Podcasts about infousa

With more than two decades of online and email marketing experience, Ryan Phelan has focused on driving successful strategies for high-growth SaaS software and online companies and advancing winning digital strategies.In working for companies like Adestra, Acxiom, Responsys, Sears & Kmart, BlueHornet, and infoUSA, Ryan's experience and history in the industry is unequaled. He works closely with RPE Origin's client partners to identify their needs and develop a customized approach to achieve their goals with email marketing and related services.Ryan was awarded our industry's top honor of the 2023 Thought Leader of the Year award from the ANA-EEC in recognition of his lifetime achievement and leadership in the email marketing space and is recognized as one of the top global thought leaders in email marketing.לעמוד הפודקאסט בעבריתקישור אל הבלוג

Every act of kindness can be the ripple that creates a wave of change, and that's the heart of our conversation with Amanda-Leigh Player Hall and Ben Goldman from the Gary and Vivienne Player Foundation. As we unwrap the story behind their $75,000 matching challenge, we delve into the collective power of our community that turned it into a stunning $150,000 gift for Place of Hope. Amanda and Ben's passion echoes through their commitment to providing sanctuaries for at-risk children, a mission that resonates deeply Place of Hope's mission and the importance of nurturing environments where these young souls can flourish. Their vision is a testament to the legacy of Gary Player, not just as a golf legend, but as a beacon of positivity and holistic wellbeing.Our discussion traverses the landscape of poverty and its proximity to wealth, a reminder of the work that remains to be done. Charles Bender and Jamie Bond Ciancio with Amanda-Leigh Player Hall and Ben Goldman engage in a thought-provoking conversation about the role strategic philanthropy plays in breaking the relentless cycles of poverty, concentrating our efforts on stable housing, which is paramount in keeping families together and preventing children from entering foster care. The juxtaposition of luxury and lack serves as an urgent call for awareness and continued action in our society.As the episode unfolds, hope and mentorship emerge as powerful sculptors of tomorrow for vulnerable youths. We celebrate the unwavering influence of Gary Player, who at 89, sows seeds of hope with his lifelong dedication to service and giving. The future of philanthropy, strategies for sustaining a legacy that goes beyond the realm of sports, and the importance of transparency and financial stewardship are all woven into our narrative. Whether you're a longtime supporter or new to our cause, this episode reinforces the notion that every contribution lays another stone on the path to a better future for our children. Join us in honoring the spirits of service and legacy, and let's continue to uplift these voices that champion our youth.Upcoming Place of Hope Event:April 12th 10th Annual Angel Moms Brunch & Benefit "For the Love of Flowers" inspired by the iconic designs of Oscar de la Renta and Presented by Michelle HagertyPurchase Sponsorships & Tickets here! (Tickets go on sale February 14th at 8am)Upcoming Gary and Vivienne Player Foundation Event:May 5- 6, 2024Journey From Africa Event Jupiter, FLFor more information on this event, please email infoUSA@garyandvivienneplayerfoundation.org Host: Charles L. Bender III, Founding CEO and Board Member of Place of HopeCo-Host: Jamie Bond Ciancio, North County Director of Advancement & CommunicationsTitle Sponsor: Crypto Capital Venture | Follow Dan Gambardello's on Twitter (@cryptorecruitr)Looking for assistance  in south Florida? Visit VillagesOfHope.netLink:  Visit the Place Title Sponsor: Crypto Capital Venture | Follow Dan Gambardello's on Twitter (@cryptorecruitr)----------------- Producer: Maya Elias Copyright of Place of Hope 2023.

Email Marketing Evolution Ryan Phelan, RPE Origin   – The Sharkpreneur podcast with Karl McKinnie Episode 1003 Ryan Phelan With more than two decades of online marketing experience, Ryan Phelan has focused on driving successful strategies for high-growth SaaS software and online companies and advancing winning digital strategies. In working for companies like Adestra, Acxiom, Responsys, Sears & Kmart, BlueHornet, and infoUSA, Ryan's experience and history in the industry is unequaled. He works closely with RPE Origin's client partners to identify their needs and develop a customized approach to achieve their goals with email marketing and related services.   Ryan was awarded our industry's top honor of the 2023 Thought Leader of the Year award from the ANA-EEC in recognition of his lifetime achievement and leadership in the email marketing space.   Listen to this informative Sharkpreneur episode with Ryan Phelan about the evolution of email marketing. Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week's show: - How people accessing their email on various devices gives marketers access to a wealth of data. - Why we will see a rise in generative AI in email marketing. - How marketers should shift from tactic-driven mentality to a more strategic approach. - Why authenticity and transparency will continue to resonate with consumers. - How personalizing email campaigns is crucial for engaging customers effectively.   Connect with Ryan: X @rpeoriginagency Links Mentioned: rpeorigin.com   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Work with Jasper: https://www.getpaidforyourpad.com/vip Get Brooke's new book: https://www.vintory.com/mistakesIn this episode of Get Paid for Your Pad, host Jasper Ribbers speaks with vacation rental industry expert Brooke Pfautz, the founder of Vintory, a sales and marketing platform for short-term rental property management. Pfautz shares his insights on how to acquire more properties for short-term rental companies. He suggests that the first step is collecting data on potential properties through list brokers like InfoUSA, Exact Data, and Melissa Data, which offer absentee owner records and appending services for contact information. He also suggests scraping data from online travel agencies like Airbnb, Booking.com, and VRBO. Pfautz explains that the data acquired can be detailed, such as house value, presence of a pool, square footage, and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. He also shares that rental permit data from the city, county, or township can also provide valuable information. For acquiring this data, Pfautz suggests reaching out to list brokers, with costs ranging from 8 to 25 cents per record.Once data is gathered, Pfautz recommends building a website or landing page and implementing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to organize the data effectively. Subsequently, he outlines an omni-channel marketing strategy for outbound marketing, which includes direct mail, email marketing, list-based targeting on social media platforms, and IP targeting. He emphasizes the importance of consistency and multi-touch approach to make a significant impact and effectively acquire more properties for rental management. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As digital marketing continues to evolve, many businesses face challenges in reaching their target audience and driving website traffic.  Fortunately, some have found success with direct mail marketing. By targeting prospects directly, businesses can increase website traffic and improve their overall marketing efforts. In the latest episode of the Digital Marketing for Coaches & Consultants podcast, Dr. Terri Levine explores the benefits of direct mail marketing compared to Google Ads, and how to determine your target market for direct mail campaigns.  She also shares essential tips for renting a mailing list and designing a postcard that will catch the recipient's attention. Don't miss out on this insightful episode! Tune in to the Digital Marketing for Coaches & Consultants podcast with Dr. Terri Levine and learn how to make the most of your direct mail marketing efforts.   Key Highlights From The Episode; [0:42] What's your utmost goal as a marketer? [1:13] The meaning of lead capture [1:31] The definition of “a lead” [3:46] Understanding your website traffic [5:11] The Return on Investment of direct marketing [5:46] Which businesses are best suited for direct mail marketing? [6:42] The advantage of using direct mail compared to Google Ads [7:49] Determining your target market for direct mail [9:11] Identifying client demographics using InfoUSA  [10:30] Renting a mailing list  [12:50] Why you should purchase the subscriber list instead of an opt-in list  [14:31] Things to know before you rent a mailing list  [15:45] How to design a good postcard [17:20] Terri Levine's final words and how to connect with her  Golden Nuggets Your goal as a marketer is to generate a lead by building a relationship [0:42] You have to have constant lead flow in your business in order to be successful [1:03] If you are in any industry where most people aren't marketing, and you create a systematized schedule where you are doing direct mails regularly, you can out-market and out-compete everybody else in your industry. [7:29] Don't neglect the people who are already buying your product and services while you are potentially testing a new audience [10:22] Each time we send direct mail to our prospects, our goal is to help them trust us. They might not know about you or your business, so you should send them something that excites them. [17:27]   Let me help you grow your coaching business: Grab this free training and see my revolutionary process in action! Join me and my Inner Circle Students for a behind-the-scenes Live Group Coaching Call: www.6figsin6months.com If you want to join me in one of our connect and collaborate sessions. Go to https://calendly.com/heartrepreneur/mcm-live-connect-and-collaborate-session, and select a date & time! Oh yeah, feel free to join our free Facebook community here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1024921757544017.   Want More!? Listen to the podcast version of this content on your favorite podcast platform: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts Watch all the episodes and more to gain more insight on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@coachterri/videos   Please connect with me on social: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mentorterri Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeartrepreneurTerriLevine LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrilevine/

