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Get Commitment

It's not enough to just get people's attention. You have to get commitment. What I hear very often with this is I give my audience a ton of value. But how do I get them toe? Actually buy give my audience a ton of value. But how do I get them toe actually buy? And the way we get people comfortable with the idea of buying the process of buying is by starting to ask for commitments or micro commitments. Little tiny small things really early on. So I pulled a bunch of snapshots are screen shots to show you the kinds of micro commitments that people are asking for. The first one is gonna look very familiar to jennifer. This is a scrap, a screenshot of simple scrapper dot com, which is jennifer's website and community. And this is a really simple, really common micro commitment that people ask for, which is an e mail address. Give me your email address and I'll give you this focus. Find her guide. All right? Really, really simple. You guys have all seen this, right? Okay, here's a micro comm...

itment that I asked for. First, the micro commitment was I sent an email to to my list, so they've already made one commitment because they've gotten on the list this this block post was also shared. Like crazy all over facebook, so there were new people coming into it as well, but first thing I did was send this out in an email and instead of sending out the whole block post like I normally do because it was three thousand words long, I wrote a little introduction to it and I said this is the most epic block post I've written in years it's all about creating products that actually resonate, which means they're easy to sell. Click here to read it the click here to read it is a micro commitment a click is a commitment when you ask people to take action and they do they're making a commitment to you then at the end of this block post I also I had an option for downloading a free workshop version of it I say had this is still available you get it, download the free workshop worksheet you clicked on this it brings up a pop up that says great, give me your email address and I'll send you the free workbook so that generated lots of new, often zx. It also generated lots of new action from people who were already on my list, so not only was it a micro commitment, it was a microbe re commitment for people and that helps them start paying more attention again. I put this out in the middle of the launch because always in a launch, open rates and you click through rate, start going down, and so I wanted to get people reengaged and re committed and that's exactly what this did. Um, the next one I have mentioned edgar earlier, uh, lars put up all sorts of different micro commitments for people, so first you click on an ad, and then you go over to meet edgar, and she asked for another micro commitment instead of for a purchase. She says, request access. I love this. We actually talked about this on the podcast request access you can't just buy meet edgar, you have to request access, which I think is brilliant, because what happens is you click that button, you enter your email address, you go into a sales funnel. So instead of saying instead of getting a whole bunch of people who are just impulse buying, she gets a whole bunch of highly educated buyers after a short siri's of emails and a very personal invitation that says your access is ready. Now click here to set it up love that I'm going to be playing with this in the future, so excited about it. So that's, how she takes a siri's of micro commitments, gets another micro commitment, has a couple more micro commitments after that, and then ask just for a purchase if all you're ever doing it's just throwing content out there you're not creating the action that people need to feel really comfortable with buying I mentioned links a cz well as part of the micro commitment process this is an email that's part of my automation sequence and it talks about something that I know my because my prospective customers know right now something that they're worried about right now I talk about it and then I asked them to click through toe a block post that gives them or information so in my automation for new customers or I'm sorry not new customers new subscribers I'm asking for clicks that engage them further and get more commitment so that they're more likely to click through in the future so that they're more likely to open in the future the more actions they take the more likely they are to stay paying attention and then the more likely they are to buy so what micro commitments can you ask of your audience? I'm curious what other micro commitments can you think of sasha? Well this address is a problem that I have which is the cells page for the tang has um and measure has an application at the bottom but yet I have all these people who might really be interested and coming on the chip or going on another quirky travel adventure but there's nothing for them to dio to raise their hands so watching that I was thinking that it could change it to say ready to go well okay want to go on your first quirky travel adventure quest application? I don't know if this would address it because basically want to gather all the e mails of anyone who has any level of interest because I don't want to have this dichotomy between an application and signing up for that special list I just want everyone to sign up for that specialist than to be funnels and get the application yeah, I do like the idea of request an application however may be