meaning that advertising should look like normal content being shared.
People tune out things that look like adverts. Your ad images shouldn’t look
like an ad.
In our Pilates example, there’s a shot of people on Pilates machinery, yet
there’s nothing that shows it’s an ad straight from the get-go.
You should remember that Facebook doesn’t like ad images with text. In fact,
until recently, Facebook advertisers were allowed to cover their ad images
with no more than 20% text. This rule has since been relaxed, but Facebook
is right: Ad images with no text – which look more like news or general-
interest images – get a much better response than images containing text.
The Link Headline
The next thing, which is arguably one of the most important elements after
the image, is the link headline. This is essentially the headline of the ad.
Model the structure of your headline on AARP Magazine, or the National
Enquirer, or news headlines. Or go to Google News and look at their
headlines and trending news articles. Buzzsumo studied 100 million
Facebook post headlines between 1st March and 10 May 2017. They
analysed the number of words in article headlines and plotted this number
against the average number of Facebook engagements for all headlines in
their sample. The results are shown on the chart below.
You can see that 12 to 18 words are the optimum number for high-
performing Facebook ad headlines.
Not surprisingly, the number of characters has a similar relationship to
average Facebook engagements as the number of words. Based on research,
80 to 95 characters appears optimal.
The Link Description
The content below the headline, the link description, fleshes out your
headline and gives readers a little bit more detail around what’s going to be
behind that click.
The Call to Action Button
There are a number of different alternatives you can use including ‘Enquire
now’, ‘Learn more’, or ‘Download’, for example. We’ve found that ‘Learn
more’ is the least threatening and converts best at the moment. So that’s
where I recommend you start. Everything’s up for split testing. However,
‘Learn more’ is a safe bet.
The Display URL
The display URL is the web address of the page to which the prospect is
going to be sent.
The social buttons, of course, show people engaging and sharing the content.
Remember, average copy wastes money. Don’t be vanilla, be provocative.
Do something different. Stand out. Look at what all the competitors are doing
in your space, because their ads will be popping up on your newsfeed no
doubt – and then do the opposite.
And most importantly, don’t oversell in your ad. That’s not its job. That’s
what your opt-in page is for, or your landing page. Once you’ve put that ad
together, and you’ve got all the elements, just step back for a moment and
look at the ad, and ask yourself… ‘Would I click it? Is this something that
would really intrigue me?’
Facebook Ads Checklist
Does my copy look like news and demand attention?
Are my Facebook ads selling the click?
Is my tracking in place so I can determine which audiences and ads
are generating sales?
Is my focus on earnings per click (EPC) and sales volume?
Is more money coming back to me than I’m putting into Facebook
ads?
Is my copy the perfect bait for my dream buyer?
Are my conversions increasing?
Is my cost per conversion decreasing?
PHASE 6:
The Magic Lantern Technique
The Single Most Powerful Strategy for Turning Complete Strangers into
High-Paying Dream Clients Like Clockwork
Ok, that’s enough theory. Let’s show you how to put this all into
action.
You start with a traffic source. It could be Facebook, Google Ads,
$2 a click or less, and send them to an opt-in page. This is a webpage where a
customer gives you their details – email, phone number, whatever – in
exchange for something valuable. Your High Value Content Offer might be a
piece of information, an ebook, or something else.
Once they’ve opted-in, they become a prospect, and you can market to them,
virtually for free, using email. We find a combination of email with video
generally works best.
They download your HVCO and then get redirected to a thank-you page,
which is a landing page that presents your Godfather Offer to them. This
page could be straight text, video, or a combination of both that presents your
irresistible Godfather Offer.
Once the prospect clicks the button on this page to take up your offer, they
are taken to a survey page where you can secure more details and arrange a
call, on which you’d aim to make a sale immediately.
That takes care of the 3% who are in buying mode and eager to sail through
your funnel to the purchase. But what about the other 97%? They enter your
funnel, but because they’re still undecided, they don’t take the next step to
scheduling a call or purchase.
The Larger Market Formula
Obviously, these people have a need or problem they’re looking to solve;
otherwise, they wouldn’t have opted-in for your HVCO in the first place.
However, they aren’t in the 3% of the pyramid that are looking to buy now.