This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Carl Allen. Carl is an entrepreneur, investor, and one of the most prolific corporate dealmakers in the world. Over his 30-year career, he’s done over 330 deals worth over $48 billion. Carl has analyzed thousands of deals, large and small, across dozens of countries and nearly every business sector. And because of his experience, he’s brought in to advise some of the world’s largest corporations on investments and acquisitions. Recently, he’s launched a new venture, the Dealmaker Wealth Society, a platform that teaches people how to use Allen’s techniques to purchase and sell businesses. Needless to say, Allen is the go to for how to successfully buy or sell a business and he was the perfect guy to come on and discuss the topic. www.Trainwithcarl.com/misfit www.dealmakerwealthsociety.com Carl started back in 1992 when started working for the investment banking arm at Bank of America. He was helping to buy and sell businesses for the Fortune 100. He then had a brief stint in private equity investing in tech company that was bought by HP. As part of the deal, he became one of the M&A directors at HP buying and selling businesses all over the world. He spent most of his time on the road, granted he loved it, but he spent a lot of time away from his wife. In February 2008, he life completely changed in the matter of 24 hours. He was in Moscow doing a deal for HP in a boardroom and keeps getting calls from his wife. He finally stopped and answered the phone and his wife told he needed to be back to the UK immediately because she had gone into labor 4 weeks early with their son. He had his wallet, phone, and passport on him and ran out of the building leaving his luggage behind, sped to the airport, and when he landed in the UK, he had a police escort waiting for him – and he got into the room 5 minutes before his son was born. When he cradled his son in his arms, looking at him, he burst into tears. He knew he couldn’t do it anymore. He called up his boss at HP and quit leaving behind millions in stock and bonuses and decided to retire. 3 weeks later, he was bored beyond belief and knew he had to do something. He sat down with his wife and she helped him understand that he could be a local business broker. Within a few days, he had his first deal. He found the buyer; things went on for about 3-4 months. The night before the deal was to close, he got a call from the seller, who he represented – they had decided to pull the deal. He left immediately to meet with the owners and got to the business where they had assembled all the employees. They told him the buyer was going to fire the employees and essentially gut the business and they could not allow that. In a half-crazy moment, Carl looked at them and said, “I will buy the business.” At the 10:50 mark, Carl goes on to tell the story of how bought the business and ran it with no experience. What makes a great deal for both the buyer and seller? There are 3 criteria Buy a business that you know something about, are passionate about, and can bring something of value to it. You want to find a distressed seller of a good business (not a good seller of a distressed business). A distressed seller is someone that has a very big incentive to leave the business, whatever it is. You want a business that is finally strong with good cashflow and assets (if applicable) How does someone go about finding a deal? There are 4 ways to generate deal flow (and deal flow is the holy grail) Business brokers like BizbySell.com, Benchmark, and others. Typically these will inflate values. Look for a deal that has been open about 9 months. You can build a network pretty easily by talking to CPA’s, Attorneys, Banks, or any other professional that works with businesses. Direct approach. Go to InfoUSA, Hoover’s, etc. and do a search for exactly what you are looking for and then write to them in a highly confidential way. Leverage the power of social media. What are the most important factors to look at when looking to buy a business? What do you need to do if you are looking to sell? Small business deals are 90% about seller psychology. You have 2 identical businesses and the valuation and structure of the deal can be night and day different. You will pay more if a seller is not motivated. Most businesses are valued on a multiple of their profit. The average of $1-10 mil business sold in 2019, the multiple was 2.5-3x profit. So if you have a $1 mil business, then that means it would be worth $250-300k. Multiples will be higher for tech and fast growth businesses. How do you value a business? There is an accounting answer, but then there is the terms and structure of the deal. For example, if you can buy a business out of cash flow over 4-5 years, you may be willing to pay more for it vs. everything being paid up front. One of the challenges for people looking to sell a business, and this is most important – the only way you are going to sell the business quickly is if you separate yourself from the business – meaning you are not needed day to day for it to operate and grow. What is the blueprint to buy a profitable business in 99 days or less? 10 steps Step 1 has nothing to do with dealmaking. It is mindset. It comes down to a person’s why. Nobody wants to own or buy a business – we want the deep emotional benefits that business ownership gives us – freedom, cash flow, legacy, assurance, etc. Step 2 – Creating a deal spec. Define the 3 pillars for yourself and finding the perfect business to buy. Step 3 – Deal origination Step 4 – Go through how to build a great relationship with the seller and get them to want you to be the one who buys from them. Know, like, trust. Step 5 – Valuing and structuring the deal Step 6 – Negotiation Step 7 – Financing Step 8 – How to close, LOI, Step 9 – Deal team Step 10 – What to do in the first 100 days post-closing. What are some of the things to do in the first 100 days? Administrative stuff Change all the passwords in IT Change bank accounts Spend a lot of time with the people and learn how to improve and better the culture. Get feedback from the team and customers Improve how you manage the working capital. Purchasing a business with no experience or no money – any tips? Know your why before you do it. What is the deep emotional reason? This gives you the fuel to follow through and make things happen. Stay in your lane. Buy something that you have experience in. Where are you seeing the opportunities in right now? What is the trend? Online, manufacturing/engineering, etc. is booming Brick and mortar is down and the trend is away from it. People going into Covid with business have done 3 things: They’ve taken advantage of opportunity and growing They’ve put their head in the sand and refused to adapt. There are some that have continued as it and have not been affected. If you can buy a business that is struggling a little and can turn it around, then there are good opportunities.   Best Quote: Nobody wants to own or buy a business. We want the deep emotional benefits that business ownership gives us – freedom, cash flow, legacy, assurance, etc.   Carl's Misfit 3: Buy a business in a sector you know, love, and understand and that is established vs. doing a startup. Live with passion and do something you really love and care about. Life is too short. Fall in love with your customers, not your product or services. Show Sponsors: Shipstation Special Offer 60 days FREE (Click the Microphone at the top of the site and use promo code "Misfit":  www.Shipstation.com 5 Minute Journal: www.MisfitEntrepreneur.com/Journal  

Calculate the 20% Saturation Rule As a general rule, they own 20% of their market. They are the leading authority within their market. Use a tool to identify the size of the industry niche (for example InfoUsa.com). Multiply that number by 20%. If the number falls between 1,000 and 10,000 you are in a specialized niche. An industry that calculates under 1,000 is likely too small and not an ideal niche.*Content drafted from SURGE, written by Mike Michalowicz

What You'll Learn In This Episode of The CRM Sushi Podcast... Sales engagement with a B2B database rolled into one platform All data is B2B email Helps you find great leads 44% of salespeople only follow-up once Autoklose helps you automate your follow-up with qualified leads InfoUSA or Discover.org Connects to your own ESP—GMail, Outlook—and sends on your behalf 150-250 per day is his recommended sweet spot for outreach They allow up to 500 per day Run many different campaigns that run automatically and stops automatically when the prospect replies Dashboard updates every 5 minutes Four simple steps to launch a Campaign He includes weekends when he's reaching out to C-Level executives but not managers Cold outreach cadence of 3-4 days is good in the beginning Scans email for SPAM content Embed video with Vidyard Sequence stops when actions are taken A/B split test Everything is BCC'd back to your CRM so it's tracked Send short emails of 50-75 words Personalization is key They are Google-approved by passing an expensive Google audit Building cadences for every industry (free tool) Offers content and cadence building as a service On-boarding and training now part of all new accounts Free support 14-day free trial

Tips on how to effectively use email marketing with Ryan Phelan I wish people would just stop this whole discussion around email is dead is. If you think email is dead, then just delete all your emails and just shut it all down. A lot of my initial work with companies is to rethink where their customers are today, not where they were when you developed a program initially. The challenge I always have had throughout my career is what's the right shiny stuff that actually moves the needle or makes a difference? A mistake that a lot of companies make is that they get stale. If they don't change, they don't adapt, they think that they're ... It's almost a brand arrogance. What's the strategic approach? How about we help you get into digital in a smart way that's data-centered? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ SHARE THIS EPISODE: HOW TO EFFECTIVELY USE EMAIL MARKETING [just click to tweet] SHARE THIS EPISODE: HOW TO EFFECTIVELY USE EMAIL MARKETING If you think email is dead, then just delete all your email accounts and shut it all down. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Doug Morneau: Well, welcome back listeners to another episode of Real Marketing Real Fast. Today in the studio, I've got joining me a friend and a fellow email marketer as well as a fellow member of the Only Influencers Group, which is basically all the leading experts around the world in the email marketing space. My guest today is Ryan Phelan. He is the co-founder of a company called Origin Email. Ryan brings nearly two decades of global online marketing experience to Original Email. He's focused on driving GTM strategies for high growth SaaS software and Fortune 250 companies. Ryan is a respected thought leader in the industry. He's a nationally distinguished speaker and he has a history of working with very large brands and bringing them success companies such as Adestra, Acxiom, BlueHornet, the Sears Holding, Responsys and infoUSA. Ryan has developed digital strategies for companies like that can the entire Canadian Tire, Capital One, Hewlett-Packard, Skype, CenturyLink, Sprint, FedEx, First National Bank of Omaha, US Bank and many others. In 2013, he was named one of the top 30 strategists in online marketing and is the Chairman Emeritus and the email executive council on the advisory board. Ryan is also involved in many other companies in the startup space as well as advisory board member and investor. What you might not know about Ryan is apparently he is a wicked good cook in the kitchen, as well as the barbecue and has a very extensive wine list and collection at his home, so we somehow need to find a way to get invited over to his place for dinner. I'd like you to join me in welcoming Ryan Phalen to the Real Marketing Real Fast podcast today. Well, hey Ryan, welcome to the Real Marketing Real Fast podcast today. Ryan Phelan: Hey. Thanks, Doug. I'm so honored to be here. This is really going to be fun. So, thank you. Doug Morneau: Well, I think so as well. I mean, you've got a long track record helping people in digital and especially in the email marketing space and that's how we connected was through the Only Influencers group. I had a number of guests on my podcast over the years, and when I've asked about people, your name's come up. I was just putting together an email proposal for somebody in the US and they said, "Yup. I'm working with Ryan. Ryan's helping me." So welcome to the show. Super excited to draw out all of your expertise and help our listeners solve all their marketing problems in the next 30 to 45 minutes. Ryan Phelan: Man, that's going to be amazing. I am so glad I'm sitting down and strapped in for this one. That's great. Doug Morneau: Why don't you walk us through kind of what you're doing now because you're offering a service I think as quite unique in terms of helping business owners make the right marketing decisions.

