Growth Hacking

Raymond and Chad are growth consultants, also known as “growth hackers,” (Location 37)

What Is a Growth Hacker? Growth Hacker (noun) /’grōth ha-kər/: a highly resourceful and creative marketer singularly focused on high-leverage growth. Growth hackers thrive in resource-constrained environments where money is tight and time is of the essence. Through a mix of creativity and technology, a growth hacker is able to hack through the jungle, uncover buried resources along the way, and construct the tools needed to grow a business. A growth hacker is the figure-it-out-as-we-go adventurer of Indiana Jones mixed with the problem-solving ingenuity of MacGyver. (Location 40)

the vast majority of companies died off or became zombies (dead, but still hobbling along). (Location 48)

growth hacking is not something that can be taught in a classroom, but rather it’s a mind-set that someone like you can adopt. (Location 51)

Spending $4,500 and filming in a single day, the Dollar Shave Club team created a YouTube video that went viral, racking up over one million views in the first seventy-two hours and bringing in twelve thousand paying customers. (Location 60)

Not only was the video launched right before a large industry conference, but the team meticulously scripted comedy tightly woven around the core mission of the company that left viewers chuckling and eager to share with their friends. (Location 63)

He has taught tens of thousands of business owners around the world how to market their businesses online, (Location 70)

Most owners didn’t have the working capital to justify traditional marketing efforts where advertising costs were prohibitively high and results were exceedingly slow to bear fruit. By necessity, Raymond had to be creative in his coaching and engineered new ways of achieving the same results as “traditional” marketing channels without the high expense and slow timelines. When Raymond was able to achieve better results than the traditional methods, he knew he had engineered something special. (Location 74)

Dropbox, the cloud storage company mentioned previously that Sean Ellis was from, cleverly implemented a double-sided incentivized referral program. When you referred a friend, not only did you get more free storage, but your friend got free storage as well (this is called an “in-kind” referral program). (Location 82)

The program immediately increased the sign-up rate by an incredible 60 percent (Location 86)

One key takeaway is, when practicable, offer in-kind referrals that benefit both parties. (Location 87)

PayPal’s referral program that he recalled from when he was in high school. PayPal gave you ten dollars for every friend you referred, and your friend received ten dollars for signing up as well. It was literally free money. PayPal’s viral marketing campaign was conceived by none other than Elon Musk (Location 90)

One key takeaway is that a creative and compelling referral program can not only fuel growth but also generate press. (Location 93)

Hotmail’s growth hack was so successful that Apple copied it a decade later with the launch of the iPhone, where every email sent on the device would automatically say, “Sent from my iPhone,” at the bottom. (Location 101)

Most importantly, we constructed a clear framework for you to organize and prioritize the growth tactics: the Automated Sales Process™ (Location 106)

Before we begin, it must be noted that the growth hacks detailed in the case studies above were merely modern renditions of old-school marketing tactics. (Location 111)

You will be pleasantly surprised to find that most growth-hacking tactics are simply technological implementations of marketing strategies that have existed for centuries. (Location 115)

As a savvy and self-aware business owner, accept that you will never have X extra money or free time. Your competitive advantage will come from your ability to intelligently reallocate your scarce resources to achieve breakthrough growth. (Location 138)

What differentiates the fastest-growing companies from their peers is that they’re not afraid to invest a massive amount of resources on growth. (Location 147)

in 2014 and 2015, and the average company spent a jaw-dropping $0.72 on sales and marketing for every $1.00 of sales during the three-year hypergrowth period before going public. (Location 149)

You’re probably wondering, how does a company like Box justify spending more money on sales and marketing than they generate in sales? The answer is “customer lifetime value.” (Location 151)

If you have no time or money, then you need to focus on “life hacking” before you start growth hacking. (Location 165)

The present-day reality is, “if you build it, they won’t just come.” (Location 206)

The quickest way of understanding an ASP™ is by way of analogy. Think of an ASP™ as a digital replica of the perfect salesperson. The perfect salesperson will naturally attract prospects, set a polished first impression, keep prospects engaged as well as educate them, follow up with them at just the right time and handle any objections with expert salesmanship, skillfully close the sale while simultaneously looking for upsell opportunities, and get referrals while retaining them as customers for life. (Location 254)

The ASP™ takes the perfect version of your sales process and permanently stamps it into a technology system that works for you 24/7/365, never having a bad day, never needing a vacation, and never requiring benefits. (Location 258)

