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Get Attention

We are on the home stretch now, and that means making sure that you cannot just get those initial sales but how you can keep those sales coming because the initial sales I think people worry about them the most, but I think often they're the easiest and what turns into the most difficult part of running a product based business, returning a service based business into a product based business is keeping this sales coming. And so that's, what all the rest of our lessons for this class are going to be about. I've kind of identified four steps that you have to make, you have to get attention, you have to create commitment, you have tio nurture your leads and then you have to ask for a sale, and so we're going to go through all of those different steps so you can start thinking about how you're going to set that up on. Also, I'm going to give you what you need for sure, but if you'd like more information on this as well, my market launch and sell your next big thing course from creative li...

ve is another really great resource for, you know, figuring out the nitty gritty of this stuff, so the first step for keeping the sale's coming is to get people's attention, you have to have a way to get people to pay attention to you. You know, quiet power strategy is my thing and I like to say that the opposite of quiet isn't loud it's noise we have a lot of loud people in quiet power strategy some of them are sitting in front of me on and I love them dearly. The idea of quiet power is that quiet power is about breaking through the noise there's a lot of noise out there it's a c super super noisy world turned on the tv there's advertisment hecky turn on hu lu there's advertisements you look on the web there's advertisements you go through social media there's not only advertisement but there's just people plastering their stuff all over the place and for you know, many of my clients they don't want to add to the noise and on top of that, of course they need to break through the noise and so they're proven ways to get people's attention so that you can break through the noise and get your product scene. So the first thing I want to ask is what brands have caught your attention lately. What brands have caught your attention lately could be online offline in the mall at home. Michelle so one thing that I'm obsessed with right now there's a brewery in seattle called stoop they do not bottle it's a total nano brewery, but what I love is they view their beers as experiment and they package it like when you go into their brewery they have like beakers with like scientific marking and then they're always doing interesting things with like spices or floral essence and blending in with like they're half of ice and or the reporter and it's just a really cool experience to go in there and see like what their new experiment is with beer fantastic how did you find out about them in the first place? Well, I live close to ballard in seattle and seattle is a total craft beer town. It was word of mouth I think I was at a beer festival and they won like yeah, so they want like one of the prizes and then I was like, oh, look, they're brewer is right over there we should go and yeah, the rest has been history but yeah, definitely word of mouth, huh? So I love that one of their brands of chi your attention lately. Natalie yeah stitch fixed yeah, tell us about, um well, so it's ah, you fill out like a style profile and they send you close kind of based on that so you don't have to go to the long worst att leased for someone like me so in what's cool about it is they pick out clothes for you that you wouldn't ever find on your own and um, and that you not that you wouldn't find them, but even if you did, you may or may not try them on and even think of them as a possibility. So it's, like, they introduce all this creativity kind of for you, and they have a lot of hi touching points. They'll send you like, a little card from your stylists with little notes. And the more boxes you get, the more specialized the clothes are, the more they get to know you and your style, which I really like. Yeah, and so how did you find? First, find out about stitch books? Oh, they've got that crazy social sharing thing on facebook and affiliate links, and ten of my friends were talking about it, so I kind of nosed around the site a couple times, and I was like, oh, finally sign up. Yeah, so they got your attention through word of mouth. Schering yeah, it was really authentic folks. It was like coming from friends, and they were they were friends that don't do like selling things. Yeah, they don't come across that way at all. Fantastic, but one more what's a brand that's been catching our attention lately nerd fitness nerd fitness tell me about your fitness eso steve is the coolest guy, but nerd fitness dot com on and it started as a way of helping nerds get in shape, which is on awesome way of bringing, like, diametrically opposite things together. But he just put a book out, okay on dh that's doing really well, it's like number twenty five on amazon. Fantastic. Yeah, but the thing that really caught my attention was like he uses superhero motifs a za way of explaining fitness, right? So I found I found out about it just on facebook or something, and then when I went there, it was like he was using star wars and legos to illustrate how to get in shape fantastic, and that really resonated with absolutely absolutely it would resonate with free ad tio, we're friend that's fantastic, right? Well, I've got a couple of instances of brands that have been catching my attention lately. These were kind of one of them has been following me all over the internet through careful retargeting, even though I'm already a user and the other one. I don't even remember what I was researching the other day, and I saw this ad and it was for dress barn, and it says, it's our name deal