Improving Donor Relations: Getting The Right Message To The Right People With The Right RhythmInterview with Wordsprint CEO Bill Gilmer Read the Interview Hugh Ballou: Hey, folks, it's Hugh Ballou. Another chapter of The Nonprofit Exchange. Russell David Dennis, last week you and I were in Florida. It's a good thing we're not there this week. Russell Dennis: Yes, it's a bit windy down there now. I'm hoping everyone is okay. It's looking like the storm is turning off and it's not going as far inland as they initially thought. Hopefully all of our friends and the wonderful people down at Kaiser who made us feel so welcome are okay. Hugh: It's called a hurricane, but it's really a slowcane. It's going slowly through there. Welcome folks to this episode. We have a special guest today, Bill Gilmer. He has been on the ride with us ever since we started the magazine. I think over five years ago. Bill Gilmer, welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. Bill Gilmer: Thanks. Glad to be here. Unlike Russell, I am in chillier Blacksburg, Virginia. No hurricane on my horizon, I don't think. Hugh: Yeah, we just are down the road in Lynchburg. Bill, we ask our guests to say a little bit about themselves. Some background. Why is it you're doing this important work you're doing today? Bill: My background, I used to be a printer. I used to run a printing company. Over the years, we discovered that most of the work we were doing was for nonprofits. Over the years, we started tracking response rates on donor relation campaigns. We have put together a system of marketing to donors, and that's what we do every day. Help folks build relationships with their donor base. Hugh: You've been working with SynerVision five or six years ago. Let's declare up front that Wordsprint, Bill's company, is a sponsor of Nonprofit Performance Magazine and SynerVision's work in general. We talk about you often on these podcasts. It's a pleasure to have you here live and in person. This is not an infomercial for Wordsprint, but we know the value of your work. We talk about the 30/30/30. That's the secret for success. Just to be clear, people can do this on their own. They don't need you. But if they want to do it the very best way possible, you know how to do that. I want to be clear on that. Explain what this 30/30/30/10 is all about. Bill: What we discovered, and this is lots of data, we started tracking this back in the early 2000s. I think we're up to 20 million touches, 15,000 campaigns. What we discovered is that there are three things that matter. It's our three-bit marketing system. There are three things that matter when it comes to donor relations. The first is having the right message. The second is getting that right message to the right people. The third is getting the right message to the right people with the right rhythm. We help clients focus their message, stay consistent with their message, stay on message. We help them with the right people by helping with database cleansing, database acquisition, all kinds of demographics and predictive analytics. But most importantly, we have developed a system for staying consistent and rhythmic with your donor touches. We've observed through all our data that is where many nonprofits fail. It's the rhythm and consistency. The right message to the right people with the right rhythm. That's the 30/30/30. Hugh: What do you say to people who say, “I've tried mailing. It didn't work. We tried sending out a mailing at the end of the year, and we got a little bit of money, but it doesn't work, Bill.” Bill: I tell them that I tried dieting once last year, and it didn't work either. Hugh: I tried working out once, and it didn't work either. Bill: I tried to exercise once, and it didn't work. It really is like diet or exercise or physical therapy. These are things that work if you implement them rhythmically. It's not a quick fix. Rhythm doesn't become rhythm right away. It needs a few cycles. In fact, on average, for most of our clients, it's really in the third year of repeated rhythmic touches that the donations start to snowball, that it really begins to build. This is not a showhorse thing. This is drip marketing, if you will. But it works. Hugh: It works. I've seen it work. Dig a little deeper into the right person and the right message. I want to know more about how I can do this. Bill: The right message, the first pillar, is your brand. It's who you are. It's why you go to work every day. It's your mission. It's your elevator speech. What we found that nonprofits who stay on message, who stay true to themselves about who they are, are the ones more successful over time as opposed to those who try to be all things to all people or try to repackage it or try to rebrand every year. I'm not saying you can't rebrand, but you need to do so carefully. The right message is mainly a matter of consistency and articulating it clearly. Having the right taglines, having the right logo, having the right paragraphs. The right people gets more complicated. It is all about relationships. We find that the nonprofits who succeed are those who create a database culture, where they take those relationships and get them into the database that everyone in the organization is empowered to update. Your best donors are the people you know. People donate to people. People donate to you because they trust you to fulfill your mission. It's the people you know, the people you run into, the people who come to your open house. These are the best potential donors. The organizations who know how to capture that and bring them into their database so they get rhythmic touches and notifications are the ones who succeed. You can also acquire data. We do a lot of this. Using some fancy predictive analytics, we can acquire names of people who are more likely to donate to your cause than others. That is almost a whole topic in itself. Hugh: Talk a little bit about that. We constantly run across people who say, “I don't know anybody.” If we do have people who are in nonprofits that maybe they get donations, but they don't have a donor management program per se, or they work with a number of early stage. Talk a bit about how you acquire names legally. Is there a magic database program that I can use to connect them with? Bill: It's all legal. There are about six or seven big players in this game called compilers. These are companies who do nothing but purchase, massage, and resell databases. You've heard of some of them. Dunne & Bradstreet does this mostly with businesses. Experian. Equifax, the one that had the big data breach. InfoUSA. There are others. There are literally thousands of brokers and people who take the information from these larger players and resell it to folks like us and you. Demographics are available. We as a society click a lot. We are on our computers and are clicking. We go to Amazon. We read the paragraph. We look at another book. We order this. We fill out a warranty card. We subscribe to a magazine. We join a club. All of those are data transactions that are public and can be sold and resold. The hard demographics have always been there, things like the value of your home, the car you drive. That's public information. But these compilers gather so many data points on all of us as consumers that they are able with artificial intelligence help to see patterns and build logorhythms. They know if you've done this and this and this, then you are more likely to support a nonprofit that focuses on children and especially disabled children. That is how detailed it can get. Or you are more likely to support a local nonprofit that works in the music arts, like an orchestra or a symphony. We call this predictive analytics. This is data that indicates the likelihood of someone supporting your cause. This has gotten way better than it even was six months ago. What we usually do—and Hugh, you have had some recent experience with this with one of your organizations—when we do a database acquisition like this, we then compare it to the organization's existing donor database. If the predictive analytics have been accurate, there will be considerable overlap. Your organization had 3,000 names. We bought another 700-800. Three years ago, you'd expect 10-12 of those to be an overlap. We had a 250-name overlap in that case. Those analytics were extremely accurate. These are folks not just demographically speaking but in terms of propensity are more likely to support your cause. You still have to touch them and touch them rhythmically. That is where the rhythm thing comes in. That is where you need to establish a system of cadent touches over the course of several cycles. At the end of the second or the beginning of the third year, that is where you will start to see donations come in, and it will start to snowball over time. Hugh: When you are talking about clicking, we're talking about mail in the U.S. We are not talking about email with our computer. Bill: I don't think I caught the last part of your question. In terms of what we advise for donor relations, it's a combination of mailing and emailing. Russell: It's so systematic to your approach to keeping and maintaining donors. Especially small nonprofits will be overwhelmed when they start thinking about all this data, and maybe a little confused as to what a touchpoint is. Lots of folks like me get lots of mail and email from a lot of the same folks. Maybe they think, “Oh, I don't want to be this person who is bombarding something with emails a day.” When you talk in terms of touches, there are certain things you are accomplishing with each touch. Let's take a generic year or quarter and talk about what touchpoints there are and the methods behind them. Bill: Let me give you a common example of a mid-sized local nonprofit. Let's say they have 10-12 staff. On average, our clients would have several touches. They would probably have one event every year. In the spring, they will do a luncheon where they talk about their cause and ask people for money while they are there. They might have a monthly blog. The first Monday of every month, they put something out on social media. They might have a fall appeal mailing. Here is where they write a letter. “Dear Dr. Smith, Here is what we do. Please give us money.” If they are smart, they will have that appeal mailing coupled with an auto trigger email, where the day after Dr. Smith gets the letter, he gets an automatic email that says, “Hey Dr. Smith, did you get our letter yesterday? I bet you trashed it, didn't ya? You can still click here to support our cause.” Once in the winter and once in the summer, they will do an e-newsletter. They are sending out information two or three times a year. Information only. They are asking for money in a hard ask twice a year. In the example I gave, once with a mailer/email and once with an event. Something like that. We have some clients who do mailers and ask for money every month. We have others who do it once a year with a hard mailing. What we don't have is much success with straight email solicitation. People do like the convenience of donating online, but they don't trust it unless it has something based in the physical world, whether that's a letter they got and threw away, then they get the mail. They will trust it a lot more because they have the mail piece. They go to an open house, and they then trust the email because they associate it with the real-life physical experience they had. That would be typical. A hard ask twice a year, information only two or three times, and maybe something monthly on social media. What we find does not work is the single big blast. So many people want to put all their eggs into one basket. We will have this big shindig and send out 200,000 invitations. It doesn't do that well. It is better to touch 200 people rhythmically than 200,000 in a blast. Is that helpful? Russell: The key is to spread these over with ask, non-ask. Give them information about the programs they were talking about in the newsletter. How the dollars are impacting, how many people were served, what the shift is. Bill: Impact is huge. Russell: If we're talking about contacting 200 people at a time, this probably means for a medium-sized nonprofit they are sending stuff out weekly to different donors.   Bill: Most of our clients, an average database for our clients is in the range of 2,000-10,000 donors. We often do mailings of 3,000. Sometimes we do 100,000. On average, let's say 5,000. Most of our clients would do one or two mailings a year. A fall appeal and a spring appeal. In lieu of the spring appeal, sometimes they would do a spring event. The other touches, the social media and the e-newsletter when they are not asking are information only. That would be a balanced mix. Let me get to another key point. This is the magic right here. Rhythm is important. Understanding the rhythm that your clients respond to. Most of you know this. Most nonprofit organizations have a pretty good understanding of how often their donors and potential donors want to be asked. Once a year, twice a year, once a month sometimes. The organization usually knows what the rhythm should be. Rhythm is so important that you sustain it over the years that our biggest piece of advice is adjust the scale to match your budget so that you can sustain the rhythm. We actually help clients with spreadsheets so it says we want to mail to 20,000 people twice a year. The postage alone exceeds your budget. You can't do that. “Let's try it one time.” Don't do it. Adjust that scale. If you can't afford the postage of 20,000 appeal letters, can you do 10,000? No. 5,000? You play with that spreadsheet and settle on we can sustain 2,500 twice a year. That's the amount you go with. You have this pool of 10,000. How do you target down to the 2,500? That's how you do predictive analytics. Mail to the 2,500 who are most likely to donate to your cause. It's a budget thing. You adjust your scale to match your budget so you can sustain that rhythm because if you sustain the rhythm through several cycles, it works. This is based on data of what actually works, not what makes you feel or look good, but did the donations come rolling in. Russell: What is the best path to help a new organization or client when they come to you? They may have some stuff they kept on Excel, but they don't necessarily have a donor database or CRM. They looked at these things and thought they were hard to use. They know they need to get better information. Talk about that process where you help them look at the most important factors and how to organize that data and how you guide them to build that so they get effective data from what they are collecting. Bill: There are lots of databases out there as you know. We deal with lots of them. People are constantly asking us which one is the best. All I can honestly say is the best one is the one that someone in your organization is willing to dive into. The right operator, any of these databases can sing. They really can. Some of our biggest clients use Salesforce for their nonprofit data. There is a whole spectrum. It's not so much which CRM system you use. It's do you have someone and a back-up or two who know how to use it? If you have no money and can't do anything, use Excel. It's not so much what you use as how you use it. We can assist. We understand a lot of the databases. We love working with Excel in terms of