Joe: 00:01 Hey guys, Joe Troyer here from digital triggers and show me the nuggets and I'm really, really excited today to have none other than Todd Brown on the call with us. Todd, if you want to say hello,
Todd: 00:16 What's up everybody?
Joe: 00:17 So for those of you guys that don't know, Todd, Todd is the founder of marketing funnel automation and I really, really believe that he's kind of the godfather of high converting customer acquisition marketing funnels. And I know that you guys are going to be floored today. There's, there's one big takeaway and one big tip that I know I'll share with you guys that has had a huge impact on me and my business that I've gotten from Todd and I can't wait to have Todd come on and, and share with everybody. So welcome to the show man.
Todd: 00:47 Appreciate it man. I'm excited to be here, dude. And I love watching you rock and roll and tear it up. And so let's dive in, man.
Joe: 00:55 Awesome man. So before we kinda dive deep can you give us a little bit of background? Man. Can we talk about maybe some of the, the chiropractor marketing days and man, I've been following you for a really, really long time.
Todd: 01:07 Yeah, man, it's been a, so man, I've been at this game in the world of direct response for almost two decades. Started like a lot of folks. You know, back way back, I didn't know there, there was a difference between marketing and advertising. I kinda thought it was the same. I thought marketing and online selling were kind of the same. And then one day I got a direct mail piece in the mail selling a fitness marketing system. At the time I was working in the health club industry and I was enamored by this thing, like, you know, long form copy blown away. I ordered the thing when it arrived, it was as big gigantic home study course with like hard diskettes and cassette tapes way, way back then. And I was just blown away by this idea of being able to create messages that move people to buy without ever having to, to, to talk to them.
Todd: 02:01 And so I started using what it is that I learned in my health club arena. My department shot to the top of this, this massive company. We were doing $3 million a year in personal training services. And then I decided to, I got the entrepreneurial bug man and I wanted to try my hand at something that I completely owned. And so I created a program for a business building program for massage therapists and and started
marketing and selling that while I was working full time, it took about two years, but finally matched my income, what I was making at the health club company. I was making from this this business decided it was time to move on from the health club company after many years. And then the rest is history. I was in, I had that business for awhile and then I decided I wanted to work with chiropractors cause a, you know, higher price point and whatnot.
Todd: 02:56 And so I started working with chiropractors and then from there I ended up somehow teaching online business owners how to really scale. And I think my unique background man, my, like where I bring just this unique perspective is I've always had one foot in the online marketing space, the traditional online marketing space. But I've also had one foot in the direct response publishing world. And so working with folks like Agora and you know, and Mark Ford and seeing kind of the differences between what we were doing in the online marketing world that they weren't and what they were doing to generate, you know, billion and a half dollars a year today that we weren't. And so it's that kind of mix of that world and the online marketing world that just allows me to see things that a lot of other people just don't see
Joe: 03:46 A hundred percent. I would say a completely, very different perspective and not focused on the bright, shiny new object, but instead the tried and true fundamentals, which I love because I feel, I feel like once you figure that out, the, the traffic source and then traffic medium doesn't really matter so much. I mean it does, but if you can figure out the messaging and the offer and everything else, like it just becomes about, you know you know, figuring out how to, how to work backwards, right. And figuring out the average customer value, which I definitely have gotten from you. So I think the I've known you and followed you for a really long time. I think that ultimately we really met though when you brought out the E5 method. Yeah. And ultimately I remember promoting that and getting great feedback from our customers. And I remember Andy [inaudible} introduced me to you and, and I went through the program and it was just like, Holy cow. Like this is crazy. Of course I would love to get behind this. So would you talk a little bit, Todd toot your own horn a little bit about the E5 method and what that is, what that was? So, so we aren't leaving everybody out.
Todd: 04:49 Yeah. First let me say this, man. So I wanna I want to share something that you, that you said that I think is just spot on. And so important for everybody, every one of your listeners to really understand, right? So the big, the the 800 pound gorilla in the world of direct response marketing today, the type of marketing that that we do and that we encourage others to use. The 800 pound gorilla is a Agora they're doing today, one point $5 billion. They sell a variety of different newsletters, typically investing newsletters, health newsletters, just a variety of different kinds of information, products, subscriptions, publications. And one of the things that I saw from kind of being let let in behind the scenes working with them and consulting for them, was that they're doing an astronomical amount of sales every day, every week, every month. Some of the, you know, like my client Agora financial does sometimes three to 4,000 new customers a day.
Todd: 05:42 And the thing that I saw was that all of the, the tricks and hacks and plugins and all the weird stuff that, that lots of internet marketers get caught up in and get led to believe is the answer. Agora doesn't, do they have any part of that? They don't, they don't get involved in the next bright shiny object, the latest fad, the latest, the latest you know, quick fix hack. They don't do any of that. They stick to the foundational core elements behind direct response marketing and it pays dividends. Right? And so it showed me that you don't need all of those other things like you said, when you've got the right foundation in direct response principles. And so that's really where the E5 method kind of came came about. The E5 method is a five stage process for really rolling out customer acquisition campaigns.