1. Attraction Attraction is the means of getting attention for your products and services. In the offline world, Attraction consists of TV, print, radio, and word-of-mouth marketing, among the many others you are familiar with. Each offline channel has an online parallel: TV = YouTube, print = website display ad, radio = online radio, word-of-mouth marketing = social media sharing. Just like offline, there are different flavors within each channel. For example, in the offline world, print ads range from billboards to benches, and in the online world display ads range from pay-per-click ads to pop-ups. While the tactics may vary, the goal remains the same: get attention. The Attraction component works to eliminate marketing resource waste by quickly parsing through unqualified, cold-market prospects and pulling out prospects that are qualified for your product or service with targeted advertising. (Location 266)

2. First Impression Once you’ve attracted your qualified prospects, you want to ensure that you make a good first impression by giving your prospects a consistent, personalized, and professional experience. In the offline world, your first impression is established when someone walks into your office or storefront. In an online world, your first impression is established when someone visits your website or stumbles upon your presence on social media. The aim of the First Impression component is to turn your qualified prospects acquired via the Attraction component into brand-acquainted and intrigued prospects. (Location 277)

3. Engage & Educate When you’ve made a favorable impression on your potential client, the next step of the ASP™ is to engage and educate that potential client about your product or service. In the offline world, there are subtle psychological tricks that influence visitors to take specific actions. For example, a warmly lit and Wi-Fi enabled lounge area at your local coffee shop encourages you to stay until your stomach begins to grumble and you find yourself buying an overpriced muffin you passed on when you first purchased your latte. In an online environment, there is an equal amount of subtle psychological tricks that will encourage your visitors to take certain sales-producing actions. (Location 283)

4. Follow-Up In even the most scientifically designed subconscious sales system, the vast majority of visitors will not purchase from you immediately. The path to real riches rests in the follow-up. In the offline world, follow-up activities range from phone calls to mailing lists, but these are often forgotten or neglected because they take a significant amount of time, money, and attention. The online follow-up environment has a set-it-and-forget-it quality that makes it sustainable and incredibly lucrative. (Location 292)

5. Sales Technology When your prospect is ready to buy, it’s your role to move them through a frictionless sales experience that shepherds them smoothly to the point of purchase. In the offline world, point-of-purchase tactics range from conveniently crafted upsells, to offering a wide variety of payment options, to gifting a complimentary breath mint. Believe it or not, it’s possible to replicate these point-of-purchase tactics in an online environment. Moreover, in an online environment your business will no longer be encumbered by human constraints when closing a sale. You can book appointments, take payment, and recommend upsells at 2:00 a.m. on a Saturday. (Location 300)

6. Referrals & Retention Once you have closed the sale, as you know, the sales process is not over. The final step is to ask for referrals and retain that customer for life. In the offline world, asking for a referral may be as simple as leaving your business card, and retention may consist of a customer-appreciation gift at the end of the year. In the online world, your business card can be replaced by a prepopulated social media post, and a gift can be credited instantaneously to your happy customer’s account the moment one of his or her friends becomes a customer. The reach and instant gratification that technology generates is unparalleled. (Location 308)

The ASP™ is a cyclical process, transforming unqualified, cold-market prospects into happy, repeat, and referring customers. (Location 317)

Why an ASP™? Most business owners get lost in the tactical weeds, losing sight of the strategic forest. You’ve had marketing gurus tell you that “you need be posting more on Facebook.” You’ve read tip-of-the-day business articles proclaiming that “you need to start using negative keywords to optimize your AdWords spend.” You’ve been told by colleagues that “you need to start buying leads from XYZ lead generation service.” Frankly, no one tactic is bad or wrong. The problem is, you are drinking from the fire hose of isolated tactics without having any framework, mental model, or context to prioritize, organize, and assess the applicability to your situation. The ASP™ is your strategic compass that will enable you to navigate to prosperity instead of drowning in a sea of tactics. (Location 321)

The high-level understanding of the ASP™ framework that you have developed so far may now enable you to identify certain bottlenecks in your current sales process that you can drill down on. (Location 329)

Attract thousands of interested people and laser-target your hottest prospects so you aren’t wasting money and time on tire-kickers and looky-loos. (Location 348)

The Data Difference What differentiates attracting prospects online versus offline is the availability and abundance of data. Data creates a feedback loop for your marketing to help you continually fine-tune what you say, how you say it, and where you say it. (Location 366)

The opportunity to start small and scale quickly is one of the founding principles of the growth-hacking gospel and the reason why online advertising is such a uniquely powerful medium. The final data-enabled difference between online and offline advertising is the ability to automate. (Location 382)