This is where it really gets interesting. Remember I said the biggest profit
opportunity online lies in the 97% of prospects who aren’t in ‘buy now’
mode? They are the biggest market, and marketing to them can give you a
huge advantage over your competitors. You just need to know how to treat
them. They might be right on the edge of buying but just need a little
something more. So, you engage The Magic Lantern Technique and send
these fence-sitters a video sequence that teaches them something that
ultimately moves them closer to their desired outcome.
This is a series of two or three videos that give them pure value. They’re not
selling anything, just giving them some value in advance and taking them
closer to their desired outcome. At the end of each video you include a call to
action saying something along the lines of:
‘If you liked this content and you’re committed to getting X outcome, I’ve got
a really great offer for you. I’ve put some time aside in my calendar to help
you solve this problem or get your desired outcome. And you can go ahead
and book in some time with me here’.
This may seem complicated, but the result of this video sequence is that you
turn a good chunk of that disinterested 97% into genuine, eager buyers.
You’ll still get your standard 3% of ‘itchy-to-buy’ prospects from the first
step of this funnel, but this next chunk is a far bigger volume of buyers and is
like gravy on top. It’s what will let you spend more on acquiring a customer,
make more money from your ad spend, and put you miles ahead of your
competition.
Using The Larger Market Formula and appealing to a broa
d audience of cold
traffic gives you the biggest opportunity to scale. Using a wide funnel allows
you to reach the most number of prospects at multiple touch points through
the buying cycle.
But what does this actually look like in practice? Well, I’ve developed a
technique that’s proven to be the single best way to attract dream clients, and
get them fast. It’s a simple step-by-step approach that works to
simultaneously create desire and trust in the market place, and genuinely
build goodwill that helps your prospects whether or not they buy from you.
The Magic Lantern Technique is like guiding your prospects down a
metaphorical path to their desired end state. Along the way, you provide a ton
of value and all the goodwill that comes with it.
So, at this stage, you’ve created your HVCO and you’ve got people bobbing
around in a sea of other people raising their hands and saying, ‘Yeah, I’m
interested in what you’re selling’. Here’s where the Magic Lantern Technique
comes in and provides further value to those people to get them to book in an
appointment with you or take the next step towards becoming a paying client
or customer.
Remember, we live in a day and age where scepticism is rampant. People are
more cynical now than any other time in history. It’s never been harder to
convince a prospect that what you’re selling works and that they should do
business with you.
If you think about the traditional way people market their businesses online,
it’s typical to have some piece of content they give away for free, and then
once the person downloads it, they just thrash them to death with a barrage of
emails full of hard-sell messages.
This leaves people thinking, ‘I wish I’d never given my email to that person.
That wasn’t an enjoyable experience at all’. We want to set ourselves apart
from that, and be radical and different to what everybody else is doing in the
market place.
At this stage, we know who our dream buyer is and what they look like and
what their characteristics are. We’ve done this using the Halo Strategy and
really digging into their pains and fears and hopes and dreams. And then
we’ve created that HCVO which specifically targets that dream buyer, and
now we want to really think about where they are at.
Let’s put ourselves in their shoes and think about where they want to go.
What does your dream buyer’s desired end state look like?
I’ll use a PR consultant to illustrate how we can go through this process and
implement The Magic Lantern Technique for that kind of business.
We start by thinking about where this person is right now. Where are they in
their journey?
Draw out a timeline.
On one end of the timeline, draw your prospect.
One the other end, draw a symbol that represents their desired
outcome.
Map out 4 or 5 milestones necessary for your prospect to reach their
desired outcome.
Think about your prospect as if they were someone you want to do
incredibly right by (that’s how you should be thinking about your
customers in any case!).
Create a piece of content that gives them a result.
Create another piece of content that gives them another result.
Create another piece of content that gives them another result.
As we give them their advanced results, we move them closer to their
desired outcome, and simultaneously build goodwill and trust, whilst
reducing scepticism.
The Magic Lantern Technique
Let’s say our PR consultant’s dream buyer is a person (or organisation) who
wants press coverage but isn’t getting any. No one knows about them. They
don’t have any logos to add to their website or credibility touch points, and
they haven’t been mentioned in the press. They’re totally unknown. So we
ask ourselves, where does this person want to go? What does their desired
end state look like?
