Before we dive in and talk about the psychology behind opt-in offers that work, I’d like you to keep the following question in mind…
“What would your marketing process look like if you only got paid when your client/customers get a result?”
While this idea swirls around in the back of your mind, we’re going to look at how a billion-dollar business answered this question.
Tinder popularized the idea of building a list of people you deem to be fuckable.
And here’s the best part… instead of this just being a list of people you wish you could fuck but would never be able to… you’re building a list of people who are 90% ready to get naked with you… and are able to because they’re nearby.
This list of opt ins are not 90% ready to chat online with you.
Not 90% ready to go on a coffee date with you.
They’re 90% ready to swap bodily fluids with you TONIGHT.
All that is required to seal the deal is to have a place that affords you comfortable privacy… and to not be creepy for the final 10% of the interaction.
It’s not hard at all to see why this magnificent concept went so wildly viral, and is now being used in over 40 languages across the world.
When you consider the fact that you’re able to get these crazy favorable odds with people who are specifically admitting they’re horny for you, all without…
…the necessity of wearing a “I’m not horny” mask for a three-date, potentially expensive audition where you’re praying for weeks that you don’t shoot yourself in the leg by saying/doing something that turns the other person off before you can get laid…
…none of the risk required to cold approach these same people in public and risk rejection… praying as you walk up that they’re in a receptive mood or not already seriously committed to another lover…
…with zero necessity to have the “game” required to walk up to groups of women and manifest first impressions that lead all of these strangers to encourage their friend you’re flirting with to go have sex with you…
…with zero risk of getting ghosted or shamed online for being too forward…
…all within SECONDS…
…all with people you would have likely NEVER have met by chance out in public which eliminates the need for the courage to engage these same people, stone cold sober, on your lunch break, on a Tuesday if Tinder didn’t exist.
But unlike its scuzzy predecessor, Adult Friend Finder, Tinder made the idea of using tech to find local one-night stands completely cool and perfectly acceptable.
In fact, it got to the point where if you were young and single, NOT having a Tinder account was considered abnormal which was the polar opposite of how people felt about Adult Friend Finder.
This app allowed you to finally be a proud male or female slut. It crushed a centuries old stigma that has made people feel like garbage for loving sex.
This slaying of society’s Goliath-sized shame complex took the pool of sex-positive candidates from being puddle-sized… to being OCEAN-SIZED.
They changed the game forever.
Even if you’re Rico Suave or a complete smoke show who has no problem with finding someone to go home with while out at a bar or a club… odds are high that success isn’t guaranteed due to all the hang-ups/impediments that can derail in-person drunken hook ups… bad logistics, friends cockblocking you, getting too drunk while schmoozing, having to fight off other dudes when in sausage fest situations, fears of being judged, etc.
Think about the assurances people have now when it comes to one-night stands due to this technology having a panic button along with the location tracking/photo verification/emergency assistance that has never available before to deter creepers from misbehaving.
Before Tinder, nothing outside of paying a sex worker gave a person anywhere near these odds of having a sure thing.
Even if you pay for the premium versions of Tinder… the $10-$20 bucks a month is WAY cheaper than gambling that dates will pan out or… paying random sex workers to get naked with you and hoping you don’t get robbed or caught up in any kind of police raid set up to crack down on illegal prostitution rings.
Tinder eliminated serious barriers and hurdles to getting laid pretty much on demand.
They created an offer worthy of hauling in BILLIONS.
And the way they get you to “opt in” was by offering a scaled down version of all of the above that includes ads inside the app… for FREE.
Now, you have to believe that something is built into their algorithm to ensure that people new to the app, who are trying it out for free, who are serious, are getting a FAST START.
It would be dumb for Tinder to just cross their fingers and hope a scaled down introductory experience is going to automatically drive you to the conclusion that you should upgrade and start paying for additional perks.
This is one of the single best aspects of having software for a service like this.
They have the ability to tweak the experience to give you better odds of getting a win(s) QUICKLY for free.
It something akin to a casino rigging the slot machines to guarantee they pay off in an exciting enough amount early in order to keep the gambler chasing the next exciting enough payoff.
Naturally, when Tinder sees they’ve delivered you free wins, I imagine your selections get throttled down back to Earth and THIS is when you come to the conclusion that you need to upgrade because you’ve maxed out what is possible to achieve with the free option.
If you’re in business and you’re charged with keeping the pipeline full of new leads, you should look at examples of massively successful offers like this and truly aspire to understand the fundamentals that drive them.
For me, I see multi-billion-dollar app offers like this and it begs the question of…
When it comes to you getting opt ins… WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS YOU CAN CLEAR THAT ENABLE FREE, MEANINGFUL, AND EASY WINS that will get people excited about coming into your tent and then… staying in your tent to hang around long enough to decide that giving you money would be a smart thing for them to do?
Here are the traditional tactics business owners use to entice new prospects to opt in to their list…
>>>>> Free 7 day mini-course
>>>>> Free discount coupons/codes
>>>>> Free Samples/Trials
>>>>>Free PDF report/webinar/live cast
>>>>> Free cheat sheet
>>>>> Free checklist
>>>>> Free entry for prize giveaways
There are a billion articles/videos out there telling you to use this stuff to “get all the new leads you can handle.”