Online, you need to optimize for precision, identifying the exact audience you want to market to. This process starts with identifying your “avatar.” (Location 398)

Here are some questions to ask yourself when developing the perfect avatar. (Location 408)

A free tool you can use to define your avatar is Facebook’s Audience Insights. You can input look-a-like audiences such as people who liked a competitor’s page, liked the page of a specific interest group, or demonstrated interests relevant to your offer. (Location 418)

Once you have established your avatar, the next step is to determine when, where, and how to reach those ideal buyers. (Location 421)

Regarding when, focus first on when your avatar is in a buying mood or most likely to take a buying action. One of the clearest indicators of buying action is the keywords the avatar uses when performing an online search. (Location 424)

Once we exhausted the ad inventory with purchase intent, we expanded to people considering investing in a solution but who need more information before deciding. (Location 428)

Once we exhausted the ad inventory with education interest, we expanded to folks who are aware of their problem but may not be in a position to actively solve that problem. For example, we served display ads to homeowners on Facebook touting the benefits of having your roof inspected before the rainy season. In summary, focus on purchase intent, then education-based interest, and then awareness-based interest when reaching out to your avatar. Regarding where, focus on where your avatar spends time. Once you have clearly defined your avatar, this should be a much easier exercise. For example, if your avatar is a forty-five-year-old housewife, you would focus on widely adopted social platforms. If your avatar is a fifty-five-year-old male, you would focus on certain news publications. If your avatar is a fifteen-year-old teenager, you would focus on newly created social apps. (Location 431)

A clever way to determine specifically where your avatar spends time is to use a tool called SimilarWeb. Enter your competitor’s URLs into the tool, and scroll down to see exactly where their website traffic is coming from. This is a great way to discover places to “steal” clients away from your competition. (Location 438)

Regarding how, don’t overcomplicate it. At the most fundamental level, your decision is between text, image, audio, and video. We present them to you in increasing level of complexity: image ads are more complex to produce than text ads, audio ads are more complex than image ads, and so on. The increasing level of complexity is a good proxy for an increasing amount of cost to produce. Video ads are typically the most expensive, and text ads are typically the least expensive. As a growth hacker, we recommend that… (Location 442)

After looking at how thousands of companies attract customers online, we developed four primary categories to keep Attraction tactics organized: direct, search… (Location 449)

Direct: Direct attraction is when someone already knows about you and types your website address directly into her browser. Perhaps that person has done business with you before and recalls your website, or maybe a friend told her about you and she wanted to check out your website. A variety of things can drive direct traffic, ranging from a TV ad to a radio ad. Direct traffic is reflection of overall brand awareness: the more brand awareness, the more direct traffic. Search Platforms: Attraction from search platforms is when somebody finds you from a search engine. Example search platforms include Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Searches come in three varieties: searches for your brand, searches for a service you provide, and searches for information. There are two ways you can show up when people search: organically or by paid placement. You can improve your organic ranking through search engine optimization (SEO). You can get paid placement through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. While SEO and PPC tactics come and go, the one thing you can count on is change. New competitors, new rules, regulation updates, and a long list of other factors continually impact your ranking within the search engine algorithms. Therefore, if you want to make search platforms a key part of your Attraction strategy, be prepared to work on a continual basis. Branding Platforms: Attraction from branding platforms is when somebody finds you on social media or other platforms where your company can be reviewed or talked about. Whether you elect to be part of them or not, branding platforms will pull in information about your business to give consumers a forum to discuss your product or service. Example branding platforms include Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, Yelp, Houzz, and Angie’s List. The common thread is that branding platforms are designed to facilitate conversation around your brand. You can choose to be proactive and control the conversation, or you can be reactive and respond to the conversation. Unfortunately, what you cannot do is ignore branding platforms, because the conversation about your brand will happen with or without your involvement. We advise being proactive on the branding platform that your avatar spends the… (Location 452)

Offline is great for showing a “credibility-lending” logo on your website and a clip on YouTube, but the real money is made with online PR. For example, one Shark Tank client has an article that is three years old that is still responsible for 5 percent of all monthly website visitors. What makes online so much easier to land than offline is that the… (Location 475)

Whether it’s an ad, a backlink, a press mention, or some other method, the “other” Attraction category provides ample opportunities for creative growth hacks that we will talk more about in… (Location 480)

