Keeping Customers On The Line After You’ve Reeled Them In
So there are an awful lot of us doing the do.
Standing out the front of our businesses, jumping up and down, and spinning a flashy sign in the hopes that customers will come our way.
But how do you keep your customers’ attention once they do actually show up?
How do you lead them in, establish a connection, build trust and of course sell them stuff, and have them come back again and again?
How do you lure them into your sticky tube, so to speak?
Today I’ll be addressing all of that with the help of my excellent guest Talia Wolf, as we talk about sales funnels.
Tune in to learn:
- What sales funnels are, and how they can convert your customers
- What a conversion optimization expert does
- How to optimise your landing page without completely redesigning it
- Ways to use emotional targeting in your marketing
- The purpose of a Thank you Page
- Tips for developing your email marketing campaign
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And big thanks to Katie Joy B. for their lovely review:
“Cooking Up Fresh & Fruitful Guidance
Kate and her awesome guests make wading through the often choppy waters of online content marketing much simpler by taking a fresh approach to old problems. If you’re looking for killer advice without the filler this is the show for you. Thanks so much for all the excellent advice Kate – keep up the great work!”
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About Talia
Using customer-centric methods, emotional targeting strategies, and in-depth data, Talia generates more leads, sales, and ROI for high-growth companies.
Talia has been invited to teach conversion optimization on hundreds of stages such as Google, MozCon, Call To Action Conference, SearchLove, and many more and was recently listed as one of the most influential experts in conversion optimization.
And she’s also obsessed with Harry Potter, a skydiver and a bit of a comic book geek.
Connect with Talia
Useful resources
- GetUplift
- SEO-Friendly Podcast Template
- How to create a Lead Generation Checklist Worksheet
- Email Sequence Template
- Hot Copy Podcast
Transcript
Kate Toon:
So, there’s an awful lot of us doing the do, standing out front of our business, jumping up and down, and spinning a flashy sign in the hopes that customers will come our way. But how do you keep customer’s attention once they do actually show up? How do you lead them in, establish a connection, build trust and, of course, sell them stuff? And how do you keep them coming back again and again? How do you lure them into your sticky tube of joy, so to speak? Today, I’ll be addressing all of that and so much more with the help of my excellent guest Talia Wolf, as we talk all about sales funnels.
Kate Toon:
Hello, my name’s Kate Toon, I’m head chef at The Recipe For SEO Success, an online teaching hub for all things related to search engine optimization and digital marketing. And today I’m talking to Talia Wolf, hello, Talia Wolf.
Talia Wolf:
Hello.
Kate Toon:
I’m sure you heard it before, but I feel the desperate urge to howl at this point.
Kate Toon:
Because that will upset my listeners. I’m going to awkwardly read out your bio so please just sit there and listen and enjoy it while I do. I’ll do it in my best bio voice for you, okay? Here we go. Talia is founder of Get Uplift, the CRO consultancy and training space top brands turn to when they want to optimise their funnels and create experiences customers love to convert to. Using customer centric methods, emotional targeting strategies and in depth data, Talia generates more leads, sales and RIO for high growth companies.
Kate Toon:
Talia has been invited to teach conversion optimization on hundreds of stages, such as Google, MozCon and Call To Action Conference, SearchLove and much more, and was recently listed as one of the most influential experts in conversion optimization. Woo. She’s also obsessed with Harry Potter, a skydiver and a bit of a comic book geek. Okay. Important question, if Harry … I’ve forgotten the middle one’s name, I was going to call her Bernadette, she’s not called … Hermione
Talia Wolf:
… on the call now, oh my god.
Kate Toon:
Let’s go now. Okay, I was going to do shag, marry, kill, but it just feels awkward now. Let’s just do love, marry, kill
Talia Wolf:
… I’d kill Ron.
Kate Toon:
You’d kill Ron? Ron’s my favourite. I’m not a fan of Harry, I think he’s underwhelming.
Talia Wolf:
You know what, you’re right, he is underwhelming and he’s mostly a whiner, Hermione.
Kate Toon:
I do, I think Hermione’s awesome, she’s also sexy as, now she’s grown up, which we shouldn’t say because that’s inappropriate. And comic book geek, tell me your favourite superhero or comic book person.