it the second it's the second micro commitment that you asked for it's the micro commitment that you asked for once people are on the subscriber list so then the subscriber list could be um maybe filling out a survey where they're required to give their email address but for the sales paige how could you have something that would sort of get everyone's at any level of interest? I mean this would be applicable for most products but has if it's like active selling then you're narrowing toe only people who really want to go then or want that thing then of course but I want to get I want a list that's about people who are interested in that's the classic way to do that it's simply too short in your sales being to put the form the opt inform several places on your sales page and say you know we're planning new quirky travel adventures all the time enter your email address below and I'll let you know when the next one is available but what if there's an active one now to sell well you could have a landing page and sales paige uh you could also have a pop up that comes part of the way scrolling down the page so say someone's really engaged with reading the page and they get down tio they get past where it says when the adventurous then they get served to pop up that says is this a bad time for you? I'm planning quirky travel adventures all the time enter your email address here and I'll let you know about the next one how about that there's a number of different pop up plug ins that you could use for that and it's a completely polite plug it or it's a completely polite pop up because you're you know they've already engaged this far down the page if they're not running by uh the only thing I guess would be you don't want to get people teo you don't want people to make the choice to enter their email address at the expense of deciding no this is the right time to buy so you might actually want to put the the trigger below the by now button instead of just blow the date I sense yeah where did you have an idea about that? Uh yeah so what I've done with stuff like that like I'm doing I'm planning a series of live event similar to my event next summer and I've just had people uh you haven't do a survey on the page that says uh what their level of interest is in live events and what part of the country for me or maybe what part of the world for you uh they want to be in and then I look at that is my list of where I should plan events yeah and I think too that I know that you have actually had success with random people finding the sales page and then deciding to purchase but I think that's highly unusual even though you've actually had success with that and I think something you might consider is saying you know, here's where you're at here's where you'd like to be I'm sasha kegan on the author of quirkyalone I create quirky travel adventures including the tang azem adventure enter your you know enter some information below and I'll get in touch with you or I'll send you an email of what the different options are right now so you could do it you could do it more personalized as well I mean, I know you know automation is what we're talking about but at the same time you're talking about a pretty high dollar investment on dh you might be able to really personalize the sales process and still keep it really clean, so you may not need to have the sales page up and available for people to read all the time. Yeah, so that might be something to play with. Yeah, some experimentation. Yeah, totally. So what are some other micro commitments that you can ask people for? Recently, I did a reengagement campaign and will tell us what every engagement. Okay, so a reengagement campaign is a siri's of e mails I sent, like three to people who haven't opened your emails in awhile, like six months say, so I sent out these emails that said, hey, you know, I've noticed you haven't been opening my email. Do you still want to be on this list? If you do, just click the link that I gave them and you'll you know, here's what you've missed, click a link and you'll still be on it, and it was phenomenal, like one person emailed me and said, don't take me off your list. I clicked on every link in this email to make sure, but I was getting so many like emails and other types of engagement, like from that list that had been kind of cold. Dead for a while it was like wow, this is really cool on it was just it was a great way to, like connect with those people again and didn't know that oh yeah they were like one guy wrote me he's like this article is brilliant thanks. Yeah, I think something to remember that with that too is you know, people often forget that there are like real people who are really thinking about them behind the emails that they're getting and that's one of the reasons they stop opening it's not like it's a conscious thing but they cut your emails start to feel like every other mass email that comes through their box and when you do a reengagement campaign like that you're reconnecting personally with someone yeah, yeah, very cool other kinds of micro commitments equipment something as simple as having them hashtag something out so you could ask somebody like, can you share your what if? What is your what if and they have to check it out my what it absolutely would have like a slider with instagram, twitter, whatever. Absolutely absolutely sure like community yeah, those are all micro commitment so let's take a look at a whole bunch of different kinds click a link, open an email, fill out a survey, watch a video follow you on