Take stock of where you are currently getting traffic from online. It’s more than likely that one category will be much smaller than the others. Once you have identified the soft spot, you can focus your energy on tactics that will strengthen that category. Prioritizing the activities that will strengthen an Attraction category weakness is… (Location 483)

One of the frameworks we developed to identify high-ROI Attraction opportunities was the advertising arbitrage framework. The high-level concept is to seek… (Location 486)

supply outpaces advertiser demand. Fundamentally, this will occur when an advertising channel is growing extraordinarily fast (a supply increase), or when an advertising channel is… (Location 488)

As of this writing, an example of a supply-increase advertising arbitrage opportunity is YouTube. More than a billion people visit YouTube every month, it has more reach than any cable network on earth, and the numbers continue to grow at an enormous rate. Most businesses are too lazy or don’t have the resources to create video ads, so advertising supply massively outpaces advertiser demand. Given that Google owns YouTube, there is… (Location 490)

A current example of a demand-decrease advertising arbitrage opportunity is the yellow pages. Millions of business owners are pulling out of yellow pages, yet the yellow pages are still used by millions of people. The large yellow pages companies are desperate to sell ad inventory, and because… (Location 494)

One of the strategies we employ to create incredibly cost-efficient advertising opportunities is to connect content creation with commerce. This concept was pioneered and perfected on the internet by Brian Lee, who founded LegalZoom in 2001. Brian cold-called Bob Shapiro, one of the largest celebrity lawyers at the time, who became famous after successfully defending O. J. Simpson’s murder charges. Brian convinced Bob to endorse and… (Location 499)

While you may not have the national reach to justify partnering with a celebrity or pairing with a global content site, there are ways to scale this strategy down. (Location 508)

Let’s say you only have local or regional reach with your business. There is still an opportunity to merge content creation with commerce. For example, if you run a local roofing company, an endorsement from a local meteorologist could provide significant differentiation from your competitors at a modest price. When executing this strategy, focus on content creators whose audience overlaps with those you are trying to reach. Once you achieve high overlap, approach with a win-win proposition that is more than just a financial transaction. For example, mentioning where and how you intend to promote an endorsement gets folks excited, as that will help them expand their reach and fame (it’s “free” advertising for their personal brand). (Location 509)

As you start to amplify your Attraction, the filtration process of personalizing and qualifying prospects becomes an important way to reduce wasted marketing dollars. Each advertising channel can provide additional insights about your prospect that enables you to tailor your messaging. For example, if you are advertising on the radio, the ad messaging can address “listeners of 99FM,” which adds a level of personal touch and helps get more attention from the listeners. (Location 519)

The more the message matches the audience, the better your advertising results will be. Intriguingly, qualification can be perceived as personalization, and the end result will be higher-quality prospects. Continuing the radio ad example above, you’ve probably heard things like, “Listeners of 99FM…if you have a home equity line of credit on your home greater than $50,000 and are currently behind on your payments…then call us now!” Providing listeners with the opportunity to qualify themselves during the Attraction process not only ensures your resources will be better spent but also makes the high-quality prospects feel as if you are talking to them personally. (Location 523)

The lines start to blur when comparing an internet marketer to an online marketer to a digital marketer to a guerilla marketer to a growth hacker, but what differentiates a growth hacker from the rest is the ability to conceive creative, tech-enabled growth strategies when resources are scarce. (Location 528)

The growth hacker will devise a creative tech-savvy solution and thrive in the resource-scarce environment. (Location 541)

Without spending a dollar more on marketing, how can you acquire the most customers in the least time? (Location 544)

As a growth hacker, your initial assessment is to look at how your organization is already spending time and identify opportunities where your time spent could benefit someone in a different industry, who then may be inclined to reciprocate. For example, if your sales force is already spending time talking to a customer about your product, is there a complementary product you could offer or refer your leads to? (Location 548)

Collaboration opportunities exist where your customer base overlaps with a complementary company and is fertile territory for affiliate, joint venture, comarketing, and other similar types of partnership arrangements. (Location 553)

Additionally, are there any opportunities where you can marry content creation with commerce? In order to structure a deal of this nature without any additional marketing spend, you will have to negotiate an equity or revenue-share arrangement. Or, if you already have a budget for marketing, it may just be a matter of allocating some spend from a different channel. (Location 555)

Another way to solve the money problem is through a barter arrangement. With a little creativity, there are a surprising number of opportunities to trade goods or services for exposure and referrals. For example, the way in which Deviate Labs was able to land its first Shark Tank client was by waiving the service fee. That was done at no out-of-pocket cost to us; it just took time, and it provided an immense amount of value to the client. The arrangement was premised on the promise that if we provide a lot of value, they would “pay” for our services by introducing us to other Shark Tank companies. (Location 560)

