Show Notes:
There’s one thing you need to do first to ensure a healthy and successful marketing campaign before ever launching an ad or marketing effort – and that’s strategize.
I’ve worked with dozens of high end clients and you would be surprised at how many of them didn’t do this step first, at least not properly. However, once on-boarding with The JW Agency, we’re hell-bent on zeroing on our client’s marketing strategy before ever spending a dollar or sending an email.
In this episode, we’re diving into Phase 1 of the GPS Method which is all about Strategy. In this phase we have three actionable steps to ensure we are attracting the right people, to the right offer, with the right strategy, that will inevitably allow us to reach our revenue goals. You’ll also walk away from this episode with simple formula’s so you can plan your launch in advance successfully.
Take out your pen and paper, grab your coffee, and get ready to map out your strategy!
Share-worthy Quotes:
“Helping everyone means helping no one. Be very specific!”
“Knowing how you’re taking them from point A to point B, is how you effectively funnel people from a cold prospect – someone who doesn’t know you – to someone pulling out their credit card and becoming a buyer of yours.”
“We go through each of these steps with each client we onboard at the agency through our intake forms, and our strategy calls, and this ensures a healthy, and successful setup before we ever launched an ad or marketing effort.”
Get the Transcript here:
Episode 2 – The GPS Method: Phase 1 | Strategy
Hey guys. Welcome back to episode two of the Ad Agency Secrets Podcast. I hope you enjoyed episode one. I’ll assume you did since you are here listening to episode two. And I’m so excited for this episode, because we’ll be talking about phase two of the GPS method, our signature process that we use at the JW Agency with all of our clients, which is strategy. The strategy phase has three main components to it. I’m so pumped that we’re diving into this topic today because too many entrepreneurs are not setting themselves up for success by doing these three main steps that are in the strategy phase. We go through each of these steps with each client we onboard at the agency through our intake forms, and our strategy calls, and this ensures a healthy, and successful setup before we ever launched an ad, or marketing effort.
The first step in the strategy phase is it’s three in one here: One problem, one solution, one avatar. What does that mean? Well, we as entrepreneurs have this desire to help everyone with everything. To teach everything we know to as many people as possible. I’ve been there. I get it. However, helping everyone really means you’re helping no one. I’m sure you’ve heard of this. Right? That means you need to get very specific. The first part to this is defining your ideal avatar. Now, I’m sure you’re saying Jess. I know who my ideal avatar is. This is elementary, I did this day one, but I promise you would be surprised how many clients we’ve had come to our agency who think they know who their ideal client is, and exactly what their ideal client wants, and what they help them with. But they’re really all over the place after reviewing their welcome package, and speaking to them on our strategy call.
Ask yourself, do you know your avatar’s true struggles and pains, as well as their ultimate desires? For example, you may be targeting someone who desires to get fit, and shed unwanted pounds. But if you dig deeper, their true desire could be to feel more confident, feel better in their clothes, have more energy for their kids so they can bike ride, or go on hikes without getting out of breath. Those are very specific struggles. Picture it. If you wrote in your ad copy, or your marketing material, the phrase, do you want to get fit? Who does that attract? Well, pretty much everyone, and then no one at the same time. Right? In my mind, I can picture it would attract possibly my mom, my three sisters, possibly my grandma. But even though it speaks to them all, it doesn’t pull on their emotions at all because it’s so vague and generic, which means you’re really speaking to no one.
However, what if you wrote, ready to finally fit into those skinny jeans, or wear that mini black dress, and wear them with confidence. That my friend, speaks to someone very specific. Or, ready to finally shed those unwanted pounds, gain back your energy and run that next half marathon you’ve been dreaming of. Again, that speaks to someone very, very specific. Do you see the difference? This plays a massive role in your messaging. Knowing your ideal avatar’s most intimate pains and desires allow you to create very unique hooks and angles that speak to them, and draws them into you like a fly to a bug zapper really, except I promise we are not zapping anyone in this episode. We do internally at our agency, a matrix, where our copywriters write out different hooks and angles. In other words unique pain points and desires so that we never run out of ways to attract our client’s ideal avatars into their funnels.
Then the next part of this phase is the one problem, one solution, right? The one avatar, one problem, one solution. The one problem, one solution. This means all of your offers for your paid help solve one main problem with one main solution. One problem, one solution. Why is this important? Because once you narrow in on one problem with one solution, this creates a streamlined message throughout all of your marketing, removes any and all confusion on what you do, or how you can help your avatar, and ultimately increases revenue and sales because your marketing is so crystal clear. I’m going to give you two examples of this, so you can see why this is so important.
