11 Cool Things You Can Learn About Facebook Marketing From A 20 Year Old CEO

If you know me then you will know I love Facebook marketing. This March I attended Social Media Marketing World in San Diego and while I was there I met Alex Houg, the twenty year old CEO ofBlitzMetrics. I have been watching Alex’s journey from afar over the past number of months and wondered, what could this young CEO teach me about Facebook marketing?

6

Some Background

At 14, Alex was an internet marketing entrepreneur with his own online gaming accessory website which he later sold. Today he leads a team of 22 people at BlitzMetrics, helping small business owners drive leads and sales via Facebook.

His focus with BlitzMetrics is the QuickStart program, fully implementing and tuning Facebook ads with packages available for all levels of business. His other projects include The Untern Movement- A program designed to help college students discover what they love and gain valuable job experience in cooperation with universities. With this program, his goal is to provide participants with a certification program built around what they enjoy, free of charge.

Alex strives to help others around him succeed, empowering people to do what they are passionate about.

I took on the task of reading Alex’s blog to find out what I could learn about Facebook marketing. Some of the points are news related but I have extracted so much value and I hope you will too.

#1. Facebook Knows What You Did Last Night!

Yes and again if you know me I’m not afraid to share my most recent meal on Facebook and neither are the guys at BlitzMetrics. If you don’t have Graph Search yet you can access it by changing your language on Facebook to US and it should appear.

You may not be utilizing Graph search yet and if not you need to get on it. By running some simple searches you can find out more about your target audience. As the feature develops, Alex tells us that Facebook will make recommendations to users based on their interests! This may be powerful for you as a brand. Try these and see what results you get:

• Interests of people who like your brand
• Interests of people who like your competition
• Places liked by people who like my page

I could write a huge list, but this blog post is long enough. You see the idea is that you can also start to create the kind of content that interests your fans.

I had fun doing this search for photos of people who like Tweak Your Biz – and I spot some of my favourite people in there!

What you need to do now: Carry out some of these searches. Take a screenshot and use them in a post to thank your fans and customers. I do think it’s better to target people who already know you, but this exercise is a good way of finding out what your fans are into.

#2. Clever Ways to Impress Friends and Clients on Facebook

Of all the posts I read on Alex’s blog this one was my favorite. Being truly social means you need to listen and when you listen you pick up all sorts of information about the person you are meeting with. Now imagine you choose something relevant from that conversation and you send your client/friend a gift based on what they are passionate about. Check this out:

What you need to do now: Social Media is great and making connections is what it’s all about, but there’s nothing quite like making an impact with a customer. If they are really social they are likely to share your random act of kindness  and this will give you some great visibility with their network, but remember it truly is better to give than receive.

#3. Keep Your Friends Close, Have Fun, Be Timely, Relevant and Helpful

Social Media is a powerful force that is evolving every day. One thing you can learn by following Alex is that there is no right or wrong answer. Social has to be at the heart of your content strategy and delivers what your customers need.  If you are truly social your brand will build meaningful relationships with the right people who will either become your customers or it will strengthen the relationship you already have with customers. We are all learning  and marketing on Facebook presents constant challenges but it’s really important to keep your friends close, have fun with what you do and deliver timely, relevant and helpful content.

What you need to do now: To be successful you need to be passionate about what you do and how you help. Alex certainly does this well.

#4. Will the New RHS Ads on Facebook increase Ad CTR by 300%

Facebook has re-designed the newsfeed, pages and to enhance the change the RHS ad looks different. Will this affect your ads CTR? Probably not if your using oCPM because Facebook balance placement but the net affect will be an increased average CTR and you should see an improvement in campaigns. The new re-design will save you some time now because you can use the same creative as you would for newsfeed.

Read the full story here

#5. Facebook Marketing Does not Work for B2B

This is a common complaint that I hear from B2B marketers, but as Alex points out the targeting options on Facebook are now more advanced. Not only can you target a workplace, but you can target people by job title, industry, office type and workplace. Are you looking to influence the influencers? Here’s your opportunity. Take your already performing ads and duplicate them with these categories.

Here’s a great example from Blitzmetrics. Alex and his team co-presented with Marketo, then they posted the content to their blog and targeted people who work at Marketo.

