facebook results.
I will tell you a little bit more about what I mean about that when I get to the questions. But the questions made me realize you are looking at Facebook in a way that is not going to serve you. I feel it is my mission to help you get major results with Facebook marketing and online marketing so we are going to address that.
Before we get into anything else I want to tell you I am right in the middle of a series of free master classes. Depending on when you listen to this, you might be able to still jump on one. If you go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/system you will see that you can sign up for one of my live webinars where I am going to teach you how to create a seven-step social media sales funnel.
It includes Facebook, for sure, but it’s not just dependent on Facebook. I have to tell you, I’ve been getting the most amazing response from this master class. We’ve had over 10,000 people sign up. They are loving it. The feedback has been amazing and I feel like I’ve found my groove in terms of how to explain to my audience what it takes to put together a system in your business that will generate consistent revenue.
For so long I only taught about Facebook marketing. I knew that I wanted to go beyond just Facebook. But I also knew that Facebook was the most powerful platform out there. So I needed to find a way to teach Facebook marketing but also teach a more holistic approach in terms of how you use it. That’s what that master class is all about.
When I jumped on Facebook and asked what you want to know about and read your questions I realized not only is there a huge need for you to really understand the power of a social media sales funnel, it’s my job to refrain how you are looking at Facebook. So let’s do that right now. Again, it’s http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/ system. We are literally in the last few days to get on my live free webinar so you can see every single step I take to build my own social media sales funnel that is generating between $1,000 and $2,000 every single day.
It’s working really well and, you know me, I love to take you behind the scenes and show you how I do things. That’s what the master class is all about so I would love for you to join me.
The first question is from Larissa: “How do I increase my Facebook followers? It seems I’ve hit a plateau. Also, I don’t want to spend copious amounts of money with Facebook ads. I feel they keep changing the algorithm just to line their pockets by making you pay for advertising through them and no one will see your post.”
Larissa, you definitely have a pretty negative view in terms of how Facebook and Facebook ads are working for businesses. That’s okay. I get it. If you are using Facebook and it changes on you all the time and gets confusing and you aren’t seeing results with Facebook ads, of course you feel they are lining their pockets and changing things on you all the time. This is where we need to do a reframe.
When you look at Facebook advertising I want you to see it as a way to generate revenue for you so that you can take a little bit of that revenue and put it back in your ads then take the rest of the revenue and use it as profits.
Of course I would never want you to use Facebook ads if you’re not generating revenue with it. So, if you feel this way about Facebook ads then they likely haven’t been working for you. That’s where I want to talk about this holistic approach to Facebook marketing.
I believe every single business should have a social media sales funnel. A social media sales funnel is just a way to turn your fans and followers into subscribers on your email list and then turn those subscribers into paying clients.
That’s the seven steps I teach in the webinar. But the thing is, I want you to look at it as a bigger approach. Facebook ads cannot live on their own and Facebook marketing cannot solely work on its own as well. You need to put it inside a sales funnel.
Really briefly, for a sales funnel, you create a free, valuable giveaway like a cheat sheet or check list or some kind of blueprint or short report that gives immense value to your audience. Notice everything I just mentioned is very simple. I don’t think you should create a webinar as the first giveaway you have ever created. I don’t think you should do a five-part video series. A cheat sheet or check list, some kind of PDF that’s really valuable, will do the trick.
Once you do that you will build an opt-in page. You will send traffic to an opt-in page where people can give you their name and email. You all know that I love Lead Pages. I think it is the best tool out there. If you go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/ newleads I just recorded a new webinar all about how to use lead pages to build your opt-in pages and your sales pages and every page on the web that you need to actually use for your marketing. Lead Pages is that tool. You can check it out at http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/newleads.
Once you build your opt-in page then you are actually going to build your targeting for your Facebook ads. We have our lead magnet, we’ve got our opt-in page, now we need to make sure we are targeting the right people. For those just starting out, I believe that you should only target other Facebook Pages.
