Years ago Amy Porterfield worked for Peak Performance Coach Tony Robbins – first as Director of Content Development, and later she managed large-scale online marketing campaigns. A year after she left Tony Robbins, Amy was approached by Wiley to co-write a Facebook for Dummies book. Since that moment, Amy has been the Facebook Queen, creating the FB Influence and most recently the Facebook Marketing Profit Lab, all of which is focused on helping small business owners get results.
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Resource Mentioned:
- Your Big Idea: Successful Entrepreneurs have One Big Idea. Follow JLD’s FREE training & you’ll discover Your Big Idea in less than an hour!
Success Quote
- “Everything is figuroutable.” – Marie Forleo.
Create a Product
- Outline: Notepad, MindMeister, etc.
- Presentation: Keynote or PowerPoint.
- Modules: Screenflow or Camtasia.
- Emplace product on Web: Wishlist, Infusionsoft, etc.
- Promote: Webinars, Email Marketing, Facebook, etc.
- Pricing: Standard Price, Up-sell, Mastermind?
- Start taking payments!
Killer Resources!
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Full Transcript
John Lee Dumas: Okay, Fire Nation. Let’s get started! I am simply electrified to introduce my guest today, Amy Porterfield. Amy, are you prepared to ignite?
Amy Porterfield: Yes!
John Lee Dumas: Alright! Years ago, Amy worked for Peak Performance Coach, Tony Robbins, first as Director of Content Development, and later she managed large-scale online marketing campaigns. A year after she left Tony Robbins, Amy was approached by Wiley to co-write a Facebook for Dummies book. Since that moment, Amy has been the “Facebook Queen,” creating FBInfluence.com, and most recently, The Facebook Marketing Profit Lab, all of which is focused on helping small business owners get results.
Amy, I’ve given Fire Nation a little overview, but why don’t you take a minute? Tell us a little more about you. We want to get to know you. And then tell us about your business.
Amy Porterfield: So, again, thanks so much for having me. I’m so excited to be on the show today. And a little bit about me, well, I live in Carlsbad, California, which is really close to where you are in San Diego.
John Lee Dumas: Yeah!
Amy Porterfield: And I have always wanted to do my own thing, whatever that might mean. I just really wanted to be my own boss. So over the last few years after I left Tony Robbins, my whole focus has been to build an online business that would support my family and make me happy and also change lives and really help other business owners create a business by their own design. So that’s truly how I’ve been spending the last few years. And as you mentioned, the book deal really helped me niche myself. I never really thought I would niche myself with Facebook marketing, but I have, and I always tease, I eat, sleep and breathe Facebook marketing and it just works for me. So I’ve been very blessed to find an area that I love to talk about, people love to hear me talk about and learn from me. And so, I just built this whole business around it and I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see it grow and kind of it’s definitely – and we’ll talk about this, I bet – it’s definitely kind of shifted over the years.
John Lee Dumas: Yeah!
Amy Porterfield: I think that happens when people start a business. You got to find out what works for you, but it’s been a great ride.
John Lee Dumas: We are definitely going to dive more into that, Amy. And as you know, being a past EntrepreneurOnFire guest, we love starting the interview off with a success quote to get the motivational ball rolling, so take it away for us.
Amy Porterfield: So my favorite success quote is by someone that I’m pretty sure you just recently interviewed, and that’s Marie Forleo.
John Lee Dumas: Yes.
Amy Porterfield: And she is a huge mentor and friend of mine, and when I was in a mastermind with her not long ago, she used to always say, “Everything is figureoutable!”
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Amy Porterfield: Now, I’m pretty sure she made that word up, but it’s such a great quote because I live my life by that. When I worked for Tony Robbins, the number one thing he taught me was to be resourceful. And when I left Robbins, there has never been a day that something didn’t come my way that I thought, “Oh, we’re going to figure this out! There is no way this is stopping us!” or “Hmm, I don’t believe that guy that says we can’t do it. We’ll figure out a way” and I’m constantly pushing my team. I’ve never really been okay with, “Oh, we’re not able to do that.” So I think that has allowed me just to keep moving forward. Everything is figureoutable and I truly believe that.
John Lee Dumas: That’s a powerful quote for a lot of reasons. And yes, Marie was on the show and she did say that word more than one time.
Amy Porterfield: She did?
John Lee Dumas: Not that quote specifically, but that word, and I had to kind of call her out on it and she explained it very well.
Amy Porterfield: Oh, good.