What you need to do now: If you go to a big event and want to impress the influencers, write a great post and target them in your ad using these options.

#6. Should You Use Mobile Apps on Facebook?

This is a question people regularly ask. If you are a large brand with a development team and budgets apps add great value. Small business owners can use a number of solutions also. Using apps should only be used if they are central to your marketing strategy and to get the most from them you will need to amplify them with ads.  Alex advises that you should always focus on creating great content that adds value to your fans.

Here are some great companies that can provide you with all you need.

• Agorapulse
• Antavo
• Heyo
• Shortstack
• Tabsite
• Woobox 

What you need to do now: Keep creating great content and adding value to your fans. Apps are really useful for list building and engaging fans but always think about your goal.

#7. Sadness for Facebook Admins as “Always On” feature is turned off

Yes, it was a sad day for me too when this feature was turned off and to be honest a real pain. Running an ad that automatically updated with every post was a real time saver. The good news is you don’t have to deal with the barrage of disapproved ads because images broke the 20% rule and when you used Facebook in your text. In addition the Boost Post (yes I just used that word and we will get to that subject later) has been revamped with smarter targeting options.

What you need to do now: Create some time every week to promote posts individually!

#8. Is it Really Possible to Get 100% CTR on ads?

How happy would you be to see that in an ad report? Alex says it is possible but only if you use super target audiences. It’s not uncommon to get a CTR of 20%-40% but how can this be when most people are lucky to get 1%. How you do this is target the people who have already bought from you and use custom audiences. This way your CTR will increase and your cost per conversion will decrease.

What you need to do now: Get your customer list and upload it to Facebook. People who already know you, like you and trust you will buy from you.

#9. Facebook Ad Groups/Sets: How to Get the Best from them

More changes to the way Facebook ads look and feel. Personally I like this change. Now each of your ads live in their own set. Budgeting and end dates are at the ad group level, so now there is no need to create a new campaign for every post. Campaigns are still by objective so audience-engagement-conversion framework still applies.

What you need to do now: To get the best from ad sets test out a number of creatives to see which perform the best.

#10. Are Boosted Posts a Waste of Your Ads Budget?

Alex entitled his post $88 to reach 360 people? What you need to know about boosted posts is that Facebook’s estimator is not accurate when you add additional budget to your boosted post. Alex says“We’ve been able to get a reach of 50,000 on this very post for only $72.  So it’s unlikely that it would jump to $240″. The takeaway here is that you can still get results if you have great content and your targeting is spot on.

What you need to know: If you don’t have time or your budget is small and you need to promote something in a hurry boosted posts can work. Be warned though your targeting must be relevant and you need to have rock solid content that you know works for your target audience.

#11. Do Boosted Posts Really Work?

This leads on from the last point and really I’m pointing out boosted post because many smaller local businesses with limited targeting options use this feature. The other challenge is a lack of time and budget to do anything more advanced. Here are some reasons that you may want to boost a post

• Increase engagement but not conversion
• Select interests as oppose to fans and friends of fans
• If you have a highly shareable product for which you have reviews
• If your content is excellent and that is evidenced by people liking it

The team at Blitz Metrics boosted a post for $15 which got 28 interactions and 20 clicks to their website.

What you need to do now: I saw this great comment on Alex’s blog from Benjamin Harries:

“Find the product that people like, create a post to promote it, target the right people based on their interests and keep satisfying customer demand” Don’t forget it’s not about finding loopholes it’s about knowing what your customer wants.

“The training BlitzMetrics puts on is completely free to students-even the travel and lodging. The businesses we have as clients subsidize these efforts, whether it is the NBA, Infusionsoft, Marketo, Jack Daniels, and other brands.  This gives students hands-on experience. Non-students must pay for training, which we conduct online and in our offices in Minneapolis”

To re-cap on this post and as a reminder, Alex Houg is a twenty year old CEO,  he knows much about marketing on Facebook and if you want to stay ahead of the curve keep an eye on his blog.

View Source Here

How to Integrate Psychology Into Your Marketing

How do you market your company? You probably try to optimize your site for search engines, try some content and social media marketing, test out a few paid ad sources, and maybe even focus on conversion optimization.