with that hash tag labeled me confident, yes. And so these ads this is just one banner ad that I pulled up the first ad that I actually saw was on auto played video that was played in a big box in the middle of the block post I think I was on a fashion blogged I don't know why and that's not a thing I normally read on dh it totally got me because I was looking at the clothes I was like, wow, that dress is awesome! I need dresses for creative live maybe I will click on this ad because I do actually click on some ads I know people are very proud about not clicking on ads I will click on lots of ants on dh then the name propped up dress bard it's our name to you with it and they were making a statement that you may have not paid attention to us before but you should start paying attention to us now because we've upped our game. We're confident that we're bringing clothes into our stores that you'll love and plus this ad was just super high fashion too is like super couture and then, you know it's starting at sixty dollars so there's a little bit of there's a little bit of, you know just surprised they're the element of surprise, but I love how in your face the message of this ad is it's taking a steve notion that you have about this brand that's been around forever that's been in the strip mall forever that you've ignored forever and and putting it in your face like we may not be who you think we are that so I had to use it. It is an example for this lesson and the other one the one that's been following me around is edgar, which is a social media platform that was developed by my friend lara roder, who wi I just interviewed for the podcast on dh what I love about laura is that she understands both like the you know, the the benefit of doing all of this retargeting of placing all of these ads, but then she also combines it with just super savvy attention getting content, marketing. And so this is a headline from edgar's block called y gross part ry growth spurts growth spurts aren't the best thing for your business and what you should focus on instead, super attention getting headline this is post was actually from august. I pulled it up randomly, just searching through headlines the other day, but this was something I had clicked on in social media when she posted it because I that headline really grabbed me we're all searching for the next growth spurt, right? And so I love that she said, this isn't the best thing that you should be chasing after there's something else instead that you could be paying attention to putting your focus on and making happen. And so that attention getting piece of that headline was huge. Which leads me to the next question is how do you write headlines like that that grab attention because so much of attention getting is in the headline what is going to break through the noise a single sentence, a single idea because that's all you can fit on twitter that's all people are going to read on instagram, that's all people see when they see your facebook post that's all that can fit in the subject line of an email that's all you can fit on an ad is a headline and so we're going to spend this lesson talking about how to write headlines that really grab people's attention because one of the most important things you khun dio for starting that automated cycle of getting new leads coming in and then getting sales and keeping the money flowing. So a headline is your first opportunity to connect your product to the right people and make it relevant to them say that again ah headline is your first opportunity to connect your product to the right people and make it relevant to them writing an attention getting headline is not hey, I just made this thing for you check it out, you laugh but how many of those headlines have you written? How many of them have you written and people wonder why their promotion falls flat? They wonder why they're not getting people's attention? They wonder why they're not getting the click through rates the open rate, the conversion rates that they want to be getting it's because your headlines aren't relevant, your headline more than anything else, whether we're talking about a headline that the headline of a block post a subject line of and add a social media post a sales page, your headline has got to be the most relevant thing to your prospects to your leads, to the people that you're trying to get the attention off. It has to be the most relevant thing, which means it has to tie back to what they're saying doing thinking and feeling right now, it has to tie back to the problem frustration goal question that they have on their minds right now. Does this sound familiar? Good? We've already done this that's what's so exciting about this you have no excuse for not writing attention, getting headlines because we've already done the work, we've built it into your product, we've built the capacity and the ability to write amazing attention, getting headlines right into the product that you are going to be building. That was the first well eight steps of the product development process was figuring all of this out you've already done it now you can put it to use now I want to quote myself, which is kind of odd thing to do, but this is a quote from the observation engine sometimes I just really like the way I say things so your perspective users are surrounded by certain circumstances and focused on certain goals they feel things wonder about things and try to get where they want to go there relationships, emotions, situations, questions and concerns all shape their present reality if your headline isn't geared to the things that they're feeling, the things that they're wandering about, the places that they want to go, the relationships, emotions, situations, questions and concerns of their present reality of the way they see the world right now you are simply not going to break through the noise. You will just be part of it. The only way to