NO B.S. GUIDE TO MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS ONLINE

by Bryan Del Monte

All online marketing boils down to this

one strategy. he strategy is simple. It is proven. It works.

Here is the “No BS” strategy to building an

online business. I do not care what your

business idea is, what niche you think you should be

in, or your technical level of expertise. None of that matters.

That is how simple this is. Are you ready? Believe

it or not – right here –on the first page- this is the

“butler did it” moment of the story.

Get a pencil and paper – write this down –

this is your strategy from now on:

1.Build an Audience

2.Sell them Stuff

Now, I have no doubt you are reading that and

going “this guy, wasting my $@#%!#% time!

What the $@#%!” (or perhaps you are more patient

than I would be, with less swearing.)

I know what I just said sounds obvious. Believe it or

not, every successful online business – large and small

– masters those two steps. They build large audiences,

then they have those audiences tell them what they

want, and they sell it to them.

It is also why the 99% of the entrepreneurs who

start new businesses online fail. They do not build

an audience and just try to sell things. Alternatively

(although less frequently), they build massive

followings, but fail to sell them stuff.

It is simple to say what the strategy is – it is hard to

do it.

Online success is that simple. You build an

audience; then you sell them stuff. Every successful

online entrepreneur does this – and they wind up

making anywhere from $100K to 100 million (or

more) a year doing it.

So you have two questions to solve:

1.How do you build an audience?

2.How do you figure out what stuff to sell them

(or how to position the stuff you already have)?

This guide answers both questions. Let us begin.

T

BUILD AN AUDIENCE.SELL THEM STUFF.[ ]

I am not kidding. I built a blog that was going to

teach advertising people how to do content marketing.

Seems like a great audience right? They need the help

(they do). It is a big audience.

One problem, advertising people are, by nature,

convinced they are all “God’s gift to humanity” when

it comes to understanding marketing and marketing

technology. They will not listen to anybody about

anything. (This is in part why the advertising indus-

try is so utterly backward when it comes to content

marketing.)

The result – I built an incredible website for a

bunch of people whom, despite needing desperately

what I sold, had no intention of ever learning any-

thing. Result – fail.

I built another blog that was going to provide

education and training resources to freelancers in

marketing, advertising, art, photography, and

design. Again – sounds like a brilliant idea right?

Result – fail.

Why? Because those audiences are like those

questions on the LSAT where they tell you that

there’s Bobby, Joe, Sally, Mary, Frank, and Amy;

Amy cannot sit next to Joe; Joe cannot sit next to

Sally; Bobby is a vegetarian. Then you have to figure

out who the bus driver is? What?

Finding your audience. Bottom line – none of those audiences co-mingle

with each other, or, they co-mingle in such strange

ways it is nearly impossible to figure out the

relationships. Result – failed websites.

You see, understanding exactly who your audience

is – is the number one determinant to your online

success. Get the audience right, then everything you’ll

likely to do will be right. Get the audience wrong –

and put simply, “you’re screwed.”.

If you are starting out, your first mission is to figure

out where your passions, expertise, and knowledge,

intersect with the largest audience that you can

identify, and who has a demonstrable need for your

knowledge, product, or service.

If you already have a product or service, then your

first mission is to evaluate everything you’ve built,

and everything you say (blogs, on your website, in

your marketing materials, etc.) and ask yourself

“Is this material aimed at the right audience?”

Knowing your audience – really knowing them – is

the key. This is beyond talking about demographics,

and instead, talking about people. Do you know who

your audience is?

Let’s say you run a hair salon. Technically anyone

with a head of hair is a potential customer, right?

Well no. You (as the salon manager) already know

this. People will not travel (usually) vast distances to

get a haircut. So you are geographically limited.

Repeat after me, if your audience is wrong, then everything you will do will be wrong.

Moreover, depending on what kind of salon you

are, it is doubtful that men will largely be among your

audience. I hate going to women’s salons.

