Techniques Direct Marketers Use To Ensure Success Before They Even Launch A Product. -With Chance Barnett
on May 21, 2009 - 2:39 PM PSTWhile most online companies struggle to get hits to their sites, Chance Barnett is attracting customers and racking up sales.
Most people don’t know Chance. Direct marketers like him aren’t covered by the cool bloggers because their businesses aren’t as sexy as Twitter’s. But spend a few minutes with Chance and you’ll see that he’s refined a system for dependably launching online products — profitably.
Watch the full program
Video excerpt
About Chance Barnett
Chance Barnett is the founder of GIG.FM. He is also Founder & President at Catch Him Inc and Marketing Guru at Hot Topic Media. In his career, he has built 7-figure email subscriber-bases and personally created products and marketing that have sold over $25 million via direct sales and marketing methods.
Text excerpt: What you can learn from direct marketers
#1 They ensure success before they even start
This is what great online business marketers do when they have an idea, when they’re just thinking about it. They don’t rush out and go spend three, six, twelve months building a product.
What they do is sit down and say, “You know what? I want to know more about this market, and I want to find out about it in about an hour”. They turn on a Google Adwords campaign. They build a series of a few landing pages that are directly targeted to that market, or that product.
Then they find three or four, maybe even it’s just one, related affiliate product that they can sell. So that they can get a window into what that business is.
So, now if you think about this, that’s a simple process; most of know how to do that. We know how to get a web site up. We know how to create a landing page, even if it’s not a great converting one. And we know how to link to an affiliate program. Well, so then what’s the value? Why is it so significant, if so many of us can do it?
Well, the value is in understanding and recognizing the importance of the numbers that you get out of this. You can learn that you have a great market, and start to test and optimize against that, with that traffic that’s coming, and you can learn exactly what words, and language, and hooks, and frames, and positioning of your product people will respond to, or don’t.
You do that before you even have to figure out exactly what your product is, or how to market it.
#2 They read their customers’ minds
Understanding how human beings like to be communicated with, this is the ultimate arena.
Evan Pagan, one of my mentors, talks about this as the ultimate area of leverage in a business there’s nothing else you can do that can almost instantly take your business and from the existing amount of visitors, traffic, attention that you have create 2 times, 3 times the amount of results that you get from that.
Focus and make sure even if you don’t see yourself as this person take it as your own mission to become the person in your business that understands your customer best and that means spending time in their world and being very observant to what their real frustrations are.
#3 They make TEST a good first impression
So what I’ll say first is kind of an over-arcing approach or a philosophy about landing pages and testing in general. Which is creating a great landing page is a function of your testing approach more than it is a function of your ability to write great copy. I’ll say that again, because it’s really important. Creating a great landing page is more a function of your testing approach than it is about your ability to write great copy. And that’s the most true initially when you’re getting started. As you become a better copywriter, that’s less true.
So what I mean by that, is if you’re getting started and you think, “Well, I’m just going small and I don’t need to test”, that’s absolutely failure to begin with. What you need to recognize is no one’s smart enough — you’re not smart enough — to know what you need to know while you’re getting started. So take the time to set yourself up with two things. One, the technology to test. And more importantly, and I can’t over-emphasize this enough how many people make this mistake, even in really big successful businesses, make sure to measure and report on those every single day. And then pay attention to them and then draw interpretations and use them iteratively in your process of development.
It sounds so silly but if you have a simple piece — an Excel spreadsheet. And you have a daily column that just says “date” and then it says “page” and “results” and “number of visitors” and then “number of subscribers” or whatever your conversion mechanism is. Start looking at that every day and start looking at each ad in that exact same way. And you will start to understand how to write the best copy. Because, guess what? No one else knows, especially if you’re in a very specific niche, no one else knows what the best copy is. So even if you tried a great copy writer, even if you pay someone a thousand or ten thousand dollars to write all your copy, this is the process they would go through in order to learn your market. So, that’s getting started. Set yourself up to test and measure. That’s the fallacy that most people have about great marketing.
#4 They know people are anxious online
You need to understand that just being online and leaving Google — or leaving a trusted site or leaving Amazon, wherever you are — is a risky behavior. And in fact, clicking on a link is a very risky behavior because I don’t know where I’m going. And I’ll argue that there’s a mild level of unconscious anxiety that every Internet user is suffering, each time they click on a link because they don’t know what to anticipate. And human beings really, really, really like certainty and knowing where they’re going. So with that said, what you want to do and address is remove that risk as much as possible. And you can remove that risk by building trust.
