What Do to When Your Marketing Campaign Isn’t Converting

I know what you’re thinking. Everyone talks about the need to create and convert traffic….BUT HOW TO DO IT!!???? You’ve been sending email after email and…Gulp!….Crickets!!! No one is responding to email campaigns, the event planner list you pitched your keynote to led to diddly squat, and while you probably have an email subscribe button on your website…The truth is, not enough people make it to your site to a make it worth-while for you.

If this is your situation right now. This was me too a few years ago. I spent years looking for tools and solutions to this problem. I thought I was horrible at marketing. Or worse. Nobody wanted what I had to offer. Only to discover that even if I had a blank check to spend on marketing automation. None of our marketing worked until we got really good at a story that resonated with our audience. What I didn’t know then. Was what I’m about to share with you. Right now.

The truth is nobody creates traffic. Your only job is simply to go out and convert it. That’s what the internet is. It’s literally just traffic. Billions of people searching for billions of solutions.

The key to converting traffic is in drafting your Hook, Story, and Offer

Successful conversion campaigns are based on your ability to answering just 3 questions:

1. What will get the attention of your audience?
2. What story are you telling them that builds belief, emotion, and trust with the situation they are in?
3. What irresistible offer do you provide that makes their situation better?

As simple as it may sounds. This is the art. The part most of us overlook. Because it’s hard. In our race to pitch what we offer. We forget. What it must feel like for our customers to not know the areas of knowledge we know in our domain as thought leaders.

DEFINE YOUR HOOK

Ready to go fishing? First, you need to the right bait that attracts the right fish you’re going after. Most people fail at conversation right out of the block because they think by throwing out a hook it will attract fish.

The best way to come up with your hook is to imagine you are at a crowded mall. Go to the food court and stand up on a chair. Picture you looking around at the busy food court and you’re about to get their attention by yelling out an offer. What would you say to a room full of strangers making eye contact with you? To get them to do more than stare at you like a crazy person? How will you get the right folks in the room to come over to where you are and hear more about what you’re talking about?

You’d have to think of something pretty creative, polarizing, or surprising. Without those two actions happening first, you can’t get your message across. Forget selling anything!

The hook is the first essential element of the selling process because it causes two actions in our potential customers:

1. It stops them from whatever they are doing (scrolling, reading, etc.)
2. It repositions their focus and attention on you (or your ad, your sales page, your offer)

REMEMBER: It’s not always about being the best in your marketplace. It’s more about being interesting. And Different. You know you’ll have created a successful hook, because people will usually say this in their head, “Wait what?”

Here are four ways to look for a good hook by Russel Brunson (aka the Yoda of traffic conversion):

1. Look in your past or childhood. Is there anything that happened that would make a good story? Pick the juiciest part of the story and lead with that as the hook.
2. Look at your struggles or obstacles. Is there something that you’ve done or had done to you that will make a good story? Pick the juiciest part of the story and lead with that as the hook.
3. Try to create a story by doing something cool or crazy. If you don’t have anything in your past or with your struggles, could you do something to make an amazing story? If so, what’s the one line you can pull out that would act as your hook?
4. Look at the “common” wisdom and throw rocks at it. What are people currently thinking, doing, talking about, with regards to the common wisdom of the day? Can you poke holes in it? If so, what would be that one line that would act as your hook?

Using Brunson’s Method lets look at a real example of how he would apply it:

“If I were trying to sell an iPhone on the streets of New York City, in order to create a good hook, I need to know who I’m selling to. Most people in NYC already have phones. They are busy. They are rushing around. They are working on Wall Street, closing deals. If they have a phone and don’t care one lick about me, how can I get them to pay attention? Immediately what comes to mind is this: What if I pre-loaded a conversation on the phone between the two greatest investors in the world – Ray Dalio and Warren Buffet? That would be insane! Anyone on Wall Street would kill to hear their trade secrets. Now that I have that idea, I have to think of one quick line I can use to stop someone on the street, immediately. “Hey, quick question for you…I have a 2hr. conversation between Dalio and Buffet recorded on this phone discussing trade secrets. You interested?” This is using method #3 – something insane or crazy – to craft a good hook!”