Moreover, salons tend to cater to certain types of

women – regarding income; experience sought, price

expectations, and a whole myriad of other factors.

They also tend to look at what motivates those

people. Do they want to say “I go to so and so salon”

(prestige is the value), or do they have some other reason?

Service businesses tend to understand their audience

better than product businesses because of their daily

interaction with customers. Service businesses cannot

help but understand customers better because they

are “on ground level” with them all day long.

Potentially everyone with teeth needs toothpaste.

That said, when’s the last time you heard someone

say “Oh I LOVE Colgate. I would rather take a bullet

than switch to Crest!”

Never.

You will, however, hear people say that about

service brands. “I love my so and so…” you’ll hear.

That is because “so and so” really gets them.

They understand their audience.

Let me give you some more examples.

Running a bar is a relatively straightforward idea.

People come in. You serve drinks. Right?

New York City has approximately 2800 liquor

establishments – i.e., hard core bars. No food – just

booze. They have another 17 thousand that are

liquor and food.

So all in – let’s say there is at any one time 20

thousand places in New York City to get a drink.

To say the least, competition is fierce.

Moreover, it is not like liquor at bar A is somehow

magical from liquor at bar B. Everyone buys the same

liquor (we’ll ignore anyone “adultering the hooch” for

a moment for the sake of argument).

Now, here’s a real life story. There’s a bar in New

York that takes only reservations at 3 PM every day.

By 3:15 PM – the bar is booked for the evening.

Booked.

Moreover, I mean booked SOLID. Like slip the guy

a 100 bucks and he laughs in your face booked.

Booked.

Booked with people who show up and say

“SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!”

What’s the secret? (And more importantly,

what’s the bar!)

It is a “speakeasy” called, “Please Don’t Tell.”

What the founders of Please Don’t Tell realized is that

what some people in New York wanted wasn’t

so much liquor, as an experience. They identified in

a rather large audience the desire to “be included,” as

a motivating goal. To have that story to tell at a party.

To have the “inside track.”

Anyone who has lived in New York (or DC, or

Chicago, or LA, etc.) you know what I am talking

about. The people who want to demonstrate how hip

they are because they had the ultimate experience.

So let me tell you a bit about this bar.

Walk down a set of stairs into the Crif Dogs restau-

rant on St. Marks Place. Look for an old-fashioned

phone booth. Step inside, pick up the phone and

press the buzzer…once. Not twice. A voice answers

and, after approval, the wall of the phone booth opens

to let you into a small room with a bar at its center.

Welcome to 1920’s Prohibition.

That is what is possible when you understand the

desires, goals, frustrations, or fears of your audience.

In this case, the desire is to have the ultimately

unobtainable experience of “being first” to a place

not many people know about.

It is the same reason people pay $100 to eat a

Cheesesteak. My favorite is “Will it Blend” and the

story of Blendtec.

This is a market that was largely dominated by two

brands – Breville and Vitamix. Vitamix I would argue

was by far the best-known brand. If you were going

to plop down $500 bucks for a blender – chances

were you were buying a Vitamix. If you were a chef

and had been to chef’s school, chances were you were

buying either a Vitamix or a Breville.

Nobody had heard of Blendtec. Nobody.

However, then these little viral videos of a guy in

a lab coat started taking people by storm. The show

was called, “Will it Blend.” In the show, Tom Dickson,

the Blendtec founder, attempts to blend various un-

usual items to show off the power of his blender.

Dickson – either by choice or by luck – understood

the real frustration and fear of anyone about to plop

down $500 or more for a blender…

… is this professional quality?

Well – as we say in advertising, nothing beats a

good demonstration. When Tom’s blenders puree’ed

bricks, golf balls, iPhones, light bulbs, screws, and

anything else he could fit in there – people were con-

vinced the blender was more than “industrial” quality.

Now you might think it is having a “gimmick” that

makes this work.You’d be wrong.