Although those tactics can help you boost your sales, you shouldn’t focus all of your time on traffic generating strategies. One of the most effective ways you can boost your sales is to integrate psychology into your marketing.

But before I get into how you can leverage psychology, lets first define it:

Psychology is the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context.

Now that we are all on the same page, here is how you can integrate psychology within your marketing:

Tactic #1: Get people to commit before committing

Let me explain what I mean here. There are two ways to think about a commitment within your online business. The obvious one is a customer buying your product or service. The less obvious one is to get the customer to be mentally prepared to buy from you.

If you get your visitors mentally prepared to make a purchase on your site, they are much more likely to complete the purchase. And the easiest way to do this is through your website copy.

A good example of this is Unleash Your Thin. Dr. Jonny Bowden uses this copy on his checkout page to get you to commit to the purchase:

Jonny is really smart because not only is he getting you into the mindset of buying, he is also getting you to grasp that there is little to no risk committing because he will refund you your money if you are unhappy. Plus, he added a “check box” to give you the feeling that you’ve already checked the box and approved buying the product.

Unleash Your Thin isn’t the only company that is doing this. Gym Junkies used similar messaging with their software application and were able to increase sales by 16%.

Tactic #2: Future pace

The real estate industry is well known for future pacing their customers. Real estate agents will constantly drop lines like “when you have a BBQ in your new home, make sure you invite me”… even before you make an offer on a home.

What they are trying to do is to have you focus on the future outcome and not the purchase. Once you get hooked on all of the things that will happen if you go through with the purchase, you will be more likely to make the purchase.

You can also do this online with your marketing copy. Here’s a good example of how we do this at Crazy Egg:

By using the word “when”, we are assuming that you are already going to use Crazy Egg. If we didn’t want to future pace, we would have used the phrase“what do you get if you use Crazy Egg”. But by using future pacing within your copy we’ve found that it increases sales by 5% to 10%.

Tactic #3: Make people work for it

Just because you are selling something, it doesn’t mean anyone can have it. You can choose which customers you want to sell your products or services to by putting up roadblocks. Although this may seem counter-intuitive, in many cases it makes people work harder to buy your product or service.

If you look at the screenshot above, you’ll notice that Six Pack Shortcutsmakes you go through a mini quiz to qualify you. What a lot of companies have learned is that if they make you work to buy their product, instead of just driving you to a page where you can add the product to your shopping cart, you are more likely to convert into a customer. Why? Because they made you feel that you are one of the lucky few who made it through.

The funny thing about this method is that I’ve seen it increase and drop conversions drastically. When I tested it out on sophisticated audiences like Quick Sprout, I saw an 18% drop in conversions.

But when I tested it out in non-sophisticated markets, I’ve seen an increase in conversion rates by up to 31%.

Tactic #4: The Power of Why

What’s the one thing that all kids do? They ask a ton of questions, right? And if you don’t answer their question with a sufficient answer, what happens? They keep asking it, right?

Your visitors are the same way. The difference is, if you don’t answer their questions, they don’t ask them again. They just leave.

Psychology is about understanding your customers and how they think. If you can survey them, you can figure out the concerns and questions they have. Some of these questions may be as basic as:

• Why is your product or service so great?
• Why should I buy from you?
• Why should I stay on your site?

Within your copy, you should focus on answering all of these “whys” your visitors have. But the responses you give them have to be really good because if they suck, people will just leave your site.

Let me give you an extreme example…

“Stop taking two and three plates of food,” my mother said to me angrily.

I was at a wedding and seven years old. Back then, at a lot of the weddings we used to go to, the food would be pre-served on a plate. I could never get enough of those calorie-ridden platters. Waylaying different waiters, (so I would not be recognized), I’d polish 3-4 plates without blinking an eye.

Mom wasn’t impressed, and told me to stop and desist.

“Why?” I’d ask. Her stock reply was always, “It’s bad manners to do that.” This Dustbin Hoffman (yes, I do mean Dustbin and not Dustin) act obviously got her goat, but it left me unfazed. It must have bugged her more than I expected though, because in a short while Dad was peering down at my food-stuffed face.

My question remained unchanged. “WHY?”