Now, what are the best ways to build trust? Well, there’s a few elements to include in your page that help you build trust. Some of the most important ones are actual real knowledge and value. This is something that gets away from some people when they just approach a business as an Internet marketing or business opportunity. They’re just thinking, “How do I create a landing page to convert people?” If you’re in that game and you’re sitting with your cursor on your landing page and you haven’t done your homework. And you haven’t sat around and thought about who people really are and what they’re doing out in the world, and what’s happening for them tomorrow. And what they want to have happen in a week after they interact with you, you’re not going to write great copy. Why? Because you’re not going to be able to build trust and deliver the value you need to deliver to them in order to have them comfortable to stay and convert with you.
So that’s your first goal, is to remove risk and to build trust.
Update: Get detailed answers from Chance
We didn’t get to all the viewer questions in the live program, so Chance very generously offered to write up a detailed answer to 2 or 3 of your questions.
He started with this response to an issue that kept coming up in the live show comments: Landing Pages That Convert.
Ask your questions in the comments here and we’ll pick the ones that he can answer. We’ll give priority to people who watched live.
Full program includes
- Why most entrepreneurs make the same multi-million dollar mistake before they ever build their product or service
- The one thing that can literally double or triple your sales and revenue from the same amount of effort
- How to understand the “risk†that people feel when confronted with a sign up form or buy now button — and the way to remove this risk
- The actual experience and dialog inside people’s head when they come to your company/website/information — and how to literally force them to pay attention
- How to setup a simple test in 1 hour that tells you more about your business viability and your audience than any consultant, marketer or your perfect finished product ever could
- How to avoid building a business with your time and hard earned money that no one subscribes to or buys from
Suggested comments
- If you saw the full program, what did you learn from it?
- How can you use Chance’s techniques in your business?
- Did the transcribers make any mistakes?
- Do you have any questions for Chance (See above.)
View Comments to “Techniques Direct Marketers Use To Ensure Success Before They Even Launch A Product. -With Chance Barnett”
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May 21st, 2009 at 4:20 pm
This is my favorite mixergy interview so far. I got 3 pages full of actionable notes.
Also, was this the longest mixergy interview so far? Call it a feature length, don't try and squeeze it in your break, get a cup of tea, some chocolate biscuits and your note pad and make it an event.
It's probably not as good as Star Trek, but it will make you more money.
People pay thousands to hear this stuff from “internet marketers” who have been far less successful than Chance. That's right, the guy who talks so much about “Testing” in called Chance, the irony of that only just hit me. But he's a genuine guy and there's something about hearing it from people who've built a successful career USING it, not just talking about it, that makes it more valuable than just reading another report.
10/10 on the value front.
May 21st, 2009 at 4:36 pm
“….They build a series of a few landing pages that are directly targeted to that market, or that product….”
I am still trying to get around the idea of “landing page” in this context of testing. Does Chance mean build a simple one page web site with some content related to the product/service you are trying to know more about? What people are suppose to do when clicking on the ad and landing on that page? Sure you may put a lot of content on that page but it is not really a web site so people may feel dumped no? I am assuming here that you are just trying to get some measurement of what keywords/phrases work better as well as i suppose the actual concept of what you are trying to sell to people.
I will be grateful for any pointers. I am just trying to figure is a landing simply where the ads take you (a one page design for testing) or landing page means any page of your web site (multiple pages I assume here) where you rather send your potential users?
Thanks guys.
Mo.
May 21st, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I agree 100% with you Paul. This is probably the best interview so far. Even so i was there live, I need to listen to it again. We need Chance to come back and tell us more. I could feel that he had 1000 more things to share but was limited with time. It is the first I think, when a guest knew exactly what viewers wanted to know without Andrew probing questions!
GREAT interview…
Mo.
May 21st, 2009 at 6:00 pm
The landing page is the page that your user lands on after clicking your google ad.
So it will most likely be a single page that has all the info you need to sell whatever you're selling.
They have clicked the link for a purpose, so the landing page is where you deliver the promise of the solution.
It's your sales page. They are there to buy a solution, so they don't want to go browsing other pages and you don't want them to.
You can test whether your different ads works, you are testing different headlines, you are testing whether your sales argument works and different versions of sales pitches, different offers, guarantees, you are testing pricing, everything.
Click on some paid for ads in google and see what you land on.