Try to look for the pages that have a lot of fans and a lot of engagement. Those pages are the ones that are easily targetable. You want to think about whom you should target and the way you decide on that is by asking who has your audience right now. Who has a following that is perfect for what you are selling? Who does your audience look to as mentors (or companies they really respect)? Who are those people? Those are the people you want to target.
Once you get really clear on the targeting the next step is to create a Facebook ad. But it doesn’t stop there. It doesn’t mean you get a lead magnet and an opt-in page then figure out who you are going to target and run an ad in hopes that the ads will work for you.
Larissa, your question really made me want to address this because once you run your Facebook ad you are going to start growing your email list. You are running traffic to your opt-in page with your Facebook ad. The next step that is so often overshadowed is to create an email autoresponder series.
What does that look like? The first email you send when someone joins your email list is a thank you for signing up for a cheat sheet and you send them what you promised to give them.
The very next day, I want you to send another email. I want you to ask if they checked out their free giveaway. You can tell them “It’s really valuable. On Page 2 you’ll learn XYZ” to kind of tease them to get them to want to download the giveaway. Your cheat sheet is really valuable in terms of building relationships so you want them to download it. You want them to apply it. You want them to get a quick win from it. It’s important that they engage with your free giveaway.
Once you remind them to get it, now it’s time to start building relationship, adding value, and promoting. So, tell people how they can do business with you, what they can do to take the next step to dive deeper into whatever topic you teach or sell or whatever it is that your program is about. But the thing is, you can’t just sell one time. That’s why it’s called an autoresponder series.
You will now send out a series of emails, maybe over the next two weeks, where you are telling stories and offering value and giving tips and strategies. You are also telling people what you have for sale. It should only be one thing in each email. You will continue to talk about that one program, product, or service that you have. But you are introducing it in new ways. You are talking about the benefits and what’s in it for them, the results they can see, the students who have already gone through your program. These are the things you are talking about in these emails.
But you need at least three or four of these emails in your sequence. One email is not going to do it for you. I’ve learned over the last few years the money is not necessarily in the list. You’ve heard that before, right (The money is in the list, grow your email list so you can make a lot of money)?
The profits are really inside the core messaging in those emails. If you get that core messaging right, if you know your audience, you know what they need, you know what they want, and you really speak to them in a way that says you get it, you know their frustrations, you know where their challenges are, here’s the solution. Use the words they use and the phrases they use and also really connect with them emotionally through those emails. That is what is going to move the needle in terms of getting more profits and more sales for your business.
A big step in the social media sales funnel is building out your emails.
The final step, once you have your lead magnet and your opt-in page and you get clear on the other Facebook Pages you’re going to target and you create your ad to market your lead magnet and create the emails so that when people join your list you are actually starting to communicate with them regularly, the final step is to create a sales page so when people actually read your email and decide it sounds good and they want it or at least want to know more they will click a link in your email and go to your sales page.
That sales page is really important. It needs to speak to them in every which way possible in terms of letting them know you get them and understand what they need. Give all the details, the features of the program/product/service, the benefits, and how to sign up.
That kind of seems like a lot, right? But I wanted to address this because all of the questions I got asked on my Facebook Page included things like how to get more Facebook fans or, like Larissa, you don’t want to spend more money with Facebook because you feel they want to line their buckets.
I know story after story, success story after success story, of people that use Facebook ads and are making more money every day than they are putting in. I can promise you I would never ever teach a strategy where I thought the company was just lining their pockets with money and they were screwing all of us. That is not what’s happening.
But, Larissa, when you look at Facebook ads as a place to get more Facebook fans and you don’t put it inside a social media sales funnel that’s when you start to see challenges. That’s when you start to hate Facebook, quite honestly. So I can totally sympathize with your frustration there. I want you to start looking at the holistic approach. I want you to have a social media sales funnel to make it really work for your business.
