Facebook.

It’s a beautiful thing.

I still remember hearing about it my Junior year in college.

A transfer student from Arizona showed me her profile page and I was like “What is that, Myspace?”.

She replied, “NO.  It’s ‘The Facebook‘ and it’s the hottest site around for college students right now”.

I was instantly hooked.

My school wasn’t yet “cool enough” to have access so I rallied a bunch of classmates to submit to the site and allow for our college .edu email address to be accepted.

Three months later and we got approved.

Everyone created a profile.  Everyone talked about it.  Everyone loved it.

Facebook Marketing

Nothing has changed today in terms the popularity of the site.

People still love it as it’s by far the most powerful site in the world.  However, a lot has changed for business owners and entrepreneurs.

I won’t go into the entire history of Facebook and how it has evolved (that would take many blog posts) but Facebook has done some amazing things to help businesses attract more customers and increase sales.

It’s one of the primary focuses for most marketers now with Fan Pages, Facebook Ads, and Facebook Apps.

However, there is a lot to think about as a business owner and how do you know what to spend your time on while using Facebook?

Introducing FBInfluence

My company has created a number of educational training courses for small business owners, entrepreneurs, medium sized companies, and the Fortune 500 guys.  We create programs to help these businesses attract more leads, gain more buzz and press, optimize traffic with email marketing, and leverage free social networking sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

We educate often on the topic of Facebook, but never created a specific course dedicated to the topic… until now.

What is FBInfliuence?

It’s your one stop course for all things Facebook Marketing.

It’s purpose?

To get you more exposure, more traffic to your website, more leads for your business, and more sales.

It’s simple.

Facebook took over a long time ago and it isn’t showing signs of slowing down anytime soon.  Especially as it gains momentum on hitting the one BILLION member mark!

Are you using Facebook to the best of your ability and do you really know how to market your products and services on it?

Who Created FBInfluence?

My company (along with business partner Sean Malarkey) produced FBInfluence.

We both have created Facebook marketing materials in previous webinars and trainings we do, but we never had the ultimate course on Facebook in one place.

Enter Amy Porterfield.

Amy Porterfield is one of the top experts in the world when it comes to understanding how to successfully create and optimize Facebook for professionals and businesses… no matter what their industry is.

Learn more about who Amy is in this video and here are the main things she covers in the course:

• How to get automated leads and SALES 24/7
• The little-known trick to attract highly-targeted prospects who WANT to do business with you
• A simple but powerful way to get your testimonials on autopilot day in and day out
• How to be instantly recognized as the most sought out leader in your industry
• The simple paragraph that creates a vibrant community of raving fans who happily spread the word about you, your products and services
• You already know it’s time to stop wasting your energy and make Facebook work for you.
 This program will turn your Facebook fans into SUPER FANS, action-taking raving fans who are eager to buy what you are selling.
• And of course… much, much more

Integrating Facebook in Your Marketing

Here’s the deal.

Facebook is an important part of my marketing mix in my sports company and my online marketing company.

It helps with branding, connecting with my potential customers on a personal level, differentiating myself from competitors who aren’t using Facebook, driving more traffic, increasing sales, and a number of other benefits.

If you aren’t getting the most out of Facebook, it’s time to start now with FBInfluence.

Get FBInfluence Today

I love having a roadmap that gives me a step-by-step process for getting results.

It’s kind of like having a coach guide you to your end goal, but without the pain of hearing them yell at you all day

We’ve created FBInfluence specifically for you in mind.  And we guarantee more leads, traffic and sales once you apply the system.

It’s that simple.

Sign up today for FBInfluence (which is already becoming the most popular Facebook marketing course in the world in a short amount of time) and if you aren’t happy with your results then you can have a full refund.

I put a LOT of pride in everything I create or produce.  If you aren’t satisfied, then I’ve failed (and I hate failure!)

If you decide to refund, then you get a full refund within 60 days and you can keep the product (again, because my failure is your gain

Take Action Either Way With Facebook

A lot of companies and entrepreneurs are seeing massive results with Facebook.

It’s time you do as well.

I want you to take action and sign up for FBInfluence.

However, I realize that some may want to spend the time to learn all of this on their own, or they may have an excuse for getting started with Facebook.

Stop with the excuses, and just take action either way.

Those that take massive action get massive results.

I hope to see you as one of our newest members of FBInfluence as I know you are going to love what you see, and the business your receive from applying the Facebook marketing strategies.

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What are your current challenges with marketing your business or products on Facebook?  Have you struggled trying to figure it out or you already seeing the potential for massive results with your Facebook marketing?  Make sure to post your thoughts and successes in the comments below.  Also, I’m hanging out a lot more on Facebook so feel free to chat with me on my page here.

Welcome to the YouTube Marketing Revolution!

That’s right.  It’s time.

YouTube has been “quietly” taking over for the last few years as brands and marketers of all sizes are seeing massive ROI on their YouTube video marketing.

I’ve been personally benefiting from marketing on YouTube for the last few years, but I always knew there were better ways to increase traffic, exposure, and sales using the second largest search engine in the world.

Introducing the #1 YouTube Marketing course online!

Sign up for Video Traffic Academy here.

What is Video Traffic Academy?

It’s your one stop course for all things video marketing and YouTube related.

It’s purpose?

To get you more YouTube views, more traffic to your website, more leads for your business, and more sales.

It’s simple.

YouTube is taking over, but are you using it to the best of your ability and do you really know how to market your videos?

If you were like me a few months ago… then you probably don’t.

Who Created Video Traffic Academy?

My company (along with business partner Sean Malarkey) produced Video Traffic Academy.

We both have created YouTube marketing materials in previous webinars and trainings we do, but we never had the ultimate course on YouTube in one place.

Enter James Wedmore.

James Wedmore is the #1 guy in the world when it comes to understanding how to successfully create and optimize YouTube videos for professionals and businesses… no matter what their industry is.

I’ve watched him like a hawk over the last two years do a number of things on YouTube including:

• Take one begging business beginner from broke to 6 figures in less than a 60 days
• Help a relationship coach in a saturated market go from 1 sale a day to 16 sales a day (residually)
• Make it the #1 traffic referrer for his first niche product 4 years ago (and it still sells over and over today)
• Help a realtor sell 7 luxury homes within their first week of listing during the worst housing market in history
• Help a personal trainer sell their products to thousands of people online
• Creating thousands of his own videos in virtually every market imaginable
• And more…

Integrating YouTube in Your Marketing

Here’s the deal.

