Day 12

Welcome back to day 12 of the 14 days to 100,000 visitors course.

Today we are going to dive into a subject I get asked about all the time.

Boosting and adverts.

Ready? Let's do this.

To Boost Or Not To Boost That Is The Question

If you recall way back earlier in the course we talked about the difference between brand marketing and direct advertising.

Well here is a recap.

Brand marketing is the telling of your business story.

You do this via blogs, SEO, YouTube, Facebook posts and more.

Direct advertising is when you ask someone to do something specific.

You ask them to take an action.

Buy now, sign up today, join now and so on.

This is called a call to action.

When it comes to brand marketing you set a budget and spend it all and when it comes to direct advertising you start small and test.

So where does a boost come in?

A boosted post sits in your brand marketing budget so you spend more money to reach more of your ideal customers.

You are not trying to sell them anything and if they do buy, great but that is not your aim.

You are telling your story.

Now here is the thing, most people moan about Facebook and others because you have to pay to reach more of the audience they have created.

Yet even in the past you have always had to do this.

You had to pay to be in the newspaper, you have had to pay to be on radio and in the Yellow Pages.

Moaning doesn't help things.

So the rule of thumb is this, if you have the budget to boost your work do so. Not because you will sell more (although you might) but because you will be found by more people who are in your target audience.

Should I Pay For Adverts?

The short answer to this is YES...if you want to sell.

But think about this scenario.

You are walking down the street and a man stops you and says "hey would you like to buy this coat?"

It is a nice coat.

It looks warm and you do need a new one.

So you say 'maybe'.

He then asks you to walk down the alley to discuss prices.

What is going through your mind.

'can I trust him?'

'is it safe to follow him?'

'is the coat stolen?'

'will they take my money and run off?'

That is exactly what happens when you advertise online to people that don't know you.

They are unsure about you and as such it is tough to get a sale. 

This is why SEO and brand marketing matters so much, it warms up your potential buyers.

So yes you should spend money on adverts but they will only work if you also do the brand side as well.

What About Google AdWords?

Google Adwords is again a tool you should use if you sell online, the issue is that it is pricey.

You rarely convert on a single click, people come and go, read reviews, look at others, look at the organic listings and so on (you know this because this is what you do too).

So things such as your conversion rate, your landing page copy, your click thru rate all become super important.

Adwords work.

They do, but they are part of your marketing and not all of it. 

Start small with Adwords and test over time.

Once you have a winner then you need to invest more money and spend until it ceases to be a winner for you.

Creating A Social Media Asset

You may have noticed that throughout this course I have talked about building yourself a community/ network online.

I also believe this is the best way to truly build your business online.

However if you are going to use things like boosted posts and ads then you will need a social media page.

But I also recommend that you consider building yourself a social media asset.

So, what is an asset?

It could be a group (like the group I hope you have joined with this course) or a page which has a lot of followers.

Either way it is your asset.

I won't lie, you have to understand that this asset is NOT YOURS.

It belongs to the platform you create it on (which is why gaining emails is still the best route for success).

But as you can see from the screen shot above (yes a 4,000 followers Facebook page I created was reaching over 3 million people for free) it can pay off hugely.

When you have an asset you can decide what you post there and as a result when the time is right you can place the content you want to go viral.

So...how do you create an explosive social media asset?

It all depends on the platform you are using, YouTube is a great platform, as is Instagram and my favourite is Facebook but others do well on LinkedIn and Pinterest.

But your aim is to give people what they love and will share online and that is it.

You are not trying to make money from an asset (well not at first anyway), it is a method of getting content out there to a large audience as quickly as possible.

Here are some examples of great assets:

The Daily Sales

The Daily Sales is a page on LinkedIn that produces funny sales content.

With over 369,000 followers on LinkedIn they are changing the way the platform is used.

Goalcast

Goalcast is a huge Facebook page with over 12 Million followers.

They post daily motivational videos.

On The Tools

On The Tools is another huge Facebook page that has over 2 Million followers.

All that happens is that construction workers post/ share videos of them doing funny stuff.

As you will see, many of these pages/ assets are now fully fledged businesses in their own right. 

But having an asset allows you the ability to get your message in front of a huge amount of people quickly. 

Bonus: How To Get 1 Million Video Views

They are results from client work I have undertaken.

Please note that while I specialise in SEO and copywriting I am a marketer at heart.

If leaflets became the next big thing I would start to use them.

As a result I have had a few clients over the years who wanted viral social media videos and so as a marketer I have undertaken this activity. 

My key to this was understanding how things go viral or what makes the 'Shareaholics' tick.

But to help you I will show you one of my videos that went Viral on Facebook:

This video was for a client that I worked with for a while and have a great relationship with.

World of Martial Arts Television was producing some kick ass content but we needed it to go viral.

So I created a video called 'How Bruce Lee Defeated Racism'.

It took me about 2 or 3 days to come up with the story and framework and make a video with a mix of borrowed footage and of course footage owned by WOMA (please check copyright laws before you do this to ensure you are not breaching any rules).

To achieve a similar result you should always start with a story.

Stories are super powerful.

And all stories have a simple framework,

1. Set Up

2. Conflict

3. Resolution

Let's see it in action:

1. Set Up

We set up the story of this video: Aged 18 Bruce Lee left Hong Kong to live in the USA.

2. Conflict

We then add the conflict into the story.

Here Bruce had to fight for his right to teach non Chinese.

3. Resolution

The final part of this is the resolution.

Here we talk about how Bruce overcame this and what the results of this was.

All of the other slides/ video material just helps to tell each of those 3 components.

Now, I assure you if you focus on creating videos that will grab the interest of the Shareaholics you will go viral if you give it enough of a push.

But like everything in this course it is all about taking this one bit at a time.

That Bruce Lee video didn't go viral straight away.

It went viral after a few shares and 1.8 million video views came as a result of 13 total shares on the Facebook page itself.

The good news is that this approach works for every type of industry.

You can create a viral style video for all types of businesses, it just created a bit of thought. 

And for those of you thinking 'well views don't make sales'.

You are right, but views allow is to re target these people on Facebook with your future content and adverts and that makes sales!

Homework

Nothing too heavy for today.

Just go online and look at adverts and ask yourself a simple question....would I buy from them now and if so why and if not why not.

Make a few mental or even written notes.

Wow, day 13 tomorrow.

We are going to look at how you can put this all together.

See you tomorrow.