Let’s take me, for example. Let’s say my one problem and solution is helping someone succeed with Facebook ads. Pretty spot on, right? Example one. I could help those struggling with their ad strategy. I could help those struggling with the techie set up part of ads managers. I could help those with optimizing and scaling their ads that are currently running. Now, it all solves one main problem. Right? Helping someone succeed with Facebook ads, but I’m really talking to three different sets of people. Let me show you. Example two. I can help those who have never set up an ad, don’t know what a pixel is, and need the foundational pieces. Now that language, and messaging, and hooks and angles will be very different more towards, I would say the newbie phase, than if I were to speak to someone who is experienced, and wants to learn the best methods and practices to optimizing and scaling their ads effectively so that they can get a bigger return on their current ad spend. The struggles for each of those avatars are very different, because they are at different parts in their Facebook ads journey.
The more specific I get, the more I speak to them and where they’re at, which ultimately moves more of my ideal clients down the funnel, and equals more sales, not just freebie hunters. Bonus, if you didn’t know, when it comes to Facebook ads, when you attract one avatar with one solution, you’ll be seasoning your pixel with the right person, which helps Facebook to ultimately help you find your people online easier. Get specific, and make sure that your webinar, or your tripwire, or whatever main offering you’re providing are all speaking to that one avatar to solve that one main problem they are having, with one solution. Okay? All right.
The second step in the strategy phase is your client journey. Knowing how you’re taking them from point A to point B, is how you effectively funnel people from a cold prospect. Someone who doesn’t know you, to someone pulling out their credit card and becoming a buyer of yours. The first step is determining what kind of funnel you’ll be using. Whether that’s a webinar, challenge, case study, video series, and more. Right? This is what I call your sales vehicle. It’s the educational tool that you use to rapidly increase the know, like the trust factor, and then pitch your offer. If you do a webinar, that’s your sales vehicle. If you do a case study, that’s your sales vehicle. Okay? Determining what sales vehicle works best for you, is based a lot on your ideal avatar. For example, if your avatar is someone looking to build a business, but they’re still in a nine to five, then a couple of things then might apply to them. One, they might have more time than money to spare, and two, they are in learning mode and want to learn from you to then determine if they should buy from you.
They may have more time to spend on, let’s say a 90-minute webinar, or a five or seven-day challenge. Right? Now, on the opposite side. Your ideal avatar maybe someone already generating a million a year in revenue and looking to scale their business to the next level. In their case, two different things might apply. One, they may have more money than time to spare, and two, they are done with learning, and just want to know if you have proven results, or can get them results. They want results fast. They may just have quick 15-minute case studies. That’s all they want. They may be just want to see a 15-minute case study showcasing results that were achieved, and possibly knowing that person’s USP. What makes them so unique, so that they can make a decision if they want to invest or not because they might have a better understanding of investing in themselves at this point. Figuring out this step is important to ensure you start with the best possible funnel strategy. Okay?
You’ll never know exactly what the best strategy is until you test, but this will help you start it off very strong. Next, once you know this, is plotting your client’s journey from point A to point B. Cold prospect to sale. Right? This is a literal visual map we put together for our clients when they onboard at the JW Agencies, so we can ensure that client journey has no holes in it, and that we are able to retarget them at all applicable points. One thing you’ve probably noticed about me so far is that I’m a visual person, and I love examples. Since this is a podcast, and I can’t visually show you, I’ll always give you scenarios, or situations so that you can visually see it in your head. Is that okay? Perfect. All right.
For instance, re-targeting webinar opt-ins with a reminder ad to show up to the webinar. Retargeting webinar registrants who show up to the offer, and entice them to buy the offer. Retargeting those who land on the sales page and don’t buy, and maybe sending them to a, “Hey, don’t forget to finish your purchase type ad.” Retargeting ads, or reminding people that your sale ends in two days, or 24 hours, and so on. So many points that you could retarget and speak to them to. Guys, this also includes not only the immediate funnel that you’re banking on, but long-term sales, and momentum. All right? Let’s say that your prospect doesn’t buy from you after attending your challenge because well, let’s be honest. Our, only a small percentage will buy from you right away. What does the followup sequence look like via ads, or emails? Do you even have a followup sequence in place? When do you make another offer to them?