Talia Wolf:
Well, I grew up on comic books, so I’ve kind of changed throughout in I’ve had an X-Men and then I’ve been really into Flash, now I’m reading Wonder-woman and I have also loved Batman, so there’s. I don’t know, I think also Spiderman and oh my god, I can go on, and The Avengers, and The Hulk. Anyway, yeah I can go on for ages.
Kate Toon:
All the Marvels. I was quite into Judge Dread when I was a kid, and also Tank Girl, loved Tank Girl. They’re not the Marvel-ly ones, they’re more kind of obscure. Tank Girl, feminist icon, a bit like Hermione. Anyway, let’s move on and talk about something far more interesting. Is it more interesting? I don’t know, but let’s go. Let’s … This podcast is generally about SEO and digital, not about Harry Potter, although we can try and work him in.
Kate Toon:
And obviously, the great thing about search engine optimization is it gets people to your door, but often that’s where it all falls down. When people arrive on your site, brilliant, fantastic, and then they leave again and they go to the next result and in the search results, and they convert there. And there’s a notional idea in search engine optimization that Google has this idea of dwell time, and so if somebody goes to your site and they don’t spend a huge amount of time on it, but they come immediately back to the search results it tells Google that that’s not probably a great result and maybe they should push that down the ranking a little bit. So this is where conversion optimization is the thing. So, I want to start off with a really basic explanation for the news, about how you define conversion optimization.
Talia Wolf:
Okay, yeah, great question. So, conversion optimization is essentially the art of turning the traffic that you already have, so all the people who are already coming to your funnels or to your website and actually just turning more of those people into customers and clients. So, for lay terms, if you have a 1000 people coming to your website a day and one person is converting, and conversion could be signing up to your email list, it could be downloading maybe scheduling a demo, it could be anything. And when you do conversion optimization you take the same 1000 people that are already coming to your website, you make your website better, which we’ll get into in a minute, and then you hope to convert five people instead of one. And hopefully, a 100 people because that would be much better.
Talia Wolf:
But that’s how it works. You don’t spend more money on driving traffic, you spend time and resources on optimising your existing website so more people can convert.
Kate Toon:
I love it, and this is the problem isn’t it? Because we go after this whole quantity thing of just well enough people, just we just fling enough people at our site someone will convert. And go to huge effort, paying for Facebook ads or whatever you’re doing, dropping them onto a site that’s confusing, misleading, and doesn’t do the trick.
Kate Toon:
So, the other part of this, which we mentioned in the intro, is sales funnels. So, how would you define a sales funnel? We’re starting with definitions today, people, and then we’ll get into the meaty stuff. What is a sales funnel?
Talia Wolf:
A sales funnel would be if you were to have a product, a campaign, something specific that you want to sell. So, this could be a training, it could be a coaching core, or it could even be a specific product, that if you’re an eCommerce site, that you want to sell. So, you would create a sales funnel, and what that means is you maybe have an ad or maybe you are working Google ads, Facebook ads, maybe you’re driving organic traffic to it. Then you have a landing page, hopefully you have a thank you page, and then you have an email sequence. And all, each element in this funnel is geared towards to selling one thing. And that’s very different than your website, because when people come to your website it’s more of a catch all where if you have multiple products and multiple services, even if you’re an agency and you offer, oh we do audits and we do done for you services, then that’s a catch all. But when you want to sell something very specific then you will have a sales funnel.
Kate Toon:
I love that, I think people get a little bit confused by that and think it’s only the email bit. And also within that funnel, you can be leading to an ultimate sale and have maybe a freebie and then a lesser priced item and then the big whammy, so we’ll talk a bit more about that as well today, yeah?
Talia Wolf:
Yeah, definitely.
Kate Toon:
Now, unfortunately I think funnel’s have got a bit of a bad name, which is why I refer to mine as my sparkly tube of joy, which also sounds a bit rude. They’ve got a bit of a rep, like they’re some kind of trick, and there’s lots of shouty American men on Facebook going, “Hey, my funnel is the best funnel, come get my funnel.” And usually they’re lying on a Porsche with money in their hand. Do you think that they are a trick? Why do you think they’ve got such a bad rep?