YouTube is an important part of my marketing mix in my sports company and my online marketing company.

It helps with branding, connecting with my potential customers on a personal level, differentiating myself from competitors who aren’t using video, driving more traffic, increasing sales, and helping me rank higher in search engines.

If you aren’t getting the most out of YouTube, it’s time to start now.

Get Video Traffic Academy Today

I love having a roadmap that gives me a step-by-step process for getting results.

It’s kind of like having a coach guide you to your end goal, but without the pain of hearing them yell at you all day

We’ve created Video Traffic Academy specifically for you in mind.  And we guarantee more views and traffic once you apply the system.

It’s that simple.

Sign up today for Video Traffic Academy (AKA the #1 YouTube marketing course in the world) and if you aren’t happy with your results then you can have a full refund.

I put a LOT of pride in everything I create or produce.  If you aren’t satisfied, then I’ve failed (and I hate failure!)

If you decide to refund, then you get a full refund within 30 days and you can keep the product (again, because my failure is your gain

Take Action Either Way With YouTube

A lot of companies and individuals are seeing results with YouTube.

It’s time you do as well.

I want you to take action and sign up for Video Traffic Academy.

However, I realize that some may want to spend the time to learn all of this on their own, or they may have an excuse for getting started with YouTube.

Stop with the excuses, and just take action either way.

Those that take massive action get massive results.

I hope to see you as one of our newest members of Video Traffic Academy as I know you are going to love what you see, and the business your receive from applying the YouTube marketing strategies.

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Are you currently using YouTube effectively in your marketing?  Make sure to post in the comments section below how well you are using it and the results you are receiving.  Also make sure to sign up for the VideoTrafficAcademy Facebook page to get more free YouTube and video marketing tips.

A bucket full of cash.

There’s no greater sight a street performer or “Artistic Hustler” would like to see then a guitar case, hat, or paint bucket full of crumpled up bills.

I realize it isn’t easy to gain peoples attention on the streets.

We are busy.  Going to and from meetings.  Heading to eat lunch.  Going to and from work.

Who wants to stop and get interrupted when we have to be somewhere in a hurry, right?

Well… the ones who do stop us do it for a reason.

And if they can stop us on the streets when our intentions are to get somewhere fast, then you know they are doing something right.

What if you could apply the same principles that the most talented street performers apply for your own business?  Heck, if they can do it on the busy streets, then you should be able to do it in the busy business world.

Watch this video of two street performers that attracted my attention during a busy day for me and I’ll break down below what they did and how you can apply their secrets.

So what did you think? 

Did they capture your attention?

Would you have stopped for a few minutes to watch them?

Both street performers had an audience and made some coin, so here are the 5 things they both did to attract busy individuals and turn them into a customer in minutes:

1.  Master Your Craft

Both of these acts have talent.  And there are thousands of street drummers out there who beat on cans.  But this first guy is different.  He has an accompanying drummer with a real drum set.  He is incorporating tricks and flare into his performance that others can’t do, and his rhythm is near perfect.  The opera singer sounds like he belongs in the Sydney Opera House.  Nuff said.  Make sure you master your service or product or you’ll be left in the dust.

2.  Command an Audience with Social Proof

Both of these hustlin street performers take command.  They have insane confidence (since they have mastered their craft) and because of this they attract a few interested spectators.  Once a few join in, they’ve created social proof and more will continue to join as well. We don’t want to go buy a product that no one else is buying, but if there is a line out the store then we want in as well.  The same is true with the street performer mastery… if no one else is watching, we won’t watch.

3.  Encourage Applause and Feedback

Notice with the first street performer his “partner” called out to the audience letting people know it was OK to clap and cheer for the drummer doing the fancy tricks.  This applause created more social proof and made each person feel that it was OK to make noise themselves.  In return this draws in more people on the streets wondering what is going on with all of these people cheering.  A way you can encourage your prospects is by encouraging current clients to recommend you, ask for referrals or even by posting testimonials on your on your site.

4.  Call to Action

Not only do they encourage applause and gain more customers that way, but they also have a call to action.  The first performers do it brilliantly by actually walking around with a bucket and asking people to drop in money.  I Love this.  People want to walk up and drop in money for the great talent being performed, but they are too scared to walk up.  When you make it easy for them and put the bucket right in front of them and smile… they feel more inclined to take out their wallets and give you money.  Make sure to have your “add to cart” buttons prominent on your site and your sales pages and have a clear call to action to make others feel comfortable about giving you money as well.

5.  Thank Your Audience and Customers

Notice how each performer “thanks their customers” in their own special way.  It might be a smile, bow, head nod, a “thank you” or simply by performing more and over delivering with their performance.  Do this with your customers in your own special way.  I like to send thank you cards with a box of cookies or brownies (and I even do personal thank you calls for those that buy my higher end products).  What can you do to thank your customers and make them feel great about what they just purchased?

There is a thing or two we can all learn about getting more customers and increasing our sales by applying these simple street performer hustle strategies.  Obviously you’ve got to have a great product or service to make your potential customers want to buy, but be sure to take a moment to watch what the next streep performer does in your city to attract your attention… and start applying what they do in your business (only of course, if you tip them first).

Video is a great way to drive more traffic and gain exposure for your business.

But are you using it the right way and seeing results?

My good friend James Wedmore is the man when it comes to all things video.

He graduated from a top film school, has created dozens of YouTube channels for multiple niches and industries, and also created a number of high end video sales letters for a number of clients.

I this video I interview James and he gives some great tips on driving more traffic using YouTube, the importance of Video Sales Letters, and more.

After you watch this video, let me know what your thoughts are on James’ thoughts.  I’m especially interested in reading your comments right around the 11 minute mark.  Also, if you are looking to drive more traffic to your site using YouTube and video then click here.

What do Seth Godin, Tucker Max, Ramit Sethi and Tim Ferriss have in common?

All of them are NY Times Best Selling authors, have ginormous followings, and are media magnets.   Most of us already knew this about them.  The one thing they have in common that most do not know is at some point in their careers they all had a level of support from Charlie Hoehn.