social media attended event sign up for a webinar opt in for a welcome gift start a free trial purchased a very low cost offer all of those are micro commitments can you guys think of anything that's not on that list? So I'm pretty good at doing these micro commitments like during launch is leading up to the launch of a product or whatever one of the things that I've been thinking about as much as my list grows in size it is, you know, launch fatigue and how to remind those people that there is a lot of value even if they don't sign up for the course like in between launches sort of keeping them engaged in keeping them interested how do you think about that? Uh in between launches? I don't know if I'm being clear in what I think you're being clear I think for me there's a little difference in the way I do my email marketing in between launches and the way I do my email marketing during a launch I think more intentionally aboutthe long term conversation that I'm having in a launch but the way I email is ill is not really that different one of the things and I think I'm gonna talk about this in a little bit too one of the things that I do with my content marketing is that I know the best use of my content marketing is nurturing my existing leads not trying to get outreach there are some times want post that do double duty, but I almost never right applied post for my blawg that's about trying to reach new people, all right, those for other people's blog's I'll go on creative live, I'll run facebook ads, I'll do a webinar, but the content that I send out on a regular basis is about helping each week helping my people get one step closer to where they want to be another way, I guess I look at that is I'm never not launching sure, not in terms of I'm constantly launching, but I are least know we were talking about revenue planning at the break. I always know what the next thing is. And so even if my normal launch cycle is about four weeks long, that doesn't mean that if my next thing it's four months away, that I haven't already shifted gears on that conversation, sure on dh, then I think the final piece of that is that my shin sequence is jam packed full of micro commitments, just like with what brianne said that there's never more motivated your customers are never more motivated them right after they buy their also never more motivated than right after they subscribe to your list. So the more behaviors you khun train, the more habits that you can create in terms of your emails in that initial definitely in the initial first week and really, over the next three months longer they're going to stay an act of subscriber teo your list, and that means you're going to make more money in the long run. So that's, another thing that I do is, well, that I think I mean it's not exactly an answer to your question, but I think it's related to that. Yes, I'm thinking about like that, there's a lot of like automation is really hot right now, it's like a hot topic, please, they're like people putting out blawg posts and books about, you know, send this many emails when somebody signs up for your list and then put them into the presale funnel, then put them and then and then get them to buy and if they don't buy, put them into this nurturing cycle and the nurturing cycle part is where I was, where I'm doing a lot of thinking right now about what do I want them to get out of it and what I want them to do because I could just throw like any three to five block post in there and and maybe I'll find the ones that are the most related to the next launch on the next thing, but I just was curious about how you thought about that, so I appreciate it. Yeah, I mean it's the state it goes back to the same kind of things for me, it's one of my customers know right now and where do they want to go? And my content is always somewhere in between that it's always starting off with where they wantto wear with what they want right now and it's always leading them to where they want to go. And sometimes that changes, especially throughout the year. I mean, one way you could look at it a seasonally right? So, like last year, I wrote a block post at the end of the year that was like if you were ending up the year not where you want to be here. Three things you can do right now to kick off the new year I'm totally resend that out, you know, on dh I don't care that people there speak players plenty of people on my list got it last year they're going to appreciate it again this here write I got tons of success with that in the past. So yeah, so that's that's something else that you khun dio? Uh, yeah more, um reply why don't leave a comment? Yeah, I mean, not that we're necessarily seeking out more emails to answer and comments, but that's been a really great nurturing thing for me when people do reply is like, oh, this person's really engaged when they get a personal email from either so surprised that a real human being actually responded on the one way I actually handle that with a mass volume of emails is that I will ask for a reply and let them I know that it's going to my assistant, rosie rosie reads every e mail in response to them, I put that in and she passes the emails on to me. And so then often, instead of replying to an email where I do not want to open up a life, the email chain with someone that's, how I keep producing block post for them, I think people get that right, but what I'll do is I'll shoot a tweet up to somebody, and I'll say, hey, thanks so much for the email. I really appreciated that story, and so even I can create