Moving onto another question similar, but I want to do another take on it. This question is from Toni. Toni asks, “We have a children’s clothing website. We have 4,000 odd likes but only 700 people have signed up for our newsletter. What is the best way to get Facebook “likes” to sign up?”
I won’t go through all seven steps again. But, Tony you are not alone. I again want to point out that a lot of people are focused on how many likes they have and they are concerned saying their fans aren’t seeing their posts or when they post on their Facebook Page they get only two or three likes. There’s no doubt that free, organic reach is down on Facebook.
You could post on your Facebook Page and I can guarantee you only a tiny portion of your fans are going to see those posts. When I tell you that a lot of people will say that Facebook is a joke and that they aren’t going to use it. You might ask why you should ever have to pay to get your fans to see your posts.
You have a valid concern. You have a valid argument. It really kinds of sucks, to be quite honest. To say, “I worked hard to get all of these Facebook fans and now they aren’t even seeing my posts.”
You could be frustrated and you could jump ship and say that Facebook doesn’t work anymore. Or, you could start to look at Facebook differently. So, to answer your question, Toni, the best way to get Facebook fans to sign up is to make sure what they are signing up for is valuable.
A newsletter is usually not something that people are most interested in, especially today with so much competition out there to get your name and email. If you have a newsletter you have been running for a few years that has been working really well and you know you get a great response that is awesome. Keep doing what’s working.
But, if you are just starting out or if you are struggling to get people to sign up for your free giveaway and it’s a newsletter, let’s change that up. I don’t think a newsletter is a great way to entice a colder audience. These people on Facebook might not really know you intimately or trust you and maybe they don’t want to receive something from you every single week just yet. They don’t know if they like you that much. So let’s give them that quick win.
Toni, I want you to start to think of a different type of lead magnet that you can create. It says you have a children’s clothing website. So maybe you give them a discount or free shipping. It is something to get them to want to buy quicker. Usually with a physical product you should give a lead magnet that makes them want to buy and helps them make that decision to buy quicker.
If you are like me and you are in the info marketing business (you have a product that is information) then we want to give them something of great value they can apply to get quick results; that quick win.
You might have seen a free giveaway that I recently created called The Product Maximizer. The Product Maximizer was a free report that I created with four different ways to make more sales online. I created that for two reasons, 1) I did a survey and knew the number one thing my audience needed was more sales so I knew it was going to be valuable; and 2) It’s fully aligned with what I teach, the social media sales funnel is how to make more sales online.
The two were totally aligned. I tell you this because you need to make sure that what you give away is something that’s going to be truly valuable to your audience. Then you don’t have to work that hard to get them to want to sign up.
For you, Toni, I want to encourage you to do two things, create a new valuable giveaway (a quick win) and use that quick win across all social media sites. Pin it on Pintrest. Create an image for it on Instagram. Put it on your Facebook Page. Use it on Twitter. You can use your lead magnets for free organic traffic across all social media sites.
Then, Toni, I would love to see you experiment with Facebook ads. Create one ad where you put $10 a day toward it for three to four days (if that’s okay with your budget) and see what happens. Target those 4,000 Facebook fans. Let’s get them to see the ad and join your email list.
That is going to be the best way for you to actually move your fans to become leads. Where I think Facebook is the most valuable is to turn fans into email subscribers. Once I have you on my list I can build a genuine relationship with you. There’s a lot more competition on Facebook and it’s really hard to do that. Your job, Toni, is to give them something of great value.
If that means using Facebook ads to get them on your list and then convert them into buying children’s clothing then that’s worth it to you. You already have something to sell. I would think Facebook advertising would actually generate revenue for you. But notice, I’m not just saying to run ads to your sales page.
Rarely will you ever see me run a Facebook ad to my sales page. I would never do that except if you just visited my sales page. I have a program running right now, The Profit Lab. Let’s say you went to my sales page for The Profit Lab and you didn’t buy yet. You might see a retargeting ad where I remind you The Profit Lab is open and you can go check it out. That’s the only time you would ever see an ad for me that goes directly to a sales page.