Think about their journey, and where you’re taking them over the next 30, 60, even 90 days, so that you can turn more of your existing leads into paying clients. It is much, much easier to take your existing audience and turn them into a buying client, a paying client, a buyer later on, than it is to get a new person in your funnel and try to convert them. Do not be those Wham Bam, like I said in episode one, trying to get the quick sale. This is the long game guys. Mapping this all out clearly, allows you to get your prospects from point A to point B easy peasy, and systematically, by knowing where they are at, getting them to the next step in their journey, and speaking to them exactly where they are right now. All right.
Now onto the final step in the strategy phase, which is creating your revenue goals, and understanding how to get there. Now, I could go on and on about this phase, but ultimately this is you creating a map of where you want to go because without a map, we are wandering around aimlessly, fingers crossed, hoping and wishing that our marketing efforts will pay off. For example, what revenue are you wanting to hit? 30k? 100k? 1 million? From there, you need to figure out how to get there, and meaning how many leads you need to have. What does your lead to sales conversion rate need to be? What does your lead costs need to be etcetera, right? I’ll give you some simple formulas you can walk away from this episode with, and have a map and plan in hand. Again, since I love examples and visuals, we’ll use some sample numbers to help this make better sense.
Let’s say our goal is $100,000 in revenue with a product that costs $1,000. Step one. We’ll make this very simple. Determine the number of units you need to sell. All right. Again, pretty simple. Just take your revenue goal, and divide it by the product price. In this case, it’s $100,000 in revenue divided by $1,000 price point, which equals 100 units we need to sell. Units mean physical products, or coaching programs, or digital products. Whatever you sell, right? All right. Step two. Determine your lead to sales conversion rate. This means what percentage of your leads will you convert to a sale or a buyer? If this is a new product and you have no existing data to go off of, then I suggest using industry-standard metrics to determine this. That’s what we do with clients that come to us with new products they haven’t sold before.
In this example, let’s just say that we’re converting at 3% and want 3%. Once you know exactly what percent your product converts at, you can then adjust that number. Okay? Step three. Determine how many leads we need to acquire in order to convert at 3% to achieve our sales goal. You take the number of sales needed. In this case, we determined it’s a hundred, divided by the sales conversion, which we said was 3%. Take your calculator out. You’ll say 100 divided by, you’ll literally type in three, and then the percent sign. Okay? In this example would be a hundred divided by 3%, and that is 3,333 leads. That means in this example, you’ll need 3,333 leads with a 3% conversion to convert at 100 sales. Reminder, we are guesstimating. Right? Based on industry standards here, we will not know exact numbers until we start running ads, and know how the campaign is performing. Okay?
Step four. Determining our budget. In order to do that, we need to know your lead cost. How much it will cost you to get a webinar registering, or a challenge registering. Since we don’t know what your lead cost is yet, or if you do know this already, you can plug the number in. We’re going to go off the at industry standard again. For this example, we’re going to estimate $5 lead cost. $5 times 3,333 leads equals $16,665 budget. Now keep in mind, if your cost per lead is higher than $5, your budget will be higher. If your cost per lead is lower than $5, then your budget will be lower. Woohoo! Make sure you write down this formula. Lead cost times the number of leads equals budget. That’s it. That’s it guys. I want you to take those formulas, and plug your own numbers into them, and play with them.
Once you start your ads, you’ll actually see what your own cost per lead is, and you can adjust it as you go. As time goes on, if your cost per lead starts to drop from let’s say $5 down to $4, then recalculate your numbers so you can plan accordingly. Now, there is one thing to note. It’s a pet peeve of mine. Okay? Most people only talk about your lead gen cost, and they make you think that’s all the budget you need to plan for. That is 100% incorrect. In this case, we just calculated your convert phase costs. You also need to plan a budget for your connect and close phases. Now, they’re significantly less than your convert phase, which is your lead gen phase, which is what we just talked about, but just as equally important to ensure the success of your entire strategy, to knowing what your total budget costs will be, and to knowing what your real return on ad spend will be.
I’ll dive into how much budget to allocate for those in upcoming episodes. To finish up this example, you would spend roughly $16,665 in lead gen in order to attain $100,000 in revenue. That my friend, is a pretty amazing return on ad spend. Whew! Okay. This was a lot of information, and I hope you took a lot of notes, If not, well, you can always listen to the episode again. Thanks guys for joining me for episode two of the Ad Agency Secrets Podcast. In episode three, we’ll be talking about phase two of the GPS method. The connect phase. This is the phase 90% of all marketers spend the least amount of time on, but is the key to our clients bringing in the most consistent and highest profits month after month. We’ll dive into why it’s important, what kind of content to use, how to structure it effectively, and how you can start implementing this today, without creating a single piece of new content. Don’t miss the next episode.
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