Growth Moves with Rob Tyson: Recent Episodes
Rob Tyson
Welcome to the Growth Moves podcast with host Rob Tyson of https://www.robtyson.net. Key strategies and tactics for business growth from Rob and regular interviews with specialists to show you what's working now.
Normally, removing "friction" from our marketing processes is wise and highly effective. But not always...
Think of "ad nauseum" not so much as a latin term describing something happening to a sickening extent... as the simplest of marketing strategies.
A lot of the received wisdom is a fantasy. A picture of the world as you would like it to be. Not the world how it is.
Clearly, with a postcard, your space is very limited, but what's interesting is how often these three essentials are missed, regardless of format...
No-one much likes getting customer complaints, but there's a right way to deal with them. Next time you get one, use the L.E.A.R.N. formula to resolve it...
Money is a medium for life, says Olivia Stefanino, creator of the 'Money Types' emotional profiling system - and when we understand our emotional relationship with money, everything else in life suddenly starts to make sense too.
Olivia's system identifies SIX distinct "Money Types" - and when you know your own dominant Money Type, you'll find you have the new awareness to have more, keep more and give more, too.
Discover the six "Money Types" and start to identify yours in the brand new Growth Moves podcast with Olivia, including:
- How your Money Type can sabotage your relationship with money
- The 9 ‘money stories’ and how telling them to ourselves keeps us trapped
- Why we are the Money Type we are - and how to change out of damaging patterns
- How to spot problems caused by your Type - and practical steps you can take to ‘manage’ it
- Why certain occupations - like business owner - will tend to attract certain Types
- Possible cultural dimensions to Money Types
- Should we try and recognise the Type of our individual clients? How could doing so help us?
- A few ‘tells’ that might give away someone else's Money Type
And much more - this was a great interview - listen in now... or read the transcript below.
Ever feel you've done the 'hard work' of getting in front of a potential client... only for things to fall apart when it comes to discussion of price? This episode of the Growth Moves podcast will help you... AND you can get Rob's FREE report with the two golden rules of price objections here: https://www.robtyson.net/price
Ever spent days, weeks, months setting up a complex ‘sales funnel’ that flopped, but you aren't quite sure why? This episode is for you...
The relationship between how your marketing LOOKS and how it PERFORMS is not perhaps what you think it is...
Christine Nicholson is an author, speaker and award-winning Professional Business Mentor who works with business owners in technology, engineering or product or services businesses turning over £1m or more. She was UK Business Mentor of the Year 2020 and a Global Top 50 Woman in Accounting and you may have seen her on the BBC talking about business. Get more from Christine here: https://christinenicholson.co.uk
Like it or not, almost all of us are doing more online meetings, calls, events than we did a year ago - but the problem is most of them are really BAD... boring, unengaging, uninspiring and rarely delivering from a business perspective, either.
Luckily, online events expert Judy Rees is here to show you how to do online events that don't just work - but actually work BETTER than your offline events!
Sounds impossible? Listen in and with Judy's innovative approach you'll see it's not...
Get more from Judy at her website here: https://reesmccann.com/
Sarah Santacroce is a specialist in hard sellin', "value-stackin'," high pressure sales tactics you can exploit to close every sale, dominate your market, crush your competitors into the dust and make tons of cash - just kidding… she’s the opposite of all that!
In fact, Sarah wants to change the current marketing paradigm - and if you've ever told yourself you 'hate marketing' or felt uneasy with some of the tactics used, she's right up your strasse.
Sarah is all about marketing effectively, but bringing more empathy and kindness to the whole process… she calls it The Gentle Business Revolution and she's author of the new book 'The Gentle Marketing Revolution: Grow your business your way, with integrity and kindness.' https://www.thegentlemarketingrevolution.com/book
Listen in to hear how you can join the Gentle Marketing Revolution and discover the 7 Ps of marketing with integrity and kindness... then get more from Sarah at: https://sarahsantacroce.com
Here's a dead easy copywriting formula anyone can use. Like it?Go to https://www.robtyson.net/37 to get your sales copy acid test and take your copy MUCH further by eliminating weaknesses systematically...
If you thought 2020 'a bit strange...'
...we just seem to be getting crazier still, and - leaving aside the rights and wrongs...
...or how you may feel about the man...
...amidst it all, there was a BIG marketing lesson from what happened with Donald Trump last week, and you're at risk if you don't grasp it...
Get your FREE ticket to The Shortcut Summit for a limited time here: https://www.talentedladiesclub.com/summit
Cliff is President, CEO and Chairman of The Beacon Group https://www.beacongroupconsulting.com/ and a pioneer in the field of growth strategy consulting. In this show Cliff talks to Rob about the four key questions to growing the top line that his firm uses as the first step in over 1500 client engagements over 20 years, with some of the world’s most successful companies.
Another chance to hear one of our best and most popular episodes - tons of value in this one with Ian Anderson Gray!
The promise of technology for most consultants, coaches and services businesses rarely pays off, in large part because they lack the kind of intelligent strategy Gareth Everson shares in this show.
Gareth founded software company Connectably https://connectably.com/ to help business owners who aren't naturally "software people" to systemise processes, understand marketing technologies, improve client experiences, get paid their true worth and increase their business' value.
We talk hot tubs, party-loving alcoholics... and the Yes/No Game makes it's debut! Listen in to understand the strategy then get Gareth's 1 pager here: https://www.canva.com/design/DAEKGaQj3zw/p5nw_6ARwowqQTE563r1sQ/view
We've been hearing for 20 years that email marketing is on its way out... and it's still nonsense. Running your own, opt-in email newsletter - even if 'newsletter' is not what you call it - is still priority number 1 in my eyes.
But how do you get subscribers? What should you send them, and how often? And finally, how do you generate business with your email newsletter?
Nathan Littleton sends over one million emails every year on behalf of his clients ranging from small accountancy firms to international franchises, and in this show he shares his three essential pillars for winning with email newsletters. Don't miss it!
John Vuong is the owner of Local SEO Search https://www.localseosearch.ca/ and he works to help small business owners rank on Google and grow their business. Listen to today's show to hear John's four key tips for amplifying your SEO in 2021.
More answers to listener and reader questions - this time: How To Get Started With Marketing Automation & Autoresponders...
In today's episode, we answer a reader question: "Hi Rob, I'd love for you to cover how to best test a service/coaching offer (for those of us who are just starting out) to determine if the offer is resonating with our dream client. Thanks!"
Another chance to hear one of our most popular episodes. If you are doing any email marketing at all, don't miss this cracking interview with 'Mr Deliverability' Adrian Savage...
Ever wondered how to charge more? There should only be THREE considerations when setting your pricing…
Another chance to hear one of our best and most popular episodes! Ian Sanders is a creative consultant, storyteller, coach and author on a mission to get people energised about their work lives and in this show he talks to Rob about The Power Of Story For Your Business. Don't miss it...
Another chance to hear one of our best and most listened to podcasts yet... Krista provides TREMENDOUS value in this one!
Warren Knight is an award-winning keynote speaker, top 100 Global and Tech Influencer, he’s internationally recognised as a speaker, trainer, and coach on Digital Leadership & Digital Transformation and author of the book Think #Digital First and today he talks to Rob about Using Thought Leadership To Create A Business Out Of Your Expertise
https://thoughtleadersblueprint.com/giveaway-values
Includes:
- What is thought leadership?
- What are some practical things you can do to help settle on the right identity, the right positioning, for thought leadership?
- What are some of the different business models thought leaders can follow, and which does Warren tend to like the best?
- Once we’ve decided on our positioning, and our business model, what’s the best strategy to begin to take all that to market?
- ‘Content marketing’ has been a buzzword for so long people may be confused about what it even means. On a practical level, how should thought leaders use content to support their business these days?
- You could be a thought leader ‘offline’ in the past - right now, that’s not an option open to us, and none of us can really know when things like conferences or events might be back in earnest. What is most important in adapting to this online only world, if we’re running this kind of business?
Natalie Phillips is a big advocate for email marketing and the way it can be used to reclaim your time and grow your business. She has over a decade of email experience, managing email lists from zero to a million subscribers and in today's episode of the Growth Moves podcast, Natalie and host Rob Tyson cover
- Email marketing - old hat or never better?
- The general email marketing approach Natalie likes the best
- What’s the best way to plan our email marketing campaigns?
- Why is there fear, and how can we be fearless?
- How can we be fun?
- Should our emails come from us as individuals?
- What should they LOOK like - graphics, or plain…?
- How do we create a feeling of trust in our email marketing?
- How do we strike the balance between helping, and selling? Can you give too much away?
- Essential elements for fun and fearless email that makes sales
- How often should we send email?
- Should we worry about unsubscribes?
- What benchmarks should we look for in our email marketing?
- To what extent can / should we automate our email marketing?
- Natalie's favourite tools for email marketing
Listen in now and discover simple ideas to up your email marketing game.
Would you like to know the single biggest mistake people make when they’re new to this?
Part 3 of 3. To succeed in competitive markets (in addition to providing a really solid, valuable outcome to your clients of course!) there are 3 essentials in your messaging. And you need all 3... at the same time... or you’ve got a serious problem!
Part 2 of 3. To succeed in competitive markets (in addition to providing a really solid, valuable outcome to your clients of course!) there are 3 essentials in your messaging. And you need all 3... at the same time... or you’ve got a serious problem!
Part 1 of 3. To succeed in competitive markets (in addition to providing a really solid, valuable outcome to your clients of course!) there are 3 essentials in your messaging. And you need all 3, at the same time, or you’ve got a serious problem…
Running your own online 'summit' or conference is not just a new income stream - it can also bring you tons of new leads, enhance your credibility and authority around your topic, and open up valuable new relationships with experts in your space,a and summit expert Krista Miller is her to explain exactly how you do it. This one is value-packed!
TRANSCRIPT:
Rob: Welcome back listener, Rob Tyson here. And in the last episode, I talked to Ian Sanders about the power of story for your business. It was a good show, so do catch up on that one if you missed it, had a good chat within. I'm here today, though, with Krista Miller. Now Krista through her company Summit In A Box, does something really interesting. She helps entrepreneurs three times their monthly revenue through virtual summits without wondering where to start or what to do next. And her method is focused on strong connections, collaboration, and making a difference.
And today, our topic we're gonna be talking about is how to host your first profitable online summit. So I'm really interested in this topic, looking forward to getting into it. Before we do get into it, though, if you're listening to this show, chances are good you have professional expertise and it could be you want to monetize that through an online learning program. Well, if that is the case, before you rush off and start creating content, please take a few moments to watch my free web class because it's gonna explain why the ascension model or value ladder you may have heard about is usually a really bad approach for people in your position. Not only is it likely to make you peanuts, but you won't be giving maximum value to your clients either. There is a much better way if you would like to generate real meaningful cashflow quickly and get on the right track with productizing your expertise online and my web class will show you how to do that. That is free. All you need to do is pop along to robtyson.net/class to get the web class, that is robtyson.net/class. So with that all said, Krista, welcome. Great to have you here.
Krista: Hey, Rob. Thank you so much for having me. I'm pumped to chat all about summits with you.
Rob: Me too because this is a really interesting topic for me. And let's open up with my first question for you. What is an online summit? I mean, how do you define this term? What does it mean?
Krista: So when I'm trying to define it for people, I like to have them think about a virtual...not virtual, excuse me, an in-person conference, and what that looks like. So you're bringing together, you know, a group of people to come speak to attendees about different topics relating to an overall topic. A virtual summit is the same except online. So there's one host, they have an overall goal or topic in mind for this summit, and they're inviting speakers on who can speak about smaller topics inside the overarching topic. And then attendees from all over the world can come and tune in to these presentations usually for 24 hours is how long the free access lasts. But the goal is really to let the attendees come and get these pieces of information that they wouldn't be able to get for free together anywhere else, and really help them start making steps towards whatever the goal of the summit is.
Rob: And are there other words that we might use instead of summit? I mean, do people sometimes call these things online conferences? Yeah, you're nodding?
Krista: Yes, virtual conferences, online conferences, online, they say, events. I've seen people say, like, interview series. There's kind of just all kinds of different words. I would say online conference is, like, the most common alternate, but there's people using all kinds of different words who for some reason don't want to say the word summit.
Rob: No, interesting, interesting. And what are some of the different models of summit we could use?
Krista: So there's a few coming to mind. I guess the first one is the most common and that is a free...a summit that's free to attend. So attendees can register for free. They can get access to the presentations for usually about 24 hours for free. And with that, there are usually 20, 30 speakers at that kind of summit. From there, the host can upsell to an all-access pass and that's how they can make money. I'm happy to talk about that in more detail as we go, but that's kind of the most common. Those ones usually last around three to five days, most commonly five, but I'm seeing more and more people now cut down and going between three and five.
Another one that's talked about a lot is a one-day summit. So people who don't want to, you know, go through the work of getting what, 30 speakers and having this thing go on for five days, maybe they have something really specific they want to talk about related to an offer, they will host a one-day summit instead. Usually around five to eight speakers in a one-day summit. And again, those are usually run for free with the option to upgrade for ongoing access.