Talia Wolf:
I love this question. I think that it’s because a lot of them are spam. And when you were talking about the exact profile of the person that I, I just see them on my feed, I’m like, “Bye.” And I close the tab. So, people use funnels in all sorts of different ways, but they don’t have to be this shabby, and they don’t have to be so spammy. It’s just about the value that you’re offering to people. And I think that the type of character that you mentioned is a very well-known character in trying to sell something, and it’s a very just, I guess, a type of way of selling. But I myself have multiple funnels, and all of my funnels are value packed.
Talia Wolf:
So, I’ll give you an example. I have a landing page that invites you to download a PDF, and in this PDF is a list of 40 psychological triggers that you need to know about in order to help your conversions. So, it’s a breakdown of 40 different psychological triggers that affect people’s decision making. And I break them down, I explain what they are, I explain how to use them in marketing or how to avoid them in marketing.
Talia Wolf:
And essentially how this works is you will either see an ad on Facebook and go to that landing page and download it and immediately just get it, or you would join my email list and then through that, my welcome sequence, you will get it. But there’s nothing salesy about it, it’s just about helping you improve your marketing. So, it’s just about you being able to stand behind whatever it is you’re offering and know that it is driving immense value to your audience, and then you can feel confident about your funnels and you won’t be that, white guy standing next to his Porsche.
Kate Toon:
Well, it’s a classic thing, isn’t it? Being a conversion copywriter, people are often like, “I don’t like selling, I don’t really want to be selling.” And they think they have the flashing capital letters and false scarcity and all of that, but if you do as you say, come from a point of caring about your customers, solving their pain points, giving them value, then they can choose to work with you or not, they can choose to unsubscribe, but you’re not beating them to death until they buy your particular product.
Kate Toon:
Now, I’m straying away from our little script, because I do write scripts for these podcasts, and then ignore them. I think lots of people think that sales funnels are really only about top of funnel people. So, when we talk about the funnel people, it’s there’s top of funnel, there’s middle of funnel, there’s bottom of funnel, that sales funnels are really about attracting people that have never heard of you and then leading them down the path.
Kate Toon:
But you can also have funnels that are people who have already heard of you and maybe you’re leading them to another site. Explain the whole TOFU, MOFU, MOFO, BOFO, BOFU, BAFU.
Talia Wolf:
Right, so just because you mentioned those terms, I will not be doing that, but I will explain that a sales funnel can come at multiple different times within your business. So, a customer journey of anyone can start … So, there’s five stages of awareness, won’t get into too much of this, I’m sure you know them. But your Eugene Schwartz, wonderful copy writer back in the ’50s, decided and built this framework so that we all understand where people are when they’re buying from us.
Talia Wolf:
So, stage number one, unaware, someone who is completely unaware that they have a pain, that there’s something wrong, that they have a problem. Then we have the problem aware people, the pain aware people who know that they have some sort of pain, they know that something’s wrong, but they don’t necessarily think there’s some way to fix it. And I’ll give you an example, back in the day if we wanted to catch a cab we’d go to the kerb and we’d put out our hand and wait for a cab to come by, whooshing by and kind of stand there waving our hands trying to get a cab and hopefully it will stop and we’ll get in the taxi and we’ll go.
Talia Wolf:
Now, it’s annoying, we hated it, especially if it was raining, but we were like, “Well, this is how life goes.” So, that’s problem aware, it’s annoying, but it’s just how it is. Then you have solution aware people, and they’re like, “Oh, are there solutions for me grabbing a cab without having to actually go out and get wet in the rain? Oh, I’ll Google this.” So, and maybe they’ll see, “Oh, I can call someone. Oh, there’s an app. Cool.” So, then that’s solution aware.
Talia Wolf:
Then they get into product aware. And product aware people are the ones who are like, “Should I use Uber or should I use Lift?” What are the best options for me? So, that’s where people are comparing you with your competitor. And lastly we have most aware people who are the ones who decided to use your product and they just need the right call to action button.
Talia Wolf:
And the reason I broke all this down right now is because this to me is the true funnel, because when someone comes to your website they are effectively they know you, they know of you or they’re just learning about you now, but they understand the pain and they’re looking for some type of solution and you can sell to them throughout the customer journey in different points. For example, one sales process could be get on a call with me because I’m a coach.
Talia Wolf:
Later on, you could sell a book to them, you could sell a training to them, you could reach out to them and say, “Hey, I would love you to review our work together.” Or, I’d love to upsell you and get you to invest in this product. So, even though sales funnels sound like they are a part of the top of the funnel, like I just need to get people to know me, and I just need to drag them into my website and convert them, you can actually even do sales funnels with just emails, which I do a lot. Which is onboarding or turning of your sales product, turning a free user into a paid user.
