Building a Digital Marketing Empire: Matt Molenar Part 1

0:00What I have now is I have people that are experts in each platform. So I've got a person who only does YouTube, a person who only does Instagram and Facebook because they're connected through meta, a person that only does LinkedIn, a person that only does podcasts, a person that only does newsletters, you know, those now I've got experts that can do that. But if I was just doing it myself, I would pick one of those things and it would probably be YouTube, Instagram, or it'd probably be podcast, newsletter, YouTube, or Instagram. Those to me are the four strongest things I feel that I've got that generate consistent, high quality lead flow to what I want, which is I want to do deals with people.

0:48how much more successful would you be if you had lunch once a week with insanely successful entrepreneurs who share their biggest secrets on how they think and achieve success grab your seat at the table because this is business lunch with roland frazier and ryan dice

1:05welcome to another episode of business lunch and today's a snackable episode with roland where he's going to get into some more tactical strategies that you can start using to live a rich and happy life. If this is the first snackable episode you're hearing, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to some of the other episodes that Roland has put out. And if you want to get notified every time we release a new episode, go to the new businesslunchpodcast.com website, and we'll send you detailed notes along with every episode. That's businesslunchpodcast.com, www.businesslunchpodcast.com. And you can sign up for the free email newsletter where you'll be able to get all the highlights and resources from the episodes.

1:40A good place to start would just talk about, as I call it, origin story, kind of how you got started in the digital marketing industry and what led to where you are now in a kind of a summary way. Yeah. So I was, I've always been fascinated with computers and as the internet evolved and became a thing, I was there at the

2:12creating sites that were insanely difficult to create and market. My initial digital marketing, which was very effective, was to stuff keywords into the bottom of the site and turn the font the color of the background so that you couldn't see them. And I was a genius because I could rank anything. That evolved into things that made programming and creating websites significantly easier, like WordPress and things like that. I was basically took coding courses in HTML and ColdFusion and Pascal and BASIC and all of those things from when I was a kid, really, until it became just so much easier to do everything.

3:05So my first online stuff was in the gaming space and education and e-learning type things. I bumped into a group of people who I thought were really good on the marketing side. There was a guy named Ryan Dice who had a company that was not yet digital marketer. I forget what it was called at the time. And he did a product with a guy named Mr. X. And it was all about AdWords. And I bought that and I was like, these guys seem like they know what they're doing. I should follow them. There was a guy named Jeff Johnson that was talking about private blog networks and things like that. And I really liked that because I like tech stuff.

3:49So I liked SEO initially before I think I liked anything else. And I built a pretty extensive private blog network and use that to rank all kinds of things. And, and those were kind of the, I'd probably the, the main guys that were influential to me getting started. And I decided that I would try my hand at being an affiliate just to see how it worked. And I was an Amazon affiliate get, you know, collecting four, four, count them 4 % on my sales of Amazon products. Um, but it was fun to see the first ding, ding, dings happen. And then, um, I got, uh, enamored with what Jeff, Jeff, uh, Walker was doing with product launches and saw that people were doing product launches.

4:40And I studied that and I was like, it seems like you could probably do pretty well at that. So I tried my very first one. Uh, usually when I was traveling, because I had the ability to have time away. And so from a dial-up connection in Indonesia, I decided to participate in the very first launch that I did, which was for a guy named Richard Roop. And I forget what the name of it was, but I was like, this is really cool. He did an event in Las Vegas and he, I wish I could remember what the name of the product was, but at the event, he announced what the product was going to be. And, um, and I went to GoDaddy and I did the domain name for the product and it was free.

5:35It was available. And I went out front to his team that was sitting out front and I said, are you guys going to call this this? And they were like, yes, we're going to call that that. And I was like, okay. So I bought the domain name and I bought the domain name launch bonus, you know, everything I could think of that went with it and not, not to screw him by the way, he was just not launching. He was launching it under, you know, on his regular site. So I was like, okay, well that's a pretty good advantage. And then I, I used my private blog network to SEO, all of them to be top searches. And so I had like the top eight search results for the thing.