Before that I only give you free, valuable content in my ads. So it’s part of a bigger sales funnel. That means, Toni, you want to build out those emails and you want to build that relationship with them and you want to make sure wherever you’re sending your email traffic it’s customized in a way that’s going to get people to want to buy.
Again, we’re looking at this as a more holistic approach. Obviously this podcast episode has a theme to it. That is to look at Facebook differently. Don’t use Facebook on its own. Find a way to create your own social media sales funnel so you can bring Facebook into it.
I want to repeat something one more time. I would never, ever encourage you to use Facebook ads if they are costing you more money than they are making you. That’s why I want to put Facebook into a sales funnel so when people sign up for your email list, your lead magnet, we will now be using email marketing to sell them into a product/program/service.
I want you to make money with the sales funnel. I don’t want you to spend a bunch of money on ads and not make any money in return, of course.
Here’s another great question from Kate: “I’m gradually realizing that organic reach has been pitiful in my recent posts. I have 1,700 fans and an average reach of 25 people per post.” I totally get it, Kate. “I boosted a post for the first time yesterday. I got more likes and engagement and it was seen by 2,500 people which is really good compared to the 25. Is this the way forward? Is there any point in actually not boosting a post anymore and relying on people seeing it organically? Thanks in advance and looking forward to your next broadcast.”
Here’s the deal, Kate. I’m so glad you asked this question because I want to reframe you a bit. You are saying that you post on your Facebook Page and hardly anybody sees it so you try to boost the post.
For those of you who don’t know, boosting a post means you are spending a little money to get more people (usually your fans) to see the post. I don’t think that is the best use of your money. If you are going to spend money, instead of spending money on a post you should spend money on an ad that gets people to sign up for your lead magnet. I would rather you engage with them inside of email marketing versus worrying about how many people are seeing your posts on Facebook.
If you are already going to spend the money, if you are open to spending a little bit of money with boosted posts then let’s reframe the way you are looking at things and use that money inside a social media sales funnel where everything is working with each other in order to turn fans into paying clients.
I really don’t think it’s a good use of your money to boost posts. If you are boosting a post that is actually sending people to an opt-in page that’s a little bit different. But let me tell you why I still wouldn’t boost a post if you want to get a little bit more sophisticated with you Facebook marketing.
Boosted posts are limited in terms of who you are targeting and how many people you can reach. If you put your ad inside an ad campaign, whether you use the Facebook Ads Creator tool or if you use the Power Editor, there are a few more bells and whistles that actually matter.
You can target smarter. You can set up your ad in a way that it will convert better. I wouldn’t use boosted posts on a regular basis even if you’re driving traffic to an opt-in page. I would put it inside the Facebook Ads Creator tool or the Power Editor and do it the right way. It’s just one extra step that is actually worth it.
Again, Kate, don’t worry so much about that organic reach. You’re right, it’s terrible. But remember, I’m able to create a social media sales funnel that grows my list by hundreds every single day turning Facebook fans and even cold traffic on Facebook into subscribers on my email list and then everyday I am able to generate $1,000 to $2,000 from my existing list. That means when I go to bed at night I know my business is working for me.
I’m not cheesy enough to say you can make money while you sleep. I hate when people talk about that because it makes it sound so easy. Simple and easy are not necessarily the same thing.
I’m teaching people how to create a simple social media sales funnel so that you’re consistently generating revenue. Sure, it might happen when you sleep. That’s a great perk. But here’s the more important thing to think about: When you’re able to generate revenue in your business on a consistent basis that opens the doors in other areas of your business.
That means you’re not hustling to find your next customer. Instead you can actually go and focus on the areas of your business where you know you do the best work. Instead of worrying about where the next dollar is coming from you get to finally finish that product that you’ve been working on forever.