John Lee Dumas: So I think Fire Nation does understand where you’re coming from 100%. Listen, there’s just a lot of people from EntrepreneurOnFire that have been around since Day 1 and they heard you back in those early days, Amy. Back in the 20s, I think it was, when we first had you on the show way back in 2012, back when dinosaurs roamed the planet podcast years, literally.
Amy Porterfield: [Laughs]
John Lee Dumas: But you told an amazing journey, and anybody that wants to check that out, EntrepreneurOnFire/AmyPorterfield. She just tells a great story – failures, aha moments, how she turned those aha moments into success. But today’s different. I brought Amy back on as the second ever repeat guest for EntrepreneurOnFire. Pat Flynn was number one. Amy Porterfield is number two. And I’m so excited because she’s created something that I’m just in love with – Facebook Marketing Profit Lab. And my girlfriend/Director of Content Creation, Kate Erickson, is going through this program, is getting incredible results for EntrepreneurOnFire, and that’s one thing I keep hearing over and over again, Amy, from EntrepreneurOnFire listeners. “John, what’s the deal with these digital products? They’re so amazing! You can scale, you can leverage yourself, your knowledge, your skills, but how the heck does one start?”
So Amy, let’s just break this down for Fire Nation because they want to know – why are you so awesome, A. And B, how do you create such awesome products?
Amy Porterfield: Well, that first question, why am I so awesome, I’m not exactly sure how to answer that one. But I will say that I love that we’re talking about this topic because it could change your business overnight.
John Lee Dumas: Yes.
Amy Porterfield: If you’ve ever thought about creating an online course or an online program or product, it truly is a way for you to be able to create something. All that knowledge and skills set that you have, you get to put it into a package and give it to people and say, “Here, this is so worth the price of whatever you’re charging and it could change your life or it can make life easier or it can make your relationship better or help you lose weight,” whatever that might be. But it’s such a cool way because I love creating the content. That’s my favorite part of what I do. And I love the fact that it can actually help somebody out. So creating programs and products allows you also to pull back. You’re not constantly selling and promoting and pushing and creating every minute. You create this program, then you create a really great marketing strategy to get it out there, and you can live the lifestyle that you wanted for your own business and for your life, which is why I love to create the programs.
John Lee Dumas: So Amy, you are the Facebook Queen. You have so many skills and so much knowledge. So take us to that moment when you decided, “You know what? I’m going to take this to the next level. This Facebook Marketing Profit Lab, this has some wheels. I’m going to let this run.” Take us through that moment and then the steps that you took afterwards to put it into action.
Amy Porterfield: So I, a few years back, created a smaller program called “FBinfluence,” and FBinfluence is a kind of A to Z Facebook marketing program. And one thing that I noticed – and that’s a great program and we still sell it – but what I noticed is people wanted more one-on-one with me. So when you’re kind of starting to think about creating an online program, a lot of people ask like, “Where the heck do I start?” Well, first, you start with what do people need from you? What are they asking? Where are they struggling? And I just noticed that people wanted more of me. They wanted more access to me because I knew this stuff, I could help them, but they wanted a more one-on-one handholding. So that’s really what got me thinking, “Okay. I don’t necessarily want to do one-on-one coaching. It’s just not my style and it’s very limited in the sense of how many people you can actually help during the day.”
John Lee Dumas: You’re totally trading time for dollars at that point.
Amy Porterfield: Exactly. And that’s exactly why I left Tony Robbins. I didn’t want to do that anymore. So to be totally transparent, I started my consulting business when I left Tony Robbins doing that. And I thought, “What am I doing? This is exactly what I didn’t want to do.”
John Lee Dumas: Right.
Amy Porterfield: So I had to kind of change it all, all around, and that’s when I created my first online program. So now, the Facebook Marketing Profit Lab, it’s a small group coaching program where it’s got the modules and it’s a whole video training program, but then it has more access to me. More email access, more one-on-one exchange and I can get more personal with people, and that’s exactly why I created it.
John Lee Dumas: Wow! So we have a lot of listeners right now saying, “Okay. I understand what Amy did. She has all this knowledge on Facebook. I have all this knowledge in X, Y or Z. What is the first step that I can take right now to start getting things on paper, to really start creating the baseline, the foundation of this product?”
Amy Porterfield: I love that you asked this question because a lot of people don’t think of it that way, and they’re so big picture that they’ve got all these loops open. So the first thing you want to do is either open a Google Doc, or if you’re old school like me, grab your notebook and create an outline. If you had modules, what would each module look like? And under the big topics, what are your subtopics? What are the questions you get asked all the time and what do you know for sure that you have? You’ve seen success in your own business or you help somebody else. What steps can you take people through in order to teach them whatever it is that you do? Creating an outline is truly the very first place you should start once you have the idea as to what you want to do.