6:12I didn't have any list, by the way. And so I was competing against, I think, 130 people that were all the real estate top dogs who had these giant lists and everything. And I came in third. And it was pretty fun for me because coming in third with no list and no experience and no presence in that world just proved how cool SEO was and that you could do this product launch. Interestingly enough, he never paid anybody for the longest time. And then I was at some event, maybe three years later, again, in Las Vegas, and he came up and spoke and was like, you know, I'm so sorry, everything went terribly.

6:59And I owe people money and I brought money to pay him and he had cash. And the top people that were in his launch that were there, and I happened to be there. He's like, I owe you money, here it is. And he paid. So I thought, I was like, well, that's pretty cool of him to come around. But what that told me was that I could do this product launch thing. And I was fascinated by it. So I ended up on a trip to Italy. We were, my wife and I had kind of gone through France and Italy. And then this volcano erupted in Iceland and put ash into the air and closed all the airports. So our flights coming home were canceled and everything.

7:33We kind of done everything. We'd been gone for almost a month and done everything we wanted to do. So I asked her, I said, is there anything else you want to do here? We were in Naples at the time. And she said, other than eating good pizza, no. I said, okay, fair enough. Can I do this launch thing? Can I try my hand at this? And she's like, sure, I don't care. I got lots of stuff I want to read. So I went and found a product that a guy named Mike Koenigs was launching called Main Street Marketing Machines. And I basically built, I bought the domains for Main Street Marketing Machine's bonus and all this other stuff.

8:14I SEO did, I wrote a, I think it was like a seven or 14, I think it was 14 page business plan, like just outline bullet points of all the different ways I was going to market. I created YouTube videos and had 17 out of the 20 top spaces for all the key keywords. I did ranking for bonus and all of those things and was in the top. Usually I'd have like four to six of the top 10 sites on Google ranking. I built a webinar about it. I asked their affiliate manager if I could get the names of the people that I sent. And they said, no, we're not sharing those. And I was like, okay, so I've found a guy to build me a mock-up of the website that Mike had.

9:03And everybody that I sent, I sent to that site, which basically had a little robot that would register them on his site. So I had all the names and emails of everybody so that I could market and get them to buy his thing. But also so I had a list, which I didn't have before. And I ended up selling, it was 1.3 million roughly in six days on that launch, came in first by a long shot. And I was like, this is really, really cool. What that did for me was it gave me some cred in the digital marketing world. So people were like, you know, who's this person that won this launch? Because everybody was competing at the time for it.

9:45And so it got me closer to Ryan Dice, whose mastermind I joined after going to his Traffic and Conversion Summit event. Ultimately, a few years later, I think it was about three years later, Ryan and Perry Belcher invited me to come in and be a partner with them on Digital Marketer and Traffic and Conversion Summit and all their other digital businesses. That really gave me a pretty big leg into that. I had already been asked through the mastermind of theirs that I had joined to be part of Kent Clothier's business, which was a real estate investing business. And so I kind of just took all the marketing skills that I had and knowledge and applied them in those worlds and ultimately was able to gain ownership in a whole bunch of other digital companies and do product launches and everything you might imagine that digital marketers do.

10:42How's that for a wordy story? It couldn't have been better because I, of course, have a chapter dedicated to domain names and what small businesses need to know about that and SEO as well as other topics. But that beautifully illustrated how those two things can tie together. What were the two products in those two launch examples? So Mike's was a local business marketing thing. It was called Main Street Marketing Machines. And so it was basically he had developed some software and and systems for helping local businesses market online. And Richards was a real estate product that I think was maybe it might have been about like raising private money for real estate deals for to do wholesaling deals.

11:36Those were those were those two products that evolved, by the way, to a couple of years ago. because I was always a very behind the scenes person to where I wanted to, well, actually, I missed a chapter too. So a chapter in between that is that after doing that launch, I had a lot of people that approached me about doing stuff. And I saw that there was a real opportunity to do events for people or to really to help people with marketing channels they weren't accessing. And so one of the biggest ones I saw was there were a lot of people that had lists that didn't monetize through masterminds, coaching, or live events.