make your message signal is to connect to what they're feeling, what they're wondering about where they want to go that's what you have to dio with your headline that's how you write truly attention getting headlines so answer that question again what do your prospects no right now what are they saying doing thinking or feeling about that? So I actually want to go down the line and I'm gonna put you guys on the spot, I want to know what do your prospects know right now? What is something that is top of mind to them? Sasha, I'm going to start with you. Well, if I think about the tango trip that they would like to dance or move, their bodies are learned tango have an adventure. Do you think learning tangos is the top of mind ist thing for some of them, it really varies they all so they have different desires. Okay, what do you think is the thing that most people have top of mine that are a good fit for the tank as an adventure, wanting to have an adventure and not having friends to go with or a way to do it and not wanting to go alone? All right, boom, I love, but not wanting to go along. You've said that a couple of times now they've got this desire tio go on an adventure, but this is their road block. A great headline could be so yeah, you can travel by yourself without going by yourself. We can go by yourself without being by yourself, right? And that could be something really attention getting if that came across my inbox, I would want to nome or I'm not even single and I would want to know more jennifer what's top of mind what they are right now, it's the end of a really long day and yet again I didn't have time for myself yes, boom jet um they're feeling disconnected are looking for like minded people teo know that they're not the only weirdo in the room. I feel like the only weirdo in the room you could write a simple head like that. Do you feel like the only weirdo in the room? Yeah, which would be a way better headline than come to what it's conference? I agree. Yeah, yeah, andy, um I must say they feel undervalued with their services. Okay? Perfects natalie uh, their website is standing in the way of the real work they want to dio boom! Do you feel like your website standing in the way of the real work you want to dio do you feel like your website is standing in the way of a breakthrough in your career right along for a different present. So you know whether it's relationship job or, you know it's kind of I need relief now, if it's more of a crisis. Okay, cory, I wish I had more time in my art studio, okay, I'm looking for paid speaking gigs. I'm not ready uh uh, so all of those things khun turn into great headlines you could write like ten different headlines just from that one idea in the how to think like a market or bonus lessons I actually walk you through taking one idea and turning it into four different headlines, so we're not going to do that right now, but that is absolutely possible you could take one idea and work it over many, many different ways in fact, I would I highly encourage you to another piece that take that comes with trying to break through the noise that you have to repeat yourself more than you expect tio you're likely your message will not catch attention the first time you put it out it might happen the second it might happen the fifth it might happen the tenth time you put it out you're going to feel like a broken record sometimes, but that's that's part of what you need to do its part of the game it's part of the play it's just part of what our reality is our reality is that it is a noisy world and if you want to get people's attention, you need to be consistent and you need to safe focused on a message and so turning one idea one thing that your prospects no right now into ten different headlines is a great way to do that so how do you want to respond to that idea how do you want to respond to that idea? Because this question is important because your headline has to reflect exactly what your customers are thinking about, but that doesn't mean that your answer has to necessarily answer that particular question my partner sean and I have been talking a lot lately about how when I'm in an event when I'm talking to a client when I'm on a podcast interview often people ask me a question that I don't want to answer and so I will acknowledge the question and then I will find a way to connect it to what I actually think is important right? We do this all the time in a conversation you have no problem doing it when you sit down to do content marketing or to create an ad that's when we get really blocked so think about that were you going to meet your customer and then what? What dots do you have to connect to get to the place of where you want to respond so michelle you people want more paid speaking gigs how do you want to respond to that then they need to build a product a speech that they can fell if people's websites are standing in the way of the next breakthrough in their career, what do you want to say to them? How do you want to respond to that if that's what they're worried about there's so many ways to respond to that and that's kind of what I struggle with is making a concise argument because there's so many facets to that sort of question so how do you think you're a new product would respond to that that all the leg work is done for you and all the steps are already breaking broken down so it's kind of ah shortcut so that there there is a shortcut to creating a website that represents your breakthrough okay cool and you could lay that out in a block post and not hurt your sales right I think a lot of people worried that they're going to answer the big question in their content marketing that's then going to prevent people from buying their product answering the big question in a block post never stops people from buying your product it only encouraged those them to buy it mawr for exactly the reasons that we were talking about in