John Lee Dumas: So I’ve heard a lot of people that use MindMeister because that’s a way that you can kind of start with a bubble and kind of build off that and really get that outline figured out. You can just go to pen and paper like Amy was talking. So now, Amy, we have this outline completed. Now we want to start getting things into the digital world because this is going to be a digital product. What have you found to be a really successful next step in that process?
Amy Porterfield: Well, the next step, one that most people overlook, is that you’ve got to put it on your calendar. Tony Robbins used to always tell me, “Schedule it to make it real.” And I tell you this part because so many people will say to me six months ago, “I’m working on my first product.” And today, they’ll say, “I’m working on my first product.” They just do not get it done fast enough, and this does not need to take months and months and months or years like most people. So open up your calendar and actually write down when you’re going to record each of those modules. So maybe you want to just do one a week because they take a lot of work. Like when I create a module, that module might take me a week to actually finish if there’s multiple videos in it, but I schedule it. Module 1 is going to be done this week. Module 2 that week. So now, I’m really, really keeping myself accountable with a calendar. But once I do that, once it’s on the calendar and I know how I’m going to get this done, because then, once it’s on the calendar, you see an end date. You know when you can start actually marketing this program.
John Lee Dumas: Right.
Amy Porterfield: So once I have it on the calendar, that’s when I open Keynote. And I have a Mac, so that’s Keynote. If you’re on a PC, you’ve got your PowerPoint. But I start everything with Keynote and I start putting in all my ideas into slides. So I concentrate on one video or one training at a time. So let me break that down a little. Let’s say you have three modules in your first program. Each module might have three videos. I start with Module 1 – Video 1. And this is something I’ve learned over the years. I used to kind of maybe go to Module 4 first and back up to Module 1 and record them out of order. The problem with that is when you start from the beginning, you’ll know, “Oh, I want to actually include this at the end” or you’re going to get some ideas that if you kind of start anywhere, it gets very confusing and it doesn’t all come together at the end.
So I just start from the beginning. I open up Keynote and I start making my slides. And with that, you have to make sure that everything’s flowing and it makes sense. So I spend most of my time on my Keynote. And then from there, I actually – I’m getting into more detail here – but I actually hire…
John Lee Dumas: No, please do.
Amy Porterfield: Okay, good. I hire a designer – this guy I used to work with at Tony Robbins – but he’s a designer in general that knows Keynote and he creates a template for me so my slides look good. That’s like one of the things I get told all the time, “Your slides just look really clean and really professional!”
John Lee Dumas: They look so good! And that’s why I was wondering if you even use Keynote because I’m like, “Where are the Amy Porterfield slides?” [Laughs]
Amy Porterfield: [Laughs] I do. I use Keynote. But I have a guy that designs my templates for me, and that really helps. And I’m talking like a hundred bucks. It’s not like I do something super fancy, but the better your slides look, the more people enjoy following you on this journey as you train them. So I send over let’s say my first deck to this guy. He makes it look really good and now I have a template. And now I don’t have to send him every deck because I just use his template each time.
John Lee Dumas: Right.
Amy Porterfield: So, once it looks really good, the next step I’ll do is I’ll record it. I use ScreenFlow. Camtasia is another option. But basically, we’re just recording everything that is on my Mac, and what’s on my Mac at the time are my Keynote slides. So I’ll record my presentation. Usually, each presentation is around 20 to 30 minutes. So it records my voice in the slides. Once it’s recorded, I do some light editing. Sometimes, I send it out. Sometimes, I don’t. I do some light editing, and now I’ve got my first training video done.
John Lee Dumas: Wow! So Fire Nation, I need to reiterate a couple of things that Amy is saying because it’s pure gold right and left. So she literally, she has the idea. She just creates the outline. Then she takes that outline. She starts to put it into Keynote using a special template to make it look professional. Then she uses what’s called ScreenFlow for Mac or Camtasia for a PC. And this is where it literally would just record your screen. So it will show your mouse moving, it will record your voice. You can literally add music. You can zoom, you can spotlight. You can do all these things with this one program, ScreenFlow and/or Camtasia. There are incredible tutorials on both of their websites on how to become a pro. You’ll be a pro in less than an hour of watching these video tutorials. So then Amy does all of this stuff and she gets this product completed to where it’s at. Amy, what’s the next step?