May 21st, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Yeh, I think that's a sign of Chance wanting to deliver real value
and doing his homework before the interview.
Practicing what he was preaching.
I've got 15 years in marketing and it's totally not cool to publicly
declare you're “in like” with another marketer but I have to admit,
I'm a fan.
May 21st, 2009 at 8:44 pm
@ Paul
Hello Paul, I agree with you that this is the best interview so far. I think a lot of people spit our businesses and hope they stick. This is such great advice. It is also a lot of work which I think a lot of people wouldn't want to do, because they don't want to find out that their business idea won't work. They want to fantasize as they jump on building the website instantly. Take care Paul.
@ Mo
Hello Mo, I wish the guest could speak 24 more hours. lol. He gives so many great ideas but still can be very vague because he is speaking from experience and we are listening without going through what he did. Here is a great post that I think you or anybody who wants a step by step approach related to this interview will find helpful. Take care Mo
http://www.geekpreneur.com/4-simple-steps-to-mi...
Andy Dang
May 21st, 2009 at 9:05 pm
I know I'm hogging the questions, but listening to this for a second time, one of the things that Chance sounded really excited to explain was about incoming links to a site and how to get them. He didn't get a chance to finish what he was saying due to the time issue, but if he isn't flooded with other questions, I'd love to hear what he was going to say on that topic.
May 21st, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Yeh, I think that's a sign of Chance wanting to deliver real value
and doing his homework before the interview.
Practicing what he was preaching.
I've got 15 years in marketing and it's totally not cool to publicly
declare you're “in like” with another marketer but I have to admit,
I'm a fan.
May 21st, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Hi Paul.
Thank you so much for your time. I get it now. I actually click on many Ads today and a lot of them go to an actual web sites but I found one who is actually just one (long) page which is simply a sales letter. A pretty convincing sales letter at that. I almost wanted to buy the $997 cost stopped me! I realized that all he needed to sale was 1000 copies (bunch of DVD how's to) and “voila” a $1000,000…
I am wondering how many people are buying from a one page sale letter but I guess it works!
Thanks Paul.
May 21st, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Thank you very much for sharing the link. Great site! I am going to have fun reading all the good stuff in there.
Thanks Andy!
Mo.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Yeah, this one is longer than my usual, but with good reason.
I like how Chance is methodical. Like he kept saying in the interview, I
don't want a one in a million shot at anything. I want to ensure success. I
want to build a business based on numbers and data, not hope and
expectation.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Thanks Mo! Glad it helped.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:25 pm
My fault. I felt that I did a few interviews on that and because of the
limited time I needed to get at information that only he could give us.
Might be worth asking him to write a post on that.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Yeah. I always appreciate when a guest does this much work before coming to
Mixergy. And I can see in reader/viewer/listener reactions that it pays off.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Well said Andy.
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:31 am
My favorite interview by far, informative stuff …
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:19 am
Without a doubt, this is best of the top 3 interviews. I have heard all of them on this site and this the best to date. It's up to you to find number 2 and number 3. This is bootstrapping at its core. There is so much valuable information, once you finish, you will play the interview again. Great job Andrew.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:22 am
Without a doubt, this is best of the top 3 interviews. I have heard all of them on this site and this the best to date. It's up to you to find number 2 and number 3. This is bootstrapping at its core. There is so much valuable information, once you finish, you will play the interview again. Great job Andrew.
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:02 pm
The best interview so far i must say. I watched this before going to bed and i woke up with a lot more insight. Everyone else has said it, but yes…he could have gone on and elaborated on some key points. This kind of info is helping us every step of the way in our current business. Mixergy rules right now!
May 23rd, 2009 at 1:04 am
Excellent Interview.
It just emphasizes the idea that on-line success comes from working smart and offering people real value.
I'm going to read more about what Chance has to say on his blog.
Thanks Andrew, for bringing him to my attention with this interview.
_
May 24th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I haven't had a chance to watch the interview yet… but I've got some serious actionable ideas from your notes. I am in the process of building out an app.
As of today, I'm putting all development on halt and focusing resources on building out the marketing website/landing-page to do a non-launch launch with Adwords to explore the market. This should have been an obvious step, but I guess hindsight is 20/20.
May 25th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Thanks Gary.
I think for people like us who want new ways of looking at business
decisions, Chance's experience is gold.
May 25th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
This is going to have a big impact on any company that watches it. Chance is
incredible. I'm lucky to have him on Mixergy.