immediate back-and-forth with our clients. They will export their database to a CSV or Excel file, and we will update the addresses and run through a deceased person's filter. Make sure that list is scrubbed and clean. But we do all that from Excel. Russell: It's a robust program. Microsoft itself. What trips people up more than anything else is understanding what are the most important pieces for me to collect, and then once I collect all of these, what is the best way to categorize or shift my people around or look at now I have it, how do I use it? Bill: This leads into something new we have been doing within the last couple of years. Let's say you inherit a nonprofit. You come in as the new executive director. There has been some staff turnover, and you have three or four huge Excel files with all your donors. You don't really know your donors. You have some record of who gave when, but you don't know why the other people are in there. Are they good prospects? We can actually take that database, those Excel files, do all the usual stuff, combine, de-dupe, update the addresses, make sure they aren't deceased. Then we do something called data append. We send that file—let's say you have 3,000 names but you only know who 50 are—confidentially to some of these national compilers. They can run it versus their data banks and come back with demographic data filled in where you get age, education level, the value of the home, household income, gender, political persuasion, all sorts of things you can add back to that list. That can be a target. You can say, “Listen, these 300 people don't match the profile of our donors. I don't see why we're mailing to them. They haven't given to us in five years. Let's drop them. But these 400 look really good. They match the profile. They are active in the community. Let's keep them on our list.” We call it scoring data or modeling data. There are all kinds of things like that. Russell: There are so many nuances to relating to donors. They come from different backgrounds, education levels, parts of the country. They are in different age groups. When people look at this and say, “I have a lot of different people,” what is the best way for me to organize these groups? What are their touchpoints that are more effective for some groups than others? How do we go about looking at that? Bill: One thing I haven't talked about yet is what channel you use. Is this a demographic that will respond to a Facebook post or a physical newsletter or an e-newsletter? You can ask them. That's a good question. “Would you prefer to receive this?” Make some age and generation assumptions. Millennials actually like direct mail more than you think. Some older folks don't like it as much as you think. The one thing we do advise people to do is do what we call a scattergraph. That's where you sit around the table brainstorming and make a graph of your best donors in terms of age, income level, value of home, education level, geography. As you start graphing this, you will have people all over that graph. You will have young kids who donate to your cause. You have great-grandfathers. You have uneducated and educated. But there will be, the more you plot those dots on your graph, a cluster in the middle. That is your sweet spot. If you want to go after and acquire more donors, acquire more who match those demographics. Add those predictive analytics. It's good to have a profile of who is our sweet spot donor, and how many. Russell: Very helpful. When you start working with an organization, what type of organization are you most effective at helping? What are some of the things that the organization can do that will help you get them results a little faster? Bill: That's a great question, Russell. We find that most nonprofits are pretty good at the first 30%, the message. Nonprofits know most well why they do what they do. It's their passion. It's why they go to work. They usually have that part nailed down. They have that elevator speech. You can't shut them up. They got the message. We find that we can help a lot with the rhythm. We can build these Excel sheets. We can send reminder notifications. “Make sure your blog is written. It's due tomorrow.” “Your e-newsletter should launch next week.” We send reminders that keep them on track, like how a FitBit reminds you to hop up and walk around. These notifications keep you on track. The one that is hardest is the data. It's relationships. We don't know the people in their database, but they do. They know more of them than not. Say the thing in the organization could do is the best results is to go through their database with as many constituents involved as possible: your volunteers, your staff, your key donors. Break it up into small bits, and do a little bit at a time. Try to understand who your donors are. That would probably be the best. Leverage your board. Every board member should have a gun to their head that says, “Who do you know who might donate to your cause? Give us their names.” Leverage conversations. Your whole staff should be encouraged. You have a new administrative assistant who is helping you with this. She bumps into someone at the grocery store who says, “Hey Sally, I haven't seen you in a long time. What are you doing?” “I'm working at Habitat for Humanity now. We are doing this and this.” That person says, “Wow, that sounds interesting. Tell me more.” Sally needs to know to come back and get that information in the database. That person she just bumped into in the grocery store is a better prospect than any of these purchased names we are talking about. Everyone in the organization from the board to the staff to the volunteers should realize it is their personal relationships that lead to the best database. Russell: It's a warm referral that is good. One of the things that I've seen information on and talked to people about in having people on your team, you want to have good tools for them to use to go out and talk about your organization. If you can take a few minutes, talk about some of the tools, printed tools, the toolkits that you make the board members and volunteers and people with information on the organization, how they organize that, and the tools they have to talk about the organization in the best way. Bill: Funny you should ask. We just worked up some handout cards as old-fashioned as that sounds, a little bigger than a business card. The organization calls them the “Get Involved” cards. On one size is the logo and a truncated, poignant abbreviation of the mission. The back features three ways to get involved. You can go to this website and do this. You can become a volunteer and do this. You can call this number and do this. They give these cards to everyone on staff, their volunteers, and encourage them when you are in the grocery store and your old roommate comes up to talk to you, you give them one of the cards. Something as simple as that. Russell: It's important to have those pieces. Is there a way you have people who have these tools, a simple system for them to keep track of how many people are coming? How do you help them document the effectiveness of these tools? Bill: We haven't done a lot of that. The organizations themselves usually keep a database of how many cards did you hand out, and did you talk about it? Ideally you are getting some address/city/state/zip/phone number/email into your database from that encounter. That's the ideal. When you bump into the old roommate in the grocery store, you ask for a business card or a text so I can keep in touch with you. “I'd like to send some information about XYZ charity.” The ones I know do this on a regular basis have weekly staff meetings and go over contacts. It's the most important thing. You're an ambassador for your charity. It's those contacts. People give to people. I know you think they give to your organization because you do all this good. They give because they know and trust you to carry out that mission. It's all about trust. Hugh: Underlying that is relationship building. I can't tell you how many nonprofits out there get a check and wait until next year to ask for another check. I don't know what the average is, but 70% of most nonprofits get the bulk of their money from donors. There is a large percentage. Bill: Yeah, we really do need to take care of our donors better. We recommend the pyramid where you take your database and have your top donors at the top. At some point, you draw that line where everyone above this level of giving gets the personal visit from the executive director or the personal phone call or the three phone calls a year, whatever that appropriate nurturing touch is. The ones at the bottom get a thank-you card. The top people, your key donors, need to be acknowledged, need to be thanked. They need the recognition. You can't do that with all 3,000 names, but you can do it with the top 50. We recommend that pyramid approach. Hugh: It's the old Pareto principle, the 80/20 rule. 80% of your money comes from 20% of your people. The leader is challenged to be able to spend enough time with too many people. My rule of thumb is what you said. You want to spend individual time with your 20%, but you want to stay in touch with the other 80%. Your program is a good way to do that. Bill: We slice and dice it even further. I'll give you an example. They won't mind me talking about them. It's a local arts nonprofit that does theater and plays. They have a huge donor database. The ones at the very top get the personal visit, the handwritten note, the crème de la crème. The next hunk of several thousand records gets variable data printed communication. Variable data has a salutation, “Dear Sam and Jackie.” This communication flips out pictures of the last show they went to. It's highly personalized because they have scrubbed the data that far down that they trust it and know it's accurate. Variable data personalization works as long as it's accurate. The bottom part of the pyramid gets the “Dear friend of XYZ Theater.” The bottom part of it is not personalized because they simply don't have the resources to scrub their data all the way down and make their salutations are correct and other variable data is accurate. Russell: This is important as far as it's managing your budget. You're getting the most bang for the buck and where a lot of people don't think they have money to spend, they may find that after going through and working with someone like you, they may be able to find where they can actually spend the same dollars and get more bang for the buck. When you're working with an organization, sometimes they have board members or volunteers or different people participating in the process. How important is training for all of these key people? What are some of the most important things for you to cover when you're training them? Bill: Let me do a tangent because something you said reminded me of something. This is back in the early 2000s, 2006/2007, right in there. We had not developed our full-blown three-bit marketing system. We were beginning to gather the data and understand that the rhythmic touching is what's important. I ended up being the chair of a small nonprofit. It was a private school trying to get off the ground in the middle of nowhere, southwest Virginia. We didn't have the money to hire my company. We were struggling. We had about 300 names of donors and potential donors. We had 10 board members. 300 names, 10 board members. What a coincidence. Here's what we did. We wrote the letter. We took it to the board meeting and said, “Okay, Sam, you're on the board. You're responsible for these 30 potential people. You make copies of the letter, sneak them into church, and pay the postage. That's why you're on the board.” We assigned each board member 30 records from that database. As an organization, we didn't spend any money. We leveraged our board. They each had to make a few copies and come up with 30 first-class stamps. We did that rhythmically. We did that appeal mail three times a year. By the third year, what do you know? We could afford to have someone else do all this. That was definitely training board members to get in the trenches. Hugh talks about this all the time. The importance of an energized and dedicated board is, I can't say enough about it. That is so critical to have in a thriving nonprofit. Russell: That it is. It's all about the people who you have, who support you, who are in your organization. Your team is your secret sauce. That's where you grow and prosper and create more impact in the lives of others. Knowing how to reach out to them and what really resonates with them is very important. Having that system and having the tools to get them there. The one thing we haven't really touched on is with donors, you have three phases. You're acquiring them. Then at some point, as they're sticking with you, you want them to grow, and you want them to stay. There are three pieces to that. If you would, talk a bit about some of the best ways to move them through that process. How do you acquire them? What are some key tips for that? What are some things that will help you grow them? What are some of the most important things to keep them sticking with you? Bill: The acquisition part we talked about a bit. The best way is those personal relationships, those personal contacts. The second best way would be doing some data acquisition. You can do it yourself; you don't have to go through a company like mine. Google “how to acquire donors,” and plenty of places will crop up that will sell you names. That is the acquisition part. The rhythm means a lot here. The rhythmic touch is how you keep them and how you make them poised to grow. Usually, it's in the second or third year that you get the first donation from a brand new contact. To do that, you need to do those rhythmic touches. This is not an overnight success thing. This is in it for the long haul. It's rare, not unheard of, but rare for someone to move from a $50-per-cycle level to a $5,000-level without something happening. That something could be they come to an event, they hear a speaker, they get a visit from a board member, they get a visit from an executive director. To get that kind of nurturing increase takes something. It's rare that someone would jump from $40 to $500 or $5,000 through repeated passive asks. I think one of the best, it doesn't fit every nonprofit, is to have that annual luncheon where the board members are assigned to fill tables. When they invite people, they let them know, “We will do a presentation. We will ask to give you some money. You don't have to, but there will be an ask. We'd really love to have you.” You get people in the room and have dynamic speakers. You have some of the people you serve. It depends on what kind of nonprofit you have. You do things that give people a real glimpse into how you make the world a better place. that has been known to move people from the $50 level to the $500 level or $5,000 level. Russell: Well-executed non-ask events are critical, too. Just to let people know, “Hey, we're good stewards of your money.” There's some magic about walking them around where they can see where it is people are actually out there in the trenches doing good work. Speaking to some of the things you can acquire and move these services out of the community so they get a working understanding. That growth piece, getting them and growing