a personal touch point without getting into a cycle of things that I know I don't handle well, if you handle email well, like if you're christian broken and somehow he handled email as well as he does, like that's awesome, I don't do that, I'm not good at it, but I have other ways to keep in really personal contact with the most engaged segments of my list. Yeah, yeah. All right. So let's look at creating a process of micro commitments with content that you have. John, I'm gonna pull you up. Actually, even though you're one of our case studies panelists do I have one more piece of paper? He idea again remind us. Actually, you know what? I was gonna have us do this for what ifs, but, uh, you and corey just launched a product we d'oh, which is, like the ultimate case study. So he really did tell us what you inquiry. Just lunch. Do you wanna come and help me? Way were having drinks last night at home at whole foods as you d'oh, d'oh, d'oh, way! D'oh! And and we were joking, I don't even know how it came up, but somebody's like we should, like somebody was like we should put on a conference I think we're talking michelle yeah, I'm talking about like, we should do a conference on, like, doing conferences on then I made a joke. I was like, yeah, I'll be the conference conference, so I bought it and then she bought the domain way back to the hotel and we were like, yeah, whatever, you know, and then this morning we were here having breakfast, getting ready and we were like, screw it, let's do it. Yeah, so you know let's see if people are interested in having in conference about learning how to do conferences. Yeah, I'm in the middle of planning a conference she's not a bunch of conferences. Yeah, so is so is the domain name the conference conference dot com con con the khan khan, khan khan and I'm settled going to con con twenty sixteen I I'm very excited about twenty sixteen. Okay, so right now you're testing it with a landing page, which is your m v p you can't you can't well, you can build no frills version of a conference. Absolutely. And I'm sure that will be something you talk about it. Khan khan twenty sixteen but but before you could even do that, you still have to get people to come. So you've got your landing page that is your minimum viable product? Yes, you're asking for email addresses. What are you going to do next? Oh, gosh, how are you going to get their attention? Well, I think we'll we'll obviously well, welcome to the con con interest group. Maybe send them something fun and quirky and a little bit of information about, you know, did you know, have you considered yeah, and what I'm thinking about is, like she's the a serious one with conferences I'm less experience so it's more like I can talk about you know I just started doing planning this so what am I thinking about uh what are the questions that I have you know where do I go and then she can share her experiences yeah so we need to come up with attention getting headline for your first like welcome is great so maybe this is your second so you're gonna have your first email and your we're going to do like an automation my girl commitment thanks so so let's plan this out you're gonna have a welcome email on dh it's goingto have probably personal stories from uh jen and corey and what's the micro commitment that you could ask for in that first email tell us why you're planning a conference oh yeah tell us why okay perfect you're gonna have them reply or you're gonna have that ugo yet so okay perfect your second email what do your people know right now our people know that they they want to planet climb friends they think it's the next step in their business but they don't really know why and they don't really know how okay um where they might know why but you know what yeah I don't know how okay what is it what are they most afraid of when it comes to the how for me it's spending a bunch of money and nobody showed yes so has also planning e I can yes your ideal customer here so ah no I've done that so yes okay so this is not a great subject line but just sort of like afraid of the money money honey what if no one shows up like that with what s okay so that could be number three what what what if no one shows up? Ok, so what could be the micro commitment that you asked? We're on the second email afraid of the money of the way ask him for money no, not that that's not a small low price thing was a potential micro commitment you could I would say give them something free first your case so how about a budget plan? Do you have a budget plan? These weigh both thank so here's the budget here's the here's some example budgets that we put together yeah here's your unexpected oh eggs sam bulls I love it. Oh my god. I was so open that email on the list thing. The subject line for the second e mail should be here's your example budget for your conference? Yeah, perfect. That could be great on dh then the third one is what if no one shows up? What could you ask them to do in that email? Could it be share their idea on social media sure idea and ask your people what they want if they want it or it what were if they were we could even have them do it like a mini survey like you were saying do you want it in person event and if so, where have them do a survey on there yeah, so I would and and give them an example surveyed it exactly I would pick one thing right so you could send you could do the share and the you know ask people if they want it, share your idea and ask people if they want it in one email you could send out a second email on the