What makes for a “gimmick” is understanding your

audience’s needs – their frustrations, fears, goals, and

desires. Positioning your offering within your au-

dience’s mental state – things like “Will it Blend” or

“Please don’t tell,” work. There are lots of gimmicks

that ignore the audience that we never read or hear

about because they were utter failures.

If you know your audience well – your chance of

success goes up immeasurably.

Upper left: Blend Tec blender

Upper right: Prohibition

Lower left: Crif Dog

Lower right: Cheesesteak

GETTING INSIDE YOUR AUDIENCE’S HEAD

TO MAKE THEM THINK YOU ARE PSYCHIC.

Ever read that blog post and you go “Wow, this guy

gets me.” Ever listen to that TED talk and go,

“Wow. That guy gets me.” Ever meet someone and you

instantly click and go, “Wow! This guy gets me.”

It reminds me of one of my favorite all time films –

The Jerk. The film begins with Navin R. Johnson (Steve

Martin), a befuddled homeless simpleton, directly ad-

dressing the camera and telling his story. He is the

adopted white son of African American sharecrop-

pers, who grows to adulthood naïvely unaware of his

obvious adoption. He stands out in his family not just

because of his skin color, but also because of his utter

lack of rhythm when his adopted family plays spirited

blues music.

Navin is teased (although gently) by his brothers for

liking stereotypical “white food” (Twinkies and TAB

Cola – hey, it was the 1970’s and TAB was big then)

and he admits to not liking the blues music his family

dance to. One night, he hears the staid and starchy

Roger Wolfe Kahn Orchestra song called,

“Crazy Rhythm” on the radio and his feet spontaneous-

ly begin to move with the urge to dance exclaiming

“THIS SPEAKS TO ME!”

That is the Moment you want. You want your audience

member to stand up and go “THIS SPEAKS TO ME!”

That means you have to understand what motivates

them. I guarantee it is not whatever you think your

product does. When’s the last time a single customer

came up to you and said, “Oh yes, that thing you think

is super important – that is exactly the reason I bought

it. I mean I was up all night wondering when someone

would invent that… now you have…answering my prayers.”

Never.

In thinking about what your audience wants, what

makes them tick, what would get them excited to be

with you, and thus, allow you to build an audience –

that is what it about. You have to find out what speaks

to them.

You want them to be hearing Etta James in their

heads when they find your website. A long lost prayer

has been answered – someone who finally cares about

them, someone who finally gets them, someone who is

finally interested in listening to them.

If you identify your target audience’s hopes, dreams,

fears, and frustrations – and your business offering

is centered around those ideas – then people will be

naturally drawn to at least look at your website.

In short it is about empathy. Unfortunately, the

best examples of empathy usually come from the most

diabolical and disgusting people imaginable.

IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU (REALLY); IT’S ABOUT THEM.

I hate to break it to you, but, 99% of the people

out there… really could care less about whatever it

is you want to talk about, sell them, help them,

or show them.

99% of the people “selling stuff” out there believe that people buy stuff by rationally comparing

things, and then going, “this is the right thing for me.”

That is bullshit. Plain and simple.

Nobody does that. Not when you bought your house. Not when you bought your car. Not

when you chose your college. Not when you chose your job offer.

You never, ever, do that.

So let’s stop pretending for a moment that the world gives a crap about whatever the feature

or service is that you think “blows the competition out of the water”. It does not.

Remember Please do not Tell? Does any bar sell on the headline

“HEY! OUR LIQUOR GETS YOU DRUNK FASTER!”

No. Instead, it is that thing they most fear, that thing they most want, that desire they most lust after,

that goal they must achieve, that motivates them. Their buying decisions are entirely predicated upon

those variables – whether the customer knows it or not. It is the things that keep them up at night.

Now you know it. It is almost an unfair advantage. In the hands of unscrupulous people – it is

an unfair advantage.

Did you ever wonder how so many people got taken in by Jordan Belfort (the man who was the

inspiration behind the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”)?

Ever ask yourself how it was that so many people got drawn into Bernie Madoff?