Amy Porterfield: So the next step is once all the videos are completed, then I pull them into let’s say a membership site. I use WishList Member. So WishList Member is a WordPress-compatible theme. I guess you could call it a theme.
John Lee Dumas: Yeah, or a plug-in.
Amy Porterfield: A plug-in. That’s even better. So it’s a plug-in so that I can create a membership site where people have to actually log in to get the content. And it’s really a great plug-in because you can customize it, but it’s simple as well. There’s not tons and tons of bells and whistles that you have to deal with if you don’t want to.
John Lee Dumas: Right.
Amy Porterfield: So I put my content into a membership site. And now, once it’s there – and I always create handouts and I give my PowerPoint or my Keynote as a PDF and I like to do checklists and whatnot because people like to have supporting data or supporting worksheets so that they can walk through these videos with you.
John Lee Dumas: Right. Totally.
Amy Porterfield: So any little extras that you can create, not for the sake of creating extra, but for the sake of supporting your student through the training, the better. So I always include the audio, the PDF of the slides, maybe a worksheet, and I put it all inside the training membership site. And at that point, once I’ve got it all done, I’m ready to go. And one little tip – now this is something I’ve gotten that a lot of people won’t agree with me and some people will – and that is I’ve been taught, I was taught by a lot of Internet marketers in the early days, and they’d say, “Sell your program. Sell it, and then create it as you go.” Like to sell it first.
John Lee Dumas: Oh.
Amy Porterfield: And I do not love that and I have sold it first and then created the program. It is really stressful.
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Amy Porterfield: So, I would just be very careful with that because once it’s sold, then you have a timeline. You are going to cut corners because you’ve got to hit this timeline really quickly. I’d say create the program first, and then market and sell it.
John Lee Dumas: Wow! Okay. So let’s continue this recap. So after Amy does everything that we’ve previously talked about, she then uses what’s called “WishList Member.” And that’s a plug-in for WordPress, guys. It’s a couple hundred dollars. A past guest, Stu McLaren, he is the founder of this company. It’s an amazing support community. They actually have WishList Insider that you can join for like $25 a month and really get all the intel and knowhow of how to use this WishList Member software. It’s incredible. I highly recommend it.
So Amy, this next step is what really freaks people out. I really believe that this is one wall that stops people from even starting. They’re like, “Okay. I did it. I put in all this hard work. I pour my heart and soul into this program. I create the video tutorials, I create the Keynote presentation. I get it all packaged up into this WishList Member. But how do I actually take payments?”
Amy Porterfield: So I suggest to all my students that you get a merchant account because you could do PayPal. You could just use PayPal and take payments. But the reason I’m not a huge fan of that is that let’s say 10, 15 years ago, if you didn’t have a website – these days at least, if you don’t have a website, you don’t look legitimate. Well, if you don’t have a way to take credit cards, some people, a lot of people, will think, “Oh, is this really a legitimate business? They can only take PayPal?” A lot of people think PayPal is just for like hobbies. If you’re maybe on Etsy or whatever.
John Lee Dumas: Right.
Amy Porterfield: So I say, get a merchant account. I use PayPal – what is it? No, not PayPal.
John Lee Dumas: Infusionsoft?
Amy Porterfield: Well, Infusionsoft, okay. So, let’s back up. That’s such a great point. You can use Authorize.Net. So you got to get a merchant account. Authorize.Net is one that most people use. And then from there, I use Infusionsoft for my shopping cart.
John Lee Dumas: Ah.
Amy Porterfield: So Infusionsoft collects all my emails and does all my email marketing, but it also is my shopping cart. Now, if you don’t have Infusionsoft and you use AWeber for your email marketing, then you’ll want to use something like 1ShoppingCart. 1ShoppingCart and AWeber is what I used in my early days and it worked great. But you need a merchant account and you need a shopping cart type of software so that you can take credit cards easily on your website.
John Lee Dumas: Powerful. So you have Infusionsoft. And so, that’s of your email marketing, a lot of CRM. They also can have order forms and things along those lines. Do they also double as a merchant account as well? Is that a one stop shop for collecting all payments and having potential recurring billing as well?
Amy Porterfield: You want to make sure that – let’s say you have Infusionsoft or AWeber – you actually pair that with your merchant account. You put in some data. And so now, Infusionsoft and my merchant account talk to each other.
John Lee Dumas: Wow! Okay. And so, how do you actually get a merchant account? Where is that? What is that actually called or located at?
Amy Porterfield: So that’s the Authorize.Net.
John Lee Dumas: Got it.