You would have to be completely off the grid, living with no electricity in a shack, in the middle of nowhere to not see the flood of examples of how people are using these tactics every day in both online and offline marketing.
You are using one or more of tactics yourself.
Almost no one gives serious consideration to… THE WHY… behind opt-in offers that make the tantalizing benefit to be had… be seen as a direct conduit to a “Easy, FREE, meaningful, and fast WIN” like what Tinder provides.
Most people just see what is accepted in their industry, the norm the majority of their competitors subscribe to and they just copy and paste that tactic into their business.
And then they start resenting the entire lead generation process because they know what they’re offering for an opt in is lame and they don’t blame the market for not wanting it.
The Two Reasons Why Most “Free” Opt In/Trial Offers Suck…
Reason #1 Most Opt-In/Sample/Trial Offers Suck: Zero thought put towards a strategy for evolving prospects into customers
Nobody wants to hear this… but MATH… not MONEY… makes the business world go round.
There are a whole lot of businesses out there with a fuck load of gross income… with no net to be found anywhere.
Why?
Shit math i.e. Customer Value Optimization.
Customer Value Optimization (C.V.O.) is different than Conversion Rate Optimization (C.R.O.).
Most people are primarily focused on increasing the conversion rates of individual elements of their marketing (sales pages, opt in pages, webinar forms, etc.).
C.V.O. is not only focused on increasing conversions but it also focused on increasing the value of each of the customers who convert as the result of your efforts.
You want the Customer Value to be as high as possible because when it is, not only are making more money from them over longer periods of time… but when you’re making more money, it becomes way easier to keep filling the pipeline with more high value customers because you’re able to strategically spend MORE than all your competitors to get them.
This makes you difficult to compete with.
There’s a law of marketing that says, “The person who can and will intelligently spend THE MOST MONEY to get a customer – wins!”
An example of making yourself hard to beat is when you can sell something for the same prices as your competitors, for example, a $100 dollar product… AND spend $100 dollars to get that customer because your funnel is set up to predictably convert another $100 dollar sale to them in the near future.
If your competitor is limited to spending far less than $100 dollars, uses lame strategies to get customers because they’re ignoring C.V.O. and they are irresponsible with the money they do bring in… they will be less visible in the market than you are.
The Five Elements of Customer Value Optimization
We’re only going to going into detail about #1 on this list but I wanted to give you some perspective on what the five elements are to give you the big picture.
1. Your Lead Magnet
Your Lead Magnet is nothing more than the ethical bribe that get your perfect prospect to agree to trade their time and contact information for some specific, actionable resource they can use to get them one step closer (a measurable result) to what they desire.
When done right, this simultaneously serves the dual purpose of establishing you as an authority on this topic in your perfect prospect’s eyes.
Fluff, coupons, a trial nobody seriously benefits from, or a straight-up sales pitch don’t accomplish this.
This is the highest leverage point in your funnel so you don’t do yourself any favors by thinking you can cheat just because it’s free.
2. Your Introductory Offer
The goal of your introductory offer is to convert your perfect prospects into customers as quickly as possible, as cheaply for the customer as possible.
This was the whole point of Columbia House Music Club’s incredible converting “Buy 12 CDs for only 1 Cent” offers that reigned supreme for YEARS.
There are marketers out there who make it a goal is to at least get their prospect to give them $1 dollar to get their lead magnet.
I can remember when Perry Marshall, a very smart marketer, was offering a book for only 1 cent.
Why bother with trying to get someone to give you this little bit of money that does nothing to offset the cost of what you’re delivering?
I don’t care how cheap the ink, paper, glue, and graphic design is… even at the lowest quality, all of the above plus delivery has to cost more than 1 cent.
He made this offer because he knows an object in motion tends to stay in motion and it has proven true that when a prospect takes their wallet out and becomes a customer – for any amount of money – they tend to keep spending money.
When selling physical products, sometimes the introductory offer is you only asking the person to pay shipping and handling.
The reason this kind of offer has worked so well forever is because it’s obvious to the prospect you’re losing money by giving them the product for free which makes it’s easy for them to be okay with just paying to have it sent to them.
This kind of proposition is all about lowering the barrier of resistance so that you can fast forward the relationship and get this person to go from just spectating on the prospect side of the fence… to being a customer who now has skin in the game.
If you want to quickly open your prospects minds to the idea of giving you the kind of money that keeps you in the black, you want to look for a common-sense way to test offers like this.
Why?
Because your goal should be to NEVER make serious offers of your real products to cold prospects.
You want to be making sales presentations to CUSTOMERS.
And preferably, you want to be making your first real offer to them five minutes after they’ve bought an introductory offer from you.
THIS IS THE PLACE TO OVER-DELIVER!!!
Do NOT cheap out here!
Groupon is the PERFECT example of an awesome introductory offer NOT capitalized on by some businesses.
Groupon fits into this category because you have to spend money on the offer to even have access to the discount offer.
This is a huge differentiation from the people getting free discount coupons in the mail in a Val-Pak envelope.
The Groupon buyer is intensely motivated to visit your business because they already spent the money to get the discount whereas the person who gets a coupon for free in the mail has no negative repercussions if they don’t use the coupon you sent them.
