How to Make Your Funnel Convert Higher In 24 Hours with Dan McGaw: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Talking Too Loud. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down how to make your funnel convert higher in 24 hours. To drop these value bombs, I brought Dan McGaw into EO Fire Studios. Dan is an award-winning entrepreneur and speaker. He is also the founder and CEO of McGaw.io, an analytics and marketing technology consultancy. And today, we'll talk about using a marketing automation tool that will allow you to measure how people are using your website, how personalization is imperative to push somebody down the funnel, and so much more.

0:43And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Dan and our sponsors. Marketing Made Simple, hosted by my friend, Dr. JJ Peterson, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Marketing Made Simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy, and more importantly, make it work. A recent episode all about how Liquid IV is using marketing to shake up the beverage world, dives deep into the strategies that have propelled Liquid IV to remarkable success, a must listen. Listen to Marketing Makes Simple wherever you get your podcasts.

1:13Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions. Dan, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Oh, man, that's super, super awesome. And hey, thanks so much for having me. You know, the number one thing I think that I would say is that swearing is something that you shouldn't do.

1:50I honestly think that swearing adds a lot of emphasis, a lot of power. And, you know, I've sworn in way too many environments where people say I shouldn't have done it. And, you know, it actually earns me more clout. So I think that'd be one thing I would push on. So I think that's always a great place to start. Hasn't slowed down Gary Vaynerchuk either. So I don't necessarily think you're going down the wrong tree right there. But Fire Nation, as I mentioned in the introduction, we were talking about how to make your funnel convert higher in 24 hours. Like I love the time limitation on this in such a powerful way.

2:22So let's talk, Dan, first and foremost, about lead scoring. First, what the heck is lead scoring and how easy is it for us to use to increase conversions? Yeah, of course. I mean, lead scoring is the ability to simply apply scores to things that we know about our customers or the actions that they do. And it's really, really easy to do this. If you have a marketing automation tool that's measuring how people are using your website, going through your funnel, or even measuring the things that they tell about you. Hey, they work at a company. Hey, how big is that company? It makes it really, really easy for you to score those things.

2:59So somebody works at a large company, give them 50 points. Somebody works at a small company, give them five points. All comes down to what your audience is. Somebody visits the pricing page, give them 20 points. Having these scores based upon who they are, where they work, what they do is really going to help you identify who is a high value target and who you shouldn't be wasting your time on. So let's talk about realthread.com. Like how does that company use lead scoring specifically? Give us some examples. Realthread.com is a custom t-shirt printing company, but they do this for big companies and small companies.

3:33So their customers can be everybody from Amazon to Dropbox to Intercom, all the way down to kind of a small local business. And they only want to focus on those high value customers with their sales team, right? Because if you're selling to a bakery that's got 10 employees and they're ordering 25 t-shirts, it's not a big order. But if you're selling 50 ,000 shirts to Amazon, well, that's a big order. So with their site, they were attracting a ton of visitors and a ton of people were coming and becoming leads on their website. We're talking thousands of leads a month. And the problem was, is their sales team didn't know who they should reach out to.

4:05Yeah, they can review the list of all the emails and all the people coming through and hopefully pick out the right domains. But there's so many companies out there, you never know who has a good domain name or a bad domain name. So what they did was, is they had a lot of people coming in from these SEO landing pages to get free t-shirt templates, right? What do you put on the t-shirt? How do you set that up? With all those emails coming in, the first thing that they did was is when somebody came through there, what they would do is based upon the Alexa ranking of the domain that was coming in, they would apply a higher lead score.

4:34So if you had a high Alexa ranking, like within the top thousand, top 10 ,000, you might get 50 lead points that'd be added to your record. And then depending upon the other actions you would do on the site, like visit the builder or visit certain pages on the site. You would get additional points added to your profile. And once you hit the 200 point threshold, a message would be sent to a sales rep saying, hey, you've got a hot lead. You need to be able to contact them. And this simple tracking of being able to do Alexa ranking on an email and then as well as tracking on the website can all be managed through your marketing automation tool, whether it's HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, Autopilot.

5:08There's a ton out there that do this. And that first step there, though, was able to take them from seeing thousands of leads a month, not knowing who to focus on, to now getting it down to a few hundred leads a month that their sales reps could actually pinpoint and target. And that first step really pushed them over the edge and being able to allow their sales reps to be effective, and then also allow them to spend more money on retargeting to that audience. So that way, even though they might not have a sales rep talk to them, they could still retarget them, put them in a higher value audience and push them down the funnel.