Todd: 06:36 It starts with understanding or really examining stage number one is examining. It starts with understanding your prospect on a deep level, right? Which we all know this is a business about understanding the psychology of your audience, understanding what keeps them awake at night, what makes them tick, their fears, their beliefs, their wants, their desires. It's also about understanding your competitors. And in this realm, we're not looking to see, when we examine, we're not looking to see what competitors are doing so that we can knock it off. We're looking to see what they're saying, how they're positioning their product, their hooks, their angles, their ideas so we know what not to do so that we can differentiate our product from them. And then of course in the examination stage, right? We are examining the product and we're looking for all of the advantages, the features, the benefits.
Todd: 07:25 We're looking for the unique mechanism. What's the unique way that this particular product works to fulfill the main promise, to give the prospect the transformation. And then we're taking that information and we're engineering a unique type of campaign. And I'll stop that at, at, at this part, the engineering stage. And just share that like, look, when we create campaigns and look for, you know, for what it's worth, right? Some of the biggest and best marketers on the planet come to me when they need help with their own campaigns, when their stuff just either stops working or isn't working, converting, and they want a new and different way to to generate sales. And we teach them this E5 campaign. And E5 campaign is, is is really grounded in this. Number one, every big money marketing campaign needs to be driven by what we call a big marketing idea.
Todd: 08:20 A big marketing idea is the idea behind your marketing campaign. It's the idea that is designed to cut through the noise to get attention and create engagement in a big marketing idea is an idea that's new, unique, different, fresh, timely. It's intellectually interesting to the prospect and emotionally compelling. It's bringing a different perspective, a different angle, a different story to the marketplace. It's not trying to get attention with hype and exaggerated hyperbolic copy. It's bringing a new and different idea that gets attention and then what we do is we, we in the, in an E five campaign, there's a certain way that you open up the campaign that opening what we call the lead, the first 350 500 to 800 words. There are different types of leads that you use for different audiences depending on who you're targeting. Are you targeting people that don't know?
Todd: 09:18 You don't know. They have a problem, don't know that don't know about the solutions that aren't in the market for the solutions just yet and you want to lead them from that unaware to buy or are you targeting people that are your customers for a backend offer, right? Who you're targeting depends or dictates how we open up the campaign. Right, so that's another one of the elements that at the core of an E five campaign is we're really educating on how the product works. We're not trying to sell, there's a huge difference Joe, right? Like, and you know this, but I want to make sure that your audience knows this. [inaudible] There's a huge difference between marketing and selling. Marketing and selling are two completely different activities with two completely different objectives. Selling is what you do when you are talking to a prospect that already knows that they want your type of product and now you are showing them what is different about your product than all the others out there.
Todd: 10:11 Now you are selling, you're telling them about the advantages, the features, the benefits, the price, the terms, the guarantee, the bonuses, the, the, the offer in essence that selling. But the job of marketing is to turn the prospect's desire for a result into a desire for your product. It's really the, the aim of marketing is Peter Drucker, one of the greatest management guru's ever said, the job of marketing is to make selling superfluous, to make selling unnecessary. And so we do that by educating the prospect on the product's unique mechanism. How does the product uniquely deliver the result, the outcome, the benefit, and all we're doing is just teaching them about that mechanism and how it works and why it works and why it's so different from everything else and why it works quicker, why it's easier, why it's simpler. All of those things. And that marketing argument, as we call it, in the E5 method, that marketing, marketing argument leads the prospect naturally while delivering value, while educating. It leads them to say, I get it. I get it, Joe. I understand why this works. I understand why this mechanism is the way for me to go. I understand why this mechanism is the solution that I need. In essence, we're creating this demand for the mechanism. And the beauty is as we teach in the E5 method, you are the only one that's then offering that mechanism
Todd: 11:46 The aided pianism. There is nowhere else that the prospect can lead to you situation. And that's why we get such sky sales conversion rates. And that kind of boil down condensed is the five method.
Joe: 11:58 So how do you go about Todd coming up with the big marketing idea? What's the process set up for that? What, what's the 80 20 there? What's high level? What is that set up that gets you to come up or that formula that gets you to break down that, that system?
Todd: 12:18 Yeah. So yup. Yeah. Yeah. So you cut out a little bit, but I got it.So what's the process? So it's really like look at the end of the day like look, you know in order to come up with big marketing ideas or a big marketing idea, you need to come up with lots of ideas. So the, the process, we're coming up with a big marketing idea. It's not this flash of inspiration. You're not going to sit down at your desk with a blank pad and a pen and come up with a single idea that turns out to be a big marketing idea. It doesn't work that way. You've got to come up with lots of ideas knowing that a lot of ideas are are going to be garbage to find that one big marketing idea. In order to come up with lots of ideas, you have to have a lot of input.
Todd: 12:57 You have to be a consumer of of information. You've got to do your, call it your research. You've got to thoroughly research the market, right? Like, like look, I said to you that a big marketing idea, one of the criteria is that it's different. Meaning that it's, you're not saying the same thing that your competitors are saying. Well, in order to know that you've got something different, you've got to know what your competitors are saying. And that's why we always start off with that examination stage looking at competitors. But you're also, you're digging into your own product and you're looking at your own product through the lens of let's say a hired copywriter and you're looking for the points of differentiation with your, your own product. You're also doing general research in the market. You're, you're, you're, you're, you're doing a lot of research that opens up like different rabbit holes that you go down and you might find a piece of information like a doctor, a doctor used X, Y, Z method.