Done strategically, a barter arrangement where you exchange your product for introductions to other customers can dramatically accelerate the growth of your business. (Location 565)

The domino theory of growth hacking states that small wins beget progressively larger wins. Your job as a growth hacker is to identify the lead domino, the first tactic to implement, and line up the subsequent dominoes in ascending level of achievability on a path that leads you to your ultimate goal. (Location 568)

The final domino that we implemented was a redesign of the website. It became a stunningly beautiful shopping experience that featured all the top towns from the competition and included video content of the shops featured on the TV show. (Location 577)

Once we had a clearly defined avatar, we studied the ideal buyers’ every online behavior. We sought answers for a variety of questions such as “What did they search for?” “What websites did they frequent?” and “What forums did they contribute to?” Ultimately, we focused the marketing efforts on the search platform. We isolated searches with clear purchase intent to provide the client with an immediate payback cycle. We steered away from branding platforms as the payback cycle can take much longer and our client was days away from financial insolvency. (Location 590)

Attraction Takeaways While the initial out-of-pocket expense may be low, advertising inventory scalable, and ad serving automatable for online attraction, there is a certain time when an adept growth hacker should pursue offline opportunities. The growth hack used by Silicon Valley tech companies to parse through the multitude of digital demographic data is to create an avatar, a digital representation of your ideal buyer. When marketing to your avatar, focus first on when the avatar is in a buying mood or likely to take a buying action, where your avatar spends time, and how best to reach the avatar (text, image, audio, or video). The four primary categories to keep Attraction tactics organized are direct, search platforms, branding platforms, and other. A framework for identifying high-ROI Attraction opportunities is (Location 598)

called advertising arbitrage: seek advertising opportunities where advertising inventory supply outpaces advertiser demand. A strategy for creating cost-efficient advertising opportunities is to marry content creation with commerce. As you start to amplify your Attraction, the filtration process of personalizing and qualifying prospects enables you to reduce wasted marketing dollars. The domino theory of growth hacking states that small wins beget progressively larger wins. Identify the lead domino, the first tactic to implement, and line up the subsequent dominoes in ascending level of achievability on a path that leads you to your ultimate goal. Collaboration opportunities exist where your customer base overlaps with a complementary company and is fertile territory for affiliate, joint venture, comarketing, and other similar types of partnership arrangements. (Location 604)

Set a powerful first impression, giving your prospects a consistent, personalized, and professional experience. (Location 613)

You can’t just focus on having a polished mobile-friendly website; you also need a professional social media presence, a solid desktop version of your website, and, in many cases, a nice storefront or office. (Location 647)

In order to cost-consciously improve our client’s digital First Impression, we compiled a list of websites from the top American real estate professionals that the ultra-wealthy trusted with their business. After a conversation with our client, we swiped the best elements from the top sites and created a beautiful, brand-new First Impression. The result was a First Impression that was ten-times better than any of his St. Barts real estate competitors and was an order of magnitude cheaper to build than the early-adopting American real estate professionals. (Location 712)

Prospects judge a book by its cover; make sure your cover entices them to open your book and read your story. (Location 722)

Engage and patiently educate your prospects so they have all the information they need to comfortably buy from you. (Location 732)

Stripped of our fancy tools, there are only three fundamental ways to persuade. The three “rhetorical appeals,” as Aristotle called them, are as follows: (Location 756)

Appeals to ethos are persuasive tactics that build your credibility—for example, a marquee client or an impressive press mention. Appeals to pathos are persuasive tactics that appeal to your audience’s emotion—for example, a stunning photo or a captivating client testimonial. Appeals to logos are persuasive tactics that are supported by logic—for example, facts and figures, and features and benefits. (Location 758)

A growth hacker uses crystal-clear communication that is strategically designed to engage, educate, and ultimately sell. When all components of Engage & Educate are implemented, the persuasive effects will be so powerful that your growth rate will seem propelled by a magical force. (Location 764)

In the online world, your website is your metaphorical casino, and there are an equal number of psychological tactics that can “stack the cards” in your favor. The nine modalities of Engage & Educate are as follows: (Location 775)

Some elements that affect your ability to gain the trust of your avatar in the first three seconds include the layout and design of your website, the style of writing you use, the images you choose to portray, and the other eight components enumerated below. A few user tests or an examination of the bounce rate (the percentage of people that leave your site versus continue on to another page) and overall time spent on your site will give you a general sense for whether you are passing the three-second test. (Location 784)