them, is your lifetime value of a customer for lack of a better way to put it. That takes time. To grow them, you have to keep them. What are the two most important tools? Bill: There are some simple things you can do. You need to thank them for their gifts. The pyramid, the top ones should get a personal visit or phone call. At the bottom, maybe it's a handwritten thank-you note. More and more of our clients are doing the board pizza party, where they get their board together and some phones. Around dinnertime, they serve the board pizza, and they call the top donors. They do it around dinnertime so a lot of people don't answer the phone. But that's fine. You leave a message. The board member says, “Hey, Dr. Smith. I want to thank you and your wife for your $500 gift to our organization. We really appreciate it. It helps us do this, this, and this.” That donor will remember that. That donor will say, “Hey, a board member called me.” That's a nice little thing to do, and to touch the top donors that way. The ones at the really top, the big players, probably need the thank you from the chair of the board and the executive director. You can hit a lot of those mid donors with a call from a board member. Think about the donations you make. How often do you get a phone call of thanks? Not many. Maybe I'm not donating enough. Russell: It's always good. It's just common courtesy. If you're in a supermarket, someone holds the door. Saying thank you to people is a reflex. But somehow, it seems like from some of the statistics I've seen, it's one of the more common mistakes that people make. They don't take that time to say thank you. What are a couple other really common mistakes that people make that are just quick and easy to fix? Bill: Accurate data is really big. If you say “Dear Sam,” and the name isn't Sam, that's not good. You've got to be very careful with variable data and personalization. Personalization gone awry does more damage than it does good. One thing we've been doing more and more, the post office has gotten better with the deceased persons filter. You try to cut out saying, “Dear John and Sally” when John passed away a year ago. That's an easy mistake to fix. Run the data through the filter. Don't mail to dead people if at all possible. Data cleanliness is a common thing. Not thanking is the biggest thing. You mentioned something earlier. Every touch can't be an ask. It really should be more information only touches than there are ask touches. The top donors should get a report at the end of the year, maybe a few months after. Not a fancy annual report, but a sheet of, “Here's what your donation allowed us to do.” You can do these infographic looks. You can really show people what you've done. We have a client now that has this neat system. They do three newsletters a year. They have an elderly donor base. These are physical newsletters. Because newsletters are more expensive, they've gone to a news postcard. They send out these jumbo postcards three times a year. Short bullet point articles that show their impact. Every one of those short articles, it's just bullet points and headlines. People don't read anymore. There is a link to a website you can go to if you want more information. They do this three times a year. In the fourth quarter, they ask. They push out information on a 3:1 ratio with their ask. We recommend something like that. 2:1, 3:1, something like that, so people don't think, “Good grief. XYZ charity is always asking for money.” It has to be, “Here's the good things we're doing.” Your social media should be that. Your social media personally I don't think should ask for money. I think social media should be, “Look what we're doing. Celebrate with us.” Russell: It would certainly be a place to capture your benefactors, the clients online and talk about what's going on. Some of the sites that the work is being done on, it's almost like the news medium. When someone hears their name mentioned on social media, you get a thousand followers. Whoa, they're talking about me. This thing has 1,000 views and 10,000 followers. “Hey, maybe I need to send them another check. They need to get my good side next time.” Hugh: That's part of the story. Telling a story, you have relationships. There are people who want to be in the picture with a big check. I don't think we think about the amount of stories we need to be telling because we are doing a lot of good work. We don't really tell people. In fact, social media is social. We are supposed to engage. I see all too often, “Buy this. Do that.” And there is no attempt at a relationship. That is what I'm hearing you saying. In our program, we are building relationships. We are maintaining relationships. People give to people. That is the biggest sound bite. People give to people, not to organizations. Bill: I agree. It's all about relationships. It's all about telling your story. That's what relationships are. We as humans are people who have relationships with each other, and we tell stories to each other. It's the way you come home to your spouse and say, “Hey honey.” We love to tell stories. I think social media is great for this. You have these snippets and tell this vignette story of something your nonprofit did or something that you did. It's to build relationships. The best donor is the one that knows you. I keep coming back to this. You have a personal relationship with them. But you do it by stories. We recommend the hard ask appeal letter everyone does in the fall that it start off with just a three- to four-sentence story that is in a nutshell what you do. Then you make your ask. You take it to the next level. “There are so many kids like Johnny.” In the first paragraph, you tell Johnny's story. Stories mean a lot. Russell: You have really critical points in the year. A lot happens toward the end of the year around Giving Tuesday in the back end of the year. Are there some time periods during the course of the year that you believe nonprofits are leaving money on the table? Maybe there are times to reach out that might be more effective than people pay attention to. Bill: That's another great question. It's changing. It used to be I would always tell people to do their main appeal early to mid-November because we were told the stats said the most generous week of the year is the week leading up to Thanksgiving. Everybody is starting to feel festive, but they don't have worries about the credit card bills yet. We've also heard that summer is not a great time to ask because so many people are on vacation and will miss the appeal. I tell you though, people are so connected now. With tax law changes, the end of the year may not be as significant of a time as it has been. We are finding more and more of our clients are doing oddly timed appeals. It's just starting, so they haven't built a rhythm yet. We have clients who are doing a February appeal and a July appeal. Stay tuned. I'll have a better answer in three years when we get some data back on that. I really think that if you talk with your key constituents, talk to your board and staff and key donors, you'll know. You'll know when the appropriate time is to do your ask and your information only. Remember the point about you adjust the scale to fit the budget so you can sustain the rhythm. One thing I meant to mention is it's not just the financial budget. It's the budget of your time. Here is another common mistake. We see it probably most often with social media. You get all excited. You say, “I'm going to write a blog every week.” I'm going to post it out on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn. I don't know many executive directors who have the time to write a blog every week. If you do, more power to you. Our suggestion will be, Are you really? Let's be realistic about this. Adjust the scale to match the time budget. How much time do you have? Sustain the rhythm. We would counsel you down from once a week to the first Monday every month. If that's too much, if you can't stick with that, then once every month. Hugh: It's the regular rhythm that we heard about earlier, too. Speaking of time, we are almost at the top of the hour. Bill, you get the last word. If you have a thought or tip or challenge to give the audience. This has been a helpful interview. *Sponsor message from SynerVision Leadership Foundation* If you want to talk about how Bill's services look for you, go to Wordsprint.com. The regular mailing to your tribe makes a difference. Bill, Wordsprint.com is one of our main sponsors, so thank you for that. We talk about you often. You're leaving this interview. What is your challenge or parting thought for people? Bill: My parting thought would be it really is all about relationships. The piece of the puzzle that you or a director or a board member or your staff could do to help your organization the most is to work on those relationships and get that relationship into a database so they can get rhythmic touches. If anyone would like to chat with me about this, we do free consultations, no cost, no obligation, at Wordsprint.com. You can send me a message. I can talk in detail about your organization and things that would work for you. Our system of getting the right message to the right people does not mean you have to use us. You can use current partners. You can do it in-house yourself. It's the system that works. The right message to the right people with the right rhythm. Russell: Bill, thanks again for joining us. Thanks for all the support you give us here at SynerVision Leadership. You certainly make us look good. Folks, do yourself a favor, and have a talk with Bill and his team as to how you can grow donors, keep them, and build those relationships using the right tools by getting out there, sending the right message to the right people in the right rhythm. It needs to look good, but that is only 10%. And it will. Make sure you check out our magazine because it's a good-looking magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A 25-year advertiser sales and online media veteran. Starting in B2B in 1992 in NYC. In 1998 launch Lawyers.com for Lexis Nexus/Martindale Hubble. Recruited by InfoUSA to be President of IDEXEC with sales offices in New York and London. Promoted by the parent company to become the SVP of Sale Op’s for InfoUSA with 125 sales reps and close to $1 billion in gross revenue. Hired by Kinder Hook, a NYC based VC to build and sell CPC Associates a New Mover data compiler. With a dramatic growth in just 18 months the company which was purchased for $14 million was sold to Epsilon for $72 million. He co-founded BlueLink Marketing in April of 2010, later sold his interest in the company. He co-founded Pubvantage in 2015

How does a small agency regularly pull in $100,000+ from small, 20 to 40 person events? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Oli Billson shares how he has brought in over $1 million dollars in new business revenue from a series of just five small, workshop-style events.  Oli is the Founder of Oliver Billson Marketing and a popular marketing speaker featured in conferences around the world. His small educational events for entrepreneurs have become a significant driver of revenue (both one time and recurring) for his business, and in this week's episode, he shares the exact process he uses to plan, promote, and monetize these events. This week's episode of The Inbound Success Podcast is brought to you by our sponsor, IMPACT Live,  the most immersive and high energy learning experience for marketers and business leaders. IMPACT Live takes place August 6-7, 2019 in Hartford Connecticut and is headlined by Marcus Sheridan along with special guests including world-renowned Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith and Drift CEO and Co-Founder David Cancel. Inbound Success Podcast listeners can save 10% off the price of tickets with the code "SUCCESS".  Click here to learn more or purchase tickets for IMPACT Live Some highlights from my conversation with Oli include: Oli speaks at a lot of marketing conferences around the world, and uses that as an opportunity to hold local events in the conference cities for area entrepreneurs and business owners. In the past year, he has run 5 of these small events around the US and Canada. Oli's events are two-day workshops designed to help businesses go "from inspiration to implementation." At the event, attendees get the "Automation Playbook," a pre-built, pre-packaged, well-engineered marketing that they could go and put to work immediately in their business. Every attendee is also given a free, 30 day trial of Oli's monthly membership program called "Player's Club." After the initial 30 days, membership continues at $400 per month. The average attendee stays in the membership program for 9.5 months. Attendees are also given the option to upgrade and join Oli's mastermind group at $15,000 a year. In most of the cities where Oli has held events, he does not have a lot of local contacts, so he relies on a two-step direct mail campaign targeted at a list he purchases from InfoUSA. The response rate for this campaign was 60%. This is coupled with a text and ringless voicemail campaign aimed at driving registrations. The key to monetizing events like Oli does, is to have offers that you can use to upsell attendees. In this case, Oli's offers were structured in a way to deliver recurring revenue to his business. Once someone registers for an event, Oli sends them what he calls a "shock and awe" box with event swag and a "stick letter" reaffirming their decision to register. This has contributed to a 90% attendance rate. Resources from this episode: Save 10% off the price of tickets to IMPACT Live with promo code "SUCCESS" Visit the Oliver Billson Marketing website Connect with Oli on LinkedIn Follow Oli on Facebook Follow Oli on Twitter Listen to the podcast to learn the exact marketing plan that Oli uses to generate six-figure revenue from small, workshop-style events. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth, and this week my guest is Oliver Billson, who is the owner and founder of Oliver Billson Marketing, and a serial entrepreneur with a fascinating background, welcome Oliver. Oli Billson (Guest): Hey, thanks for having me on. I'm looking forward to it. Oli and Kathleen recording this episode Kathleen: I'm looking forward to it too. So for my audience, I first met Oliver at a Digital Marketer's agency training day about a month ago, and he gave a fantastic talk on how he's driven traffic to these local events that he's been holding, and then the impact that that's had on his business and revenue growth. And so I was, as soon as I heard it I was like, "Ooh, I need to share this with my listeners!" About Oliver Billson Kathleen: But before we jump into that, can you talk a little bit about yourself, because you have a fascinating background, and I was interested to read on your site the evolution of you as a businessperson and how you wound up doing what you do now. Oli: Yes, sure, so it is a bit of an interesting story, I guess. I've never actually worked for anybody, I started my first business when I was 15 years old, building computers out of my mom and dad's back room, and that was my first foray, really, into entrepreneurship. And I, as well as having a passion for computing and building computers at that age, I also had a passion for cars, I absolutely love cars, still do to this day, and so what I did was I started an automated after-market business, and really kind of understood at that point, building that service-based business, the importance really, the lifeblood of every business, which is getting and keeping customers. And I was really lucky to be exposed to direct response marketing at a fairly young age, I was only about 19 years old, actually, when I read my first book on direct response marketing, immediately applied it, and really had some profound results from implementing that type of marketing. And it kind of defied conventional wisdom and popular belief, in terms of my circles at that time, the people that I knew that were building businesses. And they were quite amazed at the growth and the catalyst that that had had on my business, and so we grew those businesses and I kind of became known, now I suppose, for building businesses inside of businesses. So we started out as a service-based business, then we started helping other people in my niche at that time, start, grow and scale their own businesses, then we'd create another business inside of that business, which was our exclusive franchise, which we took from zero to 170 franchisees internationally in just less than four years, so very quick growth there. And then inside of that business I built another business which was a marketing agency out of the capabilities I built around marketing inside of that business, and then we transcended that into membership, and selling information and knowledge and expertise online through our memberships, and then into where we are today, which is nextlevelbusiness.com, which is an e-learning business where we help, obviously, service-based businesses, client-based businesses scale. Kathleen: Wow, it is so clear that entrepreneurship runs in your blood, very strongly. I love hearing stories like that, because there's an interesting pattern I've noticed in, I've now like 90-some-odd episodes into this podcast, and I interview different people every week, and they're all people who are getting phenomenal results with some kind of marketing. And what I've started to notice is that a lot of them, probably the majority of them, are not trained as marketers. They are people who have that very entrepreneurial spirit, they're very naturally curious, they're the kind of people who jump in and want to know the answers to things and figure things out, and they love a problem and figuring out how to solve it, and I feel like that is so what I'm hearing from you. It's great, it's- Oli: Yeah, absolutely. It's all about solving the problems for people, you know? Kathleen: Yeah, well, [crosstalk] and I think that's what makes you a great entrepreneur, is figuring it out and taking your business to the next step, because let's be honest, as an entrepreneur you're constantly going to be faced with, somebody once said to me, "As your company gets bigger, you don't have fewer problems, you have maybe the same number of problems but they tend to be bigger problems." And so there's only more things to figure out, so you've got to love that. Oli: Absolutely, yes. Yeah, totally agree with that. How Oli Grew His Business Through Events Kathleen: So let's talk a little bit about what I heard you talk about at Digital Marketer, which is these events. And this started out as something very small, that you quickly saw you were getting results from and then it expanded. Can you kind of rewind the clock and maybe share with the listeners what your original objective and idea was when you first began? Oli: Yeah, sure. Probably like a lot of people, I love attending events, and for those who know me well, I'm fortunate enough now to be asked to speak at events pretty much all around the world, so I love speaking at them, I love attending them. I think there's something special that comes with events in terms of the bond that you can create with people, potential customers, with the proximity that they bring. And there's lots of benefits to running events, from a sales, customer acquisition standpoint, of course, and they're often used as a vehicle, and over the years I've helped lots of other people actually put on their own events, and put butts in seats, and monetize them and have the whole strategy behind it. But although I knew all the benefits of running an event, I was actually a little bit shy to actually do my own events, for a number of different reasons, and probably those reasons were many of the reasons why people don't ultimately do it. Perhaps they're worried about attracting enough people to actually attend the event, they're thinking, "Well maybe I don't have a large enough list of potential people to attend the event," or maybe, "What happens if I can't get people to register for the event, what happens if I can't get them to show up to the event, and what happens or if it was a failure, how would I be perceived in the market if it was a failure?" And so, all of these are the common fears, really, that were running through my mind, and probably run through a lot of minds of the people that may even be listening to this. And really what happened was I was speaking at an event in San Diego, and a good friend of mine said to me, "Look, Oli, you're missing a huge opportunity here to really share your knowledge, expertise, wisdom, experience, with people when you come and speak at these other marketing events," and that's really how this initially evolved was, why not leverage my time in putting on a small workshop ahead or bookending it, really, to somewhere where I was already going to be? And for those of you who can't tell, this isn't an Australian accent, I'm from the UK, so I spend a lot of time over in the States, and most of our clients' customers are in the States. So I wanted to use this as an opportunity to run these events. But I was kind of, really what had stopped me before was all these falsehoods, really, that come with running events. And I thought, okay I'm going to do this, and the first one that I, at this point to just kind of just zoom out, we, over the past 12 months we ran five of these small events in the format that we'll go ahead and talk about here. And the first one that I ran was actually in San Diego. I was going to be back there again in a few months, almost a year from the day, actually, that we're doing this interview, now. And what I guess I didn't quite imagine would happen was exactly how well they would go, and whether it was just by luck or by some level of judgment and strategic thinking, we really did things quite differently to the way that most would go about this, and it really really had a very big impact. I think right now, just to, not brag, but just to kind of say as it is, we went from really going, I think one point, about $1.2 million in revenue from doing these small, big money, from these small events, really. In the format that we're going to hear. So it really does work, and it was done in a way that was very different. And what I mean by that is, I'm sure we've all attended the events where there's a, people have to make sales, right? They just have to make sales, they bring in other speakers, there's lots of pitching, and it creates sometimes not the best experience for the people that are attending. What I knew I wanted to do was stay true to our values and our business, which was really to provide lots of value, to provide a great experience for people who were there. And if they wanted to continue the journey with us, they could. So we all, we were kind of very clear on those principles before we started putting this together, which I think really helped us to stay grounded towards what we actually wanted to try and create, really. Kathleen: All right. That's great, I love hearing those specific revenue numbers, it's definitely not bragging and I think, the feedback I've gotten from my listeners is the more specific the data, the better, because, [crosstalk] it's one thing to come on and say, "I'm getting great results," it's another to be like, "This is how much money we're making off of it," so keep that coming. Oli: Good. The Event Format Kathleen: Let's talk about the event format, because I think that's really the next thing here is, exactly what do these events look like, where were they held, what was the cost structure, how many people did you target, et cetera? Oli: Sure. So we can run through them in detail. So the first event that we ran was in San Diego, and it was a two-day workshop. And it was sharply focused on people being able to go from information to implementation. So rather than just going to the event and getting information, that they would take home and hopefully execute themselves, we would largely be able to give them pre-built, pre-packaged, well-engineered marketing that they could go and put to work immediately in their business. So we could almost do a lot of the work for them, and create these marketing campaigns that they could deploy themselves, but take away a lot of the strain and the struggle that comes with doing it themselves. And so we called the event The Automation Playbook, because really it was largely about creating this predictable lead to customer journey, and having these playbooks, these campaigns, put into their business. And so what we decided to do was run these events so they were very, they were easy for people to be able to make the decision to come. So the price point was only $97.00 to attend the workshop. But because of- Kathleen: That's a no-brainer. Upselling Event Registrants Oli: Absolutely, no-brainer, right? But in order to make this a different, you know we're not going to get rich, and you could also argue how much value can you really also give for $97.00? And so what we did was, something that really goes against what most people will tell you about these events. And so what we did was, we actually got people to take a free trial of our membership at the time, of Player's Club, which was a inner-circle, my inner-circle, which was $400.00 a month. So what it meant was, just so you understand how it looked, they came and registered for the workshop for $97.00, but they also took a 30 day test drive of Player's Club. And it so happened the things that we would talk about at the workshop were the things that they'd get as part of membership. So they actually get these campaigns, these playbooks as part of membership anyway. So we obviously wanted them to continue the journey with us beyond this. But that meant then, we were really converting the workshop from a sales mechanism, to actually being more of a membership event. So it was a very different feeling. We actually spent most of our time at the event engendering them, indoctrinating them to the value of membership, and really getting the results for them that they wanted with the time that we had together. So it meant that after the 30 days, they would then hopefully continue as a member. And that's really where our revenue was going to be based in the back end, rather than in the front. And so it was on us to perform, and we did that, we did that very well. Oli's Event Marketing Plan Oli: What we ended up doing, to give you the exact numbers, and how we got people to the event, was, we have a little advantage, maybe, over some because I have a name in the industry, I suppose, speaking at different events. But, so we have a small list, in California, we had about, and a little wider than that, we had a list about five and a half thousand people, which is not insignificant, but they were people that were on our list. But we also knew that we wanted to go out to the market and meet them where they were, so we actually procured a list of 1200 businesses in the local area. So a very targeted list that we purchased from InfoUSA, to be able to target people with direct mail. Now a lot of you might be thinking, "Well in a digital age, why, why would we do that? Can we find other ways of doing this?" Well, we did a two-step direct mail campaign to these people, which actually prevailed to be the most expensive people to actually put into the event, but have subsequently, now we know all the numbers on the back end, actually prevailed to be the best long-term members and customers for us. And that worked extremely well. So we did email to our house list, to our targeted list of people that we'd already got, we also did some internal lead generation with text messaging, so asking people on our list, "Text the words San Diego," or "Diego," whatever it was, back, and then we would send them the information and invitation to then event, and then we also did ringless voicemail as well. So we did a recorded message that would show on their phone. And we got them then to text us back from that ringless voicemail, for us to then send the information about the event. So all in all, the net result was we ended up having, we ended up doing, what was it now, let me have a quick look here, I had to make a note of it for you. We sold 32 tickets to the event. Measuring Event ROI Oli: Now again, on high-level you may look at that and think, "Gosh Oli, 32 people? It doesn't sound like a lot of people in the room, how'd you make that work?" Well least we forget, they paid $97, which liquidated the cost of running the event for the two dates. You know, to get the hotel, and refreshments and that kind of thing, liquidated the cost for us. But also, because we promoted this in a four-week window, remember they were taking the 30 day trial of membership, they weren't actually charged their $400 for the membership, until after the event. Well what that meant was, only 10 people out of the 32 actually canceled membership, because they loved the event, they loved what we delivered, and they wanted to continue being a member. And that was fantastic because now we've got reoccurring revenue, obviously, from those people. And we also took the opportunity at the event to offer them an opportunity to apply for our Mastermind. So what it meant was 10 people out of the 32, they applied to become a Mastermind member at $15,000 a year, and six of those people actually bought. They didn't buy to pay over the year, they actually paid in full. So it looked like out of those 32 people it's a massive number per delegate that were there, of course. $93,000 in revenue, up front revenue, was generated from the event. And then, $8,000 of recurring revenue on the back end! And what I can tell you is, that model and that run rate, the stick rate, the attrition, was a nine, ended up to be a nine and a half month stick rate at $400.00 a month. Kathleen: Wow. Oli: So, fantastic lifetime value for using an event as a way to acquire members as well, and get them to stick. They actually ended up to be very, very good members, because not all lead sources are obviously the same, and what I'm trying to say here, if you get my point, is if we'd have acquired members through Facebook advertising, for example, then the cost of acquisition might have been less, than running an event, but the stick rate might not have been the same. It could have been three months, two months, as it has been in some circumstances. So, worked extremely well. Kathleen: Yeah, I have so many questions for you. But the first thing I think that really jumps out at me from listening to you talk, is that events, one of the reasons that events probably have a terrible reputation, is that I think too many businesses