Talia Wolf:
So, I think it’s just as you said, it’s like a term that sounds really bad, funnels, sales funnel, eurgh, so yeah I get the whole magical pipe-
Kate Toon:
The sticky pipe of joy. Yeah, and I think there’s some interesting things there, there’s lots of crossover there between content marketing and search engine optimization and how something I talk about on the course is how those different stages match different types of search or intent, you’re starting off with informational intent and then there’s comparison intent, and then you’ve got conversion intent. And then terms that people are searching for. Maybe those top of funnel, unaware people are searching about how to do this, where do I. So, that blog content, then you move into more sales and services pages, and then you move into your killer landing page, which is what I’d love to talk about next. So, there’s lot of different ways to drive to people to your funnel, we’re not going to go into those, we’ve got episodes and episodes about content marketing and Facebook ads an Google ads.
Kate Toon:
Assume you’ve got them to your page, now one of the biggest challenges I see with the people who come on my courses is either their landing page or their homepage, which to a degree can be a landing page kind of, it’s as you said not single minded. They are just a hodgepodge, or they’ve taken every cheesy tip from the book and they are 7000 kilometres long and they still don’t convert. So, people will be listening to this hopefully, if you’re listening, thank you for listening, who have landing pages and they’re sitting here thinking, “Talia, I don’t want to redesign my entire landing page, it cost me a fortune, I can’t be bothered.” Are there any easy things that we can look for on our landing page, is there any quick fixes that you could recommend? Or things that you commonly see that suck?
Talia Wolf:
Yeah. So, it’s quite a big question. Okay, so I’m going to split this, okay? So, there’s the design part of the landing page, and there is the messaging. And I’m going to focus on messaging first, because I think SCO kind of … Anyone who does SCO always has an issue with this. So, messaging is probably the most important part of your landing page above all. And what that means is that when someone comes to your landing page they need to know what it is that you’re offering and the most important thing, even more important than knowing what you’re offering, is what is the value for them? And what I mean about that is most landing pages that I look at, the biggest mistake that they make is they make it about themselves. It’s all about their features, about their pricing, about AI, machine learning or how they’re the number one whatever. It’s all about them. And if you think about how people search the web today, so I don’t know if you’re the same Kate, but if I am searching for something, let’s say I’m looking for a VA, and I go to Google and I write VA services.
Talia Wolf:
And I get a tonne of options, in Google, the first thing I do is I hit command, because I’m using a Mac, I hit command and I open a bunch of tabs and 10 tabs open and then I do the tab jumping dance. I jump from one tab to the next until something resonates, I’m like, “Oh, cool.” And then I read on. So, I want you to ask yourself what is it that makes you stop and say, “Oh, this is interesting.” And read on? Because essentially you only have two or three seconds to convince someone when they land on your landing page that they should give you the time of day and that they should continue reading. I’m not even saying in two, three seconds sell them, I’m just saying grab their attention and convince them it’s worth their while to stay. And the way to do that is by making it about them. Because you’re not the hero of the story, they are. And the best way to do that, and this is my catch all, I’ll say tip, is you make it about them.
Talia Wolf:
About them means their outcome, and I’m not saying save money, save time, that’s not what I mean. I mean, let’s say you are.
Kate Toon:
My favourite is always, “Save time so you can focus on what you do best.” That’s my … As a copywriter if I see that one more time I’ll stick a fork in my leg, but yeah totally. And something I always say from a copywriting point of view, does your website pass the we we test? We always have to have these stupid phrases. Does it past the we we test? Because so many websites and landing pages are like, “We do this, we do that, we are the best.” And instead make sure it’s the you you, “You want this, you need this, have you ever? Did you know?” That kind of approach. But sorry, I interrupted, what was your catch all, you were going to say?
Talia Wolf:
No, it’s good, at the end of the day what’s really important is that you understand their desired outcome, so if someone’s buying an insurance policy from you, they’re not buying a freaking piece of paper. What they’re buying is peace of mind, it’s knowing that their family’s safe, it’s knowing that if there’s a crisis they’re in good hands. So, that’s what you want to show on the page. If you’re selling clothes people aren’t buying fabric, they’re buying self-esteem, they’re buying a better self-image. Self-image is a psychological trigger that’s focused on how we feel about ourselves, but they’re also buying something that helps their social image, which is how we want other people to think about us.