Todd: 13:54 And then you go and you research that doctor and you find out that that doctor trained at Stanford and then you, you do read and Stanford's got a monster PR. And before you know it, you start to see these oddball nuggets, these odd ball gems, these weird angles that nobody else is talking about, that they just breezed over and you see, wow, I could use this and I could use this, put them together and have a very unique story to tell, a very unique angle. I could have something to, to talk to the market about that nobody else is talking about because they either didn't see it, they missed it, they breezed over it. And that's really Joe, how ideas are really just combinations of existing ideas like new ideas, right? There's nothing really new under the sun. Our job is to find connections between two things that are seemingly disconnected.
Todd: 14:42 And in order to find those connections, you've got to do a lot of examination, a lot of research. You've got to have a lot of input, you've got to look for oddball combinations, and then you've got to come up with lots of ideas knowing that a lot of these combinations are going to be garbage ideas. They're just not going to lead to any, any you know, any good hook or angle. But eventually you're gonna, you're gonna find one. When you find one, you're gonna know it because you're excited about it. Because it does. It's new, it's fresh, it's different. And I cannot stress that enough when it comes to marketing, especially today when we're talking about a saturated space, like the internet where messages are being thrown at people everywhere they go, you have to have something different to say. You have to have a different hook, a different angle than what everybody else is saying. If you want to be able to get attention, different gets attention, better doesn't always get attention. Does that make sense?
Joe: 15:38 I think in today's market almost better almost gives no attention. I mean, everybody's just thriving on, Hey, I just added one more feature compared to this other product and now you should buy me instead of somebody else. I mean, it's like, it's so cheap and disingenuine. I don't, it's just, it's bullshit. So I, I gotta thank you for really helping me with the, with the big marketing idea because I feel like that's my big strength in the market, right? I'm able to look at the market and see from very high level what's happening, right? I interact with my customers, I know them, I know their fears, their desires.
I see what everybody's talking about. And being able to just give a clear, communicated big idea has, has made all the difference in the world that, that as a hook is fantastic. And can you talk a little bit, talk about the unique mechanism though and how that comes into the, the big marketing idea? Because I think the big marketing idea in, in my opinion is, is great. And if you can just sell somebody on that, that's fantastic. But then when you pair that with a unique mechanism, it's like, Holy cow. Like, yeah, if you can get somebody to believe the, the big marketing idea and then you're like, Oh yeah, and here's this unique mechanism. Like the game's over like it is,
Todd: 16:52 You're right, man. It's, it's done. You, you've, you've, you've won. And so number one, let me, let me just say this, right, that like, look, you know, too many people and this is one of those writer downers for your listeners. Man. You know, too many people, they try to make their product better. They think that the answer is make the product better. If I make the product better, more people will buy. The reality is that better is only known or determined once somebody buys, they don't know how good your product is until they buy. The reality is that the best use of your time is always spent in thinking through, how can I better present my idea behind this marketing campaign, behind this message? How can I develop a better idea, a more compelling idea? I sit back and I think to myself, what could I say to the market that would get everybody's attention, that would make them say, Whoa, I need to hear more about that.
Todd: 17:47 And that's what that's, I'm constantly thinking about that every day because number one, the market evolves and shifts. New competitors come in, new messages are promoted, new things are out there, the market shifts, changes matures. And so the mindset, the perspective of the market evolves. And so I'm always asking myself today, what is it that I could say that would get the market's attention and how could I use that? How could I mold that and, and, and change it into a, a big idea. Right. And then of course, like you said, the big idea is there to get attention, to stop them, cut through the noise, get their attention and get them to ultimately continue on in your, in your marketing. In your marketing message, the lead, the first 350 400 800 words is there to set the, the hook. Meaning it's, you use the big idea to get attention and then you set that emotional hook in the prospect in the first 350 to 800 words.
Todd: 18:43 That's where we get them to say, this sounds awesome. Show
me like, prove it to me. Lay it out for me, man. It sounds amazing. It sounds incredible. But now show me like get me to believe you. That this is legit. That's where we then introduce the unique mechanism. And the way to think about this is really, really is extremely simple. So number one, behind every product or service, there is a mechanism. There is a way that the product delivers results. Whether you, if you're selling a fat burning supplement, there's something in that fat burning supplement. It's either an ingredient, it's a combination of ingredients. There's something in there that is responsible for why that fat burner will burn fat and help somebody lose weight. Take a, a software that gets top Google rankings. Let's just say for people, well, there's something in that software, the way that it works to produce the, the, the, the, the top ranking.
Todd: 19:40 So every product or service has a mechanism behind it. The beauty of the unique mechanism is, is that, and let me say this unique mechanism. It's a marketing invention. It really is. There are lots of products that have a true unique mechanism. They have a unique algorithm behind their software. They're a massage therapist that does a unique combination of body work methods, right? And that's what, how they get people pain free, right? So some products have a legit unique mechanism built in, but there are, there are other ways to create engineer your own unique mechanism, even if you don't immediately see that you've got a unique you know, one of a kind algorithms. So everybody can do this. But the beauty is that when you present a unique mechanism, when you basically say to a prospect, right, I've got a new and different way for you to experience the result you want, I have a new and different way for you to get top top rankings on Google.