“If you invite a hundred people to a wedding, how many would you cater for?” he asked. “A hundred,” I answered, proud of my analytical genius. “If you ate four plates,” he continued, “how many would remain?” He prompted quickly, “Ninety-six right?” I nodded vigorously. “That means some people don’t eat. If you’re so hungry, we can go out after the wedding and get something to eat, but don’t deprive others.”

In that example, the dad made sense. He made so much sense that the seven-year-old boy listened and didn’t have an issue with the answer.

If you don’t give a good explanation every time your customers ask “why”, they’ll just leave.

If you are looking for a good web-based example, check out how we answer the question of “why should I use Crazy Egg instead of Clicktale”.

The response is so thorough that potential customers don’t ask us the question anymore.

Tactic #5: Build up anticipation

Would you rather go to a club that doesn’t have a line or one that has a line? The one with the line, right? Because if a club doesn’t have a long line, it can’t be that great.

Making people wait before you let them buy doesn’t just increase your chances of getting a sale, but it also lets you charge a premium for whatever you are selling. Just look at Apple: not only are their products expensive, but people wait in lines over night to buy their products.

There are a few strategies you can use to build up anticipation:

• Time delay – don’t give people what they want right away. Make them wait days, weeks or months to buy from you. A good example of this is I Will Teach You To Be Rich site. Their subscribers are told about offers but typically don’t have access to buy them until the 30-day mark.
• Applications – usually you are the one who is doing the selling, which, as you already know, doesn’t work too well. You can switch things around and build up anticipation by making people apply to buy your product or service. You’ll find that people will try to convince you to sell your product to them with this tactic.
• Drop hints – Apple uses this strategy really well because you’ll see hints of what their products will look like or the features they will have, but you don’t know everything about the products until they want you to know about it.

Conclusion

You don’t have to make big changes to get big results. Making small adjustments to how you do your marketing, or how you portray your message, can have a positive effect on your sales.

As you learned above, replacing simple words like “if” with “when” can increase the number of sales you’re making from your site.

So, what do you think about integrating psychology into your marketing? Are their any other psychological tactics that we all should be using?

View Source Here

AWeber Now Offering 7 Beautiful, StudioPress-Inspired Email Templates

How do you design an email template that looks and feels like your own website design?

Sounds like it would be hard to do, doesn’t it?

You either need to be a whiz with code, or you need to find an email marketing service that just so happens to have templates that look and feel like your website. Not very likely.

Until now … because AWeber decided to do something about it.

Many of our StudioPress customers now have an email marketing option that will seamlessly extend their website’s branding into their email communication …

Behold, the seven newest wonders of AWeber’s world: new email themes for StudioPress.

How it works

Here are the StudioPress child themes that AWeber currently has email themes for (links go to each theme’s StudioPress page):

• Agency Pro
• Executive Pro
• Lifestyle Pro
• Magazine Pro
• Metro Pro
• News Pro
• Parallax Pro

All you have to do to get started using the corresponding email themes is log in to your AWeber account. You’ll see the new email themes named the same as the StudioPress theme they match. And yes, they plan to add more StudioPress themes in the future.

If you’re not already an AWeber customer, you can get started for just $1 right here.

And, of course, make sure you’re a StudioPress customer.

You can choose one of the seven themes above, and then have an email theme waiting for you when you’re ready. Or browse all of our child themes, and let AWeber know in the comments that you’d like to see an email theme developed for it in the future.

Long live beautiful email!

View Source Here

5 Smart Solutions For Women Entrepreneurs on The Go

This week I’m writing to you from my childhood home in Charleston, West Virginia where I’m caring for my aging parents who are health challenged at the moment. Today, I’m going to share my best tips for running a business when traveling. With all the new gadgets and apps available to entrepreneurs today, business on the go is a snap.

Maximize with Mobile Devices – The beauty of technology today is mobile devices are small, weigh very little and make business on the go accessible. There is a range in pricing but with cloud based software like Google Drive and Dropbox (no cost to less than $9 per month) you don’t need the storage capacity which historically made laptops and desktops more expensive. I currently use a desktop in my office and an iPad for travel. I gave up the laptop a few years ago as I wanted to relieve my shoulders and back of any extra weight during travel. I use a Sena external keyboard that’s compatible with my iPad, however there are a wide range of choices which make typing documents (like this article) easy and fast.