May 25th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Thank you Shaun. I'm going to keep working hard to get you more information
like this.
May 25th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
How are you building your landing page? Doing it yourself or using a service
like 99designs?
By the way, one of my goals is to have people say what you just said, that
my notes are packed with actionable ideas.
May 25th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Thanks.
Good point. The best place to get to know Chance is on
http://www.chancebarnett.com/
May 25th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
I'm going to do it myself since I've got a design & marketing background. I know (particularly after listening to this interview) that testing is something I should to be able to do quickly, easily and frequently so I'm just going to take the time and learn Google Web Optimizer.
Bryan Eisenberg has a book out about it. Has anyone here read it yet? If so, any thoughts on how actionable the book is?
May 25th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
If anyone read it, I'd love to hear their feedback.
May 26th, 2009 at 9:15 am
For a couple of weeks I'd been thinking, I must think more from a “landing page” psychology in my projects… And then like some psychic, freaky, mental, aboriginal mind-reader you do a tip top superfly interview with THE landing page man!
I am off to make sure my testing tools are elevated in importance on my projects.
I'd 'almost' pay these interviews Andrew. ;)
May 27th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Melvin, Website Optimizer sounds like one of those things that is going to be complicated, but if you ignore that feeling and just dive into it, it's pretty simple.
All you are basically doing is;
a) Deciding which parts of your page you want to test, eg. Headline and Buy Button.
b) Deciding what the end goal is eg. To get the user to click the Button, pay and end up on a Thank You page.
c) Insert the snippets of code that google gives you into your landing page and Thank You page.
d) Come up with the alternative Headline and Alternative Buy Button that you are going to test against and insert these into the Google page when it tells you to.
That's it.
I set up a new account and a page with 4 different elements being tested (you can start by testing just 1) in about 20 mins. Although books make us feel like we have support, Google is actually pretty good at making things like this relatively easy to do, (easier than other software I've been using for a while). But I have to admit I put this task off for weeks because I guessed it would be complex, but it actually wasn't.
May 31st, 2009 at 5:56 pm
There's an article in today's NY Times about how big brands like Vespa are
starting to see the value of testing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/business/medi...
May 31st, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Paul is a great guy to talk to about this. He's put some good ideas in my
head about testing.
May 31st, 2009 at 6:21 pm
It's a funny thing but I don't think we are naturally “wired” to
test. We aren't systematic creatures, we guestimate and satisfice
instead.
So the hardest part is getting into the habit. Once you can do that,
the results sell themselves. More KNOWledge and less guess work.
June 7th, 2009 at 4:33 am
Thanks for the interview Andrew. This is the best one yet!
I think this interview is more of a all-in-one than just on direct marketing. Love the interviews with Roy Spence and Keith Ferrazzi as well.
You're getting really good at this :)
Thank you and all the best from Malaysia.
June 11th, 2009 at 12:10 am
A really great interview…. so much valuable information!!! I've since looked at the David Deangelo, Christian Carter and Growthink sites to see Chance's method's first hand. My questions are:
1) What other sites has Chance been involved with? There was a marked difference between the approach for Grow Think and for David Deangelo / Christian Carter (which were practically identical in structure, just using different language). How does Chance think explains the differences… obviously based on testing the responses of 2 very different consumer segments… but would appreciate any insite into which segment repond best to which stimuli.
2) All of these sites used multiple websites / pages etc. Is this purely down to testing which language is most effective for converting customers, or is it an ongoing effort which has been tested to target/convert different sub-groups most effectively… selling the same product, just with a different spin? I was very interested in seeing the youtube results for David Deangelo… is that purely a function of hits (and is that helped by embedding a youtube clip within marketing material).
3) Chance spoke about increasing developing trust with your customer in order to lessen purchase anxiety. The business model for both DavidD and ChristianC seems to involve a small initial purchase price c. $20 – $30 for a refundable e-book with a tie in to a recurring subscription and the possibility of purchasing more expensive expert material. I presume this aims to maximise customer lifetime value whilst minimising the perceived initial expense. Are these assertions correct? And what strategies would Chance recommend to sell higher cost products?
Thanks again to both Chance and Andrew for a really stimulating post!
June 11th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
[...] Chance Barnett, said before he even builds a product, he buys some cheap ads on Google to see if there’s a market for it. [...]
June 18th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
[...] Interesting article on Mixergy with suggestions from other entrepreneurs on how to find an idea for a new startup. What stood out for me was this: Run some cheap tests [...]