hold events thinking the event itself is going to be the money-maker. And what I'm hearing you say is really, the event is just essentially the gateway drug or the tripwire, to what is really a bigger offer that you have, and so if I'm listening to this, I think the first thing that I would be thinking is, "What is it that I'm really trying to sell?" It's not the ticket to the event, that's just the promise that the person's going to show up and the way to cover the cost. I need something bigger, longer term, perhaps recurring, that I'm really looking to sell to them, is that right? Oli: Yeah, absolutely. I think you've always got to start with the end in mind, and if you think really about this, the journey that you want to take people on, and the experience, on that journey, that you want them to have. I think what I really like about events is, and I'm totally sold on this now of course, but what I really like about these types of events is really the proximity and the bond that you can have with people, because you find out so much more about people's fears, frustrations, challenges, objections, and that then allows you to be able to iterate and change your offers and the way that you talk about things, in a much more accurate way to mirror and match those problems that you're solving for people, because of the time that you're spending with each other. Using Events for Audience Research Oli: And of course, you can also, I found out, find out very succinctly why people are also taking advantage of these offers, why they're continuing in membership, what they really thought about the experience, because they're going to give you that feedback. You're going to get it a lot quicker than you perhaps would in terms of some level of delay from a webinar, for example, or a post, you know, an NPS follow-up. Which are all great by the way, but there's nothing quite like events to be able to have that interaction with people. Kathleen: That's a really good point, because there's a big difference. You know marketers talk a good game about doing persona research and audience research, and there's a difference between setting an appointment and saying, "I'm going to call you and ask you 10 questions for my audience research," and sitting and having a cup of coffee with somebody before a workshop presentation. I think in the latter case, you get a much less guarded, more candid set of feedback than you do when you're in a structured interview setting. So that's an interesting point that you make there. Oli: Yeah, I think we also really embodied that feedback loop, because when you do an event like this, you get to know very, very quickly whether or not something works or it doesn't work or it resonates or it doesn't. And I remember listening to, I actually asked the question at the event, "Is there any reason why you wouldn't continue the journey in membership beyond this point? Is there any reason why you would cancel, I'd love to find out." Not to, if not for any other reason than I don't feel that we will have done our job, and it's my duty to find out how we can best serve you, and so I'd love to know your candid feedback, so please give that to me. And I think because I was just very authentic with that as well, that helped. But because it was different, you're face-to-face, toe-to-toe with these people, it really, you don't need to be something that you're not, right? You're engineering something for their benefit. I think people could tell that and see that, that you actually cared. And I think... You've got to go into these things in the right way, and I think the thing that we did that, somebody's looking at adding information, education, training, mentorship, whatever to their business, and they were thinking about doing this kind of model with a ticket and then a trial of membership, I think it really gave people the opportunity to find out whether or not we were right for them. It gave them a taste of, so rather than doing a lot of indoctrinating, a lot of reselling, a lot of reaffirming when they onboarded as a member, now we could do that in the confines of an event. That's probably the reason why it worked so well long term. Using Direct Mail for Event Promotion Kathleen: Yeah. All right, I'm going to shift gears, and I want to ask you some more kind of nitty-gritty questions. You talked about some interesting things in terms of how you acquired registrants, or put butts in seats, as we like to say. You talked about direct mail, and you mentioned you got your list from Info USA, which is definitely a source that I'm familiar with, and to clarify, you really purchased that list to do direct mail, not to do email campaigns, correct? Oli: Yeah, that's right. Kathleen: Yeah. So how many different direct mail pieces did you do, like for one individual recipient? Oli: So we did a two-step direct mail campaign, so sent an eight page sales letter to begin with, to all of those people, and then we followed that up with, anybody that didn't respond, with a postcard, a typical postcard, to again take people to, the actual call to action was one, to go to a vanity URL just so we could track the traffic and then obviously the opt-ins, and then secondly, to text a keyword. Because pretty much when people receive direct mail these days, they're not far away from their mobile phones, let alone going online and keying something in. You'd actually be surprised that the majority of people actually text in to receive the information for us, and then we have an automated text conversation, to then get them to the point where they had the opportunity to purchase a ticket. Kathleen: Now, if my memory serves, I seem to recall you mentioning that having two steps in that direct mail sequence was really important, because, even though you had the eight page sales letter, which would seem like, boy if anything was going to convince them it would be those eight pages, and then you followed it with a very simple postcard. Am I right in remembering that on that second step you actually had a really good response rate? Oli: It was almost double. Kathleen: Wow. Oli: It was almost double. In fact I think for this first event that we're just talking about here, it was like 60%. Kathleen: Wow. Oli: So, it was a lot, lot better response than just taking the first step. So we would have basically not, we would have got a whole lot less registrants from the direct mail. It would've almost meant that it wasn't profitable almost to run the first step.It would have just been one step. So actually by investing into two it actually paid dividends. And to be honest, multi-step, multi-media follow-up works every single day. So having this mix really works, and of course once they were in the funnel, once we'd actually lead-generated them, then they weren't just getting, they were getting all sorts of media as well to get them to convert. And the thing that we should also talk about, really is, and you're probably coming on to it, is how we got people to actually show up, because one of the big things with events is, and you'll hear this a lot in the industry is, they'll be like, "Yeah, we can get registrants, we just can't get them to actually show up," Kathleen: Yeah. Oli: And our show up rate across five events now, is 90-odd percent- Kathleen: That's huge! Oli: I can't remember the exact number. Kathleen: That's so huge! I run a HubSpot user group where I'm located in Maryland, and my rule of thumb is to expect about 50% of the people to show up. Now I don't charge for it, which probably if I charged money, I'm not allowed to do that, but if I could? It would probably make a little bit of a difference, but that's huge. Oli: Yeah, yeah. It's so big, because, and you have to invest into that, it's a little bit like the lead generation on the front end, you know that it's going to be a higher cost of registrant, for example, but arguably a higher quality. It could be the least cost of, it could be the lowest cost of acquiring a customer, as well, so that is a consideration. We did direct mail when people bought a ticket, we actually sent a box in the mail. So you can imagine, you buy a $97.00 ticket to a workshop, you're not getting any direct mail from that. Because we knew our numbers on the back end, we knew the value of the membership, we know how we can really help people, it meant that we could invest in that relationship. So we did a shock and awe box in the mail. We even did a customized tee-shirt, as well, that was sent to them. We had a whole welcome package that was sent over, a whole bunch of, it was like a box of goodies, really, that they got before they even got to the event. Because really what we're doing is, we're not just welcoming them to buying a ticket, but now we're reselling them on the benefits immediately of becoming a member, which clearly works well. Kathleen: All right. So you did these two direct mail pieces, how far apart were they sent? Oli: So we did, it was about five days, there or thereabouts. You could send them in slightly closer succession, the thing with direct mail is that there's a little bit of latency, where there's kind of the factor that they hang around, a little bit. See the funny thing is with it, is people that didn't respond to the first direct mail piece, they got the second, but sometimes that we actually found that they actually came back and actually responded from the first, because we used a way to track the difference, to discern the difference between the two direct mail pieces that we used. This is actually interesting numbers, that they got the second piece but didn't respond, but did from the first, even though they got the second. Kathleen: Yeah, it just gave them that nudge that they needed. Oli: Nudge, yeah. Just like an eight page sounds like, it doesn't really kind of go away, like it hangs around a bit, you know? Text Campaigns for Event Promotion Kathleen: Yeah. Now, you mentioned you directed them to a vanity URL so that you could track, and you also mentioned getting people to text. What was the platform that you used for the texting campaign? Oli: So we used Fix Your Funnel for the text campaign, but if you wanted to use something that was more HubSpot centric, then Yeti Text is a great alternative. It's made by the same people but just more focused into HubSpot. And that would be something to consider. Kathleen: And did the same platform also provide you with the ringless voicemail? Oli: Yep, they do ringless from there as well, but we didn't actually use them, we used a company called Slybroadcast which actually, funnily enough they actually use on the back end of their service anyway, so truly integrated. Yeah, and that's what we used for the ringless voicemail. I was very intentional with the ringless voicemail, was to say, "Hey it's Oli Billson here, I just wanted to reach out to you, obviously I've got your voicemail, but I just wanted to leave a quick note just to say I'd love for you to attend the Automation Playbook Live in San Diego, which is coming up in a few weeks. And right now is a great time to lock in your spot because we've got a few spaces left. Just text me back on this number, and I'll make sure that we will send you a link to find out more information." So what I did very intentionally was, the number that I called from doing the ringless voicemail, is actually the unified number for two-way texting, so I knew that when they picked it up, they could just text their number back that actually gave them the voicemail in the first place and that match really worked well. Kathleen: Now this is a really nitty-gritty question, but I need to ask it, because I've played around with texting and ringless voicemail campaigns, and a lot of the providers that I've worked with, they don't necessarily give you a full phone number, they give you a separate, special number for texting that doesn't look like a phone number? But I feel like, with ringless voicemail it doesn't seem like that would work as well, because it wouldn't look like a real person's number. So in your case, what did that look like? Oli: Yeah, so what we do is we buy, we bought a local number, that was local to where the event was. So when we did this in Toronto, we bought a Toronto number, and when we ran it in Austin, I bought an Austin number. And so, what that meant was, yes it was a local landline number, but we were just telling them that they could text back on that number. And it worked, it worked insanely well. I guess somebody's thought process wouldn't be, "This is obviously not a mobile number," but they do know that it's the local number, and they're tying in, "He said San Diego, this is a San Diego area code, I am in San Diego, okay." Kathleen: Yeah. Oli: Regardless of whatever he said I could text in, and you know there's a match there in some way. Kathleen: Yeah, thanks for clarifying that, because I think it's like those little details that really matter when you're doing these things, and they're the things that are the easiest to screw up if you haven't done them before. So you got people to come to the landing page, they engaged with the text campaign, they got the ringless voicemail, if they signed up you then sent them the box? What was in the box? The "Shock and Awe" Box Oli: Yeah, so, a bunch of, a bunch of things. I think most people wouldn't have expected to see everything that we put in there. So we had a branded tee-shirt. So we had a tee-shirt that was printed by us from, I think it was Custom Ink, was the website. And it was a lovely like, a really nice tee-shirt, it wasn't just like a crappy Fruit of the Loom thing, it was a nice branded tee-shirt. And then we had an agenda, for the event, a printed agenda for the event. It also had a stick letter, which is a letter, really that they'd read that we know that they would get, congratulating them on the decision that they'd made, and again in kind of reselling the benefit of the event. And then we put a bunch of testimonials, like a whole brochure, a 32-page brochure of testimonials from people that, if they're marketers, they would probably know who they are. So if somebody was like an Infusionsoft user, then they would know the CEO of Infusionsoft, we have a testimonial from them. If there was, just all sorts of different people who are like celebrities I suppose, in the marketing space, I have testimonials from them because they paid me for consulting or whatever it may be so I've got testimonials. And then also a bunch of transformative testimonials as well, from just normal people that they can relate to in lots of different industries, service-based businesses, client-based businesses as well and that I've helped over the years as well. So I sent them that for proof, and that really helped as well. And then we sent them a couple of of gimmicky things, like a little bookmark that they could use that was branded. We were going to do, like usually when we do this stuff we usually like to appeal to people's taste, so you could send some cookies or something like that in the box. We didn't do that in this particular case, but it's something that you could do in the future and you could tie them eating that to something in the letter, like you could reference it. Kathleen: Like "Take a bite out of your competition" or? Oli: Yeah, exactly. Yeah yeah yeah. So we just tried to create a situation that, all of the different pieces are paid for and everything