Activate your Apps – I’m continually surprised on a daily basis by the variety of no-cost to low-cost apps you can access for your business. There seems to be an app for just about every need we have – from meditation to productivity, there’s an app for you. I use the Cozi app to keep our busy family organized when I’m traveling. Everyone in the family can access the app to check-in and see what’s happening each day. You can color code each family member to make it easy for them to identify their schedule for sports and after school activities.

Outsource to Office Supply Stores - Whether it’s Staples, Office Max or your local small office supply store, let them handle your printing needs when you’re traveling. I emailed a document to the local Staples here this morning and it was ready in minutes and cost pennies.

Hooking up – I find the placement of electric outlets in hotel rooms interesting. They never seem to be quite where you need them for easy access and to make your work time more productive. That’s why I carry my own extension cord with multiple electrical outlets attached. I can set up my mobile office in the room where I’m most comfortable and have access to all my devices at my fingertips.

Charge it – I carry two chargers when traveling (one for my iPad and one for my iPhone) to ensure that both devices have a full charge at all times.

Get smart and take advantage of all the no-cost to low-cost mobile tools to help your business stay the course and create momentum no matter where your travels take you this holiday season.

Anything is possible. Everything is waiting for you.

View Source Here

Internet Marketing Mentoring Versus Coaching

Internet marketing mentoring is different than coaching in that mentoring focuses on building an individual relationship between mentor and mentee that can last a lifetime. A coach only sticks around as long as you’re paying them.

That’s one of the reasons why we believe Internet marketing coaching doesn’t work. There are other very specific differences you should know before looking for Internet marketing guidance so that you can choose wisely whether you really need an Internet marketing mentor versus a coach.

Internet Marketing Mentoring Programs	Internet Marketing Coaching Programs
Contact can be by phone or in person	Contact is almost always by phone or email only
Discussion time is usually 1 hour to half-day	Contact is usually 15-30 minutes per session
Mentor will sometimes tweak the work you’ve done so you can better see a the process for improving your work. “Here is a similar headline I wrote for a promotion and then added this hook on the end to make it more compelling to read more” would be an example of a mentor helping you write better sales copy.	Coach rarely does any work for you but gives generalizations how your work could improve. “Make your headline more compelling” would be an example of a coach helping you to write better sales copy.
Are paid for by monthly retainer plus the percentage increase in sales revenue	Are paid for by-the-session
Mentors are experts in their field and can command rates from $200-$2,000 per hour…and they’re worth it!	Coaches are often part of a larger coaching network and are paid from that network at $15-$30 hourly rates.
A mentor will take the time to dream the possibilities with you and serve as a sounding board or even just a good friend when things don’t go as planned.	A coach brings an agenda to the table with assigned tasks.

Every successful Internet marketer I know has had multiple “mentors” that they will bring up in conversation. But coaches? Rarely will you hear of a successful marketer on the Internet cite their “coach” as the reason for their success.

View Source Here

7 Steps to an Email Opt-in Page That Works

Email marketing works.

In fact, it’s still the best online method for converting prospects into customers or clients.

A critical part of the process begins, however, before a single email is sent. You’ve got to get people on your list in the first place.

This happens most effectively at a landing page specifically designed to convince the right people to sign up.

Some people call these opt-in landing pages “squeeze” pages, which, in addition to being a derogatory way to think about the process, is also technically incorrect.

Here’s a quick Internet marketing history lesson.

A squeeze page was originally a very specific type of opt-in page that required you to supply an email address just for the privilege of reading a sales letter. If you didn’t buy immediately, you got follow-up pitches.

Sounds crazy now, huh?

But things were easier back then, until hucksters and charlatans abused the privilege and people fought back.

I’m about to show you how to win the trust and interest of prospective subscribersdespite any initial misgivings your audience may have.

Let’s jump right in.

1. Who do you want?

The first step is crucial, and yet time and again I see people plow ahead without a clear understanding of exactly the type of person they want on their email list.

Without a clear and detailed understanding of who you want, you can’t craft a message that resonates strongly enough to spark interest and gain trust.

Take a look at our Internet Marketing for Smart People opt-in page, for example.