Amy Porterfield: There’s a few other ones and there’s one I’m thinking of. It starts with a P and I just can’t think about it. But Authorize.Net is just as good and what a lot of people use to set up a merchant account.
John Lee Dumas: Awesome, Amy! Wow! I mean, just being able to kind of look into your mind here and see the working parts behind this flawless course that you’ve produced is so valuable for so many reasons. So, let’s take this next step now. So now, we’ve done everything. We’ve created the course. Like you said in your tip, it’s already done. We’re starting to get some sales in whatever. But let’s really talk now about marketing. We love the marketing aspect of it because that’s where we can get on different webinars and send to our email lists, and then of course Facebook and Facebook Ads and everything about that and actually be a guest on different podcasts and things along those lines. Share with us your most effective ways of marketing your products.
Amy Porterfield: Okay. So this is one of my favorite interviews I’ve done, John, because I love how you’re breaking this down, because people just don’t know what’s all in the middle of this.
John Lee Dumas: So true.
Amy Porterfield: So this is so fantastic. So I want you all to really look at it as two parts. So you’ve got your first part where you’re creating the product and building the membership site. Now push that aside because they are really two different beasts going on right now.
John Lee Dumas: Okay.
Amy Porterfield: So once, like you said, we’ve done all that, now you’re going to market it. And with marketing, you want to find a few different ways that you can get the word out, and my favorite way that I market all of my programs is through live and recorded webinars and they’ve worked for me from Day 1. Lewis Howes was my teacher. He taught me all about webinars.
John Lee Dumas: He is the master.
Amy Porterfield: He is the master. I love the guy. And basically, what I do is I create – and this takes a good chunk of my time – I sit down and I create a webinar that teaches people something that is related to my program. So for example, the Facebook Marketing Profit Lab is all about creating a Facebook presence, but also creating a Facebook marketing plan. So you literally leave my program with a Facebook marketing plan. So in my webinar, my free 60 minute webinar, I talk about different strategies to help you create a Facebook marketing plan. I don’t give it all away, but I give you enough that you’re excited. And if you don’t buy my product, you walk away with something really good. But you’re excited enough and you want more at the end of my 60 minute webinar. And that truly is what changes the game for me. That makes sure that I always fill my programs because the webinar is really, really good. It is not just kind of a big picture “Here are some ideas.” It’s like “Get into the trenches and let me show you how it’s done.”
John Lee Dumas: And Amy, let me give you some feedback here because I have been to your webinar, I’ve seen it, and I’ve said to myself, “Wow! If this is the kind of quality of a webinar of stuff that Amy’s giving away for free, holy crap! What is going to be behind that curtain? I mean, I can’t wait to see it!”
Amy Porterfield: See, that’s exactly – thank you for saying that. That’s exactly what you want people to say. Like, “Holy cow! This is good stuff! I can’t wait to dive in more!”
John Lee Dumas: Wow! So we get out there, we do these recorded webinars, these live webinars. And maybe a little side note here with recorded webinars, is there a special strategy you use for recorded webinars when you have recorded them one time and you want them to keep going on a kind of cyclical basis?
Amy Porterfield: Yes. Definitely. So when I do live webinars, I use GoToMeeting or GoToWebinar.
John Lee Dumas: Got it.
Amy Porterfield: So when I do record it once, basically, I take the recorded webinar and I use either Stealth Seminar or Evergreen Business System. So either Stealth or Evergreen. Those two are two different really, really great resources to run recorded webinars, and the whole idea behind them is that you’re sending people to an opt-in page and they get to sign up for a date and time. And even though the webinar is recorded, it’s played back as though it’s live so that people actually know, “Oh, I got to show up!” If you don’t give them a date and time to show up and you just tell them “Whenever you want to watch this webinar, go watch it,” people will never find the time to do so. So that’s why Evergreen Business System or Stealth are great resources to use.
John Lee Dumas: Wow! I think this is going to be the longest episode of EntrepreneurOnFire, not in the actual length that you and I are going to be talking, but because everybody’s pausing every 10 seconds to write all these great stuff down.
Amy Porterfield: [Laughs]
John Lee Dumas: So, just great stuff. And here is just kind of a random question on this because I’ve been talking to a lot of people who are unbelievable at doing seminars and doing webinars and everything along those lines. Both Lewis and Sean Malarkey have been guests on my show. And so, there’s a lot of talk right now about the disruptor in the room, and that’s the Google Hangouts/YouTube Live. Have you looked at that at all and do you see potentially maybe going in that direction?