NOW DEFINE YOUR STORY

The Hook sets the stage but the story provides all of the background and the context.

So many people FORGET what it felt like before they got ahold of the information that changed their beliefs and convinced them to buy something. Good storytellers don’t forget that. They know that in order to get someone to feel the same emotion they have, they have to first start where the prospect is at, and then lead them to the spot they want them to go. People only buy into things at the end of a journey. It can be a short or a long journey, but it’s usually at the end of it. Don’t use technobabble and industry language when you’re reaching out to cold traffic.

Your prospect has a pain point. They have tried a few remedies and nothing has worked so far. That’s where you come in. Explain where you were in their shoes, experiencing their pain. What wall did you hit? Until you had an Epiphany moment! Where you learned a new way of doing things. Does that lead to a better outcome? Then create urgency by educating them what it will cost their business if they don’t act soon!

Use the Soap Opera Sequence to draft Your Story:

• Backstory – What happened, or what is the context that led you to look for a solution to your problem or desire?
• Desire – What did you want to accomplish?
• Wall – What problem did you face when you started this journey?
• Epiphany – What was the Aha! moment? What did it feel like?
• Plan – What was the plan you used to get the result you wanted?
• Conflict – What conflict did you experience along the way?
• Achievement – What was the result?
• Transformation – How did it change you?

Sound familiar? This is the same sequence used by Disney and Pixar

Once Upon a Time, there was a _1_. Everyday _2_. One day, _3_. Because of that _4_. And because of that _5_. Until finally, _6_.

1. Who (Backstory)
2. What (Desire)
3. Problem (Wall)
4. Attempt at solution (Epiphany & Plan)
5. The Struggle (Conflict)
6. Solution (Achievement & Transformation)

LAST DEFINE THE OFFER

I know, finally right? If you’ve made it this far your 99% ahead of everyone you’re competing against. Now for the payout.

Your hook and story create the right environment for your customer to buy….as long as your offer is WHAT THEY ACTUALLY WANT! Your offer is different than your product. Products are commodities. Your prospect looks at what you do as a commodity. I used to sell life insurance. Everyone sells life insurance. And there are a million places to go get life insurance. So everyone is selling the same product. And by the way, no one in the history of the world ever woke up in the morning ready to buy life insurance. And even fewer people take time to find out how 1 life insurance contract is better or worse than another. So every life insurance agent competes on convenience and price.

If that’s your business as well that’s a horrible business to be in because now you’re chasing people down to the bottom on price and your margins are going to get smaller and smaller until eventually you have no profit whatsoever. Being the low-cost leader is an effective strategy but if you’re the second lowest cost leader there is absolutely no strategic advantage whatsoever.

Offers can take you out of the price-based arbitration competition entirely.

Steps to Create a Great Offer:

You need to think the way your customer thinks. What would they naturally need along with the main product? To create a great offer, first write out the things your customer might be thinking:

Will this really work?
How will I implement this on my own?
How will I get my team to buy into this new solution?
How will I train them?
Is the price worth the value?

How can you bundle your offer to eliminate all of the doubt and limiting beliefs your prospect has? Remember what Meg Menke from the Rose Group said in last month’s webinar. Your buyer sees your offer as a set of problems. Even though you offer a solution implementing your service creates natural problems they have to adapt the process for. It’s a scary new territory for them.

Once you have those beliefs, objections, and thoughts, you can naturally create pieces of your offer that deal with those thoughts.

So in addition to the service you provide:

What guarantee can you offer if your service doesn’t succeed?
What video training can you provide to help the customer implement your solution?
Are you willing to fly out and pitch the team to create buy in or do a video on-boarding call?
Do you have a comprehensive training process available for the buyers to step and repeat on their own?
Research and have data available for what it will cost them if they don’t go with you

See how the offer maps against the beliefs and objections? With each piece of the offer, you are sweetening the deal, removing yourself out of the competition, creating an irresistible offer, and crushing objections, all at once.