If you’ve ever used Groupon, there’s a chance you’ve had an experience where you’ve gone to redeem it and had the business you bought it for try to weasel out of it when you went to redeem it or… had the employees deliver half-assed effort just because you’re using a Groupon.
Why would hourly employees, who have no stake in the business, treat Groupon customers different than “REAL” customers?
Because behind closed doors, there are narrow-minded owners and managers who label anyone using coupons as being “mooches” or “cheap skates” looking to “take advantage” of the company.
As a general rule, we all love free shit… but there is a social stigma to ASKING FOR IT.
Especially if there is someone present who we’re trying to impress.
So a guy goes with his girlfriend to a restaurant for her birthday. He will happily accept a free dessert offered when the waiter finds out you’re celebrating…
…but two weeks later this same guy wouldn’t be caught dead telling the waiter he has a coupon for a free dessert when eating at the same restaurant.
Instead he orders the dessert and looks at paying the full $12 dollars as a badge of honor. (Often times this same “cool” guy has all his credit cards maxed out and struggles to make the min payments)
It’s this “coupon stigma” that leads owners/managers to sneer at all the smart people who love to spend extravagantly… but who like the idea of hedging their bet on a brand-new business they’ve never tried before with Groupons.
You also can’t ignore the reality that most business owners over estimate how awesome they are.
They fall into the 80% percentile with an “okay” or “poor” service/product but insist on operating with the delusion they’re in the top 20%.
When you pair this with the fact that most business owners suck at marketing you have a recipe for failure.
Dumb business owners feel like they should never have to stoop to the lowly act of discounting/free samples/trial offers.
They link discounting or giving anything significant away for free with admitting to the world that their offerings are inferior and that the only way they can get traffic is to give away their stuff for pennies on the dollar.
This loser mentality negatively impacts their C.V.O. business math so naturally damn near every discount offer they begrudgingly put out there COSTS them money.
So even if a Groupon offer floods them with takers, they have no proven mechanism in place that converts all these first-time customers into raving fans.
Their mechanism is to cross their fingers and pray that people come back.
It doesn’t take long for them to only see the money they’re losing on the first transaction.
When an owner stays alive by the skin of their teeth for years due to their marketing ineptitude, out of both desperation and pettiness, they become bitter towards anyone who is not a lay down life-time regular.
If a customer doesn’t give it up on the first date, they’re not worth the hassle.
These short-sighted business owners are idiots because instead of over-delivering and winning over customers who can be turned into multi-buyers… they’re pissing people off by treating them as lesser quality individuals because they’re not paying FULL price.
Naturally, this “fuck them freebie seekers” prejudice carries over to all businesses.
DO NOT BE THIS PERSON!!!
You want your perfect prospects to be absolutely floored with delight about what you gave them in return for trusting you with their attention.
You want them to know that this trade off is undeniably weighed in their favor. They should ALWAYS feel like they’re getting the better end of this deal.
You want them imagining all the awesome things that can happen for them when they make the decision to consistently give you serious money.
3. Your Core Offer
This is the ultimate thing you’re trying to sell and it is often the only thing a business has to sell.
Most people spend 90% of their time, trying to optimize their core offer.
And since the quality of what you present in your core offer is 40% responsible for making a sale, it is indeed vitally important.
However, think about how much better it would be to have DOUBLE the number of people looking at this offer.
Better than this… to not just have cold prospects seeing the offer but to instead have CUSTOMERS looking it as the result of optimizing your lead magnet and setting up the small transaction that converts prospects into customers easily.
Marvelous cold offers presented to cold traffic convert at around 2-5%.
Your core offer presented AFTER you’ve turned someone into a customer can convert at 20-50%.
When you’re dealing with someone who has already agreed that they trust you with their credit card information, even if it was only a penny, you’re dealing with a much higher quality of lead.
4. Your Profit Maximization
People who are buying multiple times are always better than people who only buy once.
Yet most businesses have no cross sells and upsells.
They only have one core offer they make.
Successful businesses offer something on the backend that allows them to increase the immediate value of the customer.
If that wasn’t enough of a benefit, this purchase brings them further along the path to getting their outcome which only serves to enhance the possibility of them getting addicted to giving you money.
5. Your Return Path
This is the process of getting your customers to come back more often.
This is also the process of turning unconverted leads into customers.
Most businesses only have one or two of these five elements working in their favor.
Most people have something in place to get leads and an offer to make to those leads.
Those are only two of the five components you need in order to have a successful business.
You want to use these five elements as a check list that you run all of your marketing campaigns against . . .
What is the quality of my lead magnet?
What is the quality of my introductory offer?
What is the quality of my core offer?
What is the quality of my profit maximizer?
What is the quality of my return path?
You want to gauge whether you have all of these in place… how they’re performing now… and what needs to change.
If you don’t have all of these in place, Step 1 is getting them in place.
If you aren’t measuring them, step 2 is to start measuring them.
You can use Google Analytics for some of your math (fine for the majority of businesses), and something like Kissmetrics, Mix Panel, and Woopra for high volume sales in launches because they let you see stats in real time.
For split testing you can use Optimizely (harder to use for beginners) or Visual Website Optimizer.