If I hazard a guess, it would be someplace where they’re getting lots of press,
right? They would be really happy if they were featured in all the top blogs
and
being
interviewed
on
podcasts.
They’re
on
Forbes
and
Entrepreneur. com, and lots of different business and media sites. There’s
buzz happening around their brand. They’re getting attention and press.
Everyone knows about them. They’ve got logos to add to their website. And
so that’s where they want to go – it’s their desired end outcome.
So, The PR consultant has used a High-Value Content Offer to target their
dream buyer - people who want to get press. They’ve identified where they
are and where they want to go. The next step is to map out the required steps
they’re going to have to take to get there.
Note, it’s never in one leap; it’s always a series of steps that someone will
need to take. For this example, let’s map out four different steps required for
them to reach their desired outcome.
At this stage, we’ve got them to raise their hand with an HVCO as being
someone who is interested in what the PR consultant is selling. Someone who
would identify with and download an HVCO is someone who is in a less
desirable ‘before’ state and wants the benefits promised by the HVCO.
We’re going to provide them some value in advance that’s really going to
take them, one step at a time, closer to where they want to go.
Step One
Create a piece of content around a 12-step social media audit. This could be a
checklist, a PDF, or a swipe file – whatever you prefer.
Typically, I find video content really powerful, and you don’t need to get all
fancy with the production; you can just shoot it with your iPhone. It’s the
value of the content in the video, not the quality of the video, that’s most
important.
In this instance, let’s create a checklist that our dream buyer can use to audit
their own social media presence. They can use it to make sure that from the
point of view of a social media presence, their affairs are in order. In this
way, if a journalist or influencer were to check them out and do a bit of
digging around, they’d be sure that everything looked just the way it should,
and they came across as a credible business deserving of attention.
So, that’s what we’re going to give them! This will allow them to go ahead
and implement it, and then start seeing some results; or at the very least,
they’ll start feeling good about themselves because they’re now moving
towards where they want to be.
Taking this person from where they are right now, we’ve moved them one
step closer to where they want to go, and throughout this process we’ve
increased trust and reduced scepticism. As I’ve mentioned, scepticism is
rampant, and that’s largely caused by the internet, as it’s dramatically
lowered the barriers to entry for businesses and ‘experts’ to get out there and
start marketing themselves. Thus, there are a lot of people with a website or
blog
who are touting themselves as ‘experts’.
Understand that once your prospect has downloaded your High-Value
Content Offer, they’ll still have a high level of scepticism at this point. It
would have lowered a little bit, because you’ve provided them some value,
but it’s still high. Throughout this process we’re trying to lower that
scepticism whilst simultaneously increasing our status as an authority in this
space and building trust, so they believe what we’re saying. When we start
this process, you can see that the scepticism is high, and as we provide value
at each step along the way, we’re lowering their scepticism and at the same
time increasing their trust and desire to do business with us.
Now we’ve moved this person one step closer to their desired outcome. Once
they’ve done the audit they’ll be saying, ‘Oh, wow, this is awesome. This is
really cool. What’s the next step? What do I do next?’
And this is exactly what we want their reaction to be. We’ll be using an email
sequence to drip feed this information to them after they download the
HVCO.
So what does that next step look like, and how do we really get them one step
closer towards getting the press coverage they desire?
Step Two
Now let’s put together a video called ‘The 11 Things Never to Say to a Social
Influencer’. Bang! Now we’re moving!
They will be reaching out to influencers and starting to try and get featured in
blogs and other platforms.
You can position it like this:
‘You know that influencers are constantly getting pitched by start-ups and
businesses that want to be featured on blogs and all that kind of stuff; they’re
getting hammered all the time, and these are the things that they hate. This is
how they hate to be spoken to. This is how everybody approaches them, and
these are the things that you never want to say to them’.
So, we’re not saying at this stage, ‘This is what you should say’, we’re
saying, ‘This is what you don’t want to say’. We’re providing value, letting
them know how the PR business works and giving them some ideas they
probably would never have thought of. Basically, we’re making them more
informed and moving them further down that line.
Again, what we’ve done is move them one step closer to their desired