Talia Wolf:
So, without getting too much into the weeds, what you want to focus on first is understand the desired outcome of your prospect and put that on the page. And putting that on the page means a headline which is your value proposition, you’re the copywriter, but the headline that is a value proposition, a subhead that explains how the heck you’re going to do that and an image which is strategic.
Talia Wolf:
And what that means is not a screenshot of your product on different types of devices, because I don’t care what your dashboard looks like on desktop, tablet and mobile, I just don’t care. I also don’t need to see the watch in my face, I don’t need to see all those features or weird dots, and the most important thing I do not need to see these illustrations of people moving. I don’t know what is up with the sass. Okay, and I am dancing now, I know you can’t see this. But you know the flowy visuals, like` Ross Simmons, and I always talk about this, where they’ve got these people that look like they’re … They don’t have eyes, they don’t have noses, they’re kind of-
Kate Toon:
What websites are you on? What the hell are you Googling, Talia? Some kind of -or, I don’t know.
Talia Wolf:
Sorry, what I mean is just that… The strategic image is the desired outcome, it’s that person who is happy or it’s that person that has a bunch of time to do what they love most, all that kind of stuff. So, that’s kind of header, big things to do with strategy and messaging, if that makes sense.
Kate Toon:
It does, and I’m just going to pause there for a second to say that, to people who are listening, if you want to go and check out the Hot Copy podcast, which is obviously the other podcast, we’ve got a couple of great episodes there on copy formulas. There’s a couple of classic formulas that copywriters use, one of them’s called PAS another one’s AIDA. Attention, interest, desire and action. Problem, agitate, solution. And there’s another great episode that I think you’ll enjoy which you should listen to too, Talia, you might enjoy it, which we talk about, not talking about the features … We have to talk about the features and you have to talk about the benefits, but the most important thing to do is to talk about the advantages. How is this going to … People don’t buy the drill. They don’t buy the drill for the drill, they buy the drill to make the hole. But really they don’t even give a crap about the hole, they just want to get the shelves up quickly so they can lie on the floor, drink beer and watch Netflix. That’s the outcome you’re really selling.
Kate Toon:
Because that’s what I do best, by the way. So, we’ve fixed our landing page, we’ve got an attention grabbing, problem solving headline. We’ve got a justification of that, now we’re starting to move through and provide proof and results, and how it works. I think the other I noticed on a lot of landing pages is the urge to shove testimonials straight away, I don’t even know what you’re selling yet, but I’ve got a picture of someone who bought it.
Talia Wolf:
Let’s break down social proof, because that’s what you’re talking about. Testimonials, reviews, logos of as seen on, or companies that trust us. That’s under the bracket of social proof. Social proof is mostly used in a very stupid way, and that’s a shame because it’s one of the biggest levers that you can use in order to increase your conversions.
Talia Wolf:
So, most of the websites and landing pages that I see will have as seen on, or these are the companies that trust us with a few logos, and then they’ll have a testimonial or two saying, “This is the best product in the world.” That’s not helpful in any way. So, here’s what testimonials are actually about. Testimonials are about addressing specific roadblocks that your prospects have. Here’s an example, let’s say people are super worried that they’re buying into your offer and then they’re like, “Whoa, I can’t do this on my own, I need someone to help me.” So, fantastic, that’s a very good roadblock to know about, that people are worried they won’t be able to do it by themselves.
Talia Wolf:
So, option A, you can say, “We have 24 hours of service to help you. We do it for you.” Option two, you share a story of someone who said, “At first I was worried about doing it on my own, but Kate over at the office called me at 2:00 AM and helped me put this together and I’m so grateful.” Do you see the difference between saying it yourself and actually showing someone who went through this? And this is the power of social proof, you don’t have to say, “We’re trustworthy.” Someone else is saying it, but it’s addressing a specific roadblock. What you want to know are the three top issues, the top concerns that are blocking people, stopping people from converting and then finding your customers who can provide a testimonial about that.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I love that. So, on the recipe sales page I spend a lot of time working out exactly what people didn’t want, and then as you said, putting it into the mouths of others just makes it so much more believable. And by the way I’m never going to ring anybody at 2:00 AM and help them with anything.