5:37And this increased not only this, but multiple things we did with their MarTech stack, increased their online orders by 51 % in just over a 12-month period. So really can move the needle when you're trying to grow your business. Fire Nation, I hope that as you're hearing Dan talking right now about RailThread, you're starting to picture your own business and saying, how can I do something similar in my business? How can I employ these tactics for what I'm doing in my processes? And efficiency allows you to spend more money in the areas that are working. And this is what Dan's talking about right now.

6:09It's becoming more efficient. So you have the knowledge, you have the actual data and the analytics to say, okay, this isn't working. Why am I spending money here? Okay, this is really working. Why don't I spend all the money here or the majority of the money here? Because this is the efficient process that I've created. But Dan, let's call a spade a spade. Everybody wants better conversions and they all pay lip service to that. but how can we specifically use personalization to optimize our own conversions? At the end of the day, people wanna be talked to as who they are as a person or who they are as a human.

6:46They don't wanna see the wrong message at the wrong time. They don't wanna be called different things and they want people to focus on their interests, right? So personalization is extremely, extremely important to push somebody down the funnel. And I'll use an example from one of our clients called Carolina Designs Realty. Carolinadesigns.com, they're a vacation rental company based out of the Outer Banks. And they have these large 28 master bedroom homes that are$50 ,000 a week all the way down to houses, which are going to be$3 ,000 a week for three master bedrooms. And one of the things that we really had to focus on with them was being able to personalize that customer's experience as they came to the website based upon the type of houses that they were looking for, but also the region at which they're looking at the house in.

7:28So the Outer Banks is broken up into five different regions. There's Kill Devil Hills, there's Duck, there's all kinds of different places. As that user is coming to the website, they know in many cases which region they want to stay in, which area. So they'll go to that area first. So as we learn who that user is, we start to get them to try to save their listing, right? So you're looking at a house that you want to rent. You hit the save the listing button. It asks you for your email. Well, in the marketing automation tool, not only do we save that listing, do we save who you are, we also save what region are you looking at?

7:57So the first thing you're going to get is you're going to get an email back that says, hey, here's the listing you just saved. Always feel free to pick up where you left off. Just come back to this email. However, the next day you're also going to get an email that has the top five things you should do in wherever that region of the house was. Now, this is personalizing that person's experience so that way we can focus on where are they trying to go, what would be the great things you're going to get to do with your family while you're on vacation. And as you go through that email nurture sequence, it's still going to have that region that you're focused on, the place that you want to go.

8:28Because if you're going to Outer Banks and you've chosen to stay in Duck, chances are you want to stay in Duck because there's something special. Just like if you want to go to Corolla, you want to go see the wild horses on the beach, right? So we've got to focus on personalizing your channel and making sure that you have the right messaging. But what's really, really important about that as well is we need to also serve you personalized recommendations. locations. So as part of that, as you're viewing the website, the marketing automation tool was also storing the other houses you were viewing and keeping that original saved listing.

8:57So as we're sending you this nurture sequence, which is going to tell you how you're going to enjoy your vacation in that region, we're also making sure to add on those additional listings to the bottom of that email saying, hey, pick up where you left off. Now, this seems like a very, very small touch personalization, but we know your first name. We know how many people are in your party. We're constantly trying to use that to personalize the emails to get you back. And by doing this, we're able to increase the number of purchase rates on those houses in those regions because we're able to keep it personalized on what that person wanted.

9:29And I think that's what a lot of people miss is they kind of always think, well, I've got to know their first name. I've got to know their last name. You know, just sometimes know their buying interest, know where they're trying to go and keep them in that path. That's going to make a better experience for them. That personalization is going to get them to convert in a much faster pace than they were before. Fire Nation, people hate junk mail for a reason. They hate spam for a reason. They hate automated broadcasts for a reason. But think about how you would feel if you were surprised and delighted by a company that is not just trying to sell you something.

10:01Of course they are. That's why companies exist. But they're also adding value to your life. How would that make you feel? I mean, reciprocity is a real thing, Fire Nation. And when you surprise and delight somebody and they're like, wow, like I know obviously this company has products and services. They would eventually or at some point want me to buy, but right now they're just doing something that's surprising me. That's delighting me. That's adding real value to my life. Like now I know the top five things