And then the third one is a paid summit. So instead of being able to access the presentations for free, for a limited amount of time, people charge for entry to the summit basically. Usually with these people then automatically get the ongoing access to the presentations. They're not limited by 24 hours or anything like that, but they're basically getting a ticket to attend the event, kind of like you would with an in-person conference.
Rob: And which model do you like the best and why? A what are the big benefits of the model? Talk to us a little bit about that.
Krista: So I'm a big fan of the first model I mentioned, which is free attendance, three to five days long, 20 to 30 speakers. And this is the one I have seen work the best for most industries. Now there are some industries where the paid model works great. For a lot of us, the paid model is not gonna work well instead what you're gonna see is you get so many fewer people who are willing to pay for that ticket. And the reason that the free entry works so well is there's no barrier there. People are like, "Oh, I can get all of this for free. Awesome." And then you have the rest of the event to convert them to your all-access pass, which is so much more powerful.
And I have a customer, her name is Kara, and she was just on my podcast comparing the two because her first two summits were paid summits. Her most recent was a free summit. And her first couple summits had about 60 attendees and brought in $2,000. Her most recent had, I want to say 2,000 attendees and $16,000. So it let her get so many more leads into the summit by having it for free, she was able to just see so many more profit...so much more profit, excuse me.
But like I said, there are some industries where the paid summit works fine. I see this work better for people in more, like, professional niches like if you're targeting, like, lawyers and doctors and stuff like that, like, they're used to having to pay when they're gonna go learn about something. But for most of us, the free model is what works the best.
Rob: I like that. And one...you know, some of the times that I've noticed people doing summits, which seems like a really smart thing to do, is perhaps when they're launching a new business or launching a new product or side of business. That can be a really good application kind of it because it can be pretty effective way to build your authority and get a lot of leads in the door quite quickly.
Krista: It's so powerful when you're doing something like that. I really love using it for launching something new or, you know, something that you already have. Because you're getting those leads that are just, you know, really interested in what you're doing if you position your summit the right way. They're warmed up, they're excited by the end of your summit, and then you have this thing to help them take it even further, you know, and make it nice and easy for them.
Rob: And as the host of the summit, so you're interviewing these other experts, is that normally how you would be presenting that content?
Krista: Yes, it's usually about 50-50, I have never done an all-interview summit just because I don't like doing interviews. I don't want to sit on 30 interviews. Some people love doing it that way. I like to have my speakers just pre-record their presentations like, you know, most of them use a slide deck. I personally like that because, one, I'm not required to get on 30, 60-minute calls with all these people. But also then they're able to really present their information in a way that fits their topic the best. They're not limited by the questions I'm asking. They can, you know, say, "Here's the overall teaching on this topic, and here's action steps you can," take a little more easily than if they were being interviewed. But there are a lot of really great, you know, purely interview summits out there as well. It's kind of up to the preference of the host, your comfort with interviews, your skill with interviews because you don't want to have 30 boring interviews either. But I like doing the presentations.
Rob: And so, would you typically be presenting something of your own? You know, would you do a session of your typical summit, or would you just kind of leave that to the "experts"?
Krista: Yes, I always recommend doing your own presentation as well. A really big benefit of summits is the increased visibility. So, you know, I always say every opportunity you can get to get in front of these people during your summit do it. They need to know who you are and that you're the host. I know some people who do their own presentation daily during their summit. But definitely have one presentation that you do, whether it's, you know, mixing with the rest, a keynote, something like that, but definitely get yourself in there.
Rob: Now, as you're talking about it, I can see it would be mad not to do that, wouldn't it?
Krista: I've seen a lot of people who don't, so I'm glad you asked.
Rob: And what's your view on selling during the summit content? I mean, so at one end of the spectrum, you could consider a complete no-no, but the other end, I'm sure there are summits where it's pretty much all anyone is doing. So what do you think is the right balance? I mean, do you think, well, you know, people could be paying for the content and therefore it's not really...we shouldn't be pitching too much? Just talk to us about that. What's your feeling?
Krista: So I have found just through, you know, experience with my own summits, that the more I can focus on the attendees and the speakers during the summit, the more I'm gonna get out of it myself. So I don't pitch my own offers during the summit. I am selling them that all-access pass though, and that is so powerful. And it doesn't mean you can't sell your own product later. So here's what I recommend, people register for free immediately they're getting an offer for the all-access pass for the first time. And then if they don't buy, they're kind of seeing that offer all throughout the summit.
My last time summit I made $60,000 just through that all-access pass. So, that is a really great thing to focus on, it's giving them the ongoing access to the presentations they like. I really like including extra bonuses to help them take it even further, but they're really able to focus in on that content. A challenge I see with trying to sell, you know, one of your programs or something in a summit is they're all so focused on trying to watch all these presentations and retain the information, that it's kind of like just a distraction and like a fly they're trying to swat away if you're, like, constantly pitching them with something else.
So I always wait until... You know, there are some people who do like a keynote presentation, the last presentation on the last day, and that's, like, their webinar where they're pitching their offer. Other people, you know, wait till the week after, or maybe two weeks after, I wouldn't go any longer than that. But it's kind of positioned as an extension to the summit, but it's a webinar helping them, you know, take it one step further, but "Here's my program."
Rob: "Here's an offer." Interesting, interesting. Okay, no, that's really good. And how big should we aim for our first summit? Because obviously you mentioned, you know, one of the models is with 20 or 30 speakers, and if someone is brand new to this that will sound very daunting and maybe isn't where they should start anyway. So, what do you think is a good number of speakers? A good duration if you're just doing this for the first time?
Krista: So, if you're someone doing this for the first time and maybe you feel a little intimidated by it, I would stick to a three-day summit with 15 speakers. Once you start getting those speakers on, you feel like, "Oh, you know, this is easy. This isn't so bad." You can always change your mind and add a couple of days. I just had someone in my program do this actually yesterday as we're recording, and she was like, "Hey, like, this isn't so bad. Would it be worth it for me to add 5, 10 more speakers?" And I was like, "Yeah, let's do it." So I would say 15 speakers, three-day mark is a good place to start with your first one. You can still get really great results with that if you position it the right way and choose the right speakers.
Rob: Okay. That's really helpful. And how do we pick a good topic for the summit? And should we go quite broad with the subject matter, or is there more value in being quite niche? What do you think?
Krista: I love this question. I love this question and I am all about getting as specific as you can. And I like to give an example to kind of help illustrate this. So for most of us, if we're, like, scrolling through Facebook and we see a Facebook ad on a summit to help online business owners grow their business, we're like, "I don't care." You know, we probably don't even think back because it didn't catch our attention enough for us to even have a thought.
But there's a lot of people in my program who are, like, wedding professionals, so I use them as an example. If like a wedding planner is scrolling Facebook and she sees an ad for a summit to help wedding planners book up their client's schedule using Instagram, heck yes, that's gonna stop her in her tracks and she's gonna sign up for that. And there's so much more room to make an impact for these attendees when you're doing it that way. Because instead of learning, like, 101 level information to grow her business, she is learning stuff really specific and unique to her industry, and how and exactly the steps she needs to take to do it. So I'm really all about getting as specific as possible.
As for how to do it, I usually recommend that people start with their audience. A lot of us find ourselves targeting online business owners, entrepreneurs, things like that, like, that's too broad. So what I tell people to do is who are the subsets in your audience? Look at people who are purchasing your products, your services, what subsets do they fall into? And which one of those are you most excited about working with, do you relate the most, find that audience, focus on them. Like, that's the audience for your summit.
And then I say, get on a couple of calls with people, even if it's just 3, 15-minute calls, talk to them and learn exactly what their real problems are. Not what you think they are, I would have got that so wrong with my first time and if I did what I thought their problem was. But I found it out from them, host a summit to solve that problem. And that is how you make one that stands out, gets you incredible results, and gets them incredible results.
Rob: Really interesting. And you'd just be quite open in that conversation? You say, "Hey, I'm thinking doing of a summit, you know, what's the kind of thing that would get you to give up three days or whatever?" I mean, do you frame it like that or what kind of conversation do you have?
Krista: So I don't come at it quite like that, I usually ask someone who I know in my audience, you don't have to do that, that's just what I do. I say, "Hey, can we get on a 15, 20-minute call for me to ask you a couple of questions, in return I'll reserve 5 minutes for you to ask me questions?" So that they're getting something out of it too. And I just kind of ask questions about their business and, like, dig deep. So, I ask them a little bit about what they do so I can see how they talk about what they do. Ask what they're struggling with, ask what their goals are. And then why is that your goal? Why is that a struggle? And that really helps with messaging. So the struggle is great for, you know, hitting that in your messaging and so is the goal. Because then you can say, "Here's what the summit is gonna do for you" and use their words. And so, I keep it really simple like that. But if they say something kind of vague, like, you know, "My goal is to get more clients," why is that your goal? And keep asking questions like that.
Rob: Okay. I really like that. That's pretty good. And so people up to this point, they're listening, they think, "Yeah, I love this idea, Krista. I want to do this as soon as possible." How much time do they need to leave themselves to do their research and prepare and do all this kind of stuff? What would you say?
Krista: So my recommendation isn't what most people like to hear, but I really love to see first-time host give themselves 90 days. And it's not 90 days of you just hustling hard 24/7 to get this thing out there. It takes time for you to research. It takes time for you to find potential speakers and connect with them rather than just sending, you know, 30 cold pitches. It takes time to hear back from those people, you know, once you send the pitch. You have to give them time to either make their presentation or schedule an interview with you. You want to figure in about three weeks for promotion. So there are a lot of things in there that aren't totally reliant on you doing all the work. There is a very good amount of work that goes into especially the first one when you're figuring out your positioning, setting up the tech in your website, and writing all your copy. But 90 days is a really great spot to sit for the first one. I've had people do it in two weeks, I have people who take six months, but 90 days is what I have found as the sweet spot.
Rob: And a question occurred to me just as you were explaining that, to what extent can we repeat summits? I don't mean repeat the exact same content, but I mean, like, for example, you know, if you have a summit on some aspects of email marketing this year, is that the kind of thing you might do annually because the, you know, the texture, I don't know...what's your approach to this? I mean, do you see these things as one-offs or are they things that can be repeated?
Krista: So there's so much power in repeating your summit, one, because it gets so much easier. So, my first summit, I've estimated, took me 500 hours to put together. And that's because I was starting from scratch, I didn't have any resources, I couldn't find any podcasts about it. Like, I was figuring this all out. So, 500 hours for my first summit. My most recent took me 60 because, you know, I have all the pages done, the messaging is done. The copy is there, you're making little tweaks. And the biggest part is reaching out to new speakers and getting the information you need from them. So it gets so much easier. And I have actually repeated the same summit, same topic for three years in a row now and each time has just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. So, like, you can totally repeat the same summit over and over and just keep getting bigger results too and it's way easier after that first time.
Rob: Why do you think it gets bigger and better each time?
Krista: I think because...well, I think there's two things. One is just the increased visibility you have for that first one. You know, before my first summit, I had an email list of 500 people. After it I had 1,500. So I was like, "Okay, I'm promoting to three times as many people," there's number one. Number two is, at least for me, I got braver with who I was pitching and figured out what the right people were to pitch. So instead of just pitching people I knew and people I was comfortable with, I figured out, "Well, hello, why am I not pitching people that only have the exact same audience as my summit?" Like, it's so obvious now, but it took me three seconds to figure out. So that was definitely, you know, a game-changer as far as the growth goes as well, figuring out which speakers get you the best results and pitching as many people like that as you can is, you know, huge for seeing your summit grow.
Rob: Right. And as you allude to that, I guess that it helps to show the better speakers you've got a track record and, you know, they're gonna be that much more receptive, aren't they, if they can see that you've done it before and it was good?
Krista: Yes, there was actually someone I pitched for last year's summit and she said no. And this year I came back to her again and was able to say, "Hey, here are our numbers from last year." I think it was, how much was it, 2,500? Twenty-five hundred people just from your audience last year, we're expecting even more this year. Do you want to be a part of it?" And then it was a "Heck yes," you know, once I had those numbers to show her. And for the first summit where I didn't have great numbers, I was still getting yeses from people I didn't expect to. But it just gets easier both on your confidence and on them saying yes as you grow.
Rob: Really good, really good. And what kinds of things do we say to potential speakers to interest them?
Krista: That's a great question. So the first thing that makes it just way easier, we were just talking about with the audience and the topic, when your audience and topic really closely relates to what they do, like, that's step one of grabbing their attention. Like, if someone pitches me for a summit and it's...I am not...I'm trying to think of an example now. If they pitched me for a summit for my other business where target I designers and it's a summit for all creatives or copywriters, for me that's a no, right? But if they were to come to me with a summit just for my people, okay, you have my attention now. So that's step one is being really targeted with who the summit's for and going after speakers that also have that audience.
