FUNNELS PART 2: DOTCOM SECRETS
“FitLife.tv’s problem wasn’t a traffic or conversion problem. It rarely is. More often than not, it’s a FUNNEL problem.” ― Russell Brunson, DotCom Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Growing Your Company Online
This is a book review of DOTCOM SECRETS. While much of this book feels like it is geared toward building a personal a brand or selling coaching as a service, but I do think there are lessons that can be applied to the B2B space.
Introduction
In the front of the book, Russell Brunson lists the names of brilliant marketers who inspired him. Might be worth looking up some of these people. FYI, Todd Dickerson and Dylan Jones actually built the software for clickfunnels.com.
Russell feels email marketing, Facebook, YouTube, podcasts and blogs have replaced direct mail, networking, TV ads, radio and newspaper.
He calls over arching themes and systems that work regardless of tactics of implementation “Evergreen”. He says this book is Evergreen.
SECTION ONE
Secret 1
The Formula
Secret 2
The Value Ladder
He believes you NEVER offer a single product. You always offer a series of upsells he calls a “Value Ladder”, where there is an increase in value as you spend more money. He uses a dentist as an example. Teeth cleaning to teeth whitening to a retainer to cosmetic surgery.
In his case he provides
Secret 3
From a Ladder to a Funnel
Your bait product is nearly free but entices them toward a low risk first purchase. Because you over deliver with each rung of the latter, they are further enticed to try the next step which costs more money.
Secret 4
How to Find Your Dream Customers
In this chapter he talks about like-minded people hanging out together is like finding a vein of gold within a mountain. He calls them congregations. Once you find out where they are, you have to mine that vein with clickbait titles and that pull them out of the activity they are doing to look at your website or squeeze page, etc.
Page 46 – automation
He explains your goal is to find where these people are and how to best mine them. The strategy behind doing that is your job. Hiring Facebook guys and Google guys to run Facebook and Google ads is something someone else can do. He claims he’s never once run a Google or Facebook ad yet has made millions on both platforms. He creates the strategy then sets up the systems and hires people who are great at tactics.
Despite the title, the problem with this chapter is it does nothing to tell me how to actually find my dream customer. He’s only stated that it’s important and the tactics of execution can be delegated.
Secret 5
There are Three Types of Traffic
Obviously, you are trying to make everything traffic you own.
Page 49
He mentions his mentor was Mark Joyner.
Page 50
He explains on average you make about one dollar per month per subscriber. 1,000 subscribers equals a thousand dollars a month revenue.
Traffic you control
This is defined as Pay Per Click (PPC) ads, banner ads or any type of affiliate ads for which you pay. Anytime you want more of it though, you have to spend more money. The primary purpose of creating these ads is to direct someone to a squeeze page. Squeeze pages have only one goal with no distractions, which is to convert traffic you control and the traffic you own. It does this by offering something like free access to a controversial video with the collection of your email address which of course signed them up for further selling. He includes a line the bottom that says we will not spam, rent or sell your information.
From here you’ll send out email sequences, but first you must understand Secret 6, 7 and 8.
Of course, the issue I have with this is you specifically tell someone you will not spam them and then you proceed to send them a bunch of sales spam.
Traffic you don’t control
This is when people post on social media, LinkedIn, SEO of traffic, YouTube, guest blog traffic and guest interviews. The goal with this type of traffic is to turn it into traffic you own. The best way to do this is to push that traffic back to your blog. The top of your blog page should be a glorified squeeze page.
Amazingly, if you Google “click funnels” no matter what results link you click, it directs you to a squeeze page where he tries to sell you something. You can’t find any information about Click Funnels or what it actually is. You just keep getting directed to a page where you’re forced to sign up or leave. I would (and did) simply leave.
SECTION TWO
Secret 6
The Attractive Character (aka. Hero)
I think this is great because it personalizes the concept of branding. It focuses on creating a persona for you (branding), the salesperson, as opposed to personas for your target market.
Page 58
He learned about this concept from John Alanis
He thinks Jared of subway is a perfect example. Here are the elements you use to create the Attractive Character (he abbreviates as AC).
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Elements
Identity
Story lines
Backstories
If you don’t have a backstory, then you can share someone else’s. He uses Jared selling his weight loss backstory for subway as an example. He tells a parable about his wrestling coach giving him tapes of himself wrestling and then demanding all the cash in his wallet. If you get something for free, you’ll never use it. If you’ve paid for it, you made an investment. Now you have an opportunity to learn from it.
Character Flaws
Sharing character flaws makes you relatable. He feels attractive characters harness the power of polarity. The audience will be split into those that believe in what they’re saying, those that are neutral, and those that disagree. Those that do agree will feel compelled to defend you and promote you. Howard Stern is his example.
Hero Personas
The leader has all the answers and has already accomplished the result the audience wants to achieve. The adventurer does not have all the answers and is on a journey to discover them and he shares them with his audience as he goes. The reporter is the identity people have to use when they have not blazed a trail they can share, but they desire to do so. They go out to discover the truth interviewing others and sharing what they have learned along the way. The reluctant hero is exactly what you think, but they essentially have to have all the answers just like the leader.
These storylines work exactly like you expect.
Secret 7
Soap Opera Sequence
He believes in a five day in a row email sequence after someone signs up. Here you open and close loops. You open up a loop or question that you answer or close in the next email, but in the process, open another loop or question that can’t be answered until the next email. On pages 74-85 he provides an example:
Email 1 set the stage for the attractive character
From the very first welcome email your job just to introduce them to the attractive character, using the elements outlined in Chapter 6.
Email 2 fill-in backstory
Which leads to the second email, and you start the fill-in backstory. High drama to a backstory that leads to a wall you don’t know how to overcome.
Email 3 is the epiphany
This is where are you lead to discovery of your product.
Email 4 hidden benefits
The goal is to leave the reader thinking, man I really want that for myself! Bring up benefits they didn’t even think about.
Email 5 is an urgent Call To Action (CTA)
He believes his email should have personality, maybe even grammatical mistakes, allowing the reader to bond with the attractive character.
Secret 8
Daily Seinfeld Sequence
AFTER the 5 day soap opera sequence, his basic philosophy is to send a daily email. He used to believe this was too spammy and tried sending monthly, every two weeks, every three days and ultimately sending emails every day is always what led to the most sales.
He also said he’s made the mistake of delivering really great content and high value is what he had to deliver every single email. He found that 90% entertainment and personal stories with 10% reference to his product were wildly more successful. Just like the Seinfeld show was basically about nothing, so are his emails. He only does one or two sentences per line and uses lots of white space.
Possible topics
Your Seinfeld emails duel as blog posts, so you don’t have to write both.
SECTION THREE
Secret 9
Funnel Hacking
Find other people who already have a successful funnel and are selling to my target market. Reverse engineer what they’re doing and how they’re getting the traffic. Never start creating a funnel unless you know 4 of the 5 variables your competitors are already using (per the list below):
Five variables of successful funnels
Exactly copy someone else’s model. Do not try and reinvent the wheel. Start from where they are and tweak from there. Research direct and indirect competitors. Indirect competitors are people who share the same target market but sell a different product.
He recommends similarweb.com to do this research. Seeing an ad they’ve been running for a long time tells you it’s really working well for them.
Secret 10
7 Funnel Phases
He feels the difference between having a 6, 7 or 8 figure business is...