Who is Charlie Hoehn?

Although Charlie created a guide called Recession Proof Graduate that has been downloaded over 100,000 times, he isn’t known as your “big time” blogger or author… yet.

His RSS feed has around 1,000 subscribers, and he mentions that he only blogs once every four months (if he’s lucky).

I’d been following Charlie for a couple of years, however, because I kept seeing him online share updates about his work with some of the authors mentioned above.

After I met Charlie in person at Tim’s 4HB book launch party, and saw how successful the launch was, I convinced Charlie to do a video interview with me.  I knew he played a major role in its production so I wanted to learn all of his “dirty little secrets” behind the launch, and his interaction with his mentors.  Here are just a few of the things we cover in this interview:

• Charlie’s definition of “The Hustle”
• The best way to “pitch” a thought leader in order to work with them
• Why he chose to work with Seth, Tucker, Ramit and Tim over others
• The reason they choose to “hire” Charlie over others offering free work
• Who has been the most influential in his career
• How to become a #1 NY Times best seller (the right way and wrong way)
• The main reason he hasn’t worked with any women (but why he wants to)
• The Biggest Mistake he made on Tim’s 4 Hour Body book launch
• Why they choose not to market to Tim’s 100,000 person email list
• The greatest lesson Charlie has learned from these mentors
• Who gave Charlie the best advice (and what it was)
• And much more

This was originally supposed to be a 20 minute interview, but the answers were so good that it went to nearly an hour.  Check it out as I know you will be both surprised and inspired by a number of his responses.

Charlies entire approach has been to learn how to start successful businesses.  He want’s to learn the mistakes that failed businesses have made so he doesn’t make those same mistakes in the future.  Charlie says,

“Once you learn this information, you have given for yourself a formula to create wealth for the rest of your life.”

For Charlie, it makes sense to take a pay cut early in your career to learn the important lessons so one can scale this information for the rest of your life.

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I hope you enjoyed this video with Charlie and make sure to stick around to the last part of the interview to hear his motto on life (it’s a good one  Also, if you enjoyed this interview, please take a second to share it with your friends on Twitter or Facebook and let me know what you thought about Charlie’s answers in the comment section below.

My friend Kevin Nations told me early in my business career that “Facts Tell and Stories Sell.”

This resonated with me during that moment as I was struggling to really persuade my audience to buy my products and reach the level of sales I was looking for.

I realized at that moment I was sharing too much data, and not telling enough stories.

Stories have since become an important part of my meetings, presentations, webinars, or speeches I give to any size of audience.  Without stories, my business and my relationships would not be at the level they are now.

I know that in no way am I a “master storyteller”, and we all have room to grow in that department (especially by telling better stories around our products, and services).

Sean Malarkey and I recently had the opportunity to host a webinar with #1 NYT, #1 WSJ, and #1 USA Today best selling author Peter Guber.

His new book Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story has a powerful message and we took 60 minutes to hear his story about how anyone can share their story better.

Watch the video above and share this message with your friends if you find it inspiring as well.

For those that don’t know who Peter is, he is the former chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures and currently heads the Mandalay Entertainment Group, which presents hit films such as The Kids Are All Right and recently partnered in acquiring the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.  Among the award-winning films Guber has produced or executive-producedare Midnight Express, Gorillas in the Mist, Batman, and Rain Man.  He is a professor at UCLA, a Harvard Business Review contributor, and a popular speaker at numerous business forums.  You can learn more at www.TellToWin.com and follow Peter on Twitter @PeterGuber.

Imagine a world where everyone came to you for advice.

Almost like you were the old ninja warrior at the top of the mountain, and everyone took the journey to seek your wisdom.

I doubt anyone reading this is a ninja warrior, so let’s take this idea and apply it to you and your business.

What if everyone in your industry came to YOU for all of their information?

A situation where you were the “New York Times” of your industry, and everyone trusted your information to be the #1 resource.

More importantly, not only did your target audience trust you, they were customers of your’s for life.

This is a world many entrepreneurs and business owners would love to live in.

Enter Mike Volpe – Head of Marketing at HubSpot

I was almost convinced a world like this existed, but once I talked with Mike Volpe, I realized that it absolutely does.

I guess it’s important to know what HubSpot has done before you also believe in this inbound marketing plan.

They currently have over 4,000 clients that pay them over $250 a month (with a large amount paying much more) to help them get more leads, traffic, and sales.

In short, the’ve become a resource.

Not only any resource, they’ve become the MAIN resource for people who want to get more leads, traffic, and sales online.

Inbound Marketing Tips

Mike talks about how HubSpot’s‘ main goal is providing useful content on their own site that attracts new customers and loyal fans.  Some of these resources they offer include webinars, videos, blog content, tool sheets, ebooks, reports, case studies, and more.

Mike mentions some very interesting statistics in this video about how most of their sales come from inbound leads (go figure).

Between blog post, free ebooks and webinars, which resource do you think converts the best for HubSpot?

The answer is in this video interview below.  In my opinion this interview is required viewing for every small business owner, entrepreneur, marketer, and all others looking to learn how to get more inbound leads, free traffic, and more sales.

Mike makes Inbound Marketing sounds easy, and in fact… it is.  Make sure to watch this video and let me know what you think.

It’s the greatest “free” marketing plan in the world.

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I strongly suggest you watch this video, but for those that would rather skim the content faster, make sure you check out the full transcript below.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about inbound marketing.  Are you implimenting some of the suggestions Mike uses in this interview?  If so, what strategy is converting the best for your business?  Please take a minute to share this video on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.  Also, make sure to follow and say hi to Mike Volpe on Twitter HERE.

Inbound Marketing Transcript

Lewis Howes: How’s it going everyone?  This is Lewis Howes, and I’ve got a pretty cool guest today: Mike Volpe.  I keep wanting to say “Vople” but it’s “Volpe”.  He is the Director of Marketing for Hubspot.

And if you guys don’t know about Hubspot, I’m sure you probably do already, but if you don’t:

• They offer a lot of great content on their blog.
• They do a lot of free webinars.
• They give away a lot of free resources, ebooks, guides, downloads, checklists, everything in between, you name it.

They’ve also got a great software and some other services in their company that they offer for small businesses and businesses online trying to get more leads, more traffic and more sales.