12:15So I built a coaching program that was a bolt-on for pretty much anybody for digital marketing. I built an event that basically had all of the marketing materials that if they had an audience, they could just send these. I was kind of like cut and paste for me, but they could send emails out and get people to an event. And then at the event, I'd give them a coaching program. And I had one coaching program with coaches that could kind of help any of them. So I sold, it was a, it was called Go-Getters was the, was the mastermind. And we basically, I would do these events and they would put people in it.

12:55We'd split the profits 50, 50. And I had maybe 14 or 15 people that I was doing that with. So I ended up doing all these events and, and it was really fun. And then at the event, we would sell masterminds and coaching, which I had put those together. And so I kind of had these little, this little bolt on set of things that I could do for people. But ultimately, I realized I wasn't really building assets that were long term, because it was around other people's brands. And, and I didn't want to have to depend on them to, you know, to do things. So I stopped doing that I did later on also decide that it was really important to have a personal brand, because I was behind the scenes in all of that.

13:35And I was like, well, I'm seeing this. I don't want to be famous, but I like the rich part. So maybe it makes sense to at least have some presence out there. And so about maybe three years ago, I decided I wanted to have a personal brand. So I started a podcast and I started paying attention to my Instagram and YouTube and all that. And I ended up getting a million followers on Facebook and then deciding I wanted to go into all those other channels. And so now I kind of have a good cross section of presence of good people there, which leads to a lot of deals. And that's my main goal. So a couple of things just to add to the mix, since you're talking about those different chapters, those are all things.

14:22I mean, to me, you ideally want it all. You really do. You want good domain names. You want good SEO. You want good content marketing. You want a good personal brand presence, you know, and then you want to have a good value ladder that lets you access all of those things, email lists, which I didn't have a list forever. Right. And so then when I finally decided, okay, I'm going to build a list, I need to have that. That's such an important asset that I think a lot of people ignore, particularly small businesses. So if I'm thinking about, you know, advising businesses, it's definitely, look, the very first thing we need to do is collect all the people that you've already got that know, like, and trust you, and aggregate them in a place where we can connect and contact with them.

15:07And the logical places would be email, direct mail, and social media, right? Those are places and text. Those are places that we can connect with those people and put offers of value in front of them and turn that into money. You've given me like, I'm making a list of all the follow-up questions because that's, I mean, what you're talking about aligns specifically with my messaging and what I'm trying to convey in this book and what my clients and potential clients out there are looking for. So one last follow up on the original story. If you just could throw a ballpark like value on those first two affiliate or those two affiliate examples that you gave, you know, what, what, I mean, like the power of a domain name to generate blank, you know, dollars type of a phrase.

16:05Yeah. So, so the, that basically up front, I ended up So it was a 50 % commission on the sales of those products. So my direct commissions were about 800 ,000, but because I came in first, I got a 15 % bump. So I ended up with a 65 % commission on the million three. So that's what 650 plus, I don't know, 200, right? So call it 850 just from that. And then maybe another 100K from the other launch because it was small. But then I took the people that, because I created the list, because I did the little cloning thing and got the list. So I now had that list of people. So there was an event that Mike did for all the people that had bought his thing.

17:05And he did it at the Paradise Point. And I asked him, I said, are you going to sell coaching at that event? And he said, no, I just sell a certification. I was like, awesome. So his event started at one o 'clock on the first day. And I went to the hotel and I said, can I get a room for eight to 12 on the first day? I want to have all the people that I sold. But not only that, I wanted to get everybody else that was at the event there too, because they were all coming. And he had to give consent to me to have that room, which he did. and then at the hotel, I went to them and I said, can I buy the dark channel that you show in the rooms of all the previews of stuff like that?