Amy Porterfield: It’s so funny you asked because the timing is perfect. I’ve never done that yet, but I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz and been paying attention, and my good friend, James Wedmore, has been doing a lot with Google Hangouts lately. And so, he has been encouraging me to try to do one of my webinars on Google Hangouts and we’ve been planning it. So it’s definitely something I want to look into and it’s so important for people just to pay attention to what’s working right now and where’s the buzz and just testing and experimenting. So definitely, I’m a fan.
John Lee Dumas: Cool! Well, I love disruptors. And I have to be completely honest, I love GoToMeeting. They’re a sponsor of EntrepreneurOnFire. They have been for quite some time now. HDFaces is amazing for a lot of reasons. But man, they need to watch out! I mean, the big elephant in the room is Google Hangouts and they are coming. So competition, capitalism, it’s all working in our favor right now, Amy.
Amy Porterfield: Definitely!
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs] Let’s move on from webinars because I will say you made unbelievable points. I think everybody’s going to walk away saying that’s the number one area you need to look at. It’s a great way to interact, to show your stuff, to give away a ton of content for free, to hook them. What are some other strategies that you use effectively to market your product?
Amy Porterfield: So email marketing is another big piece of the puzzle here, and whether you have a really big list or a smaller list, you’ve got to make sure that you pay attention to those people that have subscribed to your email list. And a really good friend of mine was saying, “You know, Amy, not everyone’s going to want to sign up for your webinar. Don’t ignore the rest of the people that haven’t signed up but are still on your list. And before, I would. If you didn’t sign up for my webinar, I really didn’t market my program to you. Well, I changed that this next go around and we blasted every goal we had for the Profit Lab. So I think that was one big piece.
So basically, I use email marketing, but I make sure I tell stories. I take people through case studies and tell them how they can use the tools that I’m going to teach in the program. So I always spotlight some of my graduates in my emails and I make sure I always make it about them. What’s in it for them? And that way, email marketing has become a huge tool in selling the program.
John Lee Dumas: And that was going to be another question that I had, because just like you have a guy that created beautiful templates for you for Keynote, which I love, your emails – I mean, talk about telling a story and drawing you in. I mean, wow! Is that you or do you have a copy guy? I mean, that is just such great stuff!
Amy Porterfield: Okay. You just made my entire week because I think that email marketing is tough for me. Writing those emails is not easy, but I do them all by myself.
John Lee Dumas: You write them?!
Amy Porterfield: I do.
John Lee Dumas: Oh my gosh!
Amy Porterfield: So thank you!
John Lee Dumas: Okay.
Amy Porterfield: I’m going to smile all week.
John Lee Dumas: I’m giving you a standing ovation.
Amy Porterfield: [Laughs]
John Lee Dumas: You can’t see me, but I am. I truly am. And Fire Nation around the world is definitely because wow! It’s some great stuff. So email marketing. Get in there and tell those stories. I mean, that’s how you’re going to connect with people. Draw them in, keep them wanting more, but awesome stuff! So Amy, keep going down this train.
Amy Porterfield: Okay. So another thing I do – and this is big because obviously I’m all about Facebook – I use Facebook marketing a lot to fill my webinars. Not necessarily to sell my programs, but to fill my webinars. So let’s talk about that. Of course, I’m posting on my Facebook page and I’m talking about the webinars that are coming up and the content and I’m constantly writing blog posts or podcast sessions about Facebook. So I do a lot of that just to make sure I’m getting people excited before I actually launch. So that’s a lot of prelaunch content I put out there related to the program. But really, my biggest bang for the buck on Facebook is Facebook advertising. And so, I use Facebook Ads in a very specific way to get people to sign up for my webinar. I’m going to take you through it just really quickly.
John Lee Dumas: Yes. Please do.
Amy Porterfield: What I do is I create a 1 to 2 minute video. And that video is me saying, “Hey! Amy Porterfield here. I have a brand new webinar all about how to create a Facebook marketing plan. You don’t want to miss it because we’re going to cover boom, boom, boom…” So I give them 3 to 5 bullets right away. “All you need to do is click the link below. I’ll see you on the webinar.” So this is a video, a professional video. I have a guy come over. I pay him 200 bucks to make it really look good and put a little music behind it because if your video looks really good, people are more likely to want to sign up for whatever you’re talking about.
John Lee Dumas: And it’s a lot of people’s first impression of you.
Amy Porterfield: Exactly.
John Lee Dumas: Yes.