Then it comes down to you looking like you know what you're doing. So being really organized, giving them the information they need. I really like to have a draft of my registration page as complete as possible so they can go over if they don't know me and see that this is a real thing, it's put together well, I know what I'm doing. And then as for, like, benefits for them, that's also something I like to list out right in my pitch email. I guess, first, I start with, "Here's what I would need from you. And by the way, it's not all about me, here's what you get as well."
And there's a few things I like to do there, I like to give good affiliate commissions. So, I give 40% to 50% affiliate commissions to my speakers. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have a summit. So I feel like they deserve that. They've always liked that. I also give them the opportunity to pitch something at the end of their presentation. I let them pitch something paid if they want to, but I really tell them, "You're gonna get better results if you pitch something for free, have a tripwire offer, or put them in a proven funnel down the road." So they like that, they're allowed to do that. And, you know, just the way to grow their email list and I make it as easy as possible for them. Like, people want visibility, leads, and money. So if you can show them that they can get those things, it's a really great chance that they'll say yes.
Rob: Great. That's really good advice. And on the other side of the coin, what are the kinds of things we're saying what's important in the messaging that we put out there to potential attendees to get them interested in attending the summit?
Krista: So the biggest mistake I see with people doing this is they kind of promote the fact that they're doing a summit. Because they're like, "This was so much work, it's so cool that I'm doing this. Hey, everybody, look, I have a summit." And they're like, "I don't care." So, like, instead of focusing on the fact that, yes, it's this cool thing, you're focusing on those pain points and benefits. "So here's this free event with all of these really cool speakers," you know, do some name dropping of, you know, your most visible speakers, "and here's what you're gonna get out of it." So hit on a benefit that your summit is really focused on. And when it's just for them solving a problem for free, it's like, "Heck yes, I'm gonna sign up for that." Even if they only go to a couple of presentations, you have their attention, they're now on your email list and that's what we're looking for.
Rob: Right. So it's just all about this is gonna, you know, come along to this thing, it's gonna show you how to get something nice and move away from something horrible.
Krista: Exactly, exactly.
Rob: And what tactics do you like the best for getting attendees?
Krista: So speakers are just a really great thing to count on. If you are counting on your speakers to promote, you really have to make that clear to them from the initial email you send. There are so many summits going on right now where, you know, you get pitched and maybe it doesn't say anything, but then all of a sudden they send you this contract and it's like you have to send three solo emails to your email list and post this many times on social media. I'm like, "No."
So when you're using your speakers, they're part of your promotion strategy, tell them that in the initial email but also be reasonable about it. So I have my speakers send one email and post once on social media. That way I know at least their audience has a chance to see it. And from there, if they're getting sales through their affiliate link and getting those commissions, they're gonna keep promoting. And that's what I saw with my last summit that works even better if you did do your targeting correctly for your summit and pitch the right speakers as well. So that's really what I focus on.
Of course, promoting on your own platforms, my email list has always been huge for getting attendees, but Facebook ads actually have worked really well for me as well. I mean, I've seen people get under a dollar per lead for their summit, and then you're selling the all-access pass after so you're just profiting from those Facebook ads. For my last summit, I was actually at the breakeven point but that's cool because now they're on my email list and I can sell them something else. So Facebook ads are also a really great thing to do, and you can do them for super cheap by, like, retargeting people who hit the registration page without signing up, or, you know, doing lookalike audiences to your website traffic or email list and you can do it for, you know, a really decent price.
Rob: I like it, I like it. And when we run the summit or...well, you know, at least when we run it the first time, so we're not talking about the recordings that we give, you know, people can get access to, but do you prefer that as a live thing or some are all of the sessions prerecorded? What's your preference or advice?
Krista: So I say, at least for your first one, do prerecorded. I have never done a live summit, I never will because you will find that dealing with your speakers is like herding cats. And I would rather herd prerecorded cats than live cats every day. You have to count on them showing up when they're supposed to and having all of the tech work. And that's a lot to count on, especially if you have 20 speakers counting on 20 people to show up where they're supposed to, when they're supposed to, and have no tech glitches, that's a lot for you to have on your shoulders as a summit host.
And also during the summit, you are on all week long, even with recorded presentations, you are interacting with people in the Facebook group, which is, you know, something that I just kind of dropped on you guys. I really recommend having a Facebook community for your summit. You're interacting with people in email, you're supporting your speakers, and to also have to, you know, be live, making sure things are working all day every day, that's just a lot for one person to manage it. I mean, I guess you could have a team helping out with that as well, but I always recommend prerecorded for at least the first one and just see how it goes.
Rob: That's good advice and that makes a lot of sense. And so software-wise, is there a specific software you would have to get in order to pull this off?
Krista: So I actually recommend that people just use whatever you're using for your regular website. Tech is like a huge hurdle that people let hold them back from doing a summit, but really whatever platform you're on, you can make it work. I'm on WordPress, all of my stuff is on WordPress. That's great. But I have people doing it on Squarespace but their courses are in, like, Teachable so they integrate those two things. There's people doing it on ClickFunnels, you know, all kinds of different platforms.
There are summit-specific platforms, I personally don't necessarily recommend them because you're kind of limited by what the creators of that think a summit should look like. But, like, virtual summit software would be my top recommendation if you do just want an all-in-one kind of platform that will kind of lead you through getting everything set up, you're not too concerned about, you know, being able to customize things. That's the one that I've seen make it the easiest and just set things up in the best way.
Rob: Okay. Now that's really good. And do you think there's a limit to how many summits you could or should do in a year? I mean, is this just a question of your sanity or is it to do with your audience? What's your view?
Krista: I love that you put it that way because seriously, it's all about your sanity. My first time running a seminar, I was like, you know, on a high after I was like, "Oh, my gosh, I did not expect it to go that well, I didn't expect to help people that much, I want to do it again." So I did another one six months later and I was like, "Oh, this is just too much for me." But then I had to make it an annual thing, so I had to do another one six months later so it lined up with my first one.
For me, every six months is too much because you get done with your summit and, like, it feels like immediately you have to start looking for the next round of speakers. And that's a little bit of an exaggeration, you have a couple of months rest, but for me it was a lot. So I really like doing it annually. I have people in my program who are doing it quarterly and that's just what they like to do. They choose a little bit different topic every quarter so their audience isn't getting burnt out on it, and they are just like summits is the way they grow their business rather than, you know, one of the ways. So it's totally personal preference and how you feel after that first one probably.
Rob: If you've got the energy to do it, too, do it quickly.
Krista: Exactly.
Rob: And in terms of charging for access, I appreciate there's a range and it depends on the market, but what kind of price points do you see working?
Krista: So for the all-access pass, is that what you're...?
Rob: I guess so.
Krista: I mean, again, like you said, it's all over the map. I've seen people charge like 20 bucks. And for me I'm like, "Why bother?" So I have actually raised my prices for every single summit and made more money every single time. So I have landed at... I do three different price points throughout my summit. So right after somebody registers, they have 15 minutes to get a super special offer. For me, that's landed at about $47, between $47 and $97 depending on exactly what the offer is. After that 15-minute expires, they can then buy the all-access pass for the current regular price and I just do a price increase once the summit starts. So, you know, I would say the max price I have done is $197 and people still buy at that price point.
So, like, don't feel like you have to, like, sell yourself short because this is a free event, people are still willing to buy if you have something good to offer. Now, would people pay 200 bucks for just presentations? You know, that's gonna be a little iffier. But I like to include bonuses, like, I let my speakers contribute bonuses if they want to, I contribute my own bonuses, maybe some like coworking calls, network sessions that you can just host on Zoom are great ways to just boost the value of that offer and be able to charge more. So, you know, that's a wide range even I do between $47 and $197, but I haven't run into anything that has not worked yet.
Rob: I really like that. It's a really nice idea, you know, offering a few other things to, you know, make it a more valuable package, you know, along with the content, I really like that. This would be really great. Krista, any other important tips or big mistakes that people make that we need to look out for?
Krista: I guess just, you know, we've touched on a lot of things, so something that we haven't talked about yet is just don't put so much pressure on yourself. I see people saying...you know, they'll come to me like, "Oh my gosh, I'm hosting this summit next month, I just decided that last week and I need to get it done, can you help me? I'm so overwhelmed." Like, well, obviously you're overwhelmed. If you're trying to organize 20 people, this brand new thing you've never done before, the tech, the website, it's gonna be a lot. So take your time, let yourself enjoy the process. I am totally one of those people, I have an idea, I need to do it now.
So that 90-day timeline, it can hurt but it is so worth it to be able to get those details. The details are really what impresses people, the speakers, and your attendees. And, like, the more onboard they are, the more they're gonna help you do your selling as well. Your speakers are more likely to promote, your attendees are gonna be talking about how awesome it is and spread the word about it. They're gonna be shouting out how great your all-access pass is and other people will want to buy it. Take your time, get the details right, enjoy the process as much as you can.
Rob: Excellent, really like that. So just to wrap up a little bit there, what is one action people could take right now if they wanted to make a start with this? What's kind of the first thing that they might do?
Krista: As much as you guys won't like me for this, I want you to start with your audience and topics. So what's the audience for your summit gonna be if you're targeting people like online business owners, entrepreneurs? What subset can you use? And then get some calls scheduled with people to figure out what direction your summit should really go in to make the biggest impact for everybody.
Rob: I really like that rather than just going, "Right, I've got an idea, let's go" because that always ends in tears, doesn't it? Usually more often than not. Really great. Krista, this has been excellent. Where's the best place for people to get more from you if they would like to?
Krista: So you guys can find me over at summitinabox.co. I actually have a free masterclass for any of you who are really like, "Okay, like, I want to do this thing. I want to host an awesome summit." It's my three-part framework to triple your monthly revenue with a virtual summit while building your list for free. We cover all kinds of good stuff in there like how to make a plan you can actually follow even if your business is already way too busy, which I feel like most of us can probably say, how to land expert speakers and host a really great event without a huge audience, and how to use my three-part profitable summit system to triple your monthly revenue in the size of your email list. And that training is at summitinabox.co/class.
Rob: Awesome. And just to say, people, you know, I have I bought some of Krista's info lately and it's really good, really thorough. So, yeah, definitely check it out if you're interested in this topic.
Krista: Well, thank you.
Rob: You are welcome. No, it's been really great. No, Krista, thank you so much. This was really helpful for people and I do appreciate you talking to me.
Krista: Thank you so much for having me on.
Rob: Hey, it's Rob again. Want to build a successful online business from your expertise? Well, the game has changed. There are bigger opportunities but also bigger pitfalls than ever before and I would hate for you to waste years figuring these things out for yourself. Now, as a listener to this show, you're obviously a sensible person, right? So here's my invitation to you. Apply to jump on a call with me in the next few days and let's talk about you. You will get feedback on your ideas. You will get a product concept that is fit for right now. And you will get a personalized sales and income plan to take away. That is free but availability is limited. So please go along right now to chatwithrob.com, that is chatwithrob.com. Do that now. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Once again, that is chatwithrob.com. Talk to you soon.
Ian Sanders is a creative consultant, storyteller, coach and author on a mission to get people energised about their work lives. Through his workshops, presentations, storytelling and one-to-one sessions Ian brings a fresh approach to spark change and inspire organisations, teams and individuals and today he talks to Rob about The Power Of Story For Your Business...
Bryony Thomas is the creator of the award-winning Watertight Marketing methodology, captured in her best-selling book of the same name. With over a decade working with clients including Microsoft, Dell and Experian, Bryony set up her own consulting business focussed on helping scaling businesses put a sustainable sales-driving marketing operation in place. Her unique process has been refined over the last decade and used across more than 2000 businesses, and today Rob talks to Bryony about: Why You’re Leaking Profit And What To Do About It...
Erik Luhrs is known as the "Bruce Lee of Revenue Generation," and he is the creator of Revenue Kung-Fu. He works with Founders of SaaS and Expert-Service companies to unlock the growth potential in their business, while unlocking their own potential. Today Rob talks to Erik about How You Can Grow Revenue Even Bigger & Better After Covid... By Playing A Different Game.
Anyone can add to the noise on social media platforms by pumping out content... but actually cutting through the noise and creating a real connection with individuals is where the value is... and it's much harder to do. Luckily Julia Bramble, unique combination of PhD forensic scientist, empathic communicator and spectacularly popular presenter is here to talk to Rob about 3 steps to cutting through and building REAL connection with your audience...
Today, Rob's guest is Ian Anderson Gray, the king of live video. Discover how you can create loads more impact, authority and profit with the power of confident Live Video on the big, high traffic platforms where your prospects hang out: Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube…
TRANSCRIPT:
Rob Tyson: Welcome back listener. Rob Tyson here. Now, in the last episode, I talked to B2B lead generation expert Sarah Hughes about four free ways to generate B2B leads in lockdown and beyond. So, be sure to catch up on that if you missed it. But I'm here today with Ian Anderson Gray. Now, Ian, I call the king of live video, and he helps entrepreneurs create loads more impact, authority and profits through the power of confident live video. You may have seen Ian around actually. He is an in-demand speaker and he speaks at events like Social Media Marketing World in the U.S., Content Marketing World, New Media Europe. So, he is a great person to have on to talk about this topic. But before we welcome Ian and get into all that, if you're listening to this show, chances are good you have professional expertise, and it could be you'd like to monetize that through an online learning program. Well, before you do anything else, take a few moments, because I've got a free web class for you that can save you a lot of pain probably, because I would like you to forget locking yourself away, creating content for months on end, only to find no one buys it. I'd like you to forget for the moment funnels, launches, and also selling your expertise for peanuts on a course supermarket. Instead of all that, you will get my rapid method for successfully selling high margin online learning programs in 2020. So, that is all free. And all you need to do to get that is pop along to robtyson.net/class for the details. So, that is, once again, robtyson.net/class. So, with all that said, Ian, welcome. Good to have you with us.