17:46Like the ads and stuff, can I just buy that? How much is that? They said,$1 ,200, I was like, done. Can I create a video and give it to you that will play in all the rooms? Because all the people in the rooms are gonna be the people that bought that thing. So in the rooms, I played a video that said, hey, I'm Roland Frazier and I sold a bunch of this stuff and I've got this event and I've got really cool people that are gonna talk and we're gonna show you how to do all these cool things. come to the event before the event. And I paid people to stand out in the street, in the parking lot and the open area of the hotel and hand out flyers for that.

18:17I paid, I think it was about$500 to the person at the front desk that was working that day to hand out flyers to everybody that was checking in for the event. I ended up having hundreds of people. I was over capacity in the room I had. Plus it was glass walls on either side. And there where people lined up around the edge of the glass inside and outside. I did a four hour event, I offered a coaching program at like$25 ,000, and ended up selling. That wasn't a ton, but it was another 400 ,000 that day. And then another roughly 2 million after that, in follow up to all the people that I had from that.

19:01So like, and I, of course, increased my list again, because all the people that weren't on it now knew about me. And then I went to the people that were the stars of like, you know, you do case studies when you are trying to sell something. So he had like his case study stars. I went to them and I said, are you making any money from this? And they're like, no, but we're, you know, it's good stuff and we're happy to help. And I said, would you like to make money? And they said, yeah. And I said, how about if I give you this much per sale to coach the people that I get into the program. So I didn't even have to fulfill the program.

19:35I just paid them effectively about 5 % of what I was selling the thing for. And they were thrilled because they got to make a bunch of money that they didn't get to make before I was thrilled because I didn't have to do the work. All I had to do was put the whole thing together. And then that list went on to generate another, I mean, let's be conservative and say a million dollars. So it was, I mean, it was a lot. It was such a cascade of things that came from that very first seed of let me get the right domain to get in front of the right people, then SEO that domain, then market and all the channels that I can to get more of those people in, And then piggyback off of the momentum of somebody that had created something that was related to that domain.

20:26That was kind of the whole thing. And then how do I blow that up and monetize it in as many ways as possible? That is fantastic. That is incredible. And all that thanks to the Iceland volcano blowing up and my life being willing to let me do this. Wow. That is fantastic. I remember that, by the way, when that affected all the flights and the whole deal. Right. Yeah, that's crazy. Okay. So you mentioned at some point in that whole progression, you were like, you know, you decided to create this brand and then you just sort of glazed over and said, and then I had a million followers on social. Oh, yeah.

21:14And so that's something that everybody struggles with. Like everybody wants that big number, that big following. What, I mean, to go like, just say, hey, right now I'm a million. Like that's pretty massive. Was there any transformational moments in that process of acquiring that kind of a following? It took me eight months. My goal was to get a million followers, which is the wrong goal, I realized after I had it. But I had tried and thought about doing content before. And I was like, man, it's just so much work to like, how do I come up with stuff to say that people care about on a regular basis and do that and put that out with the frequency that you're supposed to like multiple times a day or whatever it is that it took.

22:00And so I just had failed at it for the longest time. And then one day I was having breakfast at a restaurant that's near me with two guys that ran a pretty big lead gen business. One of my business partners at the time, Perry Belcher, and one other person. And we just had this great conversation. And they were talking about how they were doing copy and how they created avatars and stuff like that. And I was like, this is really good stuff. And I had taken notes. I always took notes and I still had, I had, you know, whatever version of the iPhone was available at the time. And so I'm just sitting there taking the notes.

22:40And then at the end, there was so much cool stuff. And I was like, do you guys mind if I just like, if you point the phone at me and I say, hey, this is Roland Frazier and I'm having breakfast with a bunch of friends of mine. We talked about some really cool stuff. And then let me take the phone from you and ask you some questions. They're like, no, I don't mind that at all. So that was what I did. And after that, I did it hundreds of times. Every time that I met with anybody, I would basically just because I always take notes anyway, I would pick like the three most cool things that we talked about.