Amy Porterfield: So you want to make it look good. So from there, I posted this on my Facebook page like a regular status update. I upload the video to Facebook. I have a little status update that says “I have a brand new webinar. Here’s the link. Join me.” Very, very simple. “I’m hosting a brand new webinar all about Facebook marketing. Join me,” and then the link. That’s what it is. And so, it’s a status update with a video. Then, I make sure that I have of course an opt-in page, somewhere either inside or outside of Facebook, whatever you want to do. But you need to have an opt-in page where people can sign up for your webinar.
So once I’ve got all those pieces in place, I turn that status update into a page post ad. So a page post ad is something that if you go into the ad’s dashboard, you’ll see the opportunity to run a page post ad. Now, that video and quick status update turns into an ad and it gets out into the newsfeed of all my fans and non-fans as well. I can market both. But this is how I fill up my webinar. My last webinar had 10,000 people that signed up for it.
John Lee Dumas: Wow!
Amy Porterfield: It’s so incredible! The one before that had 12,000 because I marketed even more in advance, which is you always learn these things. I try to experiment, and then you’re like, “Oh, maybe I’ll do that different next time.”
John Lee Dumas: Okay. I have stage fright just thinking about those numbers.
Amy Porterfield: Now, I did not have those numbers just a few years ago. So that definitely, I’ve had to build up.
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Amy Porterfield: So I don’t want anyone to think, “Ah, I can’t do that!” It took me a few years, for sure.
John Lee Dumas: Yeah.
Amy Porterfield: So once people see this video, I’m able to make this personal connection with them. And then, I send them to a really well-designed – I use LeadPages now for my opt-in pages. Have you heard of LeadPages?
John Lee Dumas: Yeah. We’ve had Clay on the show.
Amy Porterfield: Oh my God!
John Lee Dumas: So Fire Nation knows him well. He’s the man!
Amy Porterfield: Oh, he is the man! He has such a great, great, great platform!
John Lee Dumas: He does.
Amy Porterfield: So I use LeadPages now for my opt-in page. And that’s exactly what I do with Facebook ads. I probably might spend about $1,000, maybe $1,500, over the course of two weeks to fill my webinars. And that’s not really a lot considering my program’s either $297 or $597. So I fill up a few spots and I’ve got all my advertising paid for. That is why I love Facebook marketing.
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs] Well, I think that everybody listening now loves Facebook marketing.
Amy Porterfield: It’s so cool!
John Lee Dumas: I know a lot of people like to listen to podcasts on double speed. I get that all the time. “John, I love to listen to EntrepreneurOnFire on double speed. I can listen to two episodes instead of one on my way to work.” Well, guess what? People are listening on half speed right now, Amy, because they are terrified of missing anything, including myself. Wow! You’ve covered so many great things. Are there any other tactics you want to share right now before we move on?
Amy Porterfield: Yes. I got to say one more thing.
John Lee Dumas: Okay.
Amy Porterfield: And that is Facebook recently has rolled out retargeting ads. Meaning let’s say somebody came to my webinar page but they didn’t sign up, I could start showing ads to them on Facebook about my webinar. And I have not used this yet for Profit Lab because it wasn’t out yet, but I did use retargeting ads for my sales page. So people would come to my sales page. If they didn’t buy, I’d use retargeting ads and show them, “Hey, sign up for the Profit Lab” in ads. Well, I used a company called AdRoll.com and that was my favorite tool of choice. But I spent $250 total and had over $14,000 in sales just from my retargeting ads.
John Lee Dumas: Wow!
Amy Porterfield: So that was something I added brand new that I’m definitely going to continue to do.
John Lee Dumas: Yeah! It’s like a cash machine. If you put in a quarter and you get a dollar out, you’re going to keep doing it.
Amy Porterfield: Bring it on! Yeah!
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Amy Porterfield: [Laughs]
John Lee Dumas: So Amy, something else I want to talk about – because it’s near and dear to my heart, obviously – and that’s podcasting. Finally, the podcasting world was blessed with your presence. I was able to see you live at a number of conferences over the years at New Media Expo, Social Media Marketing World, Agents of Change in Portland, Maine. I mean, in so many different places, you’re speaking, your stage presence is incredible, but you decided to take it to podcasting and I was so happy to see that happen. Share with Fire Nation “Online Marketing Made Easy.” I want them to know about this because it’s so valuable.
Amy Porterfield: Thank you so much for bringing it up. It’s definitely my favorite project I’m working on right now. And although I love to talk about Facebook marketing, as you can see through this interview, I love to talk about all online marketing. So now I get to talk about email marketing and collecting leads and other social media sites, plus Facebook marketing as well. So I have to say I love the opportunity to create these podcasts because you’re constantly creating new content. As you know, it’s just a cool way to get your ideas and thoughts and invite other people on the show, so it has definitely been a really, really great experience.