Is that pretty much the main concept of the software?

Mike Volpe: You’ve got it.  What we found is that small-medium-sized businesses want an all-in-one system. They don’t necessarily want to use a separate tool for all the different aspects of their online marketing. And that’s what we’ve been building.

We’ve been around for 4 years and we’re up to 3900 companies using the software.

Lewis: Awesome. Very cool.

Now, tell us a little bit about your background before we get into the questions.

I’ve been wanting to ask you questions for months, because everyone’s talking about Hubspot and the marketing genius that you are.

So, tell us a little bit about your background and then we’ll get into some good questions.

Mike: Yeah, I’ve done marketing for a while.

You know, I started off my career actually in investment banking.  So, I’m very sort of taking that sort of analytical experience… I’m a relatively analytical marketer.

But I’ve done marketing for a while and I was part of the early team at Hubspot.  I was the fifth employee and so I’ve lead marketing since we started the company basically… through, you know we’re up to 200 people.  That’s what I’ve been doing in the last 4 years.

For like the 6-8 years before that I was doing marketing as well and during that time I also got an MBA from MIT with a concentration in marketing and entrepreneurship.  So, yeah…

Lewis: Wow, that’s cool.

Mike: I love to market to marketers.  That’s what I love about my job at Hubspot is that I get to talk about marketing to marketing folks all day long.  It’s a blast… it’s fun.

Lewis: Fun topic and fun industry. Awesome stuff.

Well… very cool. I’m excited.

I want to ask you some questions; hopefully I won’t put you on the spot too much.

Webinars

And I’m excited because I’m always talking about Hubspot to people that come on my webinars.

I do a lot of webinars. I give away a lot of free resources.  Myself, I’m blogging constantly.  So, I pretty much follow the model you guys have in a way, but I’m sure you guys do a lot better things than I do because you have 200 employees and you’ve got 3900 people who are using your software, so…

Lead Generation

Let’s just go over some questions and feel free to answer back and forth a little bit.

What has been the single most valuable efforts for getting the leads for you guys, getting the sales?

Would it be:

• The blog?
• The webinars?
• The books?
• The guides?
• The social networking?
• Or something else?

Mike: So, I think all those things you mentioned have absolutely been really, really valuable.  Tremendously valuable.

Website Grader

I think though there’s one other thing you didn’t mention that I think is probably been, especially in the earlier days of the company, in the first couple years… was the most important thing, which was Website Grader.

So if you go to websitegrader.com you get a free report about your website. And, as you know, people love “free”.  They love free resources.  But what’s cool about this is that it’s a custom report about your website.

So you type in your URL and you can actually type in some of your competitors as well.  And it:

• Ranks you
• Gives you a score
• Gives you feedback on what’s working, what’s not working.

And that tool has attracted a ton of folks. Over 3 million companies have put their website into that tool.

Lewis: What?!

Mike: Yeah!  I know, exactly. Isn’t that great?

So, it’s a… that one is phenomenal. It’s been a really valuable tool.

Lewis: So, you got 3 million leads from that because you got all the information, right?

Mike: I mean, yeah… you know, it’s… we obviously… we don’t call all 3 million of them, so there’s some scoring and qualification.  And we tend to actually only approach the folks that run the report and then take the next step after that.  So either download a webinar as well, or start our free trial as well.  Something like that.

So yeah, if you use Website Grade you’re not going to get a phone call from us.  We actually don’t even collect phone numbers on the site. You might get a phone call, or email, or something like that depending on the segmentation.

But, yeah, it’s gotten us in front of 3 million companies.

And again we didn’t do any promotion for that.  It basically just took off virally.  We launched that at the beginning of 2007.  We’ve updated it over time and made it better.

Lewis: That’s funny, because I remember actually going through that a couple years ago.  Probably around 2008-2009 and I completely forgot about it to be honest, because I’ve just been seeing so much of your great content ever since.  And I guess, you know, once you do it once you don’t need to do it again type of thing maybe, or… but I mean, I’ve just been following your content.

Mike: Yes, absolutely.

Other Lead Generation Sources

As we’ve grown the company I think that a lot of these other channels have become important as well.

• Our blog has grown in time in terms of the numbers of subscribers.
• You know we were talking about webinars before we started the interview and we do lots of webinars.
• We use lots of other free resources and things like that that we do as well.

And I think they’ve grown in importance over time.  And they’re sort of, you know, it’s between Website Grader, the blog and like the webinars, are probably the 3 most important things we do now.

So you’re right.  The other things have sort of grown as well, but definitely, if I had to point to one thing it was Website Grader.

Lewis: Wow. OK.

My next question was actually, what are your top 3 lead sources. So, you’d say:

• Website Grader
• The blog
• Webinars

Right?

Mike: Yeah. I think those are… and they’re important in different ways.

I think the Website Grader and the blog tend to be how people first find us, whether it’s through SEO and searching on search engines and finding a blog article, or hearing about Website Grader from a friend and kind of coming in that way.

And the webinars are where sort of the rubber meets the road and we can have a little bit more of a conversation with folks.

Obviously, they’re… you know, reading a blog article is maybe 5 minutes, but attending webinars is usually 45 minutes or an hour.  So it’s a little bit more detailed conversation.

But yeah, we’ve had some really successful webinars.  We get… for many of our webinars we get thousands of people to sign up for them.

They’re a lot of fun.  We have a good time and they’re mostly educational.  Then there’s a little bit of, if you want something else from Hubspot, you know, here’s sort of the next step.

Webinar Format

Lewis: You know, let’s talk about webinars for a second because I’m a big proponent of webinars.

I think I’ve done about 300 of them live over 2010. I was doing about, you know, 3-8 a week depending on the week to various audiences.

Mike: Wow!

Lewis: Yeah.  And each one was exactly the way you guys would do it.  I would spend, you know:

• The first 15 minutes, whether it would be if it’s to my audience or to someone else’s audience, introducing myself: kind of what we were talking about, the agenda of the day.

• Then 45-60 minutes of pure content: actionable content, step-by-step things that they could do to take action on whatever it was we were talking about… usually social media for business.

• And then at the very end, it’s, you know, if you want to take this to the next level, here’s what we offer, or you can use what we just gave you and kind of do it by yourself.