23:12And usually it was over a meal at like breakfast or lunch or dinner or something like that or drinks. And then at the end, because I didn't want to edit it, I didn't want to have to deal with microphones and all that stuff. I probably would invest in a microphone and a lapel now, but I didn't at the time. And so basically, I would just literally say, will you hold the phone? I'd hit record. They would point it at me. I would grab the phone while it's still recording, spin it around, and record them. So it was like you got the full motion sickness event from doing that. But those interviews then I would post and they were short.

23:48They were one minute to maybe eight minutes long. And I would post them on Facebook. And then I would spend$10 a day for five days to buy traffic to that from to that post the worst stupidest way that you could ever do it through what's called boosting a post like every Facebook ad person is like, Oh, my God, you didn't do that. You know, yes, I did, because I didn't know how to do the rest. And I didn't want any friction. To me, the key is no friction, no editor friction, no team following me around friction. No, I've got to pay all those people friction, no advertising mastery friction, just a dumb, stupid, dead easy.

24:26Let's record what we already talked about with people I was already meeting with. Again, no friction, no interviews to schedule, nothing, right? And then if I'd go to an event, I would make sure to talk to the people that I thought had cool things to offer and I'd get 15 of them. So I had plenty of content without any extra effort at all other than, hey, can we record this? And then posting it and buying that$10 a day for five days in over eight months, I think I spent maybe$10 ,000,$12 ,000 to do it. And I had a million followers. Now, I was not as good with my targeting as I could have been.

25:09So a lot of that was like I had a lot of it's good for vanity, but it's not necessarily great for monetizing. monetizing. Although I sold about 25 events over a period of 18 months where I would put usually 15 to 25 people in a boardroom and I would offer them a$25 ,000 or$100 ,000 thing. And the average small event like that, which I marketed exclusively through Facebook videos, was in the neighborhood of$400 ,000. So I'd get three people that would buy the$100 ,000 thing and four people that would buy the 25K thing and the others didn't buy that time. But that was pretty cool monetization proof.

26:00But I would way rather have 5 ,000 or 10 ,000 really, really dedicated fans that really appreciate and follow what I do than a million people that don't really do anything, but were curious about one of the things I posted. And so I got a lot more intentional when I decided to go to TikTok and YouTube and Instagram and those other channels, LinkedIn. And so on those channels, I might have 30 ,000 to 70 ,000 people on each of those channels, but they're way, way more profitable. And we track through links when I do a post to drive traffic to an offer where they come from. And, you know, I'd say it's 30 % organic that it's coming from just putting links and bios or putting videos out on those channels that are not paid.

26:53And then the rest is through email lists and paid and things like that. So that was it. It was an eight-month intentional, how can I create content at scale easily without any friction and get people? And I would only target the people that had interests in entrepreneurship and marketing and business and things like that. But that was too broad. That's why those million people, they're interested in business or they're interested in Mark Cuban or Tony Robbins, but they're not, you know, they're not interested in me or my message so much as they, they liked that they consume the content and they decided that it was enough to, to become a fan on the fan page, but it not like a loyal fan, if you know what I mean.

27:38And was it, was it really, I mean, were you interviewing people that had name recognition? So was it several of them? Yeah. And, and was it that, that really had people that would get people's attention or no, just the value of the content or the yeah because i i didn't know that i wasn't smart enough to like tag um i i mean i have friends that are well known uh like ryan dice or john assara for people like that um uh and that have big followings like drew cannoli had a big following and i'd interview him and but i didn't get like giant spikes from their people because i wasn't really advertising to their people you know i was like i was just boosting again terrible way to do it according to every Facebook person I know.

28:19But I was just boosting out there to anyone who was generally interested in, say, business or entrepreneurship or marketing. So very, very broad categories. I did not notice big spikes. I would notice it more now because I've got a team of people that would say, hey, that was an interview with Tucker Max, and we should target all the Tucker Max's fan. Okay, great. Cool. So I had lots of interviews with people like that because I just know people like that, but I didn't really take advantage of it. Do you think that technique would work today? And when you say that you wouldn't use that boosting technique as the primary thing today, what would you do instead?