John Lee Dumas: Powerful! Well, Fire Nation, you need to check out Online Marketing Made Easy. If you have been listening today at all, you see the valuable content that comes out of Amy’s mouth so naturally through all the years of her experience. But Amy, I don’t want to lose focus here because we’ve been doing so well. You’ve shared step by step by step. We’ve separated the two from the creation to the actual marketing aspect. You told us some great ways to market. Let’s move into pricing. This is one thing that people have such a hard time with. They’re so terrified that they’re either going to price it too low or they’re terrified they’re going to price it too high. Let’s talk to Fire Nation about this topic.
Amy Porterfield: Such an important topic. So for the Profit Lab, what I did this time around – I’ve always been perfecting this over the last two years – but for the Profit Lab this time, I decided two levels. The first level was $297 and I call it the “Independent Study Level.” They still got to do six live Q&A sessions with me over the 6 week program, but they didn’t have instant access to me. So that was $297. And then I decided to open up a “VIP Level” for 60 people that would have email access to me and I would review their marketing plan at the end of the program if they completed it and wanted to send it in. So this worked like gangbusters. It allowed people that had a tight budget or didn’t really need that one-on-one access to me to enjoy the program at a lower level, and then it gave those VIPs exactly what they needed. I had never done this before, but like I said, we blew out every goal with this new format. So I really encourage people to think about what does your audience need, and I knew that there was a need for these two different levels.
John Lee Dumas: Wow! I mean, what an inside glance there. And I will say that Kate, who’s currently in Facebook Marketing Profit Lab, when she got to the sales page and saw that that was sold out, she was devastated!
Amy Porterfield: Oh!
John Lee Dumas: It’s so true that people just love that one-on-one, being able to interact, and they’re willing to pay for it. So that’s just valuable information for the listeners to realize, that hey, Amy could have just come out and offered that $297 product, but she offered this upsell that so many people immediately took advantage of and so many other people potentially would have as well, so maybe next time, she’ll have figured out a way to even bring more upsells into it. Speaking of that, do you have anything else besides those two levels that go along with Facebook Marketing Profit Lab?
Amy Porterfield: I don’t. Those are the only two levels and I think it’s smart though for people to think, “Okay. Once the program ends…” A lot of people want to continue, and I haven’t really perfected that yet, but I think it’s something important to look toward, “Okay. What’s their next steps?” Now just a little hint, I’ve been thinking about a really small mastermind group. I love working with people at that level. So maybe I might take things to the next level. That’s a pretty big commitment so it’s been in the cooker, but it would be a really great upsell. Once you finished the Profit Lab, if you loved working with me, now you get this bigger chance to do so. So I think it’s an important question.
John Lee Dumas: Wow, Amy! Well, I think that that’s a no brainer. I know with your raving fan base, that that is going to be an absolute automatic opt-in for so many people. Wow! We’ve talked about so many great things today. We finished off with the pricing here and the different mentalities that you have about that. Is there anything else that we may have missed that you think we should talk about before we kind of close this down and just let Fire Nation’s head kind of go explode with all these incredible information?
Amy Porterfield: I definitely think we covered enough, for sure.
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Amy Porterfield: What I will say is that you’ve got to just take that leap and create that first program. It’s not going to be the best program you’ve ever created, but a lot of people get so scared to even just put it out there. So be patient with yourself, be kind to yourself. Get that first program out there and just build on it. Just take some action.
John Lee Dumas: And Amy, just in closing, describe really quickly the perfect customer for Facebook Marketing Profit Lab.
Amy Porterfield: The perfect customer is an entrepreneur or a small business owner or someone that works inside a small business that really knows that Facebook is a core social network that they need to build on to build that exposure, to get more leads, to build a community, and ultimately, to make more money with their Facebook marketing. So if you are looking to use Facebook as a central tool in your marketing tool kit, then Facebook Marketing Profit Lab is definitely a good fit for you.
John Lee Dumas: And where is the best place that people can find you?
Amy Porterfield: If you go to amyporterfield.com, you can find all my blog posts and links to my podcast. And if you go to amyporterfield.com/profitlab, you’ll find a page that talks a little bit about it.
John Lee Dumas: Wow! Amy, thank you for being so generous with your time, your expertise, your experience. Fire Nation salutes you, and we’ll catch you on the flip side!
Amy Porterfield: Thanks a bunch!