Todd: 20:38 I have a new and different way that nobody's ever told you about for you to get pain-free. I've got a new and unique way for you to for you to grow gigantic tomatoes in your backyard a way that nobody's ever told you about. Well, number one, right? Number one, you give prospects hope. They're, they get they, you give them hope, hope because they look and they say, well, maybe this is the answer. Maybe this is the thing that I've been missing. Maybe all the times , all the things, all the software, all the other things that I bought. Maybe they didn't work before because they were missing this one unique mechanism, this one unique element. And so you get them excited, right? You, you, you get them excited. See today, and this is important without going too crazy deep, see the, the answer is not, you're not going to promise your prospects something brand new that they've never been promised before.
Todd: 21:29 Not in the majority of markets, not in the majority of niches. The majority of niches today, we already know what the prospect wants. There's somebody if not many people out there that are already promising to give them that result. So how do we differentiate if we can't differentiate with the promise, we differentiate with the mechanism behind the promise. We promise that they're going to have the result that they want, but we show them how we're going to do it with something new and different. And when you basically, Joe, when you tell somebody that you've got a new and different way to give them the result, they get hopeful, excited. And now the beauty is that the rest of our marketing campaign is not trying to sell the product. The rest of the marketing campaign up until the offer, before we ever even talk about the product, is us educating the prospect on how and why that unique mechanism works and how it works more efficiently, more effectively than anything else out there.
Todd: 22:28 We're teaching them, we're enlightening them, we're giving them insights about it. They're grateful, they're thankful, and by the end of the marketing portion of our campaign, they're like, dang that. That sounds amazing. That unique mechanism. I get it. That's what I want. That sounds like the perfect solution, it sounds like. Right? We won't, we're not selling. We won't. Not at all. Where we're talking about the product itself, and let me, let me, let me make sure that everybody understands the unique mechanism and the product are not the same thing. The product contains the unique mechanism, right? But the, the pro, you gotta have a product named, you know, named fat burner. Extraordinary. But the mechanism in there could be the SLC formula, right? And it's the SLC formula that does this, this, this, this, and this. And the reason why you want to use the SL DSLC formulas, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
Todd: 23:15 And then once we lead somebody to accept the belief that that SLC formula is the answer for their fat burning needs, then we're able to transition into the offer. And then we say, and that's why we took the last year with a team of doctors and nutritionists to put together this product called, you know, the fat burner. Extraordinary because it's built on the SLC formula. Boom. Done deal. You just now created, again, like I said, all roads lead to you because you introduced a new and different way for the prospect to get the that they want. And then you educated them on that, right? Marketed to them without having it, without having to sell. And you created the, the demand before you rolled out the offer. It's beautiful.
Joe: 23:57 That was beautiful, man. Well done. That's it. We're done. Podcast is over. Thank you much so much. Todd Brown. Have a great day. That, that was fantastic, man. Mike drop. So one of the other big takeaways, Todd, that I've had from you is really talking about the market sophistication level, right? Like, and the, the, the big idea the, the mechanism and market sophistication are three big things that I've really taken from you. Can we talk about a little bit about the, the last piece there and how that fits into the equation that you just dropped on us?
Todd: 24:33 Yeah. So, and let me give credit where credit's due. So this really originates with gene Schwartz. He's the author of a couple of books, one of the best books on marketing ever written breakthrough advertising. A my buddy Brian Kurtz is the publisher of that book now. Well worth getting. It's the, it's, it's the one book that I read every single year and have for like the last 12 years, I actually keep a spare copy in case something happens to my original copy. And so Jean Schwartz introduced this idea that all markets go through an evolution, right? That, that, and a great way to illustrate this is to go back to the the fat burner example. So at one point in time there were no fat burners on the market. There were no pills you could take to speed up your metabolism, burn fat, lose weight, none of that.
Todd: 25:20 And then one day somebody came out with the very first fat burner. Now when that person came out with that very first fat burner, all they needed to say to the market was, take this pill and you'll lose weight. And because that was a promise that nobody had ever heard before. That's all they had to say. And then, and people bought it in droves. Well then what happened is the same thing that happens in every market over time, competitors came in and lots of competitors began saying the same exact promise. And so what do you do now when when now, you know, the same exact promises being said, well, the market becomes more sophisticated. They no longer respond the same way to simply take this pill. And you'll lose weight. And so the market goes to what gene Schwartz said was this second stage of of sophistication, the second stage of sophistication.
Todd: 26:12 Now marketers begin to expand their claims. This is where we see, take this pill and lose 10 pounds, take this pill and lose 20 pounds, take this pill and lose 20 inches. Right? And so we began to expand the claim and then of course, other marketers copy right? That, that same thing. And and then the market at some point reaches this threshold where simply expanding the claim is no longer believable. It's no longer credible, it's no longer the truth and it's no longer believable. Unfortunately, a lot of marketers get stuck in this second stage and they think the only way to compete with all the noise and competitors is to just enlarge their claim. More hype, more exaggerated promises, more of that, more of that kind of craziness. But the market stops responding to that. They don't believe it. It's kind of like today, if we saw somebody that said, you know how to get 10 million fans on Facebook or whatever, right?