Kate Toon:
Let’s talk about emotional targeting, because again another ick feeling that people have is that we’re in some way bamboozling people, manipulating people. And of course we are, sales is manipulation to some degree, we’re all … None of us really need to buy anything ever again other than food and water, but and socks maybe, so of course we’re trying to trigger … I loved your mention of the psychological triggers, we’re trying to trigger a response, we’re trying to understand, we’re trying to soothe this person’s fear or their preconceived belief or sate their darkest desire. I like to call it the Clive Google factor, if you can work out what Clive is Googling at 3:00 AM in the morning, he’s found a rash in his groin and he’s looking for some kind of solution. If you can be there for Clive in that moment and help him Clive will remember you forever.
Kate Toon:
But you talked about some of the common emotional triggers, and ways to use emotional targeting. Can you give us maybe a couple of ideas around that?
Talia Wolf:
Right, so I’ll take you back and explain what emotional targeting is and what it’s even based on. When I started doing conversion optimization, I did the thing that you mentioned at the beginning, I Googled best practises and tips and I asked colleagues, and I was like, “What do you think will help optimise this landing page?” And I would move elements on the page, so I changed the red button to a blue button, and I’d make the button bigger and all sorts of crap, to be honest. I just moved elements on the page because I thought that’s what conversion optimization is. And I even lost a 100K client because of this stupidity. But once I realised, okay this is not working, I had to go back to the drawing board and actually create my own process for optimization. So, I did, I basically devoured books on psychology to figure out what am I missing? And what I was missing is that conversion optimization isn’t about moving elements on the page, it’s about solving people’s problems. And the most important thing for you to do when you want to optimise a landing page, an email or your website, is to understand how your audience makes decisions.
Talia Wolf:
Decision-making process, if you can understand what motivates a decision you can create a high converting experience. Actually, if you know why they’re buying from you and what motivated that decision it will be easy to write copy and choose images. So, I did my research and I found out something that everyone knows, is that every decision in life is based on emotion. All of our decisions in life, we love to think that we’re rational beings, we are far from it. We will buy on emotion and then later we will rationalise it and say, “Oh yeah, I needed this because whatever.” So, for me the process is built, and I do this to this day with my students and my clients, on identifying those emotional triggers. Identifying how people make decisions and then creating the experience that they need, and when you give them the experience that they need and what they’re looking for they convert. So, it works well, because you’re driving value for people and they are converting and buying from you.
Talia Wolf:
So, that’s the 101 of emotional targeting, essentially.
Kate Toon:
I love it, and you’ve already done a great little sell for your PDF, so we’ll all be going in and nabbing that after that and forging through your funnel. But I think again, the whole point of this exercise, we talked about landing pages, we’ve talked about getting people on, but the whole process of having emails and the landing page and everything is you’re slowly building trust. And by giving value and understanding the pain points we all know people buy from people they trust, and you’ve built a relationship with, and you’re like, “Wow, this person really gets what I’m going through. And therefore the solution that they’re selling is highly likely to be relevant to me.” And as you said social proof, of other people who had the same problem, look it helped them. And so keeping people in that ecosystem, I like to call mine the Tooniverse, because I’ve got a make use of my silly name at some point.
Kate Toon:
So, keeping people in the Tooniverse, so I’m going to talk about a few other elements that I think people will be interested in and then we’ll sum up by talking about email marketing, but … Oh no, thank you pages, I want to talk about, because I know they’re your pet thing.
Kate Toon:
So, for example in my little sticky funnel people join, they get a lovely, sexy download, and obviously your downloadable needs to be as good as someone’s paid things, it needs to be really awesome. Yes. And then I’ve got the Facebook group which is a lovely little petrie dish where I can test out ideas and then help people with problems.