Or, you can start a new project that you’ve been dying to create. Or, you can take a little time away from the computer and go spend it with your family. We all talk about freedom when we are talking about building our business. But there is no freedom when you’re not generating revenue. It almost feels like you are imprisoned.
I know this. I talk about this in the webinar master class I have coming up in just a day or so if you are listening to this when it goes live. In the webinar I talk about how my first year of business was really, really messy and I felt very imprisoned. There was no freedom to be had. I wanted to talk about that so I addressed Kate’s question about boosting a post. I think a better solution would be to put that inside a social media sales funnel.
But one of the first questions I got was from Tara: “I would love to see a visual of how your business blossomed. There are so many things we would like to do in our business but how did you prioritize the tasks over the years. And, most of all, what makes sense to do what, when?”
I wanted to address this one. If you’ve been following me for a while you might have heard my story of what the business looked like in the beginning. But I want to reiterate that here because it perfectly ties in to creating a system in your business, which is what we’re talking about today.
Back in 2010 I had quit my corporate job. At that time I had decided I was going to take some social media consulting clients because I wanted to quit my corporate job and create online training programs. But I didn’t have a program I was going to sell yet and I needed to make money.
Again, I’ll fast forward because most of you have heard this story. But, I started taking clients. I did that all through 2010 and I did that all through 2011. By the end of 2011 I looked at my business and thought, “Freedom is a joke!” There’s no freedom whatsoever.
I had eight bosses because I was a consultant to eight companies. They were telling me what they wanted, when they wanted it, and how it was going to get done. It was just crazy. I was a “yes” machine. I was saying yes to anything that came my way because I needed to make money. And, I was not at all doing what I wanted to do in my business…create online training programs.
Around that time I actually realized I hated my business. It was not fun whatsoever. Quite honestly, working 60, 70, 80 hours a week at Tony Robbins looked way better at this point than what I had created.
I could have jumped ship and decided to go back to corporate because it was safer and at least I got some mandatory vacations in there. Instead, I realized I needed to change my business.
In early 2012 I finally started to put a system together in my business. I got my lead magnet together and my opt-in page and I created my online training program. I had created a little stuff that had completely bombed because I had no system. I had no list to market to. So my first attempts at online training programs were kind of a joke.
I tried to do it in 2010 and 2011 when I had clients. But anyone who has clients knows that it is almost impossible to try to get everything done in terms of creating a program or product when you are also servicing a bunch of clients as well. It’s very difficult.
I tried to do it and it miserably failed. But in 2012 I finally got a system together. I had an online training program to sell (that was always my goal) and I had a lead magnet and an opt-in page and I fell in love with Facebook ads. In 2012 was when I finally realized how to make Facebook ads work and everything changed.
I got rid of all of my clients. The only way I make money today is with online training programs and I don’t even have that many. I have two. One is a Facebook 101 program that is $97. The other is The Profit Lab and I only launch twice a year. It’s live right now but as of May 26 the doors will close and you do not get to sign up for The Profit Lab until the end of 2015.
I have two online training programs that fuel my business. They fuel my business because first I grow a list with a lead magnet. It’s all part of the social media sales funnel. It’s truly how I run my business.
So Tara, I’m really glad you asked how my business has blossomed. It has blossomed through a system. I don’t have a lot of stuff going on. There are not a lot of bells and whistles to my business. I do affiliate marketing for a few partners that I really love, B- School is one of them.
You guys probably heard me talk about B-School in February. Lead Pages, to me is the most valuable tool you can have in your business right now so I am always talking about Lead Pages. And those are usually the two big ones for me. Then, I have my two products. So, I may have a few things on the edge of my business but that’s it.
I tell you all of this because you don’t need a lot of stuff going on in your business to succeed. If I added many more things to my business or if I added a bigger team I wouldn’t personally love what I do. I like to keep things simple. I like to have the flexibility to do less but actually create more and make a bigger impact with my audience.