Ian: Well, thanks, Rob. It's great to be on your show. Thank you for inviting me on.
Rob: No, you're very welcome. And talk to us, so, why are you so enthusiastic about live video?
Ian: Well, for many reasons. Probably my favorite bit about it is the fact that we can interact with our audiences, or more importantly, they can interact with us. It's a really intimate platform, and I think we definitely need that. We can so get obsessed by communicating one-way. And this is a way that we can actually have communications both ways, be a little bit more intimate, and be raw and authentic. I know the word authenticity is probably overused, but I think with live video, it's one of the most powerful things. And also, the other thing I love about it is the fact that it is a way to get rid of that perfectionism syndrome that so many of us can get obsessed with, and produce content really quickly and easily, and then be able to repurpose that into lots of different pieces of content. So, that's something that I've found over the last year in doing a regular live video show. I've been able to create so much more content that's really valuable to my audience, and also be able to be a bit more real and engage with them.
Rob: Yeah, excellent. No, and you're quite right about the procrastination thing, because I guess if we tell the world we're gonna be doing a live video on Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever at a certain time on a certain day, well, we just gotta do it, right. And it doesn't matter how we feel about it, we've gotta do it, or else we're gonna be embarrassed. And that's really powerful when you realize that you can actually harness that and make it work in your favor. That's a really, really valuable thing, I think, a forcing function like that.
Ian: Definitely.
Rob: So, Ian, you're gonna kinda take us through three steps to start and be successful with this. So, over to you, sir. Let's talk about those steps.
Ian: Well, I've spoken with lots of people around the world, my audience, and clients. And it really...the problems with live video are the....there are three barriers, I think, that hold people back from actually embracing live video. The first really is that confidence and the camera fear. So, people really struggle with pressing that go live button, because they, quite frankly, they're worried about looking like an idiot and stumbling over their words. Maybe they don't like the way they sound or the way they look. And so, that can be a big problem.
So, I suppose this is down to mindset. And the problem is that we struggle with so many different things. It could be, as I say, we don't like the way we look or the way we sound. It could be imposter syndrome. It could be perfectionism syndrome. It could be that we compare ourselves with other people. And I think we need to get beyond that. We need to start thinking about, sorry, we need to stop thinking about ourselves and start thinking about our audience. We can get a little bit self-obsessed. And actually, we forget that our audience are just patiently waiting for us to produce that content, whereas we're getting worried about getting in front of the camera.
So, there are a number of things that we can do to help that process. The first thing, that's so important, which is important in anything that we do, is to ask the question, why? Why are we doing this? Why are we actually going to be doing live video? And what is the message that we're wanting to put across? You need to have a really, really good reason to do that. Otherwise, it's gonna be very difficult to persuade yourself to press that go live button. You need to be able to plan what you're going to do. So, that's the first thing.
And then the second thing is to just do it. Just to practice first, and then just to press that go live button once you've obviously planned it. So, there's a... probably a good place to start here is with the likes of Instagram stories. Now, you might not be massively into Instagram, but Instagram stories are great, because they're only 15 seconds long. They're a great way for you to become more consistent with live... with getting in front of the camera. And it also means that you're going to be able to do that on a regular basis too. So, you have to commit to that. So, commit to maybe doing it every day for seven days. And the great thing about that is that, what's the worst that's gonna happen? Because Instagram stories only last for 24 hours before they disappear into the ether. So, you know, if you make a fool of yourself, it's not gonna be the end of the world. So, that's one good place to start.
And then another place to start is just to try it on Facebook. So, whether you're thinking about going live on Facebook or another platform, the great thing about Facebook on the mobile app is that you can change the privacy settings to "only me." So, why not just test going live on your personal profile, nobody else is gonna see it, and just play around with that? So, those are two practical ways. And then the other thing is just to warm up your voice, warm up your body, and to practice your breathing before you go live, because all those kinds of things can really help.
Because, the problem is, the camera is a little bit of an energy-sucking device. When we look at the camera, we tend to go all strange and we tend to, kind of, our energy levels go down and down and down, because the camera is sucking the energy out of us. As human beings, we're so used to interacting with other human beings, looking into another person's eyes. And a camera is an inanimate object. It's this very strange thing that I look at when I'm doing my live videos. But actually, there's nobody there. And so, actually, you need to instead of thinking about it as the camera, actually think about that as another human being. I know, some of my clients have actually printed out a picture of a good friend of theirs or one of their really good clients and stuck it just behind their cameras so that they can actually imagine they're talking to that person, and that can really help.
Rob: Yeah. And I can certainly feel that. I mean, I've never really thought about it in that way before, but yeah, I've definitely, sort of, felt that energy drain when you're looking at the thing. I mean, the other thing that bothers me sometimes, and I guess it depends on the platform, is if sometimes you're seeing yourself on there, that I can find a bit freaky. But so, getting over the fear is this first step, and to what extent, I mean, we may come onto this later, Ian, but to what extent should we be preparing? Because although they're obviously live videos, you know, I find with my stuff, the more prepared I am, the less nervous I feel. And so, what do you think is the kind of sweet spot between being spontaneous and being... but also being prepared? And, you know, maybe being prepared is just, "Well, I've got some clue what the beginning, the middle, and the end is of this thing." What do you think?
Ian: Yeah. Well, that's a great question because it actually depends on the type of live video that you're going to do. So, I went live just the other day on my walk, I was walking in our local park, and I was... the idea of that live video was it was gonna be a little bit more rough around the edges, it was just an opportunity for me to interact with my audience to have a bit of a chat. And so, there really was only one thing that that was gonna be, which was... I had a few ideas of what I was gonna talk about, but it was really more of a conversation between me and my audience. So, I didn't really need to do much planning.
But the kind of live videos that I tend to do more often, and the ones that I advocate more, are where you're actually sharing some of your expertise. And so, those you definitely do need to plan, particularly when you start off. You can... as you get more confident with these and you become more comfortable, you can get away without planning it quite so rigidly, although don't get complacent about it. Don't get complacent. So, what I would do with the whole structure, and this is more, maybe more kind of veering into my third... the third section, but I'll just talk about this briefly because it does tie into your confidence.
So, I always like to write down the first couple of sentences that I'm going to say, because it's funny what the brain does, but you press that go live button, and quite often, your brain will go complete to mush, because you're suddenly realizing, "Oh, I'm live." And so, actually writing down the first thing that you're gonna say is really, really helpful. You have to treat yourself like a complete imbecile, because your brain just can go to mush for the first few seconds. And so, make sure you plan the first things that you're going to say. Also, when you're going to be talking to your live audience, and when you're gonna be talking to your replay audience as well, and then you need to structure, well, what are the three points, if it's gonna be three, what are the three points that I want to say in this video? What is the call to action? And then, when am I next going to go live? You want to obviously tell people when you're next going to go live. And then, what's the final thing that you're going to say? So, I think you need to structure it. I definitely don't advocate writing it word for word, because then it can become really stale, really boring and robotic. And we don't want that. So, just to have a structure to it, I do that for all my live videos, because if I didn't do that, I would probably end up rambling on and forget what I was going to say. So, definitely have that. I would recommend having a Google Doc, or just write it on a piece of paper and have that very close to you.
Rob: So, you, and this is gonna be my follow up question. So, you would actually have that piece of paper there, or you might have, I don't know, post-it notes stuck up or whatever it may be, just some kind of reminder to keep you on track? You'd suggest that's a good thing?
Ian: Oh, definitely. I mean, I've done hundreds of shows now, and I still wouldn't do that. I still would not do without having some kind of show notes next to me, because yeah, I have done it without, and it's just ending up being really unfocused and tedious to watch. It kind of depends on you and your character and your personality. But I still even think... I think for most people, they will need that document, a structure, and also, you need to remember those key bits. For example, what is your call to action at the end? It's so easy to forget that. I've forgotten quite a few times to do that call to action, because you're so eager to press the end broadcast button and get it all done with. So, make sure you do that.
Rob: Yeah, yeah, I suppose it's a bit like, you know, you go and see the Rolling Stones, but it's a live show, but it doesn't mean they don't have a setlist, right. I mean, you know, they know roughly what's gonna happen. I mean, in fact, you know, I guess with something like that, I mean, that's pretty well-choreographed, isn't it? But...
Ian: Well, definitely. And then the other thing is that if you're going to be looking at repurposing your live shows, it's even more important to plan that as well, because what you don't want is... So, to give you an example of what I'm talking about here is, I tape my live shows, and the middle section of my live shows, I then turn into a podcast, and they also get turned into a blog post. And so, if my live shows are all completely unstructured, it's going to be very difficult to then take that bit and turn it into a podcast. It's going to be tedious for my listeners, because I'll be, you know, talking about the comments and talking with people that way, and then getting off on the side track, and it's going to lose that structure. So, I think it's important to have that structure so it makes repurposing for later much easier.
Rob: Yeah, that's a great point, actually. And so, talk to us a little bit about repurposing, because I think that's really valuable for people. So, you say, you just said then that with your live shows, you'll repurpose into a podcast, so I get that, so you're just, you know, I guess you're pulling a piece of audio content out of the live. But also the blog post, talk to us about that. I mean, do you use a... is that a transcription service that you use to... you know, you send that off and get that transcribed, or do you use it in a different way?
Ian: Yeah. So, I've been experimenting with different ways of doing this. And I'm actually in the process of changing that. So, what I'm hoping to do is actually to hire somebody to make that into a blog post for me. So, they'll listen to the podcast, and then structure that in a way, and then I'll go in and I'll edit it. I've done that on a few ones in the past. And I think that's, in my experience, has been the best way.
I have used transcription services too. So, I've used the likes of rev.com. There's also a really cool tool called Descript.com, which allows you to, basically, you could just put the video into the Descript, so you can download it from Facebook, put it into Descript, or you can just put the MP3, the audio into it. It will transcribe it for you. And then you could actually go in and just take out words from the transcription, and then it will remove that from the audio. So, instead of actually editing the waveform like you would normally do in an editor, you actually just edit the words. So, that's pretty cool. And that could be one way that you could make it into the podcast.
But also, at the end of that, you can then take that transcript that you've edited, and put that into the blog post. And so, what I've done there in the past is I've taken that transcription, I put headings in it, I've added links, I've added images as I've gone through, and that can work quite well too. So, it kind of depends on what you wanted to do, but I definitely see the power of creating blog posts from my podcasts and my live shows, because historically, my blog has been the main way I've actually got my business. It's been the way I've got lots of traffic to my website, and so, because of all the SEO juice that you get from it, and so, that's something that I really want to put a lot of effort into in the future.
Rob: Yes, I like that a lot. I think that's a really clever idea for people, just the idea that, yes, you can do the live video, but it doesn't have to end there, and actually, it could be that if you have some nice processes around what you do, it might be that you just decide, well, I'm going to do a live video once a week, but then it's got all these spin-off benefits because, you know, we can turn that into a written article that can go on the website and on and on. So, that's really good. Yeah. All right. So, that was step one, and so just getting over the fear, you know, as you say, it's not all about you, it's about the audience, just trying to remember that, and doing some preparation. Those are the main things, right, getting over the fear?
Ian: Yeah, absolutely. It's a mindset thing. But also, it's warming up your voice as well. So, actually [inaudible 00:16:52] back in the day, I trained as a professional singer, so this is... I've got a probably, [inaudible 00:16:57] about this, but it's making sure that your body is... your posture is nice and relaxed, the upper body, in particular, and warming up your voice. So, one thing is that I see some people do live videos and their voice can end up becoming a little bit of a monotone. So, making sure that you're going up and down, using different pitches in your voice is important. And also, something, what I call "heightened authenticity."
So, just very briefly on that, because authenticity is really important. People want to see the real you. And people can actually tell very easily if you are putting an act on. So, don't try and be anything other than yourself, but you need to put a little bit more energy into your live videos than you probably would do normally, because, as I said, the camera is that energy-sucking device. So, what I teach my clients is this whole idea of heightened authenticity. So, it's coming up with a phrase that maybe, it could be your tagline for your business, and then practicing it at different energy levels.
So, my tagline is, "Level up your impact and authority using confident live video." So, if I was just talking to you face to face, I would probably say, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." And if I was doing it speaking with a couple of people, maybe three or four people, a group, I'd be, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." If it was a workshop for, in front of 30 people, I would be, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." If I'm in front of a camera, I will want to raise my energy levels a little bit more. So, it'll be more like, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." And then, the really fun one is, imagine you're in front of 10,000 people, you're giving a keynote at a mega-conference, and you have to put even more energy in, it would be something like, "Level up your impact and authority using live video."