Kate Toon:
Then I’ve got my low level course to make sure that people, “Oh, you know they’re going to buy from me, maybe buy something.” When someone’s bought something from you once, much more likely to buy from you again. And then we’ve got the big fat landing page, which somebody sent me a message saying, “I was already sold in the first couple of paragraphs, you didn’t need for it to be another seven kilometres long.” And I was like, “I kind of do, it kind of works, I’ve done the research. I’ve heat wrapped the shit out of it.” And let’s be honest, I just want to go back to something, there is logic as well to moving the button, to changing the colour, if you’ve got a grey button on a white background. You’re not dismissing that, are you? You’re just saying … Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Talia Wolf:
Yeah, not at all, I’m saying is that first you need the strategy and then you need to focus on where to put the button, where to put the testimonial on the page, what your value proposition should be. It’s just I think the difference is that most people, and this I think every company does this whether it’s for conversion optimization or not, first they do this beautiful design and then they insert the copy where they can. And it’s kind of … Yes, exactly. I’m looking at Kate and she’s cringing. The copy needs to dictate the design and it needs to-
Kate Toon:
Preach, preach. Oh my god. Yes.
Talia Wolf:
Messaging comes first, and that’s what I didn’t understand at the beginning because I was like, “Oh, just make a big call to action button, that’s going to work.” It does work, but it only works for a smidge, it works for a week, it works for two weeks, but real meaningful conversions, and I mean 10 times the conversions they come when you actually do the work on your value proposition. When you make it about the customer, when you do all that good stuff and all that magic stuff, so yeah.
Kate Toon:
And it is magic stuff, I want to finish up, and I know it’s one of your pet things, and I love that you brought this up. It’s the thank you page, because again, I’d say people put 90 cents of their dollar into the landing page, and they’re like, “Thanks for signing up.” In grey copy, on a grey page. So, “See you, I’ve just taken two and half grand off you, bye.”
Kate Toon:
What are your thoughts on thank you pages?
Talia Wolf:
People please stop using those stupid pop ups, “Thank you, please check your inbox.” Oh my gosh. So, two things, two things, two things that drive me nuts about … You know what? Let’s talk about the potential of thank you pages, okay? When someone buys from you, and you know what, not even buys, when someone signs up to your email list they have just taken a step that says, “Oh, I trust you, person, I think you can solve this problem for me. Cool, I’m going to give you my email address.” Which we all know is today like gold for companies. So, with you just giving them a pop up saying, “Thank you, please check your inbox.” You are insulting them. So, that’s number one.
Talia Wolf:
Number two, you have the opportunity, so it’s called foot in the door technique, when somebody actually … It’s success approximation, just the psychological term, if someone takes one step with you they’re more likely to take another with you. Which means that if you don’t tell them what to do next and not go to your inbox, but actually give them something to do, you’re missing out on conversions. For example, maybe you can upsell them on something like email templates, maybe you can ask them to take a survey, maybe you can ask them to share something. Maybe if you are trying to get them on a call with you, and they’ve just booked a call with you, you can ask them for more information so that you can prepare yourself for the call. All this stuff can happen on the thank you page.
Talia Wolf:
And the other good reason to doing this is because when someone makes a decision they need to feel good about it. And we mentioned before that people are irrational and sometimes we make emotional decisions, so you want to actually strengthen that decision, make them feel good about that decision and you do that with a thank you page, by an actual page that says, “Hey, thank you so much.” Or, “Welcome to the crew. Here’s what you should expect. Hey, do you mind answering one question for me?” Or, “Read more in our blog.” Or, “Watch this video of me welcoming you or teaching you.” Or, “Here’s my first tip for you.” Or I can go on and on. I’m so passionate about this, it drives me nuts, because it’s people that how are you not leveraging thank you pages? Sorry.
Kate Toon:
I love, I think the thing is because a lot of the listeners to this podcast are DIYers, they’re not big corporate brands with big budgets and marketing teams, and it can just feel overwhelming even to get that landing page done, and therefore –
Talia Wolf:
… need to be. Can I … There’s so many tools out there.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I know, I know, but I’m just trying to keep people on the … Because you’re making us all feel terrible now, we’re all going and feeling awful about our thank you pages, but I think the important to say there is it’s such a missed opportunity to help people take another step. And you don’t necessarily need to do the cheesy, “Hey, welcome to the gang.” Awful, naff, video. You can just be yourself, because they’re going to get … The really important thing I think to understand is you so have to be yourself. Because they’re going to spend weeks with you, they’re going to get emails from you day after day, they’re going to be seeing your face, hearing your voice, so the sooner that you enjoy that and be yourself the better.
Kate Toon:
Another thing that we really quickly wanted to talk about, because we are running out of time and I don’t want to be cheeky, I think one of the other things that I see as a major problem, thank you page is one, is that first email. The first email you get, that delivers whatever the things is, and we’ve talked about lots of different types of funnels here, but let’s do the classic, let’s do the lead magnet first email that pops into your inbox. What are some issues that you’ve seen around that first email and failures?