And I watched a couple of your webinars and it seems like you bring on an expert to talk about SEO, or blogging, or some other type of things for online marketing, and they do the exact same thing.  You’re talking about, you know:

• You go over an agenda for the day
• Then give a lot of good content
• And at the very end, you’re like, if you want to do this yourself, go do it yourself, or just signup for our software.

Webinars

How well do those leads convert from the webinar, from the free webinar to the paid software, or the service that you have?

Mike: Yeah.  They convert great.

I mean, the webinars are one of our strongest lead generation tactics, especially for the conversion step.

Educational Webinars

I think we do the vast majority of our webinars… especially the more popular ones are exactly like you talked about there: primarily educational content. And that’s how you really attract a lot of people by providing that value.

Demonstration Webinars

We do have another set of webinars that we do as well that are more, sort of like a demonstration of the software and things like that, which are also valuable.

And obviously the conversion rate on the ones where you’re demonstrating the software is extremely high.  You know, sometimes 10-20% of the people that sign up for those will actually end up buying.

Lewis: Wow!

Conversion From Webinars

Mike: Obviously, the conversion rate for the ones that are more educational is much less.  But the thing is, those are the ones where you can get hundreds or thousands of people.

We’ve actually… our record internally for us, we had 13,000 people sign up for one of our webinars. It was really big.  It was about the science of Facebook and we had a bunch of research and things that our social media scientist Dan Zarella did about how to use Facebook for business and things like that.  It was really, really successful.

But, I think it’s great that you do so many and I know that you talk to other folks about them a lot.  But webinars are a really, really powerful tool.

Lewis: OK. Perfect.

Well, everyone… I’m always telling people you need to do more webinars.  So, you saying that they are a really powerful tool will just solidify my backing.  So maybe they’ll listen to you as opposed to me.

Live Webinar Participation

What would you say is the average amount of attendees from the signups you have, the registration?  Do you get 50% or is it more?  20% or… how many people actually come on live when you’re doing them?

Mike: Yeah.  That’s an interesting question.

We run between 40-45%.  So I think our average is around like 42%, something like that.

I mean, it’s definitely a great experience for people to attend live, you know, because they get the Q&A and things like that.  But we also provide the recording afterwards, so I think a lot of people have sort of learned over time, that maybe they prefer that format, and things like that, but yeah… it’s usually about 40-45% for us.

Call To Action At The Bottom Of Blog Posts

Lewis: And what I’ve seen you do really well, just recently I saw this, so you might have been doing it for a while, is you’re having an on-demand webinar, but you’re having people opt in at the bottom of a blog post now, which I think is genius.  So I’m going to actually start doing that myself.  I don’t know how long you’ve been doing that, but it’s a great idea.

Mike: Yeah, I’ll tell you on that we added what we call a “Call to Action” at the bottom of every single one of our blog posts and tripled the number of leads that we’re getting from our blog.

So I think it’s interesting that… you know, a lot of people have like calls to action, or offers like in the sidebar of their blog, and those work.  But having one… and again, it wasn’t the same one on every single article, it was tailored to that article.

So if you’re reading an article about, you know, optimizing landing pages you’ll have an offer at the bottom of that blog article that has something to do with a landing page optimization webinar or something like that.

Same thing if it’s about social media, whatever.  So tailoring the offer that you have to the content you have and doing it on that sort of micro basis, I think can really work.

Lewis: How important is it to have a call to action after every article? Do you think it’s extremely… well I guess you tripled your leads, right?

Mike: It’s critical. Right. Exactly!

If you triple your leads, I think it’s critical.

I mean our blog has always been a strong part of our lead generation but that change of adding a call to action tailored to each article, after every single article was huge.

Lewis: Yeah. I love that.

And how important would you say is it for everyone to do that?  Is that like, are they missing out on leads for everyone if they don’t do that?  Or is it just certain blogs, or certain companies, or what do you think?

Mike: I would say it’s pretty much everyone.

You know, it’s one thing if… I don’t necessarily… sometimes people have, you know, pop ups or other types of advertising… I think if it’s after the article, at the end of the article, you know, and it’s like:

• “Hey, well here’s the next step. If you enjoyed this article, here’s something else you can do.”

I think it’s great. I don’t think people find it offensive.  It’s just an offer, another offer to get some more content and I think you’re missing out on a big opportunity if you don’t have some call to action at the end of all of your content.

Lewis: Hmm… and it’s probably best to piss off some people because then you know you’re doing something right if you piss off one percent of the people, right?

Mike: (Laughter)

That’s right.  It means you’re making a difference in the world.

Lewis: Exactly.  I mean you’ve got to sell eventually. You can’t just be kumbaya all day long.  Right?

Mike: That’s right.  We’ve got to pay the bills.

Lewis: Exactly.  OK. Cool.

Let me see, the next question. I’m loving this content by the way.

Conversions

Where do your most powerful conversions come from within the free leads?  With webinars, your blog, your ebooks compared to paid leads?

Do you guys even do any paid leads?  Do you do any paid advertising?  Or is it all free stuff?

Mike: Yeah.  Good question.  So…

Inbound Marketing

We’re huge believers of inbound marketing.

We’re huge believers inorganic search and things like that obviously.

We talked about that a little bit earlier.

Comparison of Results From Inbound & Oubound Marketing

And we really feel like a lot of your philosophy, we’re very much in agreement, that those are the types of things where you tend to get the lowest cost leads and also the highest quality.

And the conversion rate from those leads, if you compare organic inbound leads versus what we would call outbound, or paid, the types of things where you’re ignoring people and kind of getting in their face… the comparison between the two of those, the conversion rate is more than double.

So it’s more than twice as high for the organic leads or the inbound leads.

Paid Advertising

We do some paid, because you know we’re a growing company and we have these big aspirations and I think there are times where it makes sense to use some of that.

• We do some pay per click advertising which I think it makes sense a lot of times.
• And we do some sponsorships of like an email newsletter here and there that are targeted to our community.

But that’s only about 25% of the lead generation that we do.

So about 75% of our lead generation is inbound.  It’s focused on the blog, on the webinars, on Website Grader, on other things like that that we’re doing.

What Other Companies Do

Again, I think most companies have the mix as the opposite: 90% of what they do is paid and 10% is sort of this little bit of inbound that they do.