Reason #2 Most Opt-In/Sample/Trial Offers Suck: Zero appreciation for the fact that the difference between a “Free Sample/Trial” and a “Meaningful Free Win” is vast
Your Lead Magnet can become something incredible if you will get the MATH in your business working in your favor.
A great indicator that a business’s math is bad is when their “free sample/trial” lead magnet seems worthless.
We show up to the market in one of two ways…
Little Dick/Tits Energy: I’m scared that you’re gonna laugh and run away when I show you mine
Big Dick/Tits Energy: I’ve got more than enough to satisfy you so I can be laid back and generous
Let me first cover some of the fundamentals of what a lead magnet SHOULD look like.
A well-crafted lead magnet consists of a hunk of value that offers a solution to a specific problem for a specific market within the context of an overarching problem in exchange for a prospect’s contact information…
Example: Your Complimentary Guide Reveals How Legendary Lesbian Lovers Enlighten World Renown Sex Researchers With Their 7 Common Sense Secrets For Mastering The Clitoris
In the overall scheme of becoming a worshipful lover, pleasing your lover’s clit with your tongue/hands/toys is but ONE of the many acts you wish to be adept at.
But this is an alluring enough topic that it can stand alone and when acted upon, have the perfect prospect feeling like they accomplished something if you show them what not to do and what to do in this area.
And when you’ve sufficiently demonstrated that you know your stuff, they’ll be wide open to hearing everything else you have to say about giving your lover the kind of sex that keeps them addicted to your touch.
If you teach everything under the sun in regards to how to increase the frequency, quality, and variety of orgasms… how does it hurt you to completely give away the store on this one topic?
It doesn’t if you are the real deal and you get the math of your business tuned to the point where you can show up with Big Dick/Big Tits Energy.
Now, the biggest mistake you can make when crafting a lead magnet is to make it TOO GENERAL AND BROAD SWEEPING.
Here’s an example of what I mean by this…
Look at all the examples of vague language in the offer above versus specific language…
“Tips”
VS.
Step-By-Step Action Plans
==========
“Bodacious Life, Love and Sex”
VS.
Insights Into The 48 Laws of Cultivating a Sex Life That Keeps Your Pussy Glistening and Your Face/Everyday Aura Radiantly Glowing
==========
“receive my video”
VS.
Receive Module 4 of my “Practical Steps For Living Everyday With The Energy of A Worshipped and Well-Fucked Woman” Seminar
==========
“How to Spice Up Your Love Life, Even When You Don’t Have One”
VS.
15 Baby Steps For Easing Yourself Into Your Very First Experience With Your Very Own Taboo Fantasy Guaranteed To Deliciously Electrify Pleasure Points In Your Body You’ve Never Felt Before
Specificity is ALWAYS more desirable than generality.
Here’s the next thing you must realize…
Bigger Isn’t Always Better
One of the smartest places to start with your lead magnet is to answer the number one question they have about the topic and answer it with one-page cheat sheet.
Believe it or not, this can be BETTER than putting together a DDD-sized report on the topic.
Why?
Because if your conversion depends on people actually reading an 80-page report… you’re dramatically lowering the odds of winning them over.
You’ve got to remember that people don’t even read the books, use the learning apps, or watch the videos of courses they pay hard cash for.
Embracing this reality allows you be tits-up proud of something on the smaller side.
But as it goes with any marketing related, you can test both options and prove to yourself what your market favors.
How To Enhance The Desirability of Your Trial Offer
Trial Offers serving as a lead magnet are a different animal than free information.
Here is a condition you should aspire to meet when your lead magnet is a trial offer…
“How would it be possible for it to be LESS EXPENSIVE to deliver the result than it is to convince people to give you money to deliver the result in my business?”
Tinder meets this condition.
Even the free version of the app clears all the ugliest aspects of finding someone desirable to have casual sex with.
The user experience they set up allowed Tinder to become the “getting laid” equivalent of tee ball or bowling with kid bumper guards up.
Yes, I recognize one of main reasons it was easy to do is because their app is brain dead simple to use.
Not all apps are this easy to use.
There are a ton of apps/SAAS platforms using trial offers that have a long list of benefits it can provide.
They give you the trial and do the equivalent of saying, “Good luck with that.”
What would be a million times smarter to do is identify what the “getting your dick wet” benefits people can get from the software are… the ones the broadest number of perfect prospects will get most lathered up about having.
And then on the top fold of the main page have prominent links for each one:
If you want X here’s the fastest way to use this app to get it…
If you want Y here’s the fastest way to use this app to get it…
If you want Z here’s the fastest way to use this app to get it…
Of course, when they click the link, the first step is to download the trial… and then every step after this, whether in written format or video, walks them through each step to getting the specific benefit they want.
In reality, when someone gets into the app, there should be a section that offers a FASTEST WAY TO GET DESIRED RESULT PLAN for every major feature of it along with all the standard questions.
These people shouldn’t have to figure shit for themselves.
The petty person thinks, “Gosh, we’re letting you use it free. You need to go to the bathroom and we’ve put the free urinal right in front of you. And what, you want us to unzip you, whip your dick out, shake it off, stuff you back in, and zip you back up?”
Yep.