terms of price and then well what brianne was talking about as well in terms of action motivation so yes so I think that could be great jen how do you want to respond to the question of am I the only weirdo in the room there's just so many things I could say um gosh I mean I think it's less what I want to say I'm more the voice I want to say it in ok right so it's like I want riff on the weirdo theme and do I want to like what I want to go in the introvert direction I want to say newbies are a bonus or you know what I mean like what what direction I want to take it in without isolating the market I don't know the answer to that question yet well that's okay and I think that you know weirdo in the room could actually be a key message you and so you know with natalie I think maybe figuring out the focus for how she wants to respond is important for you the exact opposite might be true you might want to focus on that am I the only weirdo in the room make that your big message or you know you're not the only weirdo in our room make that your big message and then talk about that in one hundred different way s and so yeah you wanna develop your voice for that but the response to it could be any number of different things I would think that michelle's would fit into a similar category like yes you came up with the perfect answer to that for right now right? But there's also you know ten other things that you could recommend to people right? Yeah for sure sweet so I want to put someone in the hot seat cate if I could get the flip chart who wants to work on developing some content marketing headlines melissa come on up so melissa, what do your people know right now again they don't feel ready don't feel ready so I like to put that in quotations I don't feel okay so let's first look at this more from the customer's perspective will go this way I don't feel ready what are some other things that come along or some other problems that come along because they don't feel ready they are filled with self doubt um they are really stuck in perfectionism and comparison what else? Judgment I mean that's okay, all that take a little bit further what are some like, what are some acute problems that might show up to them on an everyday basis that comes from the fact that they don't feel ready? Um well, the big problem is that I see is they're not they're not sharing their work and before that there they might not even be doing the work okay, yeah, I think I'm not doing the work, okay, I'm not taking action uh they're finding ways to fill up their time with all kinds of other things, but I was just, uh jennifer and I have really similar yeah over lutely absolutely all right and how do you want to respond to I don't feel ready well, the answer to getting ready is to just do it, just do it what else? But in order to do it often we need some support okay? And we need a sense of not being alone. Okay, community find someone and we also need some tools for how to deal with whatever comes up as a result of sharing okay, like they're going to get stuck in the comparison trap so they need some so like, three ways to break out of the comparison trap so that could be a headline, right? What else do I have to say to them? Well, things like I know that, uh, sharing work that you feel is in perfect and you're feel insecure about is really a fantastic way to be able to see your work through somebody else's eyes and develop more compassion for your work and like it actually like it better okay? And also it's how we never know how we're going to touch somebody and how our work might touch somebody else and only by sharing your work do you start to do you have any chance of seeing how you make a positive impact on the world? Okay with that work tryingto I feel like there's a really good headline on the tip of my tongue and I may not come up with that on that one might just be something like what opportunities are you missing now? I will so I was just a cz I was thinking about this one. What opportunities are you missing? That would be a great headline coming for me, right? It may not be a great headline coming from, you know so much, souto. You know, you want to think about that, but okay, so, uh, e mean, this really is this easy. I don't want to make it sound like I don't know this. This is really easy. Are you stuck in perfectionism? Have you found yourself in the comparison trap? Um, it's time to, uh, it's. Time to move it's. Time to do the work. It's. Time to take action. Uh, give me these are all like, this is really, really close, like I know their specific, but they're not detailed. Yeah, could you don't tell me tell me about you're either yourself or a customer who told you a story about not feeling ready like I had a dream of, of looping in front of a live audience and looping is layering my voice and sound oh yes ok, looping I know that so I I didn't feel ready because I didn't feel like I had the skills with the looper yet I didn't have the technology with the looper yet and the only way for me, teo and I hadn't done it in front of an audience and so when I had to do all the steps to figure out what the technology was that I needed to purchase and get that and learn how to use it, learn, learn the techniques if doing the looper, and then I just needed to get in front of an audience and try it, and that was really scary, and I didn't feel ready, but the only way that I could actually be ready so you made a plan, yes, so ah, great headline for you might actually peed to acknowledge how they're feeling, you're not ready, make a plan to get there. How do you feel about that? That might yeah, that might be my first rate written responses. I have a little bit of resistance to it, but I think but I think actually I think actually, that that makes a lot of sense, and I think if you told a personal story alongside of it, you would soften, you'd soften the blow, and it it would be very clear that you're not shaming