And the reason I ask people to do that is, and a lot of people feel really uncomfortable when we get to level five, because it just feels, it feels, like, over the top. But that's kind of the point. You need to make it more over the top than you feel... you have to make it more energy than you feel comfortable, because the fact is, when you get in front of the camera, you're probably going to... your energy levels are gonna go down. So, you need to give more than you feel you need to give, whilst being yourself. You don't want to be this, like, ridiculous over-the-top person, which is unlikely to happen. So, you need to get those two things in check.
Rob: Yeah, I love that. That's a great point. Many years ago, I read a book by a guy called Max Atkinson, called "Lend Me Your Ears" which is about public speaking. And he makes a similar point. He just says that, when you're up there, it will tend to come across as flat. And so, what you need to do is... it will feel over the top to you when you're doing it, but it won't to the audience, you know, it will just feel, you know, and if you don't, you know, turn it up to 11, sometimes people are just gonna be like, yeah, you know, this is kind of... this is flat, it's boring, it's dull, and as you say, a bit monotonous, so I like that. And I bet you find when you're getting... do you get people to, sort of, scream and that? You know, I mean, I bet you find when they've done that, when they've kind of experienced what it's like to do the, you know, the level five, as you put it, probably they feel a lot more comfortable doing the level three, right, I imagine?
Ian: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And there's loads of other exercises that I get people to do. So, there are things like lip trill exercises, just to get their voices using the different pitches. So, I'll do one, it's gonna sound really silly, but it's going from the low part of your voice up to the top. So, [vocalization], like that. So, you're really putting a bit of energy into your voice. And then, things like tongue twister exercises, like, make some up, so, [vocalization], really putting lots of emphasis on each of those consonants.
And then, you can even sing a song. So, I sing a song at a couple of conferences I've been speaking at and this is just to have a bit of fun. You don't have to be musical. You might have the worst singing voice in the world. But the song that I tend to teach people is, "Daddy's Got a Head Like a Ping Pong Ball" to the tune of the William Tell Overture. And the great thing about this is it helps you with your diction, with your energy, and with your pitch. And it also will, hopefully, put a smile on your face. So, it goes something like this, "Daddy's got a head like a ping pong ball, daddy's got a head like a ping pong ball, Daddy's got a head like a ping pong ball, like a ping pong ball." There you go. You probably didn't expect somebody to sing on your podcast, but there you go.
Rob: I've never heard that song before. But I like it. No, that's great. And I can see, you know, if you're doing these kinds of exercises, yeah, you know, it's just gonna make you feel good and help you get past that fear, for sure.
Ian: Exactly. Because you want to... when you press that go live button, it's really good to start with a smile and even start with a bit of laughter as well, and quite frankly, at the moment, we probably need a bit of that as well. So, it's good to have a bit of fun with your live videos, I think.
Rob: Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's, yeah. Although it can be nerve-racking, it shouldn't... if it feels like it's a death sentence, I mean, it's just, you know, you need to, you know, it doesn't need to be like that, does it?
Ian: And one final thing on that, just that I forgot to mention earlier, is that actually, I had a psychologist on my show to talk about this. And there's actually a lot of correlation between the emotion of fear and the emotion of excitement. And so, actually, if you... you might feel that fear before you go live, but actually, if you try and... it's a case of convincing your brain, saying to your brain, "Do you know what? You're not afraid, you're just excited." And so, it's doing these kind of vocal exercises that I talked about, having a plan, and then say, "Do you know what? I'm really excited because I'm gonna be delivering some real value to my audience."
Don't let any of those negative voices that are probably saying, you know, I don't know, that you're rubbish, it's gonna sound awful, and all those kinds of things. Don't worry about those. Just put that to one side and just be excited. And, you know, if things go wrong, that's part of the fun. So, I went live last week, and we had a power cut 20 minutes in. So, about five minutes after that, I managed to get my mobile internet on and I had a torch, and we carried on for about three minutes after that. But, you know, people loved it actually. They love when things go wrong. And so, don't let that faze you. You'll know for next time what to do, although, if it's a power cut, there's probably not much you can do about, apart from getting a generator or get the candles out.
Rob: Yeah, there we go. No, very good. So, that was the first step then, really, just getting over that fear. And just, I think, recognizing it's something that most of us have, right, I mean, unless we're a complete egomaniac. You know, we're probably all a bit afraid, but that's not a reason not to do it.
Ian: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm a lot more confident than I used to be. But I'm still quite happy to have a little bit of that fear. It just shows that I care. But I need to kind of get my mindset in check before I press that go live button. I need to know why I'm doing it, I need to make sure that I'm warming up, and that I turn that fear into excitement.
Rob: Excellent. Okay. So, that's step one, was the fear and getting over it. Step two, we need to think about the gear, right. This is how you'd frame it?
Ian: Yeah. The tech and the gear. So, and this is, some people... depends on your personality. Some people get really excited about this, probably they... you know, and I can understand this because, yeah, I'm a geek, I'm gonna admit it. I love playing with gear and technology. But sometimes, I just want to, just to mention this, that sometimes this, we can get so obsessed or thinking about this so much, that we end up not actually going live. Or sometimes, we can use this as an excuse not to go live.
So, a quick story that happened to me about over a year ago, probably about two years ago now, is that I didn't go live for a whole month because I was concerned that my camera wasn't good enough and my background was boring. And so, I was looking for... what I was thinking, "I need to get... I need to upgrade my camera. I need to get somebody in to help me with my backgrounds." And I didn't go live for a whole month. And then it struck me. The real reason was actually I was just too nervous, or I was just... I didn't like the way I looked. And I was comparing myself to others. It was a mindset issue. So, just be aware of that.
So, when it comes to tech and gear, it doesn't have to be complicated at all. And I'm a big believer in bootstrapping your live video studio. So, start small. Unless you're totally committed to live video, you know you're going to be super confident with this, and you've got a big budget, by all means, you know, spend £10,000, $10,000 on your live video studio from the start, but that's not most people. Start small and build it up over time. That's what I did. And so, probably a good place to start is to just use your smartphone, whether it's an iPhone or an Android phone. That's a good way just to build up your confidence, because it's so quick and easy. You can go live to Facebook through the Facebook app. And you can also do that to Instagram Live as well. You can't do it to YouTube unless you have over 10,000 followers. And you can't do that on LinkedIn easily. You can't do that through the LinkedIn app.
But with Facebook, you can, and it's a great place to start. So, the two things you basically need to go live are first of all a device, whether that's a computer, a tablet, or a phone, a smartphone. And the other thing that you need is decent internet. And the important thing here is your upload speed. So, before you go live, it's always a good idea just to check your internet speed. There's a tool that I use. I'd recommend downloading this for your Mac or your PC or your Android or your iPhone, and it's speedtest.net, and it's... just check your internet speed. You should be looking for at least 3 or 4 Mbs upload. If you've got lower than that, you might be okay, but you might not, and there's nothing worse than going live and then it says your internet connection is unstable, and then people can't see or hear you. So, just check your internet speed. I would say 4 or 5 Mbs upload speed is a good minimum to go for. And then, yes, just start on going live from your smartphone.
The next thing that you could look at is upgrading the microphone. And so, if people can hear you really well, that is gonna allow... people are going to stay and listen to you. If your audio is poor, they're gonna switch off. So, the microphone I recommend is a lapel mic. You can either go for the Rode Smartlav+, which is a really good microphone. Or there's a much cheaper version of that, a cheaper alternative, which is from BOYA, that's B-O-Y-A, and it's the BY-M1 lapel microphone. Don't you love these names? They just slip off the tongue. BY-M1.
Rob: I do. Tell us those again, Ian, those two, just in case people are scrambling to write them down, please.
Ian: Yeah. So, the company of the first one is Rode, R-O-D-E, and the microphone is called the smartLav+ and it's a lapel microphone. And the other one, the cheaper alternative, is the BOYA, B-O-Y-A, and it's the BY-M1. And both of them are lapel mics. Obviously, if you've got an iPhone, you will need, and you've got one of the more modern ones without the headphone jack, you'll need to get an adapter for that. But that's a really good place to start.
Rob: So, just to clarify things. So, for example, just using your smartphone and, kind of, plugging one of those into it would be the next step up from just using the smartphone and the built-in mic, is that what you're saying?
Ian: Yes, yeah. It really enhances the quality of the audio. And I know actually quite a few YouTubers who use that BOYA microphone, and they've been doing that for ages and get a really good quality. So, that's just a little hack just to improve the quality. So, I suppose at this point, it's a good idea then to talk about, well, what are the pros and cons? Or what's the differences between going live from your phone as opposed to your computer? Because there are big advantages and disadvantages with both. And I think going live from your computer, that's leveling things up and give you a lot more features.
So, advantages with going live from your smartphone. Well, first of all, it can give that more raw and authentic feel. It's great if you're out and about and you want to be mobile. Obviously, you can't lug your computer around with you. So, that's really good. And it's just a nice, kind of, very easy way of going live. But the downsides are that if you want to bring anyone in remotely, if you want to do an interview show, you can't do that on any of the apps except for Instagram. And if you wanna share your screen, unless you hold the phone's camera in front of your screen and somehow do it that way, you can't do that. You can't schedule your live videos as well. So, if you're wanting to do what I do, which is I will schedule my shows on Facebook and YouTube, and then be able to then send the link to my email list and on social media, you can't do that if you're going live from your phone. So, that's the disadvantage.
So, if you go live on your computer, you can schedule, you can bring in people remotely, you can use more professional webcams and microphones, you can share your screen, you can save the video in a higher quality format for later for repurposing, and you can also highlight comments on the screen as well. LinkedIn live, if you're lucky enough to have been granted access to LinkedIn live, that only works on the computer, although there is an app called Switcher Studio that does allow you to do it from phones. But most of the time, it's just on the computer. So, and highlighting comments and all that kind of stuff is only available if you go live from your computer. So, if you want to start on going live on your smartphone, but then progressing to doing it from your computer is the next step. And I definitely recommend doing that. And it doesn't have to be complicated or difficult. There are some great tools out there that make that really easy for you.
Rob: Yeah, very good. And I get the feeling people do this less now than they used to. I mean, a few years ago, it was the norm if you were gonna do some video to, kinda, get to a green screen background and do all this kind of stuff. But my sense is people, they don't really do that so much anymore. It seems a bit out of fashion. I don't know, is that just me?
Ian: Well, it's... people are... you know, everyone has a different take. And there are loads of different types of live videos out there. So, I've seen people that use green screens and people that don't. I actually do use a green screen for some of mine. And the only reason I use it, well, I use my green screen for two reasons. The honest reason is that it solves my messy office...
Rob: It's terrible back there.
Ian: So, it hides that. And also, it can make it fun and interesting. And second of all, it's great if you're doing, "how to" videos, because you can actually just... it's a bit difficult to explain on the podcast, but you can just have your head superimposed on the video that you're showing. So, it can look quite good. But honestly, green screen is difficult to get right, because you've gotta have good lighting, you've gotta have a good camera. And so, I wouldn't recommend that for beginners. That's something that I've only recently done in the last six months. I would again, focus on audio first, get a nice microphone. So, the one I would recommend to start off would be the Samson Q2U microphone is a good one. But seriously, there are so many. There's also the Blue Yeti microphone is a very good one too. But yeah, get a nice microphone that's going to give you good quality.
And then, cameras. If you can, don't just use the inbuilt one on your laptop. Try and get an external one. At the moment, there's a total worldwide shortage of these, but any of the Logitech webcams are good. And if you want to level things up even more, and you've got a bit more budget, then you could get a DSLR or a mirrorless camera. So, this is what I've got. I've got a Canon M50. And then, if you have a Mac, you can plug that directly in. If you're on a PC, there's extra software you need to get called... what's it called again? I'm gonna forget the name of it. It'll come back to me in a minute. SparkoCam is the one for PCs. And you can plug that directly in there. And that will give you a much better quality. But again, bootstrap it, you know, you don't need to get all the expensive stuff right from the start.
Rob: You don't need it all on day one, no. And what about lighting, Ian? Because if I were to try, in my current office to do something at my current desk, the lighting is... the natural lighting, I should say, is all wrong for me. It's just in completely the wrong place. So, I look, kind of, shadowed out most of the time. So, I kind of feel like I could do with some kind of light on me, but what are your thoughts on that? Is that something we could... what I'm after is, kind of, you know, low level, like, I don't want it to be like Wembley Stadium, you know, but, you know, is there some kind of small light or something that you can recommend that we could use just to get a bit of something going?
Ian: Yeah. Lighting is really difficult, and I'm gonna admit, it's not something that I've... I'm still trying to work out the best way that I light my setup. But so, it's a case of playing around with the different solutions that you could have for your office. So, if you have... if you can get in front of a window, and you have good, consistent light, actually, that can work really well for you. Obviously, not in your case, because, depending on your office.