The question is less about whether your brand is “good” or “bad”; that is too ambiguous and subjective. The question is whether your brand is consistent or inconsistent. (Location 791)

As great as jingles, slogans, and brand values are, they don’t move the needle for small- and medium-sized businesses. As long as you establish the basics, and you use them consistently, you will be fine. (Location 796)

Let’s looks at the shoe industry, a highly commoditized and competitive industry, for three examples of USPs: Toms: For every pair of shoes you buy, they donate a pair to someone in need. Zappos: Every shoe purchase has free returns and is backed by best-in-class customer service. (Location 802)

A headline should immediately draw attention and be the very first words that people read when visiting your website. (Location 810)

Instant-Clarity Headline Formulas [What You Do] + [What Makes You Unique] + [Geographic Reach] Residential & Commercial Roofing Since 1929 Serving Los Angeles and Surrounding Area [End Result the Customer Wants] + [Specific Period of Time] + [Address the Objections] Example: Hot Fresh Pizza Delivered to Your Door in Thirty Minutes or It’s Free (Location 814)

Tagline vs. Slogan vs. Headline (Location 823)

What is important to emphasize is that this component is not features AND benefits, but rather a merged mash-up that marries the two together. (Location 832)

Feature-Benefits [What Something Is] + [What Something Does] (Location 834)

Example (Apple’s iPod): 1GB of MP3s that puts 1,000s of Songs in Your Pocket (Location 835)

While there is no set rule, feature-benefits often come in sets of three or more and are typically formatted as digestible snippets. Given the gravity of importance associated with feature-benefits, it often is helpful to attach a visual icon to complement each snippet of feature-benefit text. (Location 835)

Copywriting is the art and skill of writing in a manner that persuades and seduces your reader toward an action, viewpoint, opinion, or sale. (Location 845)

An excellent copywriter requires an intimate understanding of the reader, your avatar. By understanding your avatar’s wants, needs, and desires, you can connect with her pain and pleasure points. (Location 846)

It’s less about appealing to your avatar on an intellectual level with technical jargon and more about appealing to your avatar on an emotional level (pathos). Write as if you were talking to a close friend. (Location 848)

Growth Hacktic A simple way to get inside the mind of your avatar and understand the language they use is from review sites. Amazon is an excellent resource for products, and Yelp is great for services. If you don’t have any reviews, look to your direct and indirect competitors and pay particular attention to the words that convey emotion. (Location 850)

When writing customer-centric copy, avoid “we,” “my,” “us,” and “our”; instead, use “you” and “your.” Imagine talking to a single prospective customer about your business; that is the conversational tone and direct feeling you want to convey when engaging and educating people about your company. (Location 854)

After you’ve passed the three-second test as discussed in the Trust Building component previously, layering on additional elements of social proof will solidify your trust and maximize your influence. Social proof, referred to as “informational social influence” among psychologists, states that we mimic the actions of others when we are unsure what to do. (Location 858)

Here are some examples of social proof: Endorsements (experts, celebrities) Client mentions (logos, testimonials) Partner mentions (logos, quotes) Press mentions (logos, quotes) Reviews Ratings Awards Social media following / connections / likes / shares Number of people served (Location 863)

The multiple-source effect is that when multiple different sources are cited, each individual source is perceived as having more influence. (Location 868)

One of the key differentiators between a good salesperson and a great salesperson is the ability to gracefully handle client objections. (Location 872)

Frequently asked questions (FAQs) are your digital opportunity to handle objections, and you can do so in a way that captures your salesperson’s most eloquent rebuttal. It may appear counterintuitive to prompt questions that may not even be on the mind of your prospective customers, but the questions can be framed in a way that positions the product or service in a favorable light. For example, as opposed to saying, “Does your window-cleaning service kill birds?” you can frame the question as “How does Mr. Clean Window Company help birds steer clear from my sparkling clean windows?” (Location 873)

FAQs can also be used to boost search-engine positioning and decrease the cost of purchased traffic. (Location 879)

As such, it’s important for you to identify the primary, secondary, tertiary, and so on calls-to-action prioritized based on what fits best with your operation and industry. Here are some examples of different calls-to-action: Book an appointment online Call our 1-800 number Click here to buy Request a proposal Submit a contact form Instant-message us (Location 886)