And I think that most companies have it totally wrong.  That ratio should be the other way round.

Inbound Marketing Budget & Results

Lewis: So, what I hear form that is that:

You spend more energy, time and resources or money on creating content, or creating free software, free downloads, free webinars.  So you’re putting that paid advertising money into the free stuff, which is converting twice as well as the paid stuff.  Correct?

Mike: That’s exactly right.

The cost is lower per lead and the conversion rate is twice.  So the cost per customer… it’s 3 or 4 times better. It’s fantastic.

And you’re right.  I think… so we spend some money on creating content and the way that you typically do that is that you end up hiring people.

So I think that in the long term we may have much more as the percentage of marketing budget going to the team and, you know, the people that are blogging and doing webinars and creating content versus buying media.

Building Versus Renting

And I think the interesting… you know, the other analogy if you think about it that way is that:

• If you’re buying media or advertising from someone else, you’re really renting the capability of attracting an audience because you have to pay them every time you wan to do an ad.

• If you’re building up your own blog, if you’re becoming your own media company, you’re building something.  You’re purchasing real estate and building your own real estate.  And obviously what you typically want to do is own those assets over time and things like that.

So just like you do with your blog and everything that you do, you’re building up yourself as this media agency, right?  And if you were to take a month off, you would still get a ton of web traffic because you’ve built this up over time.  If you stop paying that bill to that company you’re advertising with, you get nothing the next month, right?

So I think, again, you should want to build and not rent, and that’s another way to sort of think about it.

But, yeah, I totally agree with the philosophy.

Lewis: I love everything you’re saying right now.  And I hope everyone watches this, because this is going to be good stuff people.

Basically you recommend:

• Become the go-to resource, or the go-to person in your industry, or your niche
• And create content because that content over time is going to continue to bring you those leads free as opposed to paying.

That’s what you just said right there, correct?

Mike: That’s exactly right.  At the core, that’s what inbound marketing is.

You want to become the #1 resource for your industry or niche.

Those 3900 of them, a lot of them have done some interesting things on this.

So, we have with…

• There’s a company that does in-ground pool installation in Virginia, River Pools and Spas.  They started blogging about pool installation.  And they got like five or ten times more web traffic.

• A guy who runs a golf school outside of Atlanta… a guy who runs a murder mystery company out of Chicago…

You know, if they can become the key blogger, the key media property in that niche and then they own it.  Right?  It does phenomenal things for your business.

Lewis: Exactly. Awesome.

So, what you just said right there is:

• It’s really important to be the go-to resource in your industry to attract those leads.

Mike: Yeah.

Lewis: Awesome.

Inbound Marketing ROI

What’s the true… I’ve got about 4 or 5 more questions, if that’s OK.

What’s the true ROI of becoming a resource to your customers in terms of numbers?

Like… can you give me some hard numbers?  For sales, sign ups… you know, becoming the go-to resource…

Mike: Yeah. Um… you know, I guess it’s maybe hard to talk about the individual numbers, but like, what I will tell you is that:

• We’ve been able to build a business and grow it to 3900 customers.
• Our revenue run rate is well in excess of $20 million.
• We’ve got 200 employees
• And we’ve been able to do this by becoming that resource for customers using inbound marketing to grow our customer base.
• That’s enabled us to attract a lot of customers at a very low cost which has enabled us to scale the business very quickly and grow from nothing to this pretty big business in just a couple of years.
• There doesn’t seem to be any sign of that slowing down.

We also had an MIT graduate student do a study of all of our customers; so, not us but our customers who use our methodology, use our software.  And they found that the average customer who uses Hubspot and follows our methodology after 5-6 months they get 4.2 times more leads.

Again, it’s so funny because so many people don’t know about this information and things like that.  And if they just paid attention to you and did the things you say, did the things that we say, many, many businesses would be having these effects, so…

This stuff really, really works.

Lewis: Right.

How To Convince Companies Of The Value Of Inbound Marketing

So how would you convince a company to put so much effort in becoming that resource?

Or how did you convince Hubspot?  It sounds like Hubspot was already on board in the beginning.

Mike: Yeah. I mean…

Hubspot, that has been our philosophy since the beginning.  That’s why Brian and Dharmesh founded the company.  For us it was easy.

I think for a lot of the other companies out there, most people have an inkling, or a feeling that something that they’re doing isn’t working quite as well.

They’re taking out Yellow Pages ads, they’re doing print, you know they’re doing all these things.  They feel it in their gut and they’re like:

• “Ah, I know it’s not quite working, but I don’t really know what to do and I don’t know why”.

It’s a little bit like you put the frog in a pot of like luke warm water, and you turn up the heat slowly over time. And it’s like at a certain point it starts to get a little hot, but you don’t necessarily notice it because it’s not like a big change.

The number of phone calls you’re getting from the Yellow Pages ad goes down by like 5% a year for the past 10 years.  And all of a sudden, you’re like:

• “God, what happened to my business, where did it go? How come we’re not growing the way it used to?”

And I think people usually sort of have those awakenings and then they hear something from somebody like you or somebody like us and then they’re like:

• “Oh, right! I should be doing that kind of new stuff.”

Usually the pitch is somewhere around that.

Lewis: Gotcha.

How To Start Inbound Marketing

OK. So let’s give them a good example.

• Say I’m a tech startup company.
• I’ve got 10-25 employees.
• I’m trying to grow.
• I’m trying to get more leads.
• I’ve got a free software, or a free service, but there’s a paid model as well, but I’m looking to get those free leads in to use the service first.

How do you guys collate the information through your blog, your books, your webinars, etc?  Do you hire… if you’re this company, do you hire someone externally?  Do you have members of the team who are doing different things; developers, CEO, running content?  Do you get all the members of the staff involved?  Or do you use one person?  How would you go about that?

Mike: That’s a really good question.

I’m a huge fan of getting the entire company involved in the effort.  I think we’ve had a lot of success and seen the best success among our customers if there’s more than one person.

Maybe you can have a leader, or a manager for your inbound marketing program, but unless you have multiple people contributing… you know, it needs to be the whole company.  You just sort of change your company philosophy to some degree to really make these things effectively.  We’ve seen the best success with companies that have multiple people contributing to the blog.