Their victims were smart people. Millionaires and Billionaires. All of them lost their shirts to

Jordan Belfort and Bernie Madoff. It was all great. Right up until everyone went broke.

All of them drawn to a seductive emotion – greed. People do not buy rationally – even smart

ones. So whatever you think it is “about you” that makes you special – that is wrong. That is not

why people buy. People buy from you for one reason. They like and trust you. That was how

Bernie Madoff and Jordan Belfort bilked tens of thousands of the richest people in America out of

millions of dollars.

They understood the biggest desire of their audience was to get filthy stinking rich without any

effort or consequence, and that their biggest fear that kept them up at night was missing out on the

“big one” that could make their dreams happen.

Con men cannot “con” an honest person. You know why? Because the con man’s con does not

work because you (the mark) invest your confidence in the con man. It works because the con man

invests his confidence in you.

Again let me be very clear – I am not suggesting you lie, cheat, manipulate, or run any scam

on people. However, we LIKE people who like us. We TRUST people who trust us.

That is how this works. Moreover, if you add like and trust, with knowledge of what makes

the guy “tick”, that is a deadly combination that every con man preys upon.

Honest people are not looking for an edge; dishonest people always are. Dishonest people

essentially cheat themselves because they seek an advantage in their dealings with others.

Again, to be very clear - I am not suggesting for a minute you emulate these people in how they

destroyed the lives of others for their personal gain. However, I tell this story to point out to you

that people do not buy based on logic or reason. They buy based on emotion. They buy because

the other person decides to commit emotionally.

Whatever you are selling, whatever you are thinking of selling, it has to be tied directly into the

biggest fear or the greatest desire of your audience. You have to invest in them long before they

are going to invest in you. It is about THEM – not about YOU.

IF YOU DO NOT HAVE AN EMAILYOU DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING.

Here are some striking facts:

80% of people who visit your website are unlikely ever to return.

You must interact with a visitor as many as SEVEN TIMES before they’ll buy from you.

What does this mean?

GET THEIR EMAIL

I am not kidding. Whatever it takes. A freebie.

A giveaway. Whatever. Because if you do not

have their email – you do not have anything.

When you have their email – you can send them

updates about what you are doing at your blog

or website.

You can send them things that strike your

fancy that you think might be relevant to them.

You can open a dialogue with them.

Now, depending on how well you do (and where

you put your email form), you can convert as

many as 40% of your visitors to giving you their

email in exchange for a “bribe to subscribe”.

Let’s say you have a great idea for a bribe,

and people want it (because you know your

audience), like say a free guide on marketing.

Let’s say 10% of the people respond to a well

placed “bribe to subscribe” on the page.

NOW LET’S DO THE MATH.

Million visitors – results in 100,000 email.

Of that million, remember, only 200K may ever

come back.You probably snagged 20-50% of

them with your email capture.

Let’s say your “click to results” rate of your

email is lousy (the result being whatever – a sale,

read a blog post, etc.) – only four percent or so.

That means 100,000 people, 4% - you get 4,000

people to pay attention to you.

Do you see now why if you do not have email

you do not have anything?

I HOPE SO.

Now the numbers will not be thousands

and millions for you – but the logic is the same.

Getting audience attention is hard. However, the

conversion rates I’ve specified here are reason-

able. One site I run has about a 42% conversion

rate on the bribe to subscribe – and it is the only

thing on the website. (You can see it here at

Blogs that Sell if you are interested.)

Driving traffic in hopes of conversion is not

impossible… However, it is pretty close to it.

A simple math exercise explains how these two

facts of web traffic work such that you’ll never

get “rich” trying to drive mountains of traffic into

your website.

IT IS SIMPLE PROBABILISTIC ANALYSIS.

If only one in FIVE will ever come back – and you

need to contact that one in FIVE approximately

SEVEN times to get a potential sale – here’s what

your “drive massive amounts of traffic” through

traffic generation looks like.