So, the other thing is to... you can buy softboxes very cheaply, on the likes of Amazon and other places. The problem with those is they're quite big. And although they're cheap, they're big. And they can also, they're very hot. And so, the ones I would recommend looking for are LED lights. So, I've got ones, they're by a company called Neewer, that's N-E-E-W-E-R, and they do have a variety of different ones. I've got, I think, what do they call this, the... forget the name of them, I think they're the 480 set. So, I think there are 480 LED lights on each one. So, you could probably get by with just one of those or two of those in front of you. And they're really good.
If you've got more of a budget, the ones that I absolutely adore, and I haven't got them myself, but I've seen... I've tried not to be too jealous of my friends who've gotten these, and there's a company called Elgato. So, definitely check out Elgato because pretty much all of the products that they produce are amazing. They're not sponsoring me, by the way, I just love what they do. And their light, they've got something called the Key Light. They've got two different key lights. They've got a desk one, so that just sits on your desk. And the great thing with this is that you can adjust the color temperature from your computer, so you can adjust it remotely and get the perfect light for you. So, you can either get one or two of these, and they are lovely. And if you buy, they've got these little programmable keyboards called Stream Decks. Bit difficult to explain, but every key has its own little display that you can customize. And you can use those to program the key lights as well, you could get really geeky. Which, I'd better stop before I go on too much. But yeah, lighting, the Elgato key lights are great as well.
Rob: That's nice. No, a lot of ideas there for us to explore if we're so minded. All right. So, that's good. So, we've talked about getting over the fear. And we've talked about the gear and how you can get going with a basic setup and some of the more advanced stuff if you're into that. So, we've got over the fear, we've got the right gear. Now, what do we...
Ian: Well, there is one other thing [inaudible 00:37:31] that I forgot to mention. [inaudible 00:37:33] is actually really important. If you're going live from your computer, you need a tool, you need a live video tool. So, you could use Zoom. If you're used to using Zoom, you can actually go live with Zoom. It's not the best, the most, the easiest solution or the most fancy one, but Zoom is good. If you're on a Mac, I highly recommend checking out Ecamm Live. It's a really easy-to-use streaming software, allows you to go live to Facebook and YouTube and all the different platforms. Sorry, Ecamm.
Rob: Is that E-C-A-M-M? Is that the one? Am I thinking the right one? Yeah.
Ian: Yes. That's right. Ecamm Live. Yeah. That's a really good one. And one that's available for Macs and PCs, because it works in the browser, is called StreamYard, StreamYard. And that has a free version and a paid version, so that works really well. You can bring in guests remotely, and that's a really good one. There are so many. I won't go through all of them. But certainly Ecamm Live, StreamYard are probably two of my recommendations for you.
Rob: No, well, you're absolutely right, and we'd have been a bit stuck if we'd forgotten those. So, that's good. So, with those, you know, with that software, and, you know, the camera, the mic, and all the good things that we talked about, so we're ready to go. And then the question, of course, is what do we say on our live videos? You know, what kind of content do we create?
Ian: Yeah. So, it really depends on this kind of live video that you're going to be producing. So, the format that I really like and see a lot of value in, and I've been doing regularly every single week, sometimes twice a week for the last year, is the show format. And this can either be a solo show, it can be a guest show, so you can bring in somebody remotely, that, who you're going to interview, or you could even do a co-hosted show, so there's two of you that you either just talk with each other, or you bring in a guest.
So, it kind of depends on what you're wanting to do. For me, for my show, I either do them solo, shows, or I bring in a guest. And so, my show is all about how to be more confident with live videos. So, that is the theme. So, I would say, what is the theme going to be for your show? And then you... it's like how you create any other kind of content. So, every time you go on, you're going to have your theme, but then you're gonna have a particular piece of content that you're gonna be talking about. So, what is that going to be, and then breaking it up into those two or three or four sections, and talk about that. And then within those sections, you can then bring in comments, answer questions that people have, so that you're not getting too distracted by those comments.
So, you need to, first of all, know what you're gonna be talking about. What's the theme? What is good, are you actually gonna be talking about per episode? And obviously, then you gotta think about, is it gonna be just me? Is it a solo show? Or am I going to bring in a guest, or is it a co-hosted show? And, I think for beginners, for people who are new to this, I actually think interview shows, or a co-hosted show, yes, it does have its own set of problems, but it's actually a good place to start, because it feels more like a conversation, like what we're doing today is a conversation. It's like, you know, we're not in the same room, but we're having a conversation with each other. That's a little bit easier than just doing it on your own, because then you really, really need to know your stuff and you need to make sure that you're not stuttering over your words and getting distracted. So, I would maybe think about doing an interview show first, and using a tool like StreamYard or Ecamm Live makes that very, very easy for you.
Rob: Yeah. And the other thing with the interview type format is, again, it's a kind of forcing function, isn't it? Because, you know, if you've booked a guest and, or you have a co-host, then that's a commitment in the diary that you can't easily get out of. Whereas if it's just, it it's the Robert Tyson show, you know, gosh, actually, I feel a bit tired today, maybe I won't do that. So, that's another benefit, I suppose.
Ian: Absolutely. Oh my goodness. And I'm laughing because I've been there. I think we all have, you know. And so, actually, if you have a guest, you've got to do it. So, and I think from the beginning, the first probably dozen videos that you do, I hate to say this, the first dozen live videos that you're gonna do, they're not gonna be that great. They're not gonna your best...
Rob: [crosstalk 00:42:10].
Ian: Yeah. Okay. Well, you're actually saying it how it really is, you know. It's true. And so... and your confidence levels are gonna be low. And so, I like to draw this graph which basically goes up. It has a few ups and downs along the way. Sometimes your confidence will go up. Sometimes you'll have a tech disaster and that rattles your confidence, but you've gotta keep going and get better. So, it's a good place to start with, with having an interview.
Rob: Yeah, I like it. And talk to us, you have a model, or a checklist, a process, The 5 P's. Talk to us a little bit about that.
Ian: Yeah. So, The 5 P's, I mean, this just takes you through all the elements that you need to think about. So the first element, we kind of talked about it already, is the planning. So, this also includes, you need to have a tech check... if I can say the word, a tech checklist, of all the things that you need to do. So, check your audio, check your internet. Make sure all the tools are working really well. Know what you're gonna talk about, so have a document that has got all the stuff that you need. So, that's the first thing that you need to do.
Second thing is pre-promotion. Let everyone know out there that you're going to go live next Tuesday at 2:00. If you're gonna schedule that live video, that makes it a lot easier, so you can send the link out to your list. You can send it out on social media. You can send that information to your guests for them to be able to do that promotion. You can create videos and you can create all that kind of information to promote your live show next Tuesday, because if you don't tell people about it, then, you know, no one's gonna turn up, or it's gonna be... you're gonna be very disappointed in your numbers. So, pre-promotion, really important.
Then it comes to the day that you're going to go live. And this is all to do with production. We've talked a lot about that before. It's how you structure the show, it's warming your voice up before you go live. It's pressing that go live button, knowing what you're going to say. It's being able to use the software confidently and making sure that you've obviously tested that before.
Then, once you press the end broadcast button, it's at that point that most people go and have a lie-down, and think that's the end of it. But of course, it's not. We want to turn that live video into a piece of evergreen content that's going to last for a long time. And so, it's at that point that you need to think about the post promotion. And here, it's down to getting people to listen and watch the replay of it, because you might only have 10 people watching your live, but you might have 30, 40, 50, even 100 people who are watching that live video later. And so, you want to get people watching that. You might want to, again, do, send people that from your email, through social media, get your guests to share it with their audience too. So, that's the post promotion.
And then the bit that I get really excited about is, which we've already talked about, is the repurposing of your live shows, turning that maybe into a podcast, into short little snippets to share on social media, into a blog post, into an infographic. And there's so many things you can do there, from that one piece of content. You can turn that into a plethora of different content that's going to, hopefully, explode across the interwebs and allow you to focus on running your business without having to worry about creating so much content, because it's a lot easier doing it from that one live show.
Rob: Yeah, I love that. And I suppose, would you agree, it's usually a smart choice if you decide that what you're gonna do with your content is have a few things in there that are going to be really evergreen, so that you can get the most mileage out of them, because I suppose this is one of the issues. If you're doing something that's very topical, you know, things change.
Ian: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I did a podcast many, many years ago. It was the "Social Media News" podcast, not the most exciting one. I spent ages editing it, and because I was talking about the latest that was happening in the social media world, it was out of date after a week. So, it's not to say that doing those kinds of episodes is a bad thing, because occasionally, it is a good idea to, if there's a hot topic to talk about at the moment, then, by all means, talk about that. But I am more into creating evergreen content that's gonna last for a long time, because it just means you're creating less work for yourself and it's going to last a lot longer for you.
Rob: Yeah, I think I'm in your camp. As you say, I mean, sometimes you can catch a wave with the really topical stuff and that helps you, but I think on balance, yeah, I'd rather be in the evergreen, evergreen gotta camp, you know, to the degree that I can be.
Ian: Definitely. Yeah.
Rob: Yeah. Well, look, Ian, this has been so good. So, there's... you shared a wealth of stuff with us. If listeners just took one nugget or piece of advice away, what would that be?
Ian: So difficult to say one thing, but it's really to press that button, to just go live. Obviously, plan and prepare and do all that kind of stuff, but don't procrastinate. You know, because I've been there. It took me, like, probably one or two years to actually get round to producing my own live show. Don't be like me. Just do it. And now is a really good time to do it, because so many more people are doing it. And so, yeah. That's what I'd say to people.
Rob: Just get it done. So, maybe, pick a date, pick a time, tell your network that it's happening, and just get out there and do it, perhaps.
Ian: Absolutely.
Rob: Yeah. Awesome. Ian, as I said, it's been great. Where's the best place for people to get more from you?
Ian: So, the best place is my website. I've got loads of guides on how to improve your confidence. I've got tech guides and things like that. And I've also got my podcast, it's, "The Confident Live Marketing Podcast" which can be found, my website is iag.me, and my podcast is at iag.me/podcast.
Rob: Ian, I just wanna say thank you. This has been great. Loads of fantastic information for people. I do appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Ian: Thanks Rob, it's been great to be on.
At the time of recording we’re under ‘house arrest’ due to coronavirus but these are strategies you can use to generate B2B leads well beyond that. Rob Tyson chats to guest Sarah Hughes, regarded as the B2B Lead Generation Expert, with a specific focus on the rich terrain for B2B sellers that is LinkedIn…
Email marketing is STILL the most powerful online marketing channel but ONLY if our emails are getting read and step 1 in that is getting them delivered...
Adrian Savage is an expert in email deliverability, founder of Deliverability Dashboard and all about helping you avoid the Spam folder and win the email race to the Inbox. Including:
- What is ‘deliverability’ - what does it mean?
- What’s an average open rate?
- We’re never going to get 100% of email subscribers opening so what’s possible?
- How important your email platform is - and the one platform Adrian 'wouldn't touch with a bargepole'
- If our deliverability is poor, is that a good reason to move platforms?
- What happens if we do nothing?
- How long until we can expect results from our deliverability activities?
TRANSCRIPT:
Rob Tyson: Welcome back. This is Rob Tyson here and in the last episode, I talked to Dave Plunkett about how to run a partner program for lead generation. So do catch up on that show if you missed it, but I'm here today with Adrian Savage. Now, Adrian is an expert in email deliverability. He's the founder and the creator of Deliverability Dashboard. And he is all about helping you to avoid the spam folder and win the email race to the inbox.
And this is really important because we'll talk about this but I think email marketing is still the most powerful online marketing channel but only, of course, if our emails are getting read and the first step in them getting read is them actually getting delivered. So I can't wait to pick Adrian's brains on all that. But before we welcome Adrian and get into all that good stuff, if you're listening to this show, chances are good you have professional expertise you'd like to monetize with an online business or an online component, perhaps, that breaks the time for money link.
And if that's the case, I'd like to invite you. I have a free web class that's gonna explain why the ‘ascension model’ or ‘value ladder’ you've probably heard quite a bit about is actually a really bad approach for most people in your position, and exactly what you should do right now instead if you'd like to generate real cash flow quickly and finally get on the right track with monetizing your expertise online. So all that is free. All you need to do is pop along to robtyson.net/class for the details. That is robtyson.net/class. So as I said, I'm here with Adrian savage. Adrian, welcome. Good to see you.
Adrian Savage: Hi, Rob. Thanks for inviting me.
Rob: You are most welcome. And I think this is a really interesting and valuable topic for people. So what's your background briefly? How did you get into this rarefied area of email deliverability in the first place?
Adrian: It has been quite a journey. I won't go all the way back to when I was 7 because that was when I became a geek because my dad bought an Apple II computer home and it was muggins here who taught him how to use it. I went down a very kind of traditional, academic, corporate career until about 9 or 10 years ago. My ex-wife moved to the other end of the country with my kids. So I went from seeing them a couple of times a week to every third weekend, and that was my big catalyst to get out of corporate life. I took my IT geekery and combined that with sales and marketing, and I got into the marketing automation space. And then I started to get clients who were having problems getting their emails into the inboxes of their clients and their audiences.