Because you get those different perspectives: the perspective from the VP of Engineering versus the VP of Sales and the VP of Marketing or the Co-Founders.  It’s going to be a little bit different.  And that helps you attract different facets of your audience.

Lewis: So, what if a company is not willing to do that?  Do you think you’ve really got to adopt this philosophy? Or you’re going to be struggling if you don’t?

Mike: You know…

• It will still work to some degree if you have one person sort of dedicated to it and spending some time on it.

• You will get better results if the whole team is dedicated to it.

IQMS Success Story

I’ll tell you a story about a company called IQMS.  They sell, sort of in that range, or I think they’re around 200 employees.  They sell ear piece software to manufacturers.  They’re based in California.  And what the CEO did, is he decided to basically…

You know it was like when Cortez came to the New World he burned his ships so all the people with him would committed to staying and making a life in the New World.

• He did that.
• He fired their PR agency.
• He cancelled all of their print advertising.
• And he told his marketing staff of only 2 people, that you need to embrace inbound marketing and make it work and here are your lead goals.
• And they said, “Holy crap! What are we going to do?” Right?  And then they said, “Well, I guess we really need to make this work.”
• So they started blogging.
• And the CEO was great because they did have that leadership above.
• The CEO created some content.
• Some other people in the company started blogging and things like that.
• And they’ve actually seen their business, I forget if it was 10% or 20%, but their business increased after having decreased the past 3 years.

And you know, we’re still not in a great economic environment yet, and they were able to see an increase in 2010 after having declined in 2008 and 2009.

He really attributes all of their success to that program and being really, really committed to it.

So again, you’ll have some success if it’s one person, but I would really recommend to folks that they think about really transforming their company.

Lewis: Gotcha.

How To Respond To Nay Sayers

And what would you say to someone if they’re like, “I don’t believe this works,” or “It won’t work for my industry,” or “I’m different.”  What would you say to someone like that?

Mike: I mean, they’re entitled to their opinion and I look forward to one of their competitors beating them.

Lewis: (Laughter)

Mike: I mean, that’s one way of thinking about it.

The other way of thinking about it is, you know, if it works for a golf pro and it works for a software company, and it works for a pool installation company… it’s just like, you know what, your customers, they’re using the internet.  Almost no one doesn’t use the internet today, right?

Lewis: Exactly.

Mike: You can argue about whether their on Twitter, or whether they’re on Google, or whether they’re reading blogs, or what the most important channels are, but this type of marketing works.  And I’ve seen it work literally thousands of times for lots of different companies: chimney sweeps through to auto car dealers, through to again, lots of technology companies, medical device companies.

Really almost every industry.

Lewis: Gotcha.  Right.  OK.  Cool.

Let’s talk about, for someone with limited resources, limited money, limited effort… they’re putting all their time into growing a business, working on their product, whatever it may be.

What would be a simple plan for anyone to go about doing?

Would it be just one piece of content a day?

Or one webinar a month?

A Simple Inbound Marketing Plan

What would be a simple marketing plan for any company trying to get more inbound leads?

Mike: Yeah.

#1: Website Grader

I think the first thing is, I honestly would recommend Website Grader. It’s totally free. I’d run my website through Website Grader. Usually for many of the smaller companies, there’s usually one or two small changes they can make to their site to improve their search engine optimization, or how they’re site is displayed in search engines.  That’d probably be the first thing.

#2: One Blog Article A Week

After you’ve made a couple of those changes, I think the next most important thing is just to start to create some content.  So I would actually say about one blog article a week is probably fine.

You know, someone like you, you’re passionate about the stuff and you create tons of content. You’re doing hundreds of webinars.  If you can do that, that’s fantastic.  But for many of these folks they’re really nervous about getting started so even one blog article a week will have an effect.

#3: Good Lead Generating Offer

And then I think the third component that you definitely need is:

• What’s that good offer that’s going to get people to convert and become a lead?

And usually I think a webinar is a great example of something that people can do.  And then you need to take that call to action, that offer to become a lead and put that on your home page, and put it on all of your blog content.

And I think that if you use just those 3 things, the blog articles and the SEO will start to attract more people to your site and you’re going to have that good call to action and you’ll start to get more leads through that call to action.

And then, you know, there are lots of ways to make it even better and do more with it, but those 3 things will get most people started.

Lewis: Gotcha.  OK.  We’ll go over one more question and then I’ll let you wrap it up.

Social Networking

This is some great content by the way.  But we haven’t talked about social networking really that much.  So, how important is:

• Customer service on social networking sites?
• Being involved in social media?
• Building up a following, having a fan page, all that good stuff?

How important is that for companies?  Is it important for all companies? Or should it just be for certain companies online?  Or what do you think is the relevance of social media and to attract those leads?

Mike: I think it’s really important and I’d say that social media is one of those things where maybe 10 years ago people said:

• “Well, why do I need a website?”

Now, it’s like:

• “Of course!”

One of the first things when you start a business is you get some kind of a website.  I think that’s starting to happen with social media, where people are saying, well, why do I need a Facebook Page?  Why do I need to be on Twitter?  And I think people are starting to get to the point where they’re saying:

• “Oh, OK. Of course, I’m a business. Of course I would interact with folks this way.”

Just like you’re going to have a phone number and an email address.  It’s just another way of communicating with people, so of course you’re going to do it.

And I’m a huge believer of integrating social media with the rest of your inbound marketing.  So, it’s not about having… you know, an intern comes in and tweets a little bit and does this thing.

It’s this new channel that you need to use. And just like you wouldn’t have one person responsible for all the communication via phone in your company, you know, you have a phone on every employees desk. And everyone… you know, customer service, marketing, everyone is using that technology.

Social media is not a program.  It’s not a strategy. It’s a technology.  And you should integrate that technology into your business or your marketing strategy.

Lewis: I love it.  Cool.

Future Trends

So, what do you think is… I guess final notes… what do you think is the trend for the next… this year, the next 3 years?  What do you think people are going to be doing more?

Are they going to be doing the same stuff you’re doing right now?  Or is it going to be new things that are gong to be evolving with mobile or other ways to get new leads?

Mike: Yeah. I mean… I think it’s going to be…

New technologies are going to continue to be integrated into the big trends that are happening right now.