The primary call-to-action should be visible “above the fold” (the section of the webpage before you start scrolling down). Some individuals already know that they want to purchase from you when they arrive on your page, it’s your job to give them a way to take immediate action. Putting the primary call-to-action in a button will add the visual queue that indicates “what to do next.” (Location 893)

Growth Hacktic Button Copy Lead with a familiar verb (e.g., Get, Grab, Download, Start, Apply). Be specific (avoid only using a generic phrase like “Click Here”). Be clear about what happens next (you can add copy below the button to add clarity; e.g., “Step 1 of 3”). Don’t be afraid of long button text; adding pronouns (e.g., “my”), articles (e.g., “the”), and prepositions (e.g., “for”) can make you sound more human and friendly. Add a benefit. If there is clear benefit that occurs when an action is taken, make that known (e.g., “Protect My Computer”). Button Design Contrast the color so it’s different than the other colors on the page (don’t worry, there is no “magic” color; just make it different). Make it “feel” clickable (add mouse hover effects so users are subconsciously swayed to want to click). (Location 898)

On pages with larger amounts of content where you have to do some scrolling, it’s best practice to repeat the key call-to-action at the bottom of the page. (Location 906)

The follow-up question we are often asked is, “How do I know if what I’m doing is working?” The simple answer is, “Track and measure.” The complex answer includes a discussion of analytics tools, but the tools change so rapidly that they’re likely to be obsolete by the time you read this. The principle that is worth applying is that the best analytics tool is the one you actually use. At present, Google Analytics is free, powerful, and a staple tool for most websites. As you improve the Engage & Educate component of your ASP™, you will typically see average time spent on your site increase, bounce rate decrease, average pages viewed per visitor increase, and, if it all comes together correctly, conversion rate (ability to convert a visitor into a prospect and a paying customer) increase. (Location 918)

When you extrapolate a 50 percent conversion rate reduction across tens of thousands of monthly visitors, the result is a painfully large amount of missed revenue. The company’s Engage & Educate component was virtually nonexistent, and in order to drive high-margin direct-to-consumer sales, we needed to completely overhaul their website. (Location 931)

We immediately went to work on integrating the Engage & Educate subcomponents, focusing heavily on the high-traffic homepage. We transformed their homepage from a small splash page to a lengthy hybrid sales page that served a variety of audiences. The above-the-fold space at the top was dedicated to a lifestyle image with the products used in context and an emphasis on the call-to-action: going to the shop. The high-fidelity image immediately passed the three-second trust-building test and conveyed credibility (ethos) and appealed to emotion (pathos). Additionally, we added the company slogan in the above-the-fold space, which served the dual purpose of building the brand and presenting the unique selling proposition (USP). Further down the homepage, we embedded press mentions and testimonials that provided social proof and further solidified the appeal to ethos. Injected within the body content of the page were secondary calls-to-action. They were clearly copywritten statements put inside a red button that contrasted starkly against the white background. (Location 934)

The page concluded with a direct appeal to logic (logos) with a visual and text-based reference to the various credibility components (e.g., certifications) of the products. An appeal to logic was intentionally placed lower on the page because visitors that make emotion-based decisions were more likely to click through much earlier, whereas visitors that make logic-based decisions were more likely to scroll through the whole page. The page finished with a repeat of the key call-to-action, go to the shop, so that the next step is perfectly clear. (Location 943)

Engage & Educate Takeaways Aristotle’s Rhetoric outlines the ancient modes of persuasion: ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion), logos (logic). In order to maximize the persuasive effect of your communication, you must make all three rhetorical appeals. Passing the three-second test is a reflection of your ability to subconsciously convey that you are someone that can be trusted to provide what the visitor is looking for. The value of having a brand is that (Location 951)

people will know it’s you before you tell them it’s you. Your unique selling proposition (USP) is a succinct summation of how your company is different from your competitors. A tagline represents the company, a slogan represents a product or service, and a headline sells the product or service to a specific audience. Test your feature-benefit with the, “So what?” test. Copywriting is the art and skill of writing in a manner that persuades and seduces your reader toward an action, viewpoint, opinion, or sale. When copywriting, use customer-centric words and phrases to describe your product or service, and avoid words like “we,” “my,” “us,” and “our”; instead, use words like “you” and “your.” Social proof: When people are unsure what to do, they mimic the actions of others. Multiple-source effect: When multiple different sources are cited, each individual source is perceived as having more influence. Frequently asked questions (FAQs) are your digital opportunity to handle objections. Putting the primary call-to-action in a button will add the visual queue (Location 955)

that indicates “what to do next.” The most important number to track when assessing the Engage & Educate component is conversion rate. (Location 963)