So I first created some software to help with that because going back a few years, there was a lot more of an impact on where your emails were being sent from. So that was my first foray into email deliverability. And since then I've kept half an eye on that. And then for the last 12 months or so, since there's been some really big changes to how email inbox placement works, then I've had some very clear messages from the world that my expertise is needed. So I'm now focusing, maybe not quite 100%, maybe 99% on that. I still got a few other little things in this space that I'm working on. But most of what I'm doing now is just helping people get their emails delivered better, creating software that helps them do that, and just sharing the message as much as I can.
Rob: And what is deliverability in the email context? How do you define that word?
Adrian: So there is a lot of misunderstanding because sometimes people talk about delivery, sometimes people talk about deliverability. And they are two very distinctive things. The first thing is when you are sending an email or when your email marketing system is sending an email, then the job that the technology has is just to get it as far as the recipient's email server. So let's supposing that I use Google and you use Hotmail, then if I'm gonna send you an email, then my Google server has got to connect to Hotmail and say, "Here is the email." And as long as Hotmail say, "Yes, thank you. I have received it," then the delivery has been made.
So that's just like a postman posting the letter through the letterbox. The problem is you don't know if there's a dog waiting on the side of that mailbox to chew the thing up and run away and it never gets opened by the person who was meant to get it. And deliverability is that part of it. It's once it's been accepted by Hotmail or Gmail or whoever, are they gonna put it into the inbox or is it gonna end up in the spam folder or the promotions tab or, heaven forbid, are they just gonna throw it in the garbage and it doesn't even get as far as spam, which can happen.
And that is the deliverability part. And that is based on a lot more than just where it came from. And that's what we'll talk about today. But that's the key difference. You know, if you're using something like ActiveCampaign or Mailchimp, their job is to get it to the recipient's server. And they will do a very good job on that most of the time. But then what happens after that, that's where it gets interesting.
Rob: And we would gauge this how, with open rates, right? I mean...
Adrian: Yeah. It's a real challenge because you can't measure deliverability because, you know, we've got no idea. If someone hasn't opened the email, is it because they didn't care about it? Is it because they were too busy? Or is it because Google or Hotmail or whoever, bless them, decided not to put it in the inbox in the first place?
So you're quite right. We can infer things through the open rates, and we can look at trends and things like that. And there are some testing tools out there that claim to be able to tell you whether you're hitting the inbox or not, but even those have got their limits. So it is very difficult indeed. And, you know, this is harder than SEO. With SEO, at least you can see where you are on the search rankings. There's as many different factors to get into the inbox as there are for getting to be number one on Google these days. But it is a much more of a kind of weird thing because you can't see what your results are. You've just got to infer it as in terms of are more people opening our emails or fewer people opening them?
Rob: And with that caveat, I mean, what is an average open rate? I mean, I know it varies wildly, doesn't it? But...
Adrian: Totally. It is an interesting one because, you know, we're talking a lot in this podcast about how to double your open rate. And, you know, a joke that I often make is that I can double anyone's open rates in seconds. And the way I will do that is I will remove half of the people from their email list who haven't opened anything for a while, and then the next time you send out an email blast, guess what, then if the same number of people opened as last time, then the open rate is doubled. So, it is a very subjective term because it depends on lots of factors.
It depends on how engaged your audience is at the moment. It depends...then there is the content. There's the type of business you're in. But what I would say is that I've got clients that have messed things up to the point where they're getting a 0.2% open rate with Google, because they have upset Google to that point. I've got typical clients, maybe starting with a 10% to 20% open rate. And that's, you know, just that's what they've been getting without getting any advice from me without using any of my software or anything. If people are managing their engagement well, and they're doing everything they can, then you could expect maybe 35%, 36%, 37% open rates.
That's the kind of amount that I'm getting typically with my mailing list when I'm managing the engagement. And then the other side of it is just well, how many people...or if a new person signs up to your mailing list, what is the likelihood of them opening something as well? So a good barometer is what percentage of new contacts are opening something from me? And if you're managing things well, then I've got clients where 80% of their new signups will open an email from them at some point in the first few weeks. So, you know, there are lots of different ways to measure it. But if you just look at the pure open rate, I would say that you can consider yourself to be doing well, if you're getting more than 30% opens.
Rob: Okay, so most of us, you know, a bit of room for improvement there.
Adrian: Definitely.
Rob: For sure. And we will be using some kind of email software provider so it may be ActiveCampaign, AWeber, Infusionsoft, whatever it may be. Are some of these software providers just better for this than others? And if so, who?
Adrian: It's a very interesting one because you can go to any Facebook group or mailing list or discussion forum about any of these platforms, and you can be guaranteed there will always be people complaining about deliverability and saying that emails aren't getting through, they will be blaming the platform. And now if someone's blaming Infusionsoft, then you can take the word Infusionsoft out, put ActiveCampaign in and someone else will be saying the same thing. So it's perception-based, very subjective. But in reality, these days, every single one of these email platforms has a very devoted, dedicated email compliance team, making sure they're not on blacklists, making sure they're getting a good 99-point-something percent delivery rate to the other servers.
In some cases, the reputation of the system sending it has a small impact. But I can be absolutely certain and say that if you switch from one provider to another, then you are gonna experience a drop in your open rate regardless of where you're moving from and to. And the reason for that is because one of the reasons that you will suffer from poor open rates is if you do something that looks like a spammer. And guess what spammers do. They move from one platform to the next, to the next. So anytime Google or Microsoft or any of the big players see that you've moved platforms, they will instantly think, "Hang on, there's something going on here."
And it might be that things recover again. But you will always have a dip to start with. And it's unlikely that you're gonna do much better than you did before because you've got to build everything up again. So I would say that in terms of how good the platforms are at getting their emails delivered, they're all pretty good. They all have the occasional problem. But it's not a reason to switch platforms. What I would tend to... When I recommend an email platform, comparing one to another, what I will look at is how easy is it to manage the various parameters that will help you to improve your deliverability. And the big thing that I'll talk about later with that is engagement.
Because if you can't easily identify the people who are and are not opening your emails, then it's gonna be more difficult to send the right things to the right people at the right time. So, no, I won't call many platforms out for being good because there's lots of good ones, but ConvertKit is one that goes on my real kind of do not touch with a bargepole list, because they have a very, very kind of very poor way of measuring and managing engagement. And you can't even download the data to use from third-party tools. So all the email deliverability tools and software that I've written, I can't even connect that up to ConvertKit because they don't make that data available.
Now I’m hoping that's gonna change. So maybe, you know, if people listen to this a few months down the line, maybe that's changed. But the biggest thing that matters to me is: how easy is it to manage the engagement? And most of the platforms are okay. Infusionsoft as an example is really good. ActiveCampaign, you have to jump through a few hoops. And to do a real good job, then you need to use my software to make it easier. But it does depend very much and I'd say, you know, because there are so many different platforms out there, then, you know, if you're choosing one at the start, then engagement management is one of the important things. If you're already using a platform, though, it's not a reason to switch as long as everything else is okay.
Rob: Now, that's good. Well, I can speak from bitter experience here, because I actually moved from AWeber, which I'd used for many years, to ActiveCampaign, which I really like, by the way. I like ActiveCampaign, but when I did that, I wasn't aware that you could fall foul of this.
Adrian: Absolutely.
Rob: And I took a real hit early on. You know, it just wasn't the same and it took some time to get over that. So is there any way if we are moving platforms for some reason, is there any way to manage that process better than I did?
Adrian: Yeah, totally. And the other thing is all about who you move across first because as I've already mentioned, it's all about who is engaging with you at the moment, and are you only mailing those. So if you can identify who has opened something from you in the last 30 days, and when you move to a new platform, send emails to those people first. Because that way then you build up a good reputation with your new platform because they want to see that you're a good sender.
And at the same time, you're still getting a reasonable open rate. And that helps your domain sending reputation with people like Google, Microsoft, because one of the things they're doing now is they are crowdsourcing your reputation based on which of... Let's supposing that you've got 10,000 people on your mailing list, on average, half of those will be on Google. So Google will look at those 5000 people and say, "Right, how many of those people are opening Adrian's emails right now?"
And if it's only 5%, 10%, then Adrian gets a poor domain reputation score from Google. If I'm getting 30%, 40% then I'm getting a good engagement reputation. So it's very much around understanding what they're looking for and just as much as you can, stack the odds in your favor by only starting with the most engaged people, then you can start to go further back. But it is like the law of diminishing returns. The longer it is since someone has opened something from you, the less likely they are to ever open anything ever again.
Rob: Yeah, sure. And what happens if we do nothing? You know, if we don't do anything about deliverability these days, I mean, what is that gonna look like for us?
Adrian: Oh, it's not a very good picture. Because the thing that people, a lot of people still don't get is how much the email landscape has changed. Because if you wind the clock back to those wonderful years, 10 years ago, you could build up a big list, you know, get as many people onto it, then you basically spam the crap out of them, email them as much as you like. And then you keep emailing until they buy, until they die, or until they unsubscribe. And that was, you know, that was how everyone did it. And that's how people still do it today in some cases. But if they do that now and just keep emailing, keep emailing, then you will see a very, very continuous constant reduction in the number of people opening your emails.
Because typically I'm seeing about 10% of your audience disengages on a monthly basis. And that's the law of averages. Sometimes people, you know, they turn off their mail address, they might change jobs, they might lose interest, whatever it is, then, you know, you are typically gonna lose 10% of your audience through disengagement and apathy and everything else on a monthly basis. So, you know, you don't need to be a genius mathematician to work out that as time goes on, then you are gonna get fewer and fewer people opening.
Now obviously, if you've got a good lead generation in place, and you're refilling the hopper from the top all the time, you might not notice as much. But if you're literally getting no new leads, and just keep emailing the old list time and time again, then you will see things decline. And that's one of the reasons that people say that email is dying when actually it's not. It's just people aren't necessarily getting enough leads and managing their engagement.
Rob: Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So these four steps, talk to us about those.
Adrian: Okay, so very, very simple. The first thing you want to do is you wanna protect your reputation. And the way you do that is you scrub your email list, you make sure there are no spam traps on there, you make sure that there's no dead addresses that your email marketing platform hasn't picked up on. Make sure that there's, you know, you're not sending too many emails to role accounts like sales@, or info@ and that kind of thing. And scrubbing the list will find all those different bad email addresses. And then you can choose. In most cases, what you'd do is you would stop emailing all of the addresses that have been identified as bad. And that's just a good way of making sure that you're not hitting spam traps.
I haven't got time to go into the detail about spam traps, but the simple version is they are email addresses that have been created either to catch people scraping stuff off the internet, which I'm sure no one listening to this would ever do. Or alternatively, people who aren't keeping their list clean because if an email address stops working, then it will bounce for a while, but then they will reactivate that address as a spam trap. And if you're still emailing that address afterwards, then you go on to the bad boys' list as well.
So scrubbing the list helps avoid that, helps keep your reputation clean, and it doesn't cost a huge amount of money. The list scrubbing services will typically say you should do this every three months. But they would, wouldn't they? Because they get the money out of it. But I would say that if you've never done it ever, then you should, and it probably makes sense to do it periodically, maybe once a year, maybe more frequently than that if you keep turning up more problems when you do scrub the list, but definitely worth doing.
Rob: So you would use...you would go to a specialist or use a specialist piece of software for this because there are tools built-in with, you know, ActiveCampaign, for example, where it will imply that it's gonna help you clean up the list.
Adrian: Yeah, absolutely.
Rob: In fact, it may even be called list clean up. So are you saying that's not really adequate or...?
Adrian: It doesn't get rid of the nasties. It will certainly help you find the addresses that might have disengaged or might no longer work or anything like that. But if it is an actual toxic address that gonna cause you problems if you mail it, then it's very difficult for the email providers to help you identify that. So yeah, third-party tools that do that will do the job.
And it's one of the things that I've actually added to my... I don't have any list scrubbing software myself, but my email deliverability utilities that I've got. I've got a free integration that helps you scrub your list in place on the platform, because normally, you have to download the list to a CSV file, upload it to the scrubbing service, scrub the list, download the result, upload it into your email platform, and it's a right faff when you do that. So I've written a little tool that actually integrates with that and you just literally press a button, and it will either scrub your entire list or a particular segment and then it applies a tag with the results. You decide what to do. So nice and simple. And I'll share more details about that when we get to the end bit.
Rob: Good stuff. So that was step one. So basically scrubbing the list is step one.
Adrian: Yeah, absolutely. So second step, then, so scrubbing the list is one of the ways to help your reputation. The next thing that matters massively is authentication. And this is about making sure that firstly, you're telling the world who you trust to send emails on your behalf, and secondly, making sure that your emails are being digitally signed by you. So the first thing is called SPF, which stands for Sender Policy Framework. And this tells the world which email systems you trust. So let's supposing that you're using G Suite for your business emails, and then you're using ActiveCampaign for your marketing emails, then you have one...you only have one SPF record. And in the SPF record, it would say that you trust Google and Active campaigns.