Todd: 27:04 The markets, anybody with any brain is not going to believe that. And so it falls flat. That's when in stage three we introduce this, we introduce a new mechanism, a different way to get the result. So back, way back, there was a time when fat burners, they introduced a, I think it was called Garcinia cambogia and I have friends that made a lot of money with Garcinia. At the time, nobody else, right when the first person came out with that, their fat burner with Garcinia. Now it became take this, take this pill with Garcinia cambogia and lose weight as your body no longer absorbs fat or something like that. And it boomed. And then of course what happened is other people, competitors came along, they saw the success, they started coming out with their own products that had Garcinia. That's when Garcinia was no longer a unique mechanism.
Todd: 27:56 It was just a common mechanism. That's when, that's when the market no longer responded to just new offers for Garcinia cause they were a dime a dozen. And so that's when they went to stage four. At stage four, similar to stage two marketers have to expand on the mechanism. So now it's no longer just Garcinia, it's pharmaceutical grade Garcinia. It's Garcinia from the rain forest, it's Garcinia plus a digestive enzyme. It's, you're now expanding on on that. And of course over time a competitors come in do the same thing and then we see this evolution to stage five. And at stage five you typically see you're either gonna, you're either gonna reinvent a new mechanism, you're going to come out with a new mechanism and go back to, you know, to just to stage three or more likely you're going to stop talking about the mechanism and the product and you're now going to talk about the prospect's experience.
Todd: 28:51 So that's when marketing is, is sick and tired of dieting, sick and tired of exercising sick and tired of starving yourself and never losing weight, blah, blah, blah. So it's now no longer about the mechanism. It's about the prospect and every market goes through this evolution of sophistication. And that's why in the examination stage that, that, that we have all marketers go through. Part of that is looking at where is your market, right? Where is your market in that evolution? Are you making a brand new promise? Like are you the first person to make a promise, the promise that you're making? Well if so, right that all you need to do is present that promise. You can use a stage one message, but if you're, if you're making the same promise that other competitors are already making, we'll then you you've got to look is the market like can you, can you enlarge promise?
Todd: 29:41 If not, if other competitors have already enlarged it then you've got to go to stage three here is do you have a, you know, do you have a unique mechanism? Have you identified one which really everybody can, which is why we, most of our clients stay within level three cause they create their own unique mechanism. If not, then you've got to go to level four. It's you need to know what is going on in the marketplace so you know what to say and what not to say. Cause if you say the same thing that everybody else is saying, no differentiation. You get lost in the noise and you are and you're done. The other thing, Joe
Joe: 30:15 Just can I stop this really quick? So I feel like, man, like as, as a, as a marketer, I got stuck in stage one and stage two as a marketer all the time, and I never realize the other stages. And so I get lucky and hit, I'd hit a single or I'd hit double or every once in a while I'd hit a home run with a client or with a project because they were in stage one or stage two, right? And then I, and then we get stuck. We get to stage three, and it's like, why isn't this working? What's the name? Right? And we could never get past that. And so, man, I'll never forget the first time you shared this. I was just like, yeah, I forget you're going into the next talk. I'm like, Todd. I'm done. I gotta like walk out of the room like I got, I got to just think this one through. I gotta finish this spot. And I feel like as, as an agency owner or as a marketer working for somebody and maybe not working for yourself on your own projects, I think a lot of people that I've spoke with taught, mentored get stuck in that gap. Yeah. I think traffic and cost and clicks and the, they're not thinking about the bigger picture.
Todd: 31:22 Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more
Todd: 31:24 Man. I think, you know, there are number one, a lot of newmarketers, you know, a lot of new marketers are unfortunately taught, you know, to just knock off what everybody else is doing and you know, like, look, there's a lot to be learned by looking at what other people are doing and, and learn from it. But what happens when you've got a lot of people knocking off existing vendors and companies is you just create so much noise that the market no longer responds to that. And so a lot of times new marketers will just say the same thing that everybody else is saying. They might use some different words, but right. Changing out the words leaves the underlying ideas still the same. It's still an ordinary run of the mill plain vanilla idea and then they wonder why they're not like getting results and that's just because the market is now being hammered with the same.
Todd: 32:14 They're being hammered over and over with the same. Also at the same time, there are some vendors, some entrepreneurs, some companies that will do well, they'll do really well for awhile and then their business will plateau and maybe even start to shrink and they try to use the same approach. They try to kind of scream a louder promise. They try to enlarge the claim. They try to and they just don't see the results anymore and that's because they're now operating in a market that has evolved to a different stage of marketplace sophistication. And if your marketing doesn't evolve as the market does, well, you know what? Like look what was the big idea five months ago. May no longer be a big idea today. What was the unique mechanism five months ago? May no longer be may, may today just be an ordinary mechanism and that's why you've got gotta.