Talia Wolf:
So, I think that one of the things to remember, and we started talking about this today, of course it was today, we started talking about this a few minutes ago, was the idea of delivering on your promise and continuing that conversation and relationship. And when someone signs up to your email list or downloads a lead magnet, they are essentially saying that they trust you, and it’s your job, it’s on you to make them feel good about this purchase or about this lead magnet. And this decision. So, many times what I see is that the welcome email is just like a, “Hey, thanks for signing up, here’s the lead magnet.” And that’s it. And it’s actually the first email that people get from you is crucial for the rest of your relationship. And what you want to do, and I’ll break it down for you in terms of what this email should actually include, because what you want to do, first of all, is thank them obviously for joining, but also tell them about what this decision has granted them. And what the means is you have now made a decision to stop worrying about X, to stop suffering from, to stop hating this. And you’ve made a decision to solve it.
Talia Wolf:
And here’s why I’m, or my company are the best fit to help you do this. A great way of doing it is by telling your own personal story, because in an email you have more room. And they’ve already allowed you into their inbox, so you can say, “Hey, I used to be like you, I had the same problem and here’s how I solved it. And I want to solve it for you.” And you tell them exactly what to do, even if you gave them the lead magnet on that landing page or on your thank you page, still send it again in that welcome email and say, “Here’s the lead magnet.” Not, “Here’s the PDF that you requested, and here’s how it’s going to help you or here’s how you can use it. Here’s what you can expect. Here’s what you need to do next.” Give them a call to action. And sign off by saying, “Expect to see me in your inbox in the next day.” With X, or some new tips. So you’re building a story in there, and not just saying, “Hey, thanks, bye.” And signing off.
Kate Toon:
Oh Talia, I could talk to you all day. This is very enjoyable. We will finish up there, and of course I will share links to all Talia’s various bits and bobs, mainly her website Get Uplift, so check the show notes for that as well as a few other useful links that you might find, well, useful, I guess is the word. Talia, thank you so much for your time today, it’s been illuminating.
Talia Wolf:
Thanks for having me and my passion.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I love it, I love it, it’s brilliant, all right, thank you.
Kate Toon:
I was so carried away in that episode that I forgot to ask a couple of the questions that were submitted via the Digital Masterchef’s membership, but I’ve asked Talia if she’ll come and do an expert masterclass for you guys, so sorry about that. We just were vibing off each other. Anyway, I want to say a couple of things at the end of this, in the show notes for this episode, and I mean it this time, I know I’ve been a bit poo with links, but they are in there. I’m going to include links to my lead magnet template which shows you how to create a really great downloadable, the PDF that Talia was talking about.
Kate Toon:
And also my email funnel template that shows you how to write the first seven emails that you would send to somebody after they’ve got your lead magnet, yeah? So, go and check those out, they will be at the bottom. Obviously I’ll include links to Talia’s Twitter and her LinkedIn and all the other things. You can check her out too.
Kate Toon:
So, here we are at the end of another episode of The Recipe For SEO Success, and at the end of the show you know I like to encourage you to go and join the I Love SEO group on Facebook where you can ask questions about funnels and all this other good stuff. And also I have a lovely review to read out from Katy Joy B from Cooking Up Fresh And Fruitful Guidance, “Kate and her awesome guests make wading through the often choppy waters of online content marketing much simpler by taking a fresh approach to old problems. If you’re looking for killer advice, without the filler this is the show for you. Thanks so much for the excellent advice, keep the good work.”
Kate Toon:
Thank you very much. So, if you like the show I would super appreciate a review, we’ve nearly run out, or a little click on the old five star thing, or four stars if you didn’t like this episode, and you’ll get a shout out on the show. Of course, you can head to The Recipe For SEO Success, look at all the links and bits and bobs, and you can also check out my other show which will be coming back soon, series three of the Kate Toon show will be launching soon, so keep your peepers peeped. And that’s it, I lost my thread a little bit at the end of that podcast, it’s been a long day, it’s been a long year.
Kate Toon:
2020’s nearly over, but thank you so much for continuing to listen to my daft little podcast, and I hope you enjoy it and I will see you next week for the next episode, okay? Goodbye.