So that way then when those emails come from those providers, the recipients will check that against your SPF record, and they'll see a big tick in the box if they come from the right place. If someone else has then sent it elsewhere, and they're trying to forge your email, then that gets treated with suspicion obviously. But spammers don't use SPF. So that's one reason to set that up. It's just one way of showing that you're legitimate. So that's nice and simple. And again, most email platforms, I think almost all of them, you might have to dig around sometimes, but they will give you the details as to how to set SPF up for those platforms.
Then the second part of it is called DKIM. So, Domain Keys Identified Mail. Again, I'm gonna kind of call out ConvertKit as giving bad advice here, actually, because they say that you should only set up DKIM if you've got more than 50,000 emails a month going out, which is not strictly true. As long as you have got a good sending reputation, you should always set up DKIM, because Google, in particular, will use that digital signature that gets attached to every single email, as a way of proving that it was from you, proving it was legitimate.
And if it's been DKIM-signed, then it means that, "No, it can't have been forged." So again, most email platforms, even ConvertKit, will do that for you, you just have to make a bit of a fuss. But, you know, MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, Infusionsoft, you know, the list goes on, they will allow you to set this up. It might be called email authentication, it might be called DKIM, it might be digitally signing, but dig around, you can find it, very, very important to do that.
Rob: Okay. All right. So that's step two, those two?
Adrian: Yeah, absolutely. I will quickly mention DMARC, which is the third authentication method, which again, is worth doing. But you have to be very careful with DMARC. And make sure whoever sets it up for you knows what they're doing. Because DMARC will tell the recipients to reject and throw emails in the bin, not even the spam folder, if it's not set up right. So be very careful with that. But if you've got a properly set up DMARC record, that is another indicator that you're legitimate, but be careful with that. You know, DKIM you can't get wrong. It either works or nothing happens. SPF, you know, it's not the end of the world if you get that wrong, but, you know, you should make sure it's correct. But if you get DMARC wrong, your emails will suddenly stop going. So be very careful there.
Rob: Okay. Proceed with a bit of care?
Adrian: Definitely.
Rob: Good stuff. So we've talked about scrubbing the list, we've talked about authentication, the third step?
Adrian: Okay, so the third thing is about whitelisting. And this is really, really important. Because normally, you are completely at the whim of Google. You're at the whim of Microsoft. Whichever your email provider is, they are gonna decide which emails they show to you and which ones they don't. And whitelisting is a way of forcing them to show the emails that you tell them that you want to see. So as an email marketer, you want to be sharing these whitelisting instructions with your audience. And it's a bit pointless doing it by email because if the emails aren't getting through, they won't do it. So it means that when someone signs up for your list, the first thing you have to show them on your thank you page is how to whitelist you.
And this depends very much on the platform that they use. Now the really clever solution is to actually detect what platform they're using and show them personalized whitelisting instructions. So if they're using G Suite or Gmail, you can tell them how to set up a filter to always bypass the spam folder. If they're using Hotmail, or Office 365 or something like that, then you can show them different instructions. And there's ways of actually developing custom code that goes on to the thank you page that can do that. I've done that for a few clients.
I've done that on one of my own signup pages, I do that. But if that sounds like too much work, you can also get your own custom whitelisting instructions generated that will just show all of the different platforms on there and how to whitelist you. And if you go to a website and the address is simply whitelist.guru, I'll just repeat that, whitelist.guru, then there's a guy called Chris Lang, who has created a do-it-yourself whitelisting instruction generator. You put your name, your brand, your email address in there, press a button, and it will give you a nice pretty HTML page with your personalized instructions on that you can copy, save, put in your thank you page, off you go. So, very important...
Rob: That's handy.
Adrian: It's very useful. Bear in mind that not everyone will follow those instructions. But even if 10% of them do, then you're doing yourself a favor. And if people complain, they're not getting your emails ever, then those are the instructions they need to see.
Rob: Okay, so that was whitelisting
Adrian: Yep. So that leaves us one final step. Now, this is a little bit tenuous, because it isn't just one step. This is more about change your mindset forever. Because as soon as you stop doing this, then this goes back to when we talked about what happens if you do nothing. And this is all about managing your engagement, making sure that you are only sending emails to the people that have opened from you most recently. And if you find people that haven't opened for a while, then you need to maybe send them a reengagement campaign that I'll talk about in a sec. And if they still haven't engaged at that point, then basically, you get rid of them off your list. You're gonna be very ruthless with the way that you manage engagements.
Because, you know, as I said earlier on, if only 5% of your audience is opening something, Google and Microsoft and Yahoo will think that you're, you know, sending out complete and utter garbage and they will start putting your emails into the promotions, into the spam, into the junk and so on. So it's important that you are maximizing the chances of people opening your emails by only sending your emails to the people that have recently opened something. And one of the biggest questions that I get asked is, "Well, how far back should I go?" And it depends very much on whether you've got a problem or not. If you haven't got a problem, then my typical rule of thumb is to send emails to people that have opened something within the last 90 days.
If you've got a problem, you might need to dial that back a bit or if you want to have a really super-engaged list, then you need to dial that back to 30 days. And sometimes you're gonna have kind of a two or three-tier strategy here. So you might say that people who have opened something in the last 30 days, I'm gonna send them everything. I'll send them maybe two, maybe even three emails a week. If they've opened something between 30 and 90 days, then maybe I'll send something every week or two. If they've opened something beyond 90 days, then ideally, you would just put them through a re-engagement campaign when they reach 90 days of no engagement. And if they ignore that, delete them.
Some people will still send the occasional reminder to those people. I would say if it's more than a year, never send them. But maybe between 90 days and a year, then maybe send something every month or two just to give them another chance. You know, the law of averages says that the longer since someone opened something, the less likely they are to open anything. And the other thing to look at as well is we talked briefly about new contacts and the likelihood of them opening something. If someone signs up for your lead magnet, and then they haven't opened anything from you within the first 7 to 14 days, the chances are, they will never ever, ever open anything. Again, they're just gonna be there hurting your sending reputation.
So another thing that I recommend is if you've got a process in place for your new contacts, then maybe put something in where when it reaches two weeks, and they haven't opened anything from you, maybe put them through a little reminder. And then again, if there's no engagement, get rid of them. Because, you know, let's face it, if someone signs up for your freebie, and they won't even open that, the chances are they're never gonna be interested in anything else as well. So, you know, that is the main thing. It can be a very arduous task, managing your engagement, but the dividends that it pays off are massive.
That is what will make the biggest difference. And even though you will see that you are mailing fewer people, then the open rate will go up very quickly. You know, I know that what we've talked about in the past is how long does it take before you see results. And I would say typically, it can take between one and three months for you to get really good results. When I've been working with, you know, some of my private clients, I had one that came in. They are on a just under a 12% open rate, and within three months, then their open rates had reached 25%. And even though they were mailing fewer people, the actual number of people opening the emails had gone up.
So obviously, the number of people hadn't doubled, but it had certainly gone up a bit from when it was 11%, 12%. So, you know, it can take a few months, but as long as you are consistent, then that's what works. And the little tale of woe that I will share is don't let the fear get to you. Don't let the fear of loss and the fear of letting go. Because that same client the month after sent a bunch of email broadcasts to their entire list again without managing the engagement. And within two days, Google had downgraded their reputation and their open rate fell through the floor. It took another month to get that back. So you have gotta keep your nerve. And you gotta be very consistent with this. But the more you do that, the better you'll be rewarded.
Rob: Wow. So were those really old people, you just feel it's just not worth having them on the list at all? You know, the chance...
Adrian: No. Absolutely not. Because typically, if you send an email broadcast, just the people that have opened more than 90 days ago, you will get maybe a 2%, 3% open rate if you're lucky. But if you keep mailing those people that don't open, the chances are that you'll get 10% fewer people seeing your email in the first place. So it becomes a very simple trade-off that yes, you might get a few more opens, but fewer people long term will see those emails. Obviously, just because they're not opening the emails, doesn't mean you can't use those addresses for Facebook, custom audiences and retargeting, and things like that. So there's still a value in that data. It's just that you shouldn't really email them, you know, very often if at all.
Rob: And, I mean, I suppose there's a bit of value in, you know, you could go to the lengths with if we call those people kinda dead subscribers, inactive subscribers, I suppose you could have a crack at... You know, if you had a large number of these, you could maybe take them to another platform and, you know, try send or two to them from different platforms.
Adrian: It's interesting you say that because typically, you know, particularly now, Google and their machine learning is clever than all of us put together. And unless you can send a separate email from a separate domain with absolutely no connection to anything else that you've got, then it will probably be linked back to you somehow and your campaign sending reputation will still take a hit. So it doesn't really matter whether you do it from your current mail platform or a different one, it is more just about making sure that your overall engagement still stays high.
So, you know, if you are gonna try and send re-engagement emails to the older inactive contacts, make sure you're sending lots of good stuff to the people that are opening so that the kind of the poor performance is slightly more lost in the noise. And that's why I said, you know, having this kind of two or three-tiered process where you're sending the most content to the people that are engaging the most. And that helps you then because at least then you've got a good reputation to start with. And if you are sending to the inactive people, then it's not gonna drag you down as much as if you're doing that regularly.
Rob: It's nice, great. And I suppose the good news is that to a large extent, we should be able to automate a lot of this process, the reactivation process, that kinda thing?
Adrian: Yes, a lot of the email platforms have some level of that. Again, they'll kinda help you do maybe, you know, it's the 80/20 rule all over again. They'll help you do kind of the 20% that has 80% of the impact, but you can always do it slightly better. That's one of the reasons that one of the best software that I wrote actually makes it easier to do that. Because sometimes, you know, I'll use both ActiveCampaign and Infusionsoft are good examples of this, is that they will give you, you know, enough to do a semi-decent job.
But if you wanna really get down into the weeds in this and say, "Right, I'll have different strategies for 30 days versus 90 days versus more than 90 days," then it requires a lot of hard work and manual reporting. So sometimes the software that I've got makes that easier. But, you know, there's always a level of it that you can automate.
Rob: Okay, no, great. Really, really helpful. So to wrap up, then, if listeners only took one nugget or piece of advice away, what should that be?
Adrian: If I was gonna choose one thing out of that, obviously, all four are important. But I think, you know, managing...assuming that you haven't bought a list or something horrific like that, managing your engagement on an ongoing basis is the most effective way of keeping things healthy. Because that way then, assuming that spam traps and things like that don't open your emails, which most of them don't, then as long as you stop sending emails to people that aren't opening, then that will keep things clean, it'll keep your domain reputation up, and, you know, it will mean that as time goes on, then more people will see your email. So engagement, engagement, engagement. That's the key one.
Rob: Excellent. Where's the best place, Adrian, if people wanna get more from you? Where should they go? Where can they check you out?
Adrian: Nice and simple. So the first thing, I've got a free email health check service. And that works with most email marketing platforms. I'm adding more all the time. So right now if you've got Infusionsoft, ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Sendinblue, Constant Contact, then it already works with those and I'm adding others in. And that will just give you a nice simple score between 0 and 100 telling you how well you're managing your engagement right now, give you some hints and tips to improve that.
And to get that you can go to emailhealthcheck.net and just sign up. If you're not using those platforms, then sign up there anyway and you can get added to my list. I'm always sending out blog posts and hints and tips, things like that. And also you can find me on Facebook, facebook.com/adriansavage. Connect with me there. I'm always happy to point people in the right direction if they need any help.
Rob: That is excellent. And I can vouch for Adrian, because you helped me... I think we had a look at some of my stuff with your software and very enlightening it was too and I've began to do some of the things that you recommended.
Adrian: Excellent.
Rob: There we go. Good stuff. Well, Adrian, this has been really valuable. So just to say thank you. This has been really helpful.
Adrian: And I've really enjoyed it. And thank you very much for inviting me onto the podcast.
Rob: You are very welcome. And I will talk to you soon.
Adrian: Great stuff. Thanks, Rob.
Rob: Hey, it's Rob, again. Want to build a successful online business from your expertise? Well, the game has changed. There are bigger opportunities, but also bigger pitfalls than ever before. And I would hate for you to waste years figuring these things out for yourself. Now as a listener to this show, you're obviously a sensible person, right? So here's my invitation to you.
Apply to jump on a call with me in the next few days and let's talk about you. You will get feedback on your ideas. You will get a product concept that is fit for right now and you will get a personalized sales and income plan to take away. That is free but availability is limited. So please go along right now to chatwithrob.com. That is, chatwithrob.com. Do that now. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Once again, that is chatwithrob.com. Talk to you soon.
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Peter Sandeen is best known for creating marketing messages that make people immediately feel, “that’s perfect for me.” He’s often called “the marketers’ marketer” because over half of his clients are other marketing experts who want to see their own blind spots and make sure they’re focused on what matters most….
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Hey, Rob Tyson here and welcome to my brand new podcast, Growth Moves!
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