I like to be able to spend a lot of time on The Profit Lab to create it and then support it when people join the program. That’s what my business has looked like. And I appreciate those of you who have heard it before listening again. But Tara asked a great question about where you focus, when you focus on those things, and how it all comes together.
Get a social media sales funnel together so that you have consistent revenue. Just focus on that. Get your lead magnet, your opt-in page. Get your Facebook ads running. Write those emails. Create a simple sales page and once revenue is coming in for you then you can start to add on the bigger projects you want in your business. But I don’t want you to worry about where the next dollar is coming from as you try to be creative and as you try to feel inspired about what you are doing in your business.
Worrying about sales, worrying about how you are going to make sales or the fact that you’re not making sales could really squash your inspiration. It can really take a toll on your creativity and your confidence.
I think that’s why I’m so passionate about talking about getting a system together in your business so that you actually don’t have to worry about it when you lay your head on the pillow at night. Instead you can be excited about the projects you’re working on.
I know this show was a little different than my others. I promise to get back to the regularly planned shows; they are coming back next week. I’ll get back into how I usually do my shows. But this time I just wanted to spend some time on reframing how you look at Facebook.
I’ll say it again, Facebook is the most powerful social media platform out there. I use it every single day. But I don’t use it on its own. I don’t worry about how many fans I have. Yeah, that’s easy for me to say because I have over 100,000 fans. But I’ve never really worried about how many fans I have and I don’t worry about engagement.
Of course I want engagement on my Facebook Page. And of course I post regularly and I want people to see my posts. But I can’t control that. What I can control is my social media sales funnel. I can put a lot of great energy into that lead magnet and that opt-in page and those emails and I can get to know my audience more so I write emails that really resonate.
That’s the stuff I can control. That’s where I’m going to focus my time. And that’s what I want for you as well. I want you to see consistent sales. If you think about it, if you had a plan in place, imagine all of the other things that you could focus on.
Let’s do that real quickly before we wrap up.
If you had a social media sales funnel (a system) running in your business in the background (it can be on autopilot) and it is making $5,000 a month for you ($166/ day – if you have a $100 product it is about 1 ½ products a day) and you were able to sell 1 ½ products a day via your sales funnel you are making an extra $5,000 a month.
What does that free you up to create or work on or dive into or step out of? What do you get to say no to instead of yes to if that is where you are at right now? What does that mean for your business?
I think it opens some amazing possibilities and I would love for that to happen inside of your business as well.
There you have it. Thank you so very much for being with me here today. Thank you to Larissa, Tara, Kate, and Toni for your questions about Facebook. Although I think the questions could send your down a rabbit hole if you just approach Facebook in the way all of you ladies have been talking about it, you’re not alone. That’s how many people are viewing Facebook. Of course, that’s why they are frustrated with Facebook.
I would jump ship with Facebook if I felt they were lining their pockets and not producing for me. I would jump ship on Facebook if I worried about not having enough fans join my email list or if I posted on Facebook and only got 25 likes or shares. I would be mad at Facebook too. But I figured out a way to pull Facebook into a holistic approach in terms of my marketing and I make Facebook work for me versus me struggle or be frustrated about how Facebook works.
Try it on. See how it might work. Join me in my webinar. Again, you literally only have a few days. It is at http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/system. I would love to see you there.
If you do decide to create a social media sales funnel, please do keep me informed. I love to hear stories like that. You can visit me on my Facebook Page and tell me all about it. I hope you have a wonderful day. Next week we will be talking about how to create a sales page headline that grabs the attention of your perfect audience. Does that sound pretty sexy? I think it does.
We are going to be talking about creating the perfect headline for your sales page so you definitely wow your audience and grab their attention. It’s a really cool little exercise I will put you through so make sure to join me next week as well.
Thanks, again, for being here. Have a wonderful day and I’ll talk to you again soon.