June 26th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
What an awesome interview! Thank you Andrew and thank you Chance for being so open and sharing so much knowledge! I have listened to the interview twice and taken notes which I can't wait to apply.
Felix
June 27th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Lots of good stuff covered here, i have downloaded it for more hearing.
July 4th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
[...] the interview of Chance Barnett, the founder of GIG.FM, at Mixergy.com, Andrew and Chance mentioned that many [...]
January 7th, 2010 at 3:18 am
Andrew,
Simon from Melbourne, Australia here. I've been painting and scraping windows at my house all day and I've been glued to my iPod listening to your interviews. You are the best thing I've come across in a long long time! I'll have to re-listen to this one and take notes for my startup…keep up the excellent work…love it.
January 7th, 2010 at 5:50 am
Thanks Simon.
Sent from my mobile
February 3rd, 2010 at 5:36 am
This interview was, hands down, the BEST (and most informative) interview I've listened to on Mixergy, Andrew. Chance Barnett has become my new, favorite person to follow. I took over 20 pages of notes; that's 5 times more than I normally take with other interviews. His information and advice was worth more than gold, and there should've been an admission price to listen to what he had to say.
I have to say I went into this interview not knowing the first thing about landing pages, testing, and conversions, but by the end, I feel like I'm in an entirely different league thanks to the advice and info Chance shared; I wrote down every word he said.
I firmly believe you can classify business people into two categories now: People who do things the way everyone else does, and people who do things the way Chance does with testing, market research, and following the logical process before creating the product you “think” your customers want. One is a recipe for a likely failure, while the other is a recipe for a great success.
What was so interesting to me is that I learned why some of my products failed in the past. It's because I created them without first testing them, deciding who my exact customer was, and what their final story was – and whether it could solve a real problem for them. Instead, I created things that I thought there was a market for – when it was just an illogical guess. It's an invaluable lesson to learn early on in a business – and one I won't make the same mistake with again. There's a clear-cut science to this, and ignorance in the process is not bliss.
Additionally, I never thought you could do testing over the course of a single – or a few – days, with just three different ads, and a minimal budget. But now I know; it doesn't have to be a super-expensive proposition, and it can save you a ton of heartache (and a fortune) while increasing the likelihood of success 100-fold.
This interview was like an MBA crash course; it covered sales, marketing, conversions, branding, product development, target customers, and a whole lot more. Absolutely invaluable advice.
Great interview, Andrew, and thanks for being so candid and generous, Chance! I will look back at this as a pivotal moment — and turning point — in my business career.
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:36 pm
This interview was, hands down, the BEST (and most informative) interview I've listened to on Mixergy, Andrew. Chance Barnett has become my new, favorite person to follow. I took over 20 pages of notes; that's 5 times more than I normally take with other interviews. His information and advice was worth more than gold, and there should've been an admission price to listen to what he had to say.
I have to say I went into this interview not knowing the first thing about landing pages, testing, and conversions, but by the end, I feel like I'm in an entirely different league thanks to the advice and info Chance shared; I wrote down every word he said.
I firmly believe you can classify business people into two categories now: People who do things the way everyone else does, and people who do things the way Chance does with testing, market research, and following the logical process before creating the product you “think” your customers want. One is a recipe for a likely failure, while the other is a recipe for a great success.
What was so interesting to me is that I learned why some of my products failed in the past. It's because I created them without first testing them, deciding who my exact customer was, and what their final story was – and whether it could solve a real problem for them. Instead, I created things that I thought there was a market for – when it was just an illogical guess. It's an invaluable lesson to learn early on in a business – and one I won't make the same mistake with again. There's a clear-cut science to this, and ignorance in the process is not bliss.
Additionally, I never thought you could do testing over the course of a single – or a few – days, with just three different ads, and a minimal budget. But now I know; it doesn't have to be a super-expensive proposition, and it can save you a ton of heartache (and a fortune) while increasing the likelihood of success 100-fold.
This interview was like an MBA crash course; it covered sales, marketing, conversions, branding, product development, target customers, and a whole lot more. Absolutely invaluable advice.
Great interview, Andrew, and thanks for being so candid and generous, Chance! I will look back at this as a pivotal moment — and turning point — in my business career.
March 16th, 2010 at 12:01 am
[...] the interview of Chance Barnett, the founder of GIG.FM, at Mixergy.com, Andrew and Chance mentioned that many [...]