If you only got paid when a customer or client got the results they wanted, this coast-to-coast support would be something obvious to create because you don’t eat if these people to succeed.
Thinking about your marketing from the standpoint of “only getting paid when they win” brings about an empathetic energy that isn’t present when you know you’re getting paid even if they don’t get the results they want.
Let’s look the top folds of a site for an SAAS programs I came across this week while listening to a podcast advertisement…
ZipRecruiter
So, these guys are like a Tinder for the jobs market.
They’re a matchmaker for employers and employees and like Tinder, they’ve supposedly got some fancy algorithm that’s supposed to connect you to people who want to blow your mind, people you would have never had access to otherwise.
As a business owner, that’s what I want to hear about when I come here.
I don’t want to create an account and post a job now.
Yes, I’m not an idiot. I know if I use this, that’s part of the deal.
But THAT is the LEAST intriguing part of the process because it’s boring work I have to do.
Why would you lead with that?
When I show up on this page, I want to see what having someone amazing doing the job I need done will give me.
I want to see the hours saved… money made… stress relieved… prestige enhanced… deadlines met… ideas transformed into cash-making reality… etc. as a result of finding the affordable missing piece I needed.
Instead of this worthless box and stock photo… I would love to see evidence of a well-designed progression and how this progression makes it all but inevitable for me to get what I want from an employee/freelancer.
I don’t care about seeing corporate logos of businesses who use this. I want to see the links to case studies and the details of how they’ve been helped by ZipRecruiter.
Also, I’d prefer to be able to choose the case studies I look at based on the size of my business.
Sure, it’s cool that Fortune 500 companies use this, but if I’m a small business owner, I want to know where to find those stories in this top fold.
I see this business and I think, what would be the harm in offering to give people their first hire for free?
Someone read what I just said and in their head they said, “Duh Lewis. What do you think ‘Try it for free’ means!?!”
ZipRecruiter obviously agrees with that person.
But think about the difference in the language between…
“Let us give you your next life-saver/game-changing hire for free”
Vs.
“Try ZipRecruiter for FREE”
The first one insists you MUST get a free, meaningful win with this and implies it is inevitable this will happen with their support.
The second one implies that making anything of this is entirely up to you.
Two totally different impressions.
The last thing you want if for people to feel like you’re giving them the most pain in the ass “free” gift they ever got.
If you operate from the premise that MOST people are dysfunctional, it’s easy to see which option seems more appealing.
When you think about this idea of delivering a result BEFORE you get paid, the “satisfaction met” bar you need to meet is far lower than it is for a traditional offer.
Look at this example…
Dean Jackson he talks about how with his moneymakingwebsites.com business for real estate agents, he’s able to sell something for 5X more than what his competitors are charging for the same service.
And he gets to do this because he promises a pin-point specific result.
Here’s how it goes…
He gives the customers a website… he trains them for 90 days… he buys them a domain name… he buys their auto-responder account… and they pay NO MONEY out of pocket.
They don’t even give him their credit card information in order to do all of this.
Once they have done their first transaction through his site, they pay him $1,500 dollars and then start paying $99 dollars a month to keep this “done-4-u” lead generation system up and running.
It is a “I only get paid when you get paid” offer which is an irresistible offer no matter what market you put it in front of.
The barrier to entry is super low… you believing that he can deliver your first transaction. That’s it.
That’s easily doable on his part.
Think about the difference between this “Show me; don’t tell me” offer… and him trying to talk people into giving him both $1,500 dollars and $99 dollars UP FRONT.
When you try to get the money UP FRONT, you have to sell the hell out of all the amazing results they should expect to receive… talk about all the success stories of people getting 80X value of what they invested… in order to hopefully convince people this can happen for them too.
With Dean’s offer, once he’s delivered one sale, he’s off the hook for what he promised.
It’s much easier for Dean to deliver this ONE result than it is to meet the vast array of promises/expectations people have that you are held to when you offer a generic “Satisfaction Guaranteed” promise.
Trying to convince people to give you money upfront takes a lot of effort.
Especially if what you sell isn’t cheap and you have extended selling cycle where sales people have to schmooze leads through a process that spans weeks/months.
One of the main reasons you McDonald’s even exists on the jillion dollar scale it does today is because in their early days, they ditched the idea of only being in the franchising business… which only let them have 1.8% of each stores sales.
When they started looking at going public and needed huge financing support from major Wall Street players, the way they got the money was by selling them on the idea that McDonalds is NOT in the burger business.
Instead, they explained that they’re in the REAL ESTATE business.
One of the biggest impediments to a person buying a franchise was the necessity for them to get their hands on enough money to be able to buy the land and build the restaurant.
And for the common person who accomplished this, they had the weight of the world on their shoulders. If the person had any crippling flaws or bad breaks in their personal life or they changed the menu/look of the restaurant, the store would close, the bank would take the property back, and that would be the end of that stream of income for the main office.
That’s a big ask… for every potential franchisee to be perfect BEFORE AND AFTER buying.
McDonalds knew that this barrier to entry could be wiped out if instead they bought the land AND built the restaurants… and then became LAND LORDS/FRANCHISORS.
This allowed them to go from only getting 1.9% of the sales… to getting 5% of the sales of each location.