I think one of the big trends is inbound marketing and people figuring out more and better ways to attract people at a lower cost and sort of in a more friendly relationship driven fashion.

And I think that started with search engine optimization, and then blogging, and then social media.  And then I think some of the next trends there are going to be mobile and location-based things, as well as I think video.  And we’re doing video now. I think video is going to continue to grow as well.

So I think it’s going to be more and more technologies that come down the pipeline, they’re going to be integrated into the sort of this comprehensive inbound marketing that I think is sort of the big growing trend.

Lewis: Awesome.  Cool.

Connect With Hubspot

Where can people find more information about Hubspot and yourself online?

Mike: Ah, we’re not online.

(Laughter)

Lewis: (Laughter)

Mike: You know it’s really hard to not find us. I think that’s the whole goal. That’s the whole point of this entire conversation.

Yeah, I mean, you can obviously search for Hubspot.

You can go to Hubspot.com and I mentioned WebsiteGrader.com that’s a great place to start.  It’s a free tool.

• Just type in your website there.
• Get a report back.
• And there’s link from there to find more stuff about Hubspot and things like that.

So, yeah… it’s hard not to find us online

Lewis: Where can we find you?

Mike: You can find me, so I have a personal blog at MikeVolpe.com.  I’m on Twitter which is @mvolpe.  I’m also on Facebook.  I’m all over the place just like you are.  But probably a great place is MikeVolpe.com, I’ve got links to all of my different profiles from that site.

Lewis: Awesome.  Cool.

Mike I really appreciate it and hopefully all these companies will listen to this and start to take your approach and your marketing strategy.

Thanks so much today my man and hopefully I’ll see you soon in Boston.

Mike: Yeah!  We’d love to have you.  Again, we do this TV show, Hubspot TV, every Friday at 4 o’clock.  We’d love to have you on.  It’d be a blast.

Lewis: Awesome.  Thank my man.

Mike: See ya!

Ryan Lee - Passion To Profits Book

Have you ever wanted to create your own online empire?

You know, the one where you have a library of products at multiple price points that include e-books, CD’s, DVD’s, Software, webinars, coaching programs, seminars, workshops, and more.

What if I told you there was a way you could turn the one thing you are most passionate about in life into a profitable business… or online empire?

Life would be pretty sweet when it’s on your terms, right?

Well, Ryan Lee is the “King of Membership Sites” and has been building his online empire and helping hundreds of others do the same thing for a number of years.

He just came out with a new book and I wanted to share with you what it was all about in this video below.

I’ve followed many of the strategies in Ryan’s book and I can’t say how grateful I am to live the lifestyle I do… all by creating my own online empire. If you want to learn how to turn your own passion into profits then I highly recommend picking up a copy of Ryan’s book here.

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Is this your first time being introduced to Ryan Lee or did you already know about all of his great content and products before? Let me know in the comments section below, and make sure to check out his blog here, and follow him on Twitter @_ryanlee

John Chow the Dot Com Mogul

Consistency and passion.

That’s the main thing I took away from John Chow at the last Affiliate Summit event.

For those that don’t know John, he makes money online by blogging.

He makes a lot of money!

In fact, his personal blog makes over $40,000 a month.

Not bad for a part time gig, eh?

Although you may or may not like the things John writes about, he has a system that continues to work and that’s what I want to share with you in this article.

Check out this video where John gives three tips that all bloggers should use if they want to make more money with their blog. 

The Business of Blogging

Well, what did you think?

Are you already blogging about your passion and thinking of your blog as a business?

Do you post daily or on a consistent basis?

And are you doing all that you can to capture email addresses and information?

If you said yes, then you are probably already monetizing your blog, or close to it.

It doesn’t matter what type of content your want to write about, or what niche your blog covers… if you write with passion, treat it like a business, write consistently, and capture emails, then eventually you can turn it into a business (with the right game plan).

John said it took him eight months before the site generated any revenue.  This isn’t something you can expect to turn a profit in a few weeks, and it will take time for things to develop (as it did for John).

Next Steps

If you currently have a blog that isn’t making money (or the kind of money you’d like) then ask yourself the same questions above.  If you aren’t up to par on the three main things John talks about then make sure to start thinking about your blog for the long term, and create a plan that works best for you.

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Did you enjoy the video information from John?  And are you already doing exactly what he says in order to make your blog profitable?  If not, what are you waiting for?  Please type in your biggest challenge you face with making your blog profitable in the comments section below and share this post so others can learn how to build a profitable blog as well.

Make sure to say hi to John on Twitter here, and follow what he does over on his personal site.

“My success, part of it certainly, is that I have focused in on a few things.”          -Bill Gates

We all want more success and results with our online sales pages.  Right?

Well, it’s worth knowing that there are three main behaviors users have when they land on your site.

1.  Flirting

2.  Information Gathering

3.  Purchasing

At least that’s what I took away from Chris Pearson’s speech during Affiliate Summit West 2011 in Vegas.

Chris is the creator of the popular WordPress theme Thesis (affiliate link).  With the help of fellow online marketing mastermind Derek Halpern, he was able to increase conversions on his sales page by 30%!

That’s pretty amazing considering the amount of traffic Chris sends to his sales page and what this does for his overall sales.

Converting Visitors into Buyers

The main thing I took away from Chris’ speech was one simple principle.

Focus.

He said that most visitors on sales pages will do anything they can to divert themselves from buying the product.

They will want to click on links to watch a video, click to read about your affiliate program, click on other products you mention on your page, or even click on the other navigation tabs you may provide.

Having more options to “click” ultimately loses you sales.

Instead, you want to have a laser targeted focus for visitors landing on your checkout page.

I also took a moment to take pictures of his notes before he went on stage (shhhh, he doesn’t know I took these   Feel free to click these images to view them at a larger size to get inside the man behind Thesis and increasing online conversions.

Online conversions image 1:

Online conversions image 2:

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Do you have a clear focus for your visitors, or do you have too many links for them to click on?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on Chris’ approach to keeping visitors focused in the comments section below.

Also, please take a second to share this article on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn and if you want to stay up to date with the content I’m producing, then make sure to sign up to be notified each time I publish by going HERE.

If you enjoyed this post you may also like:

• Nonverbal Website Marketing Video
• How To Make 2011 Incredibly Awesome

Image credit: Lel4nd