same theme and send out a survey for your event. We have a lot of work to do this weekend you know what? We could do it all the brake okay, very creative life set apart okay? And so then I would say in your fourth email I would ask for a sale all right? We're going to get there and just a little bit so yes of the fourth email could be we gave you an example budget we told you to survey your audience now you know this thing's going gonna happen? Yeah. You know, those things are let's show you how yeah, brainy brains yeah, yeah from the brainy brains behind the conference conference well idea I mean having you both thought you were doing the conference conference okay, so you could I mean how long would it take you to implement this realistically like what an hour yeah on our way and you I mean we haven't even gotten to the asking for the sale yet but this is an automated sales process already so you just need to put your you know, the conference conference landing page out to people get him in the funnel and then you've got an automated way to ask for the sale over and over and over and over again until you feel the conference conference well, they should just signed up for the mailing list right now. Well, yeah, absolutely conference happened then if you don't get thes e mails from them you should yeah, you should do something. Okay. All kidding aside you guys see how this kind of micro commitment and asking people to do things kind of helps nurture that lead in a brand new way we've created value that they want right now because of what they know right now we've asked for micro commitment so it's not just the value that you're putting out to your list but that it's also getting them ready to make a purchase sound good sounds awesome thanks guys way started off the day lily by talking about how fast you could actually get this dodd you guys have a bye now button on the page right conference conference dot com really creative life seats available like creative live audience seats available for nine hundred ninety nine dollars. Nice see that's ideal and your goal was to get a sail by the end of the day. Yeah, so we'll see. Yeah, sometimes it's tough. And sometimes it does it's just a really good reason to take action now. Okay, awesome. So, uh, the task that goes with this lesson is to create a process of micro commitments it's that increases trust and encourages action. You could do it with an email automation sequence like this. You could just do it with planning out the next month, the bog post that you have, you could do it on your facebook page. You know, you could create a serious of micro commitments just right on your facebook page of email. Marketing is a stumbling block for you don't let it get in the way, try something else, then do email marketing because that's the one non negotiable but you can give it a try with a lot of different ways. What questions do you guys have about creating micro commitments? Nothing. Natalie probably overwhelming people with too many emails too quickly or being able to space them out appropriately because I know I think there's been times I've been on email list and I'm like low avalanche yeah, and then I unsubscribed pretty quickly so I kind of worry about like, the tiny and of things, yeah, so something like this I would send out probably over the course of about maybe eight days, so sort of one every two days or so, maybe a little bit longer than that spread it out to ten, but especially since this is an automation sequence geared to asking for a particular sale and people are most excited about when they sign up, I would not want to put this ask much further out than seven to ten days if your if the goal of your automation sequences toe like lead people through a serious of free downloads aura siri's of really meaty blogged posts that you're going to want to spread out a little bit more, but I'd also ask you to think about whether that's the right thing to do or not. I think most of the time when people are overwhelmed at that beginning point, it's, because they're actually getting to much value or the prospect of too much value from new stuff, I think emailing people more often is almost always the side people should care too, because they think again, most people heir to the side of not sending out email instead of sending out mohr email and so start sending out mohr email is generally the advice that I am able to give again, keep in mind that when someone signs up for your list, there is never a time that they want mohr email from you more often. Okay, on dh that that differs for every business, like what that sequence looks like, how often it goes out so you can experiment with it and you can play with it and see what works, even if that's justice unscientific, as you know, creating one automation sequence, running it for a month and then switching over to a different one, running it for a month and see what the difference is. Cory, I used this example all the time with with giving people a reason why maureen could be so powerful. Thie artist jolie gila bo does daily emails whenever she creates a new series of work, she creates daily e mails over the course of one hundred, one hundred pieces of art, so whatever that is, three months or four months daily emails week monday through friday, and people open them and they buy every single piece. Yeah, I think that's powerful about sending more emails is the more e mails you send, the more familiar people are with the emails that you're sending. And so, like when you're only sending one email a month, that