And this pivot also allowed them to kick franchisees to the curb who didn’t follow the uniform system and quickly be able to plug a new franchisee in and hardly missing a beat.
Getting this math/offer right… NOT THE MENU ITEMS or THE ADS… was the key that opened the doors for global dominance.
Cost of Acquisition entails how much it costs to convert leads into buyers.
When Dean calculated how much it cost to deliver the result he was promising, it cost about a ¼ of what it cost him to acquire a customer to actually just deliver the result for them… the sale of their first house… with the help of the site he created for them and the system he plugged them into.
When you find the right offer, it’s less expensive to deliver the result than it is to convince people to give you money to deliver the result.
I see no reason why ZipRecruiter couldn’t test making the kind of offer that promised to deliver a hire for free to qualified prospects.
For them it is WAY less up-front effort/expense than what Dean has to put up because when it comes to delivery all they’re doing is scanning their files/sources and then making introductions.
And this kind of offer makes sense because ZipRecruiter is definitely in a business where you’re playing the long game, hoping to create alliances and become THE go-to source corporations and for small businesses that grow and eventually become massive names in their industry.
They could protect themselves by offering the generic trial to everyone and as I can imagine Dean Jackson does, have a vetting process that an employer needs to go through in order to get the free referral for a super high impact position just to make sure they’re not sending super stars to people who will waste their time and talent.
The faster these businesses get their act together… the faster they’ll be able to actually start using ZipRecruiter at a volume that makes them money.
Seems like the perfect instance where it’d be cheaper to just give them the first result… than it would be to try to convince them to pay you to get them the first result.
This service has a similar appeal as Tinder from the sense that if Tinder is consistently providing a person with multi-orgasmic experiences, they won’t want to give it up.
What Tinder has done for happy users will always hold a dear place in their heart.
But in order for ZipRecruiter to do this… they need to clear as many obstacles as they can to a person succeeding with their service.
When You Look At The Impediments You Need To Erase… You Have To Consider The WHO Your Core Offer Is Best Suited For
More likely than not, with a lead magnet you’ll want to address a problem someone is having at the BEGINNING of the process of what needs to happen in order for them to get their result.
Think again of Tinder.
Forever, in order to get wet with a stranger for a one-night stand, you had to actually leave the house and talk to people.
Tinder put together a solution that allows even the biggest hermit on earth who NEVER leaves the house… to have the hot girl/boy next door they’ve never met in person before… getting nasty with them TONIGHT… WITHOUT even putting shoes on.
The APP handles the UGLY BEGINNING of the process that people hate so much… the part they despise so much that many never even get started and up until now, had instead settled for masturbation or paying sex workers to come over.
Need I remind you that Dean’s and McDonald’s offer both address the beginning of the process.
ANY UGLY BEGINNING HUMP is a sweet spot.
Think about how it is WAY easier to cancel plans to workout before you’ve gone through the simple process of putting on your workout clothes and shoes.
It is dumb when you think about it, but getting dressed for the gym is one step that pretty much makes it INEVITABLE that you’ll get your ass in the car to drive to the gym.
You tie the lace of the second shoe and you get this small sense of accomplishment.
Why?
Because some part of you KNOWS that you’ve put the inevitability ball in motion.
You get a similar feeling after completing the final part of putting yourself together in order to go out to drink with friends.
Is there a “getting dressed” part of the equation that you can deliver a free, meaningful, easy win you can deliver with a lead magnet?
And since this should go hand-in-hand with your Introductory Offer, it narrows down the range of what to create.
You go from being overwhelmed and confused about all the possibilities… to being laser focused.
You go from having your market be underwhelmed with a generic offer… to feeling excited about getting this free, meaningful, easy win.
And this gift can be an answer to a problem your perfect prospects have in their head about a problem that is 8 steps down the line of things they need to do in order to get their desired result.
Fantasy Context Matters!
Fantasy Context adds gasoline to the fire that is porn and it can do the same for your Lead Magnet.
Look at this example…
Anyone who has had a hot older sister, who had friends who were attracted to women, had to accept the fact that their friends fantasized about seeing their big sister naked.
I don’t make the rules.
And, of course, hardly any of these friends ever get to fulfill their fantasy like they see playing out in the video being pitched above… but they will go their grave with having a fondness for it.
Now when it comes to Meana Wolf, the sex worker in the image above, I don’t envy anyone in her position from a marketing standpoint.
She is pitted against HYPER INTENSE levels of competition.
It would be tough enough to get by in this business if only “porn stars” and other pro sex workers were her competition.
But with the popularity of Only Fans growing astronomically and the pandemic opening the door for an army of amateur “hot girls next door” to go online and gouge significant market share away from the pros, she’s got her work cut out for her.
Especially when these Girls Next Door are actually GOOD at having fun with social media like Quinn Finite is instead of just having their profiles be a non-stop pitch fest and nekkked photo shoot pics…
There are many a pro in this industry who see this headline and pine for the good ol’ days where only “real” porn stars and fully committed sex workers were able to reap riches in the skin niche.
The loser conversation these people have with themselves goes something like this…
“It’s not fair that some chick, who no one has ever heard of can decide out of the blue to set up an OnlyFans account, show off her body in front of her lap top, and a month later be making more money than I do with 42 XXX movies under my belt.”