anyone. You're saying, sometimes you're not ready, and there are concrete things thatyou khun d'oh that enable you then to jump even if even though you're going to jump into imperfection, right, right, if you've got that concrete plan, if you've done the work, then you'll feel confident. In the end jumping and taking the action on the and the products that I want to create that I'm creating is essentially it is the plan so it's like a step by step of getting them tio teeny tiny little things that will get them to do the work and what that when I'm asking them to do it so much tinier than looping in yeah so I mean you could start ah wholesale cycle wholesales conversation then with a block post like that that says you're right you're not ready here's what to do about it and you could go through you could list it all out this is a story of me and how I did it how I got ready how I banished my demons how I was got prepared to jump into imperfection is um and how I enjoyed it and you tell the story and they say if you want toe you know if you want to hear more about this subscribe here or download this free work sheet or just stay tuned even and then you can kind of take that one theme and work through it a bunch of different ways here are three ways to break out of the comparison trap I know that's a problem for you when you feel like you're not ready go find someone here's a story of one of my clients that went too far you know and created relationships with people so that they couldn't fall back on. I'm not ready yet. Well, and then I also have the flip story of I don't feel ready. So I'm going to just do just put the m v p out there. So I have stories about that as well. Absolutely until lots of personal stories on one thing we've talked about here and before is that your clients or customers really relate to your personal journey, and they find a lot of inspiration motivation in that. So I think you know, you finding a bunch of different stories for you that relate back to this could be really key. Yeah, some good sounds great. Okay, thank you. Thanks. Yes, extremely like you will never be ready. Yeah, I think. Then put the story with yeah, that's a great headline. Absolutely thanks, sandy. I want to add one caveat not caveat one mohr like imperative on this, which is? Please don't ever start a sales page or an email with the name of your product. Sometimes in an e mail subject line. The name of your product is is fine, but generally not generally always on a sales page. Do not make the headline the name of your product make it something that actually connects with people, make it something that actually acknowledges where they're at right now, what they're for feeling what they're saying, what they're thinking, what they're doing, make it something that says, I hear you, I see you, I understand you, even if you're going to say something in complete opposition to that, you still want to acknowledge and connect with what is already on their minds, that is hugely important. Do you want to just mention, again, really quick, the bonus lesson that we did for this course? It's called how to think like a marketer and it's the who? What and how of, why marketing flops and what you can do about it. And so really concrete tech nix that you can use to be able to do this for yourself in super effective ways to reach more people than you've ever reached before you don't you want the product name prominent enough so it would show up on facebook? Or is how would you structure that? So if you're posting it on your facebook page, all of that's editable, you can add it. The headline that shows up with linc khun ad it the image you can edit the description most of the time. I don't put the name of a product on a sales page until after I've explained, but before the after the key insight, the hypothesis and why I made this then I put so yeah well it's it's the process that we outlined yesterday in the invitation so it's the before and after the key insight the hypothesis and the why I made this then I put the name of the product now if you're selling to an audience that's expecting this product to come you can put it up higher what I definitely don't do before I get all of that out of the way is explained the format of the product so I don't say you know quiet power strategy comes in twelve modules with thirty minute audio training's homework hands on support blah blah blah no one cares about that unless I first explained to them why it's relevant to them and that's what you do in the before after key inside hypothesis and why I made this for you make sense yeah so I generally don't put the name of what I'm selling way up high again the more aware your audiences of what you're selling and the more they expect it yes then you can start to leverage actually the name of the product a little bit more because a lot of people share myself page on social media just because they think it's cool yeah like tango azem adventure it sounds good so and somehow the description of the product description at the very top seems somehow to be important okay? It works because I mean people I don't know sheriff I'm sure they just think it's cool yeah so you can absolutely change that in the back end of that page so that instead of feeling like you're constrained content wise all you need is a yeah I think you still need a plug in for this with wordpress I don't mind been set up like that for so long but you can go in like the all of it's not called that anymore the yo's face but yeah, because the ceo there is also the world press plug in for facebook okay, great the facebook the workhouse playing that made by facebook okay, santa will allow you to edit and set the image and the title and the title when somebody shares on facebook yeah, yeah, but keep in mind I think what they're excited about is not tan gasam adventure, but they're excited about is the transformation they're excited about the experience, the name it's