The exact same course benefits could attract your typical “get rich quick” business opportunity type. But instead, the message is positioned squarely against that type of person, and aimed at people who are willing to put the effort in.

Take the time to figure out who you really want on your list in terms of your ultimate goal, which is likely to be moving enough of them to customer or client. Then and only then will you know how to “speak their language” with your opt-in copy.

2. What do you want them to do?

Your email opt-in page has one goal — to get people to sign up to your email list.

Every word and element of the page should support that single action. If it doesn’t, lose it.

That means lose your typical sidebar.

That means lose those links in your copy.

In many cases, that means creating a page so focused on the opt-in that you take an approach that’s different from your normal site design.

One page, one action. That’s it.

3. What are the essential elements?

No exceptions, you absolutely must have:

1. The headline: You’ve got to instantly catch attention with your headline.
2. The benefits: You’ve got to tell by teasing, usually with fascinating bullet points.
3. The call to action: You’ve got to expressly tell people to sign-up.
4. The opt-in form: You’ve got to have a way for them to sign-up.

You might also need number 5 …

The Proof: In this case, proof should be of the social kind. Number of subscribers, subscriber testimonials, reviews and media mentions, etc.

Whether or not you need to add in proof depends on a number of criteria, including the strength of your brand and the traffic source.

For example, if you’re driving existing blog subscribers to a focused email list, your good reputation (hopefully) precedes you. If you’re using Google AdWords to drive traffic, you likely have no reputation on your side and you’ll need everything you’ve got.

4. What incentive should you give?

It’s always been a smart tactic to offer an up-front incentive, or “ethical bribe” to convince people to sign up for your list.

This could be a free report, webinar, audio seminar, or other instant-gratification freebie.

In many markets, this strategy still works just fine. In others, you’ll face savvy subscribers who snag your incentive with an alternate “trash” email address, or simply unsubscribe immediately.

The better approach is to focus the incentive on staying subscribed.

Offer that report over time as a series of emails from your autoresponder, break the video or audio into parts, and always entice subscribers with what’s coming next.

The key is for people to realize that you’re giving more than you’re taking (pitching), and they’ll happily stay with you much longer.

5. How long should your copy be?

Same as it ever was: As long as necessary, and no longer.

In the case of an opt-in page, the essentials have to be there — headline, benefits, and call to action. But going back to step one, a bit more copy will help you better target the exact type of person you want on your list.

Again, look at the IMfSP page … we lead with three paragraphs of positioning before stating benefits, presenting the sign-up form, and then provide more copy for people who want more information.

You can follow this format, or use testimonials to round out the second call to action and opt-in form.

And don’t forget to reassure people that you respect their privacy.

6. How much information should you ask for?

This one’s easy.

The less form data you ask for, the more people sign up.

We tested asking for first name and email address against email address only, and the latter won. Now, we only ask for an email address (go figure).

If your business goals dictate getting more information, like a mailing address and phone number, so be it. Personally, I’d get the prospect on the list first, and then send valuable content that culminates with a call to action that asks for that information via a contact form.

The more trust you build, the more people open up to you. And you get to communicate with prospects regularly, which means it’s no longer an all-or-nothing situation.

7. What works better?

Everything above represents tried-and-tested wisdom for email opt-in pages.

But when it comes down to what specifically works for you and your audience, only your own split-testing will tell the whole truth.

Changes to headlines, button colors, and other tiny tweaks can make a big difference when it comes to your opt-in rate. Just don’t forget step one above.

In other words, tweaking your landing page to get the absolute best opt-in rate doesn’t mean much if you’re attracting the wrong people for your ultimate goal ofselling something.

You need to make sure you test within the bounds of a well-targeted premise that resonates with your intended audience. Remember the first step at all times.

Opt-in pages made easy

Often, people are well aware of best practices for creating an effective opt-in page. And yet they don’t follow some of them (especially split-testing) because it can be a pain.

Our Premise Landing Page System for WordPress makes creating and split-testing opt-in pages a snap, and features easy integration with Aweber, Mail Chimp, and Constant Contact.

Plus, you’ll never attract the wrong crowd to your list with the Premise Guide to Effective Copywriting — a 23-page manual and hour-long audio seminar included at no extra charge.

View Source Here