This is same dumb conversation traditional sports media people have when the topic of the “amateur” juggernaut that is Barstool Sports comes up in their presence.
(BTW: If you’re not paying attention to smart marketers in the adult entertainment/sex work niche, you’re missing out. Yes, the law of 80/20 dictates they are few and far between but they’re out there.)
Competition wise, YOU probably have it easy compared to Meana and Quinn as there is absolutely no shortage of fresh porn hitting the internet every single day as a result of the word getting out about how the door is now wide open for sharp people to very quickly make a name for themselves with little to no experience and little to no money.
When you factor in the reality of free and inexpensive regular porn being easy to find, this means getting and keeping eyeballs in this niche is no simple task.
Now when it comes to porn content, the bare bones option for anyone in this profession would be to just offer no frills solo videos and no frills two or more people fucking, videos.
You’ve seen this porn – quick intro or plot set up, staged foreplay and then right to the nasty part.
And this obviously sells because… duh… naked.
But I would venture to say the Fantasies Brought To Life concept was a GAME CHANGER for the porn industry.
It was the equivalent of pouring gasoline onto an already roaring inferno.
So, in the photo above featuring Meana Wolf, you see her latest addition to her library plays out the fantasy of getting naked with your friend’s hot older sister.
When I came across one of these tweets and checked her out I came to find that every video for as far as I looked was a taboo fantasy scenario and THAT is what caught my marketing mind’s attention.
You see…
If I have a choice between hot context and just plain nekkked… I’m going with the HOT CONTEXT SCENARIO every day of the week.
I know I’m not alone and I applaud this very smart marketing decision that sets her apart from her competition.
Hot Context is EVERYTHING to me in my work of creating messages that transfix an audience.
Your perfect prospects have fantasies related to what you offer playing out in their heads that both excite and discourage them.
Returning again to theme of getting laid, Eben Pagan absolutely crushed it with his Double Your Dating lead magnet that promised to show you how to tell if a woman is ready to be kissed.
The answer he delivered was a five short paragraphs.
That’s it.
Below the paragraphs was a button that said something like, “Learn More” which took the person to a sales letter for his introductory offer.
Eben found out that this was a burning question on the minds of his perfect prospects.
They have this fantasy of messing this moment up which undoubtedly contributes to a high number of them to unconsciously not even attempting to talk to women at all.
What’s the point if, by some miracle they get a woman to agree to go on a date with them, if they’re just going to embarrass themselves by going in for the kiss when she isn’t ready or…
…end up being too scared to even attempt to kiss her in the first place and having her find some other dude to kiss because she gets the sense you just want to be friends since you’ve never made a move.
Having Eben’s revelation (in a easy to consume message) helped them sigh in relief.
It made them feel as if they’d actually slayed a mental dragon. They were now one-step closer to being able to hook up with woman.
With the RIGHT piece of advice related to a fantasy of theirs, Eben accomplished the feat of establishing himself as being someone worthy of listening to.
The impression you’re looking to have on your perfect prospect with your lead magnet is…
“WOW! I would’ve never thought of that! And when you think about it, it makes common sense.”
When you have this effect on someone, you have moved up the ladder of significance in their mind.
Look at this example from a Survivalist website, which I imagine raked in the money hand over fist during the pandemic…
This is one outcome that would be a wet dream come true for the serious doomsday prepper… and a promise even the least prepared person could look at say, “Yeah, having this knowledge stowed away makes sense to have after watching what happened to the supply chain in the early days of the 2020 pandemic.”
Here’s what you’re looking for…
You want to provide the fire extinguisher or… one missing piece of the equation they’re actively trying to solve right now.
Here’s what I mean…
Fire extinguishers are far from a sexy purchase.
People would love to not ever have to buy them.
But there is a gut-level satisfaction in knowing that if a huge grease fire starts in your kitchen, your extinguisher is ready to keep your house from burning down.
And unlike the arduous process of doing everything involved with actually being well versed in fighting fires… buying a fire extinguisher is a very doable, affordable, quick, and meaningful task that solves a significant problem.
It’s a doable shortcut for a complete amateur that carries major importance.
This is WAY different than a shortcut that does NOT make a big difference.
What is a doable, meaningful, fast, solution to ONE dire problem in the overall scheme of what they need to do to get their desired result?
When it comes to the missing piece of an equation… think of how gratifying it is when someone looks at the crossword puzzle and tells you in two seconds what the answer is for a space you’ve been mentally wrestling with for thirty-five minutes.
THAT’S precisely what receiving the answer to “how to tell if a woman is ready to be kissed” was for guys who hadn’t ever thought to try that.
And just like with a crossword puzzle, even if you’re only half-way done when someone gave you that assist, you’re still immensely grateful because it helped you unlock the next parts of the puzzle as well.
People love feeling like they’re moving forward.
You want them to see themselves making meaningful progress as a result of what you give them.
Narrow vs. Broad
When your lead magnet is broad and general, neither the concept nor the title of it can’t be potent.
Naked vs. Naked With a Super Hot Fantasy Scenario
“Mastering Wall Street” is a far less compelling concept than “The Top 5 Stocks School Teachers Who Play The Market Need To Know About Right Now”.