in there, they all feel like, it's only a little thing, but they all feel different, that's more of a tactile thing. So people wanted to go through it and keep seeing what was in the box, and it had pink shredded paper- Kathleen: Oh, crinkle? Oli: Underneath it, they all sat on top of that. Yeah, that's it. So it didn't, they weren't rattling around in the box, you know what I mean? Kathleen: Yeah. Oli: And the box itself, I was on a podcast a couple of weeks ago with my friend Bill Glazer, and Bill was like, "I've still got the box!" Like, he's actually got it there, right? Because it was a high-quality, printed, branded box that we had. And, yeah. And we sent it FedEx as well, so again, all of those things kind of matter, because you know that it's like Christmas when somebody is opening it. Kathleen: It's so funny, I used to own an agency and we did a lot of, we called it dimensional mail, but it's essentially direct mail in a three dimensional package, with stuff in it, right? And it's amazing, the difference in response rates and reactions to people who get a box, than from people who get flat mail. I mean we used to have response rates of like 15 to 20%, and direct mail as you know, it's usually like 1 to 2%. Because everybody likes getting a box, they think it's like, "I might be getting a present," right? Oli: Exactly, yeah. Kathleen: And boxes get past gatekeepers, which is also a great thing. Oli: Absolutely. Measuring the Results of Oli's Events Kathleen: Well I love this, so I want to just circle back and recap, and let's talk again about what it cost you to put the event on, and then what your results were because I want to just drive that point home, of what this meant in terms of ROI. Oli: Sure thing. So the first event that we ran as I mentioned, $93,000 in front-end revenue and just under $8,000 in monthly recurring revenue. So then what we did was, I replicated exactly the same model in Toronto so I looked at another area, like another hub that would work, and I wanted to try Canada, so I did exactly the same thing. And in this case we generate 53 ticket sales, not 32, and it meant that we had 35 people out of the 53 continue in membership, so that was like $13,800 in recurring revenue, that we had from that event, right, because there was a lot more tickets that we sold, and $80,000 in front end revenue because nine people applied for Mastermind and five people became members at 15 grand each. So again, another 80 grand plus another nearly 14 grand a month in recurring revenue, which was great, okay? So those are the two results that we had, and I was like, "Don't stop now!" You know, don't stop doing this. So I was speaking at the ManyChat conference in Austin at the end of last year, and I thought, well I'm speaking at this conference, it was super last minute, super last minute, but I decided to put on another event. And I only had two weeks to promote it, so I knew that I wasn't going to sell like 50-dd tickets, 35 tickets, but because of how good the back end was on doing it, I thought, "What the Hell, I'll do it anyway." So I ran it in Austin and we only sold 17 tickets, which again, might sound like, ugh! That's not great- Kathleen: Well you're already there, anyway. Yeah. Oli: I'm already there anyway, right? But from that, 12 people that continued their memberships, out of 17, that was like $4,700 a month of recurring revenue, which was great. And six people applied to become Mastermind members, and five actually became members. So it was a little over $75,000 there from what was, and that was a one-day event because it was all very much last minute, I couldn't do my usual two-day event, so that's like $75,000 for one day, and then also then of course we've got $5,000 coming in from the recurring, from one day, so it made sense like, this is great, keep doing it. Kathleen: Yeah. It sounds like it's about $100,000 or more in revenue, per event. Can you, have you ever quantified fully what it costs you to put in on, not just the hotel and the catering, but the cost of acquisition? Oli: Yeah, sure. So for a two-day event, the first one that we ever ran, we ran on a real shoestring budget. So we didn't do catering. We put it in a really nice hotel, we did it at the Andaz Hotel in San Diego, which is downtown, it's a lovely place, great experience for a place, but we just didn't do lunch and we didn't do coffee and we didn't do that type of thing. We actually went to Starbuck's and bought the coffee ourselves, it was like, that kind of ghetto. But our cost for running the event was like, three and a half thousand dollars, that was it. That included room hire, we didn't do food and beverage with the hotel, we managed to negotiate it all, so that was really light. $3500 is negligible, right? What it worked out to in Toronto and Austin for those events, Austin was a bit different, we ran it at the Fairmont for one day, so it was a little bit more that what you'd expect to be half of that cost, and we started to put lunches on them. So what we found was, some people that wanted to consider joining Mastermind, we actually used that as a vehicle to then bring them into a lunch, so that I could actually get to know them better, not just what was on paper. We actually wanted to buy them lunch, because I wanted to find out more about them and whether or not we could really help them, and a great way to do that is to get to know people over lunch, after they've made their application. So there were some other costs, but I think on average, for a two-day event, it was under $5,000, for sure. Kathleen: Wow, that's insane ROI, so, there you go. That seems like a no-brainer! And you've been pretty generous in sharing, I know online and in different places, some examples of some of the things you've sent out, and so maybe I'll try and see if I can dig up some of that and include it in the show notes. Kathleen's Two Questions Kathleen: Before we wrap though, I have two questions that I always ask my guests, and I'd love to know what you have to say. I talk a lot of people doing inbound marketing on this podcast, when you think about inbound marketing today, company or individual, is there a certain person or company that stands out as doing it really well right now? Oli: I think from an inbound perspective, I think that you can really learn a lot from the education that, obviously HubSpot is such a big player, and you're so involved in their ecosystem, they're doing great stuff. But people like Marcus Sheridan, people like that, great people to follow, great people to model, and there's no, we're not short of great examples of inbound from those guys at all really. And some of the things, I was just on your website actually, earlier today, and you were, what was I searching? Oh, I was searching some definitions, this is how powerful inbound can be, I was searching some definitions for sales teams stages. And I was just setting up a new pipeline, and you were like the first result. IMPACT was the first result for discerning MQLs, SQL, and so I was like, "That's just the power of that." We're on a podcast together now, which is great, but that's amazing, isn't it, you know? Kathleen: It's cool when this stuff actually works. Oli: Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. Kathleen: No, it is. Well the other question I have, and I always love, I love asking this because selfishly I want to know the answer, is digital marketing is just changing so quickly, there's so much happening. It's like drinking from a fire hose, and the biggest complaint I hear from marketers is just, "How do I stay up-to-date?" And so, how do you personally stay up-to-date? Do you have any go-to sources of information that you rely on so that you're always current on what's happening in the world of digital marketing? Oli: I think that people can really get hung up on doing a lot of learning, and not enough implementing. I would say again, none of us are short of resources and advice that we can go and get for free, or paid, whether it's programs or courses or groups or whatever. Or podcasts we could listen to, but really the learning comes from doing. And what I'd say, my advice to somebody is, really you don't have to spend too much time in this field to figure out what you could do, you just need to figure out what you should focus on, and go and do it. And make your own distinctions as you go, on what's working based on the numbers and the data to guide you on where the deficiencies are, so that you can plug those gaps and get help and support where you need them. And then hire in help for people to help you who have those specialist skills, to be able to do it. So I think I'm really big on implementation, and information's great, but there's nothing better than actually doing it. Kathleen: Yeah, that's great advice because I do think that it would be very easy to spend, as you say, spend all your time trying to learn and then really falling victim to shiny object syndrome, and thinking, "Oh, I just learned this, I need to try that," like you've got to kind of pick a few things and test them, and then if they work stick with them. So, great advice. Well Oliver I have learned so much, I learned so much when I listened to you speak at Digital Marketer, but it was, I'm actually really glad I got to hear it a second time around, because there were some new details that you shared that were so interesting, and we do a lot of events, so hopefully you feel like imitation is the sincerest form of flattery [crosstalk] because we may try some of those things. How Connect With Oli Billson Kathleen: But if somebody is listening and wants to learn more about this or about what you're doing or check out information on your events or your company, what's the nest way for them to connect with you online? Oli: Sure, so they should go to nextlevelbusiness.com/learn, and I actually put together a free resource for people that are there, who may want to learn about how to drive qualified leads into sales appointments, to actually have good quality sales conversations and that's using our framework called the Funnel Framework. So I've prepared a bit of training to give to your listeners, which it was previously a paid-for premium training, but you can go and get access to it, get a 24-hour pass to it at least to go and watch it, at nextlevelbusiness.com/learn, and you can go there and go and check it out. You Know What To Do Next... Kathleen: Perfect, I will definitely put the link to that in the show notes. Thank you so much, this was really fun, and great to dig in on all the details. If you're listening and you enjoyed what you heard or you learned something new, of course I would appreciate it if you would leave a five star review on Apple podcasts for the Inbound Success podcast, and if you know someone doing kick-ass inbound marketing work, tweet me @workmommywork, because I would love to interview them. Kathleen: Thanks again, Oli! Oli: Thank you, cheers.

Can you clone your most profitable business clients? A list house like InfoUSA helps you target prospects just like them. Episode 65 of the Entrepreneur Abundance System gives several examples. Learn practical ways to magnify your profits by becoming a .

Do you want to use a list house to target your best prospects? Episode 64 of the Entrepreneur Abundance System explains many ways Emery-Riddle Aeronautical University can use InfoUSA. Learn practical ways to magnify your profits by becoming a .

The good, the bad and the ugly about solo ads vs. affiliate networking... There are many ways to get traffic. Some of the older ones include fads such as: Joint Venture Giveaways: someone would sign up and have access to multiple giveaways that they could then send to their list. Everyone in the network would be cross-mailing their own lists, offering these giveaways, to attract traffic to their site. Viral Reports: you have a special report (i.e. how to set up a basic WordPress site) and mail it to your list and the link back to your site is included in the report. For each of your subscribers that passes it on and gets a new subscriber to sign up, you could pay them a $1 per new subscriber. Traffic Exchanges: this operates similarly to the JVG above where there's multiple people in the network. You would join it and then everyone is rotating through viewing multiple sites and each one you view gets you a credit. With these credits, you could then buy banner ads, etc. to drive people back to your site where they would hopefully buy your product. Co-Registration: you would sign up with several other marketers and basically cross-promote. As subscribers signed up for your list, they were signing up for other lists in the same group as well. Safe Lists: join an email-based community with several other marketers. It's really just marketers mailing other marketers each day. Renting/Buying a List: you can choose parameters and order a list from a site like InfoUSA, to market to and pad your own list. Even if they don't opt-in, you can create retargeting ads that follow them around the internet. All of the above have either gone "out of style" because they didn't work forever, or because they became illegal under the CAN-SPAM Act. Now, the major forms of driving new traffic are Solo Ads or Affiliate Networking. Solo Ads Solo ads are when you pay someone else to mail out your offers to their list. You are paying someone else, who already has an established list, for email leads. It sounds good in theory. What are the pitfalls? It's a great way for the solo ad seller to make money, not necessarily you and probably not you. They don't have to expend any effort-they are not marketing their own product and they are not having to take the time to research affiliate programs. Not everyone's lists are created equal. You don't really know where they got the names on their list from. Some are built from questionable traffic sources. Example: AdFly. The traffic you get from using Ad.Fly is mostly from interstitial ads, the ads that are placed before you can see articles and videos, etc. It's very untargeted traffic because you can't enter keywords. There is nothing that you have that everyone wants to buy. So, in this case you'd be paying someone to send ads to a list where subscribers aren't even interested in your niche. You could be paying $1 per click if your squeeze page is on target and converts at 50%, which is a good conversion rate. Tip: for a good squeeze page, see our Backup Creator squeeze page. You Win Some, You Lose Some Over a 1-year period, Robert purchased $1912 in solo ads. For that $1912, he got 3209 clicks, which resulted in 1059 email opt-ins and $502 in sales. This appears to be a $1500 loss but you can keep marketing to them (until and if they opt-out) and generate additional sales later. The good news is that 3209 new subscribers quickly builds your list-if you have a big list, you'll be excited to send out those emails for potential sales, which is the name of the game in internet marketing. Sales! Caveats & Advice The best solo ad sellers that will bring you success are likely those that don't do it as their only income. They may just be doing it for a time while they are on vacation, have family matters to attend to, or are between projects. Robert's experience with solo ad ‘only' You need to put back about 20% of your business income into ad spending so solo ads aren't the worst thing and you...