I have spent $150 on my first ads. I have made….
Nothing, no profit. No sales.
All because of one mistake. Once I fixed it, I spent another $150 on ads and I did make money. In fact, we made sales worth of $4000. Not bad going from nothing to $4000 sales on $150 in ad spend.
The mistake is not that simple, so that is why I have written this article. Let’s dive in!
The time has come, you have to make your first ad to get it all going. So, you think:
“OMG, I have to know how to set it up! I have to know to pull all the levers inside of Facebook.”
I must know what every single button does to really make it work well…
Maybe you even think that you need some sort of “secret hack” to really be as good as possible. You have to set up the targeting, the conversion tracking and the list goes on… All those things!
So, you finally set it all up, you feel like a pro. Now you just have to write the ad. After all that technical stuff, this task seems easy for some reason.
So you do what all ads do, tell them that you have something for sale. You put out an ad that offers your product.
All set, everything looks great! It is just never going to make you any money
Here is how it might look:
“Protein supplements for bodybuilders! Sign up to get a protein supplement delivered every month to your door.”
On the first sight, it seems pretty good.
Your business model is designed to get reoccurring revenue via a subscription. That is a great idea! Facebook is also a great place to find your customers.
You have all the technical part set up. It all makes sense. You are set for success. And in some cases, it might work.
Yay…
The “intuitive way” to make ads just doesn’t work
However, in most cases this approach would not work. Or at least would not work nearly as well as it could.
Let me explain:
Let’s talk about relationships. How many times have you approached a girl on a street and asked her to be your girlfriend straight away?
Let me guess…
Most likely never, it is stupid, it would not work very well.
Let’s translate that to business. The equivalent would be setting up an ad for your service which is “getting protein supplement every month” without specifically targeting it to bodybuilders.
So, you might think ok, but I did target it to bodybuilders.
Good on you.
So let’s adjust the “relationships” example. Instead of approaching a random girl on the street asking her “do you want to be my girlfriend”, you are now going to a club.
Girls go to clubs to meet guys, so you are in the right place, in front of the right audience.
A lot of people go to clubs, approach girls and say “hey, do you want to be my girlfriend?
Right?
Yeah, it is also not going to work…
It seems natural that it wouldn’t. It’s too much to ask in one go, even if that girl you are approaching wants a boyfriend.
Here is the mistake that renders any ad unusable
When it comes to ads, people think that it is ok to approach the right audience and just say:
“Hey beautiful, want to buy the junk I have for sale?”
Now think about the example I gave before.
Do you see where I am going with this?
It is not enough to just set up everything, target people correctly and ask them to buy.
It is the same as going to a club, approaching a girl and asking her to be your girlfriend straight away.
These ads used to work, but not anymore
Now, If you lived in a place where there are thousands of girls, and you were the only the guy, that would work extremely well.
In the past, it was enough for businesses to put out an ad saying “we sell shoes”.
It was enough because you were the only place where people around could possibly buy shoes.
There was no other choice. Nowadays there is a choice.
There is a lot of choice.
Pretty much no matter what you sell, there is going to be some competition.
So just saying “hey we have this” is just not enough. Even if you say it to the correct people.
Here is how to use this problem to your advantage!
So, what should you do?
Think of the club. What do most guys do?
They start with an interesting pick-up line and invite her for a drink.
Simple.
Now think about how could you do that with ads?
Instead of making an ad that says:
“Buy our supplements.”
You could make a video with a title something like:
“This bodybuilder decided to only eat supplements for a week. Watch to see what happened.”
Sounds interesting, it is not really asking anything. The title is offering relevant entertainment.
Why wouldn’t you watch it right?
Seduce your clients, don’t scare them away like a creeper
The video shows something interesting. It also reveals new types of supplements that have a much wider variety of nutrients. That means that they do not damage your health even if you do not eat anything else (I just came up with this example, I don’t know if something like that exists).
At the end of the video, there is an offer of a free sample (could be for the price of shipping or some extremely low price to cover the costs).
Basically, what you have done is:
- You have got their attention with a “pick up line” which in this case is the name of the video.
- And then you have invited your prospective customer for a “drink”. In this case, that is the free sample.
Girls say yes to a drink because, why wouldn’t you get a free drink right?
They exchange a free drink for their attention. They exchange it for giving the guy a chance. Your customers will get the sample in exchange of giving your product a try.
If it is better, or cheaper than the product that they are using right now, they will most likely switch to it.
With the right approach, selling becomes effortless
After they get the sample and see what they are buying into, it becomes almost effortless to sell them a big box of the supplement.
It becomes easy because now there is no risk. They know what they are buying.
Selling them the first box of the supplement is the equivalent of going on a date with a girl.
Once you manage to make that one-time sale, it finally becomes the time when you can say “wana be boyfriend girlfriend?” and you ask them to sign up for your subscription where they pay every month and get their protein delivered.
Do you like sales? Because if you’re looking for a good one, clothing is 100% off at my place.
Think of advertising as a subtle seduction.
Seduce your prospective customers, don’t scare them away like a creeper.
“Seduce” your customers in small steps, just like in relationships.
Instead of going:
“Now that you have seen my ad for the first time, do you want to buy my product.”
Do more smaller steps:
- Catch their attention with something valuable or entertaining
- Get their contact information by offering them a “lead magnet”, or sell them “indoctrination offer”
- Build trust and relationship
- Offer your core product or a subscription
I have learned this the hard way.
One of the very first ads that I have ever made was for a horse training DVD. We created an ad and a sales page that described the training.
It seemed to make sense, the ad had a beautiful picture. The sales website had a wonderful video showing people what they can achieve and it described the training.
We spent $150 on ads and we got…
No sales!
We had to go back to the drawing board.
We created a “lead magnet” a free mini-class. We took out some of the lessons from the DVD and offered them for free, in exchange for an email address.
People loved them.
So, when we offered them to buy the full training after they actually saw parts of it, we did get sales.
In fact, we have spent $150 on ads and got back over $4000 in sales. Just a disclaimer, you are not going to get these results nowadays. Ads got a whole lot more expensive. However, it illustrates the point.
Subtle seduction works better.
If you want a little help with making your ads and customer journeys a bit more seductive, start by having a little chat with our friendly chatbot, Lorena.