not meaningless but it doesn't have as much meaning as these other things, so keep that in mind. I mean, we get really fixated on the names of things on what things are on, why they're cool and we forget that what people buy isn't what we're isn't the thing that we're selling but the why it works or the transformation behind it or the thing that allows them to accomplish or the person that it allows them to become that's, why they're sharing it people there's been loads of studies on why people share things on social media and they're not connecting with the name of your product. They're connecting with the feeling that you've put into it this story behind it, the experience of it and who who, uh they become when they share it does that make sense? Yeah. Quick question. Super specific to my product obviously, because my product is what if? Yeah. So it seems to me that you could actually have a lot of fun with that. Like what if you're not the only weirdo in the room? Yes. So there is a chi right? When your product name and so corey and I had a little argument about actually an argument, but a sort of like said argument, you know, previous lesson about how important names are right when you have a great name for your product that's results oriented that's transformation oriented or that's also really fun. You can play with it in a headline to create additional resonance. So what you did there was not actually used the name of the conference and then it right? You you kind of made it a little mean what you already have. You got a what if mimi I have a few of us, yeah, exactly and you just added, you tagged it then with this thing that you know really resonate with people this is what they're thinking about right now so that's fine but I think I don't actually think yours is an example of that I think it's more like you've got a fun name that you can play with not come join me at what if conference right because that doesn't mean anything but what if I meal not the only weirdo in the room that means something to me? Absolutely yeah any other questions about headlines I think yes, there was question online have long can headline b so there are technical answers to that and there are not so technical answers to that although I think the technical answer is a pretty good guideline I believe the google character limit is seventy two does that sound right? Sixty four okay, so sixty four characters which means it's just under half a tweet which which is a really good guideline because if you make your headline about half a tweet long then it still gives people a chance to put the girl in the tweet and say, wow, this looks cool, right? So a headline should be pretty compact like that also think about email subject lines it's the same kind of thing if you're each email subject linus so long that someone doesn't get a preview of the email you know like how in gmail or outlook you get a little preview of the email your subject line is so long no matter how good it is it's not going to be effective no matter how resonant it is it's not gonna be effective so shorter is better around sixty four characters not so short that google won't pay attention to um I'm trying to think if I have other guidelines on that just other than I used to suffer from long I used to think that I was being all philosophical when I was writing really long had a subject lines headlines I would write like social media has asu or why playing on twitter's like being a monkey in a cage age those headlines were not effective I had readers but I had readers sort of in spite of myself and when I started getting smart about the headlines that I was writing my readership grew exponentially seemingly overnight and I think that's why I preach thie importance of headlines so much you guys are great writers I don't have to coach you on writing um you know and there are other places you can learn that but one thing I know you don't do well is write headlines so that's why that's why we focused getting attention on headlines so your task for this lesson is to write five to ten attention getting headlines if you can do what we did with men with melissa and focus on one thing that your customers know or feel or say right now and write five to ten headlines from that you are going to get on a lot of success from that you're going to see traction build over time people will start to understand what you're really all about what you can really help them with I like to say focus looks good on you we tend to kind of jump all over the place because we think you know if I if I spread the net really wide more people will come into my world it's not true the more you focus your message the mohr your headlines all relate back to that same pain point pleasure point that a thing that people know right now the mohr attraction you'll get it may feel a little boring at first for you and what I would challenge you to dio is come up with ways to make it fun come up with ways to play with these things tell new stories find new examples get crazy with metaphors maybe twitter does feel like being in like a monkey in a cage get crazy with metaphors have fun with it because you if you're going to be an effective marketer you're going to need to stay the same message over and over and over again for instance those dress barn ads I wouldn't I would not be surprised in the least if dress barn was still running dress born it's our name deal with it ads for the next six months you think their marketing department's excited about that? Maybe I don't know. I'm sure some market or there would love to be coming up with thirty new messages that they could put out. That wouldn't work. But what will work is slowly changing people's minds about what dress barn is with. Same message over and over and over again, but with different images, different models, different clothes, and so you'll see that ad. I'd be ninety nine percent sure for the next six months or a year.