Continue a dialogue with your prospects and politely follow up so that no business slips through the cracks. (Location 967)

Hacking the Follow-Up Process With even the most engaging and educating online sales experience, on average, ninety-seven out of one hundred prospects aren’t going to take an immediate purchase action. However, those ninety-seven prospects came to you for a reason, and it’s your duty and obligation to stay in front of them until they’re prepared to make a purchase. The challenge with offline follow-up is that things inevitably slip through the cracks. (Location 985)

The moment you introduce a human being into a process, you create more opportunities for error. Whether it’s poor organization or bad tracking, limitations of time and energy, a shift in prioritization, or a simple memory failure, there are many factors that can and do derail the analog world’s follow-up process. A digitized Follow-Up process can avoid the analog world’s pitfalls and perils. (Location 988)

For example, you can use an autoresponder to send a series of emails addressed with the prospect’s first (Location 992)

name that changes the message sequence and timing based on whether the prospect opened the prior email or clicked on a certain link. The same autoresponder principle is possible with every other communication medium you can think of, from text messages to phone calls to social media messages and more. (Location 993)

The Advertising Rule of 7 states that it takes approximately seven touch points for someone to be able to recall your brand. (Location 1000)

While the Advertising Rule of 7 provides a general sense of quantity, the next question we are often asked is about follow-up frequency. The framework we advise is to map your Follow-Up to your average sales cycle length. In general, the larger the dollar value of your product or service, the longer the sales cycle, particularly for business-to-consumer sales. If, for example, you’ve observed it takes an average of four weeks for someone to purchase your service, build your Follow-Up around a four-week period of time. (Location 1012)

We also advise front-loading your follow-up frequency to the beginning of the period to take advantage of the psychological principle knows as the primacy effect: the first touch points are more often remembered than the middle touch points and prospects are more open to communication. When you build out a follow-up sequence that extends the full length of your average sales cycle, you also benefit from the recency effect: the most recent correspondence will have more weight than all prior communication. We are often asked questions like, “How much information should I ask for from a prospect? Should I ask for just a name and email? Should I get a phone number and what they’re interested in? Should I ask for where they heard about us?” Some experts will advise asking for more information, while others will advise asking for less information. Neither advice is wrong; it just depends on your scenario and circumstance. (Location 1015)

For companies that are plagued with low-quality lead flow and are concerned about conserving sales resources, asking for more… (Location 1025)

For companies that are interested in maximizing lead flow and are comfortable handling a certain degree of low-quality leads, a low-friction request for information is an appropriate approach. In general, the more contact information you ask from the prospect, the more “friction” there is and the less likely the prospect will be to comply with your request. A hybrid information-capture approach is to collect information during the follow-up process. For example, you can start with a low-friction name and email request and collect more lead intelligence as a prospect engages with your material through subsequent questionnaires. However, collecting information as time goes on requires a more robust… (Location 1027)

Many companies are quick to dismiss the value of acquiring an email address. “Who would want another digital newsletter?” they ask. “People don’t read their emails anymore!” they exclaim. Given that email is used for critical communication such as online banking, flight information, and online shopping updates, it’s unlikely to be replaced any time soon. As it relates to whether people want a newsletter, the answer is that most people do not. However, for many purchases there is a research phase that consumers undergo, and it’s a value-added service to be the company that provides education. Among the many ways to deliver… (Location 1033)

Prior to designing the follow-up sequence, it’s important to have a clear articulation of the brand voice. The voice is a set of rules for the writing produced by your brand and is a function of having an intimate understanding of your target audience. (Location 1047)

Once the brand voice is clearly articulated, one can apply the 4 E’s of Copywriting framework to craft messages that captivate and motivate. (Location 1051)

The 4 E’s of Copywriting Engaging: Is the content compelling and of interest to the reader? Educational: Is the content teaching the reader something relevant to your product or service? Entertaining: Would the reader enjoy reading your content? Emotional: Would your content stir up emotions inside your reader? (Location 1053)

messaging. While it may not be necessary to touch on all four points all the time, the 4 E’s framework gives you a self-assessment standard for building trust, authority, and rapport. One common stumbling block during the construction of the follow-up process is coming up with topics to write about. As with the other components, ASP™ Follow-Up is a digital manifestation of an analog process that you already employ. Follow-up phone calls and direct mail to prospective buyers are the analog parallel to what can be replicated digitally. The framework we use as a starting point when building out a follow-up process is as follows: (Location 1057)