Todd: 33:01 You've got to continue to stay up on how your market is, is evolving. The other thing, just to throw it out there, and this is another thing that we, we, we teach our marketers in the E5 method is this idea of prospect awareness. And you know, really, I really learned, I gotta again, your credit where credit is due. I really had this drilled into me by Mark Ford. Many of your listeners might know him under his pen name Michael Masterson. He's, he was the chief growth strategist behind the Quora. And so there's this idea, right? There are really five levels of awareness and awareness in this context is how aware is your prospect of the problem that your product or service is solving and how aware are they of the different solutions out there, including your solution? So at the very bottom of this pyramid, right, we've got completely unaware.
Todd: 33:59 There are some people that are in your market that, that you
know, that are completely unaware that they've got any problem. They don't think they have a problem. They're not thinking about a problem, therefore they're not looking for any solutions. Right? All the way at the top we've got the most aware. These are typically people, these are typically like customers, your customers, they know that they've got a
problem, they know what you sell, they're aware of the different solutions out there. But then in between, above unaware, right? We've got problem aware. These are the people that are aware, they've got a PR, they're aware, they got low back pain and they want to fix their low back pain, but they don't know anything about chiropractors, massage therapists, surgery, they, they just, they have, they have no idea. And so, and then you've got people that are aware of the different solutions out there, right?
Todd: 34:47 So they're solution aware and they know like, alright, they know they've got back pain and now they know there's massage therapy and chiropractic and they're trying to decide between isn't massage therapy that I go with or chiropractic. And then there are people that are one level above that. Those are people that are product aware. They might say, I know that there's massage therapy out there and chiropractic, but I want to go to a chiropractor and now I'm looking for the best chiropractor in my area. Well, your market is made up of all of those levels, all five of those levels, unaware, problem, you know, solution, product and most aware. So your market is a mix of people in those different levels, but you have to determine in advance who are you speaking to? Which level are you speaking to? Because depending on who you're talking to you're going to craft a different message.
Todd: 35:39 If you went to somebody that was looking for the best chiropractor in West Palm beach, Florida, that's going to be a very different message than the person who's maybe just problem aware and they still don't even know what solution they're going to go with. They don't even know the different solutions or different courses of action that they can take. And so in combination, understanding the sophistication level of your market and understanding which awareness level you're going to target, it gives you a much better level of insight into the type of message that you need to craft to both stand out and resonate with what it is that they're looking for.
Joe: 36:17 Yeah, man, that was fantastic. To be honest, I haven't. I haven't really thought about that so much in my marketing. And I can definitely see how I've alienated big segments of the market, but still tried to drive traffic right from those same people. Right. And it's like, wait a second, I'm really focused on the most aware prospect, right. And the other prospects, you know, it just doesn't even apply to like, why am I advertising to them? Like, why isn't my ad turning those people off?
Todd: 36:50 Well, it's really interesting, man. You know, Joe, it's really interesting because like, look, this is, this is one of the things that man, and I'm so grateful that I learned this really from my time with like Mark and the Agora crew. So the reality is that we are, we've all been taught, most marketers have been taught like go with the most aware and that's because they're the easiest to convert. You want the people that like ideally, right? Like they, they know they got a problem, they know what you sell, they want your product like, right? Like that's the easiest prospect to convert. But the reason why I teach it in a pyramid is because while that is the easiest segment to convert, it's also the smallest segment of the market. The biggest segment is that unaware the segment that right? I used to see aGora.
Todd: 37:38 They, they weren't like Mark Ford said something and I think this is worth its weight in gold for your listeners. He said, you know, he said what we do, he said, we don't sell to needs. We don't sell even to wants. We create wants. And so what he meant by that was that they're not going to the people that are already in the market. They're not going to that small segment that's easy to convert. They're going to the biggest universe of prospects. They're going to the unaware segment. They're going to. The people that woke up in the morning weren't even thinking that they needed a financial investing newsletter, weren't even thinking about their retirement. They're using a big marketing idea to cut through the noise, to grab their attention, to make them say, Whoa, what's this about? They're using an emotionally compelling lead to promise them something, to promise them a financial reward with a unique mechanism and then they're educating them and along the way by educating them on that mechanism, they're creating the want for the mechanism and then in the end when they offer it, these people jump at it.
Todd: 38:42 Even though three hours ago they weren't thinking about it. They didn't think they had a problem, they weren't looking for that solution. And so it's this trade off. The higher the level of awareness, the easier to convert. It's like the the, the easier, the easier segments convert, but it's a much smaller universe. The biggest opportunity for scale is that unaware segment and that unaware segment especially needs a big marketing idea, needs a unique mechanism, totally different ballgame, right? Big idea, unique mechanism. And so it's, it's kinda like most aware. Another way to think about it is most aware also is like your back end when you've got existing customers that know you, like you, trust you, love you. The reality is this, you don't really need a big idea or in, in many instances a unique mechanism to sell really well on your back end because you're talking topeople that are at that highest level of awareness with a high level of trust. But when you go on the front end to cold traffic and you're looking for the most scalable segment possible gigantic universe, in order to cut through the noise and get attention, you have to use a big marketing idea. You have to introduce a unique mechanism. It's an and and it works and it works like crazy.
Joe: 39:57 So that's interesting. Todd, what do you think then about like do you advertise differently to the top and bottom ends of the segment ideally, or how do you do that when you're going completely cold?