means there's twenty nine days of every month that people can forget you. And so you get one e mail and then you don't get another email for thirty days what do you do when you get that email you either archive it were open it and unsubscribe that is I mean, think about anything that you have subscribed to if you don't get an email if you don't recognize that if you don't remember them, you either archive it or open it and unsubscribe, which of the two actions you do not want people to take those air, not micro commitments? Sasha, I have one email that really hits the right people in a particular way that's about my wet book and so if they're women who have issues around sexuality or boundaries self worth, I have this pattern that happens that people e mail me and say, can we talk? Because they're just like they feel really identified and like, I need to talk to you and that so the product there is still one on one coaching, but what would be the best way to create something that I don't want it to be super cells e because it's not really the intention it's educational, but I noticed that and I just want to make it work better I mean, the easiest thing to do is ask people to hit the reply button so encourage this action that's worked out really, really well for you nate yeah this resonates with you hit the reply button and tell me your story where you could say I'm gathering stories not necessarily to use in the book but to motivate my sir self teo be vulnerable to keep sharing to go places that seem uncomfortable for me and your stories help me do that hit reply and tell me what's going on for you and then you can personally reply on asked them do you want to set up a call would it help to talk to somebody and then you could judge and see what the level of interest is there but if that's if you've got an email a story that's already creating amazing leads for you yeah do everything you can to kind of upped the ante on that toe leverage it for more andi you know if that turns into that it's just too much work then you can switch it to something like if this resonates with you I take women like you on adventures all over the world to do uncomfortable things and really find themselves click here to learn more about it and tell me what would be of interest to use that are concrete my next experience with you in mind sound good that's awesome okay cool yeah any other questions do you have any questions online about micro commitments? There is a question online one user was seemed a little frustrated with their own list okay and she's here, he says, my list has never really been active, no matter how what value I bring or how much I give them, like e books, et cetera. I gather the names from a conference which created great enthusiasm, but I'm at the point of throwing out the listen, starting from scratch. Is there anything I could do to save these contacts? Well, well, um, one thing that you could do is what michelle mentioned earlier, which is a re engagement campaign, which essentially it's just a process of emails that says, are you still listening? Do you still want to get thes e mails? I would encourage you to start that off with still really value centered messaging, so you send them your absolute best block post, the plug post that's been shared more times that it's ever been than anything else that you've got and you start with exactly what they know right now in this subject line, or you could even start off with this is my blessed best block post ever. That could be really interesting. You might want to test those two things on dh. Then you go to the to the point of, you know, the last email that you're sending people that still aren't opening, you want to segment it down, too. People who are not opening still the last email you send is if you don't open this email, I will remove you from my list and I know that sounds like really direct but that's how if you want to save those contacts that's, how you're going to save those contacts now I think the fact of the matter is is that it's not that leads from conferences could be bad, but it sounds like maybe the reason that they thought that they were getting on your list isn't the actual content that you've been sending them and so starting over may actually be a really good option for you. What I find is that the longer people um the more how can I save us the longer you have subscribers on your list that don't actually want what you're sending, the more they bog you down in terms of your content development and so you know, years ago I mean, you know, when I was switching from kind of maker based businesses to the idea driven businesses that I work with today I had to go through a process of letting go of the maker businesses on my page and I never forcibly unsubscribed people, but I did make it clear and clear and clear what I was going to be talking about, and I stopped using examples from maker businesses for a long time all of that stuff so that if the people that kept opening my emails and clicking on my emails, if they were so resonating with the content, great, they should say on my list, all of my stuff has to do with maker businesses, too. It was just mentally I was being bogged down by. It was it was making me create inferior content. And so once I really focused on who I wanted on my list and who I was actively going to try to get on my list, the community that I was actively trying to build. Then I could really focus my content into much more powerful ways. And everybody got more out of it. So that's something else to consider as well.