• Landing Number one – nothing – 80% leave

• Landing Number two – nothing – 80% of the

20% leave (that means you have only 4% from

the first visit)

• Landing Number three – nothing – 80% of the

4% leave (that means you have less than 1% left).

NEED I GO ON?

Now obviously with each landing, you get new

visitors who start into step one. Thus, yes, if you

could get a million people a day to visit your

blog, you might get 64 (yes, you heard me), new

customers.

THAT’S A CONVERSION RATE OF

6/10,000TH OF A PERCENT.

Basically what it means is that if you don’t have

some way of re-contacting the people who visit

your website, the chance you’ll hit the 20% who

come back as many as SEVEN TIMES is equiv-

alent to the chances of you putting a stamp on

the floor of your bedroom, getting on your bed,

putting on a blindfold, jumping off the bed, and

licking the stamp.

IT IS POSSIBLE – PRETTY IMPROBABLE.

That is why most websites drive traffic in vain.

They have no real way of converting new visitors.

Now there’re many reasons for this – most of

which has to do with search intent. However, that

said, there is a solution for this.

The only way you can build an audience is over time they have to get to know you

and to do that, you need their email.

HAVE THE AUDIENCE TELL YOU WHAT TO

SELL THEM.

So let’s assume you have a list. Let’s also assume you have enough people on the list that you can generate a reasonable response rate (let’s say 1000 people for a nice round number).

Now what? Before you do anything else, send this simple email to your list:

Subject: Your thoughts? Hey! Do you have a moment to give me your thoughts on something? I am planning out some new and nifty things I can do for you over the coming year, Moreover, I have one simple question for you: When it comes to [YOUR TOPIC], what’s your biggest frustration? That is it. Nothing more. Just shoot me a reply with your thoughts. Thanks! [YOUR NAME]

Wait for the responses, then look for patterns. Chances are, you’ll see two or three frustrations cropping up over and over and over again.THAT is what you now can sell. A product? (Develop an App for example? Maybe introduce a new product feature?) A service? (Coaching? Consulting?) You see, now you have people willing to tell you what their fears and frustrations are. You should not be shocked by the answers you get, because, you’ve been interacting with this audience for awhile now. These are your tribe – your people. That said, it helps to know. Essentially what you are trying to do is take a poll.

If you go back and look at my emails – I asked you right up front.Do you remember? (Maybe not.) As my first real email to you – I sent you something like this:

First Thing: Reply to this email right now and tell me one thing that you are struggling with. Even if its teeny tiny... I want to hear about it. Don’t worry if you think people will think it is stupid - it never is (and I am the only one who reads these anyways). Not struggling with anything in particular? No worries. Just hit “reply” and say “Hey!” (I love meeting new subscribers and readers). As you might imagine, I receive a TON of emails every day, and I do my business to reply to as many as I can. That said, while I may not respond to every email, I read every single one.

I repeatedly ask my audience what we can do to make them happier. The way to making your audience happier is giving them what they want - bringing them closer to desires and goals, or helping them avoid frustrations and fears.

There’s more to it than just asking (there are ways to figure it out), but hey – can’t give away EVERYTHING in a free guide now can I?

So the strategy is simple. Develop your audience. Sell them stuff. Golf is pretty simple too – put the ball in the cup.Racing is pretty simple too – go fast, be first.Basketball is pretty simple too – sink lots of baskets.Football is pretty simple too – advance the ball 10 yards until you can kick a field goal or score a touchdown.Obviously, we know all these things are difficult even for professionals to accomplish. The same is true with online marketing. However, I’ve armed you with three things: 1. Clarity of vision – you are going to build an audience and determine their needs first. 2. A way of converting them to customers – GET THEIR EMAIL 3. A way of making profitable products – ASK THEM WHAT THEY WANT MOST This makes you smarter than the vast majority of marketers out there – including professionals at some of the largest advertising and marketing firms. So go out – build your list – and then great things will happen. Until we talk again soon, I wish you the best. Thanks for reading.

I’ve shown

You the Path

© 2016, Clickafy Media Group, LLC.