Todd: 40:07 Yeah, so you absolutely do advertise differently. So a way to think about it is, is this, so you've got, you've got this scale of lets call it scale of directness, right? And again, I gotta give credit to Mark Ford for really getting me to, to fully understand this years ago. So you've got direct promotions, direct marketing ideas, and then you've got indirect. Okay. So direct is really like how close to, how close and how apparent is it that you are making an offer. So if we said buy one, get one free, that's like a direct, a direct idea, direct hook, a direct angle, a direct offer if you will. It's very direct. Meaning there's no, there's no masking of it, there's no hiding of it, right? But, and, and that is appropriate for the high levels of awareness. Remember, if somebody is in the market for a chiropractor, they already know they want a chiropractor, they're there looking for a great chiropractor.
Todd: 41:07 In West Palm beach, we have the opportunity to say, you know, best chiropractor, 50% off on your, on your first visit. And that's appropriate for those kinds of people because of their level of awareness. But now when you're marketing to people that are unaware that we now, let's say we now want to take somebody who's not even thinking about a chiropractor who's not even thinking about back pain or back wellness or anything like that, we can't start off with a direct type of idea because they're to immediately ignore it saying, well, that's, I'm not interested in a chiropractor. That's where you have to have an indirect lead, an indirect idea. Oftentimes you see these like story-based where you don't really know, like you're opening up with a story with a, with a big idea and a story that will get their attention, but then that story is ultimately going to lead its way down to the offer that you want. So it's indirect.
We're not going directly to the offer. We're indirectly taking the prospect to the offer. And so you have to have something to get their attention. That's not the offer. That's why it's called indirect. So you absolutely have to speak differently to them. You absolutely have to have different ideas because again, the ideas that resonate with high awareness prospects are not the same ideas that are going to resonate with the unaware prospects.
Joe: 42:25 Beautiful. When it comes to really doing, doing the, the analyzing of the marketplace, right? What are some tips and tricks on how to do that best? Like, do you just become a customer? Do you funnel hack people so to speak? Do you, you know, like their pages? So you start seeing their ads, like what, what's the 80, 20? They're like, how do you get a submersed in a new industry, right? As a marketer, if you're working for somebody else, right? It can take a long time. I feel like to become submersed, right? I get hit up with like,
Hey Joe, will you run ads for this vertical? I'm like, no, I can't. And they're like, why? I'm like, brain damage. Like it's just not worth it to me. Right. I'd rather focus on what I know and what I know best because I know how long it's taken me to really figure out the market. So like what's the, what's the 80 20, or what's the big things Todd like somebody should do when trying to figure out a market?
Todd: 43:16 Yeah, I think it's a great question, man. And I think you, you did,
you really nailed it when you said you've got to be, you've got to submerge yourself in the market. So number one, I w I've subscribed to every competitor's list. You should be reading everything that they that they put out. So that again, you're seeing their hooks, their ideas, their angles. I'd be looking at all their ads that they're running, especially the ads that are running over and over. And I wouldn't just be like, I wouldn't just read their, their, their emails or their IE letters or their ads, whatever it is. I would be asking myself, what's the emotion that they're touching on here? Right. What's the appeal here? Is this agreed plays? It's a fear play. What kind of emotional triggers are they trying to build in? I'm into this.
Todd: 44:00 And so I would subscribe to as many letters to as many email
lists as I possibly could. I would pay attention to all of their ads. I would subscribe to if possible, to all of their, their Facebook pages. I would join the groups and forums and communities that the market joins. I would certainly, if you've got the capital to do so, I would certainly buy some products for some competitors. I buy their front ends. For other competitors, I would just opt into their lists for maybe one or two I'd buy a back end. Like I bought the front end so that you can get a mix of front end messages and backend messages. And I would also I would consume some of the books that are like the most popular in the marketplace. You know, in some, some markets, some niches have, you know, like favorites amongst I would really, like you said, you got to engross yourself in the, in the market.
Todd: 44:56 And that's really the, you know, that's, that's ongoing examination or ongoing research because that's, that is the only way, unfortunately I pay attention to what are the words and phrases that are, are used over and over in the comments or people asking about the same things constantly. How are people phrasing the questions? What are the problems that they're having? Like I would become a, I would engross myself in the market and I'd become a student of the market, paying attention, a detective within that market, paying attention to what's being said and how it's being said and when it's being said, and just absorb it and, and start to see that industry, that community that niche through the lens of a prospect. Awesome.
Joe: 45:39 Beautiful. Yeah. Some good takeaways there for sure. So Todd we talked a lot about [inaudible] talked a lot about kind of our little short history together. What are you focusing on now? What's the direction? Where are you going? What do you, what are you focused on as an individual tub?
Todd: 45:55 Well, sir, he, I mean, well in my business we're really we're,we're really focusing on two core things. Number one, we're trying to focus more and more of our time on educating folks on the five method. You know, putting people, putting tons of folks through the coaching program and really just making sure that people get it. Something that I'm super passionate about because it doesn't, you know, I'm a big believer in in both giving people the fish but really teaching them how to fish. I believe that, like you said at the very beginning, that if we can equip people with the principles that don't change, like the real principles that don't change instead of the fads and trends and whatnot, that those skills, the ability to come up with a big idea, the ability to come up with a marketing argument, the ability to find, identify a, develop a unique mechanism, the ability to come up with an emotionally hooking lead.