Do you see how much easier it is to deliver on the second promise in a tight, meaningful manner than it is on the first?
You could deliver on your promise in one page, wow them, and leave the perfect prospect feeling like you just handed them the fire extinguisher they didn’t have before and then move them along in the process.
With something like “Mastering Wall Street”, when you observe the reality that people won’t read something huge they got for free… and you go with the quick cheat sheet, you’d be stuck just giving out vague tips like, “Buy low, sell high” that are hard for the prospect to get a quick, meaningful win from.
Something like… “How To Know Exactly When To Sell a Nasdaq Stock” is a thousand times more appealing.
AND more importantly… it gives this person the sense that they are one step closer to “Mastering Wall Street” at far better level than vague principles would.
You need to know what specifically would equate to “making meaningful progress” in the eyes of your perfect prospect.
People on OnlyFans want their page to perform better but offering a lead magnet that’s titled, “Build a Better OnlyFans Page” is far less compelling than a title that says, “7 Things You Can Do Now That Are Doubling OnlyFans Subscriptions For Amateurs”
E. Haldeman Julius’s book, “The First Hundred Million” is a book written by a man who sold 100 million books with only their headline listed in a catalog – no summary at all.
It is a classic example of the power headlines have to persuade.
The title is what is going to sell your lead magnet.
The blurbs on the front of popular magazines are all great titles for the nuggets of wisdom given in the articles within.
These magazine covers, especially the ones that are targeted to your niche, are great places to find inspiration for titles.
People love getting solutions they feel are customized for them.
This means you want to be using the terms that directly appeal to your perfect prospects.
You want to call out to them – “Attention: OnlyFans Creators Who Have Only Had Their Account Up For Less Than A Year”
If what you offer only applies to this segment of the market, you’re not risking anything by excluding everyone else.
Specificity is THE place where you need to optimize!
Title Suggestion#1: Focus In On The Desired Results
An example of this from a winning information product title is…
“Wake Up Productive”
“Double Your Dating”
“Women Approach You”
Title Suggestion #2: Extend To The Extreme
Here’s a few winning titles that have sold extremely well on this premise…
“The 4-Hour Workweek”
“The 25 Hour Day”
“3 Tiny Movements That Burn 3 Pounds of Belly Fat In 3 Minutes”
Title Suggestion #3: Be Blunt
Here’s some winning titles using this suggestion…
“How to Use Facebook for Business”
“How to Purify Water . . . Even Urine”
“Vertical and Container Gardening Secrets”
Two paragraphs addressing a specific issue that get consumed and are perceived to be valuable are far more powerful than an 80-page PDF report that addresses a broad topic that has those same two paragraphs buried within it, but never get consumed.
Conclusion:
If the historically high rate of business failures in any indicator, it’s not crazy all to assume huge numbers of entrepreneurs create drama for themselves as the result of having the primary question they ask themselves in regards to their business be some variation of…
“How do I give myself plausible deniability for customers not getting their desired results?”
This is a question that leads people to placing impediments directly in the way of a perfect prospect getting their desired result.
A lot of times these blockades are subtle.
Sometimes they’re not.
One of the most obvious expressions of this kind of Cover Your Ass thinking is having ZERO mention of a guarantee for what you sell… even though the reality of the situation is that if people cry loud enough, you’re going to refund them if for no other reason than to get them out of your hair.
Burying this fact is NOT going to lower your refund rate because the customers who are dead set on taking advantage of you or… customers who refuse to ignore the fact you didn’t deliver on your promise… KNOW that they’re going to make your life a living hell until they get what they want.
Now, I get it.
Even the wealthiest, smartest, most disciplined people can be stupid, lazy, and impulsive at certain moments in life.
There is no human who makes the wise/just/honorable decision 100% of the time.
So, if even the brightest, most affluent, most upstanding citizens are fallible, you gotta cover your ass, right?
And when you consider how the majority – 80% of the population – is far dumber and far less financially secure than the top 20%, the odds of the 80% not getting their desired result with what you sell them due to their own inaction/sabotage dramatically increases.
But I promise you, if people don’t feel like they’re getting the bigger end of the stick when dealing with… the better end of the deal by a long shot… they will find someone else to give their money to, who does make them feel this way.
It is nothing more than timeless story of innovation putting once dominant, but now less advantageous offerings to their death. #RIPBlockbustervideo
And all new loyalties and devotions start with the first impression you make on your perfect prospects.
This is why it pays to begin with the end in mind.
The underlying mantra throughout this entire piece starting from the very beginning, is the idea of asking yourself, “What would you do differently if you only got paid when your perfect prospect got the result they want?”
Remember: If you want to create opt in offers that are so good they put the market in your debt, you want to optimize the following four aspects of your business…
What is the quality of my introductory offer?
What is the quality of my core offer?
What is the quality of my profit maximizer?
What is the quality of my return path?
When each of these parts of your business are working in your favor, you get MATH that allows you to be generous with your perfect prospects.
It can be really hard to be generous when you’re getting your ass-kicked and it feels like the world is on top of you.
When you check off each of these tasks with a high-quality result, you can’t help but to create the bandwidth you need in order to say and do what gets your perfect prospects excited about giving you money.
Talk soon,
Lewis LaLanne