Todd: 46:45 Those are skills that somebody will be able to use for life to start a venture, launch a venture, grow a venture, consult with people. And so that is a big focus. And the other focus in our business is our top one mastermind, which is just, you know, a cool group of of high six, mainly seven, some eight, and some even a nine figure entrepreneurs that just love doing love scaling aggressively with just good marketing. Outside of that man, I got two daughters that are teenagers. One just started college man, the other one is a junior in in high school. And so, man, does that keep you humble, brother?
Joe: 47:30 I'm thankful. I have boys, very thankful, especially at your age. I can't imagine. I can't imagine your Headspace.
Todd: 47:36 Huh? It's crazy, man. It's crazy. They, they, you know, it's, it's amazing. You know, like it, it puts things in perspective. You know, I love business, I love marketing, but but certainly, you know, I never forget what is most important man and what's most valuable and and that's the people that you love and you know, your family man. And it's very easy in this business to get caught up working, you know, 15, 18 hours a day, seven days a week. You know, personally, I think that that's ludicrous to do that. And and man. Yeah. And so I'm grateful that I've never forgotten what's most important in my life.
Joe: 48:14 100% can agree with you more. Cool brother. You still holding some local events I've seen over the last couple of years you've been holding some events. Is that going to continue you think?
Todd: 48:25 Yeah, we do some, you know, some high level kind of some trainings. So most recent event I did was on was two days about AOV, you know, average order value in just some of the things that we're doing that are really working to, to increase AOV and why it's so important day. That's, that's a topic actually for different podcasts. You know, just how important AOV is. Personally it's with just as little tease, you know, we really mainly focus on AOV, not sales conversion rates. So the beauty is that that a great AOV can make up for a very weak sales conversion rate. So you could still have campaigns that convert at 1%, half a percent, even 2%, whatever. And with the right AOV, it doesn't matter. You're gonna, you're gonna, you're still gonna be able to sway. And so we had an event like that. And so yeah, when there's something that I'm really, that I really get excited about and I want to get it into a some hands. Yeah, we have some some events for sure. And we'll definitely continue to do that.
Joe: 49:22 Yeah, just a little shout out for you on the events. You guys always overdeliver, been to two of them now. So if Todd emails you and he's having an event, I would highly suggest going, you know, there's nothing like rolling up your sleeves and, and going through that process with everybody else there and all the connections and everything else. So little shout out there for you. And I want to wrap this thing up just cause we're at the top of the hour, man, you have delivered so much gold. I just want to thank you first and foremost. And then wanna wrap up with one more question, man. Instead of asking you to recommend three books, like I feel like every podcast does. I'd love to ask you a little bit of a twist on that question. What's the one book what when you look at your business has made that biggest actual impact or not like, Oh, it changed my mindset a little bit, but you look at your business and you're like, man, this one thing right is cause the most practical thing that I got.
Todd: 50:15 Oh my gosh, that is under a lot of pressure here, Joe. Let me think for one second. Well, you know, it's Tom, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give an answer but then I'm gonna give it a second answer. So the, the answer really for me, breakthrough advertising was a complete game changer. You know, really like I was a complete game changer. But I'm going to give an odd ball recommendation that I haven't given in a while. There's a book by Brian Tracy, I believe it's just called goals and you know, and and for me it was, for me it was, it was a game changer. It's also, it's a book that I read not every year, but probably every other year for sure. It just helped me to really stop thinking small and stop playing small and stop, you know stop settling.
Todd: 51:15 For me it was just, it's a very tactical book, tactical on goal setting, like tactical on thinking about your goals and whatnot. And it's just a great book. If you've ever found yourself, like if you ever feel like at any point where you're just playing below your potential like that, you feel like there's more for you. You can't maybe put your finger on it, but you just feel like there's more for you and you don't understand why you're not kind of, you're not, you're not grabbing the bull by the horns. That's a great book to really read and ponder, man.
Joe: 51:48 All right, fantastic. We'll definitely check out that second one.We'll check out both of them actually. We'll make sure we link up to them in the show notes. And Todd, again, just want to thank you, man. We're going to make sure that we link up marketing funnel automation in the show notes. We'll also link up the [inaudible] method. Is there anything else that we can link up for you in the show notes, man?
Todd: 52:06 Nah, man, I think, you know, the, I think for folks, if they want, you know, we put out, I put out some great videos. My team puts out like three, four videos a week for free on my Instagram gig. Some crazy valuable things there. Just go check that out. Also, man, I want to thank you, dude. I've been a, you know, I've been a big fan since the day that we met. I think that you are a man. You're one of the savvy. You're like, you're, you're you're a savvy breed of marketer and entrepreneur, man. And I've always appreciated that you're not just doing more of the same. I can tell. I knew back then, but again, you know this discussion, I know that you're looking to give people the goods, man. And so I would encourage your listeners, man, like pay attention tothis guy. This guy gets, this guy gets my highest endorsement. He really does. And I would not say that if I didn't mean it. And so keep it up, brother. Love watching you shine, man.
Joe: 52:58 Appreciate it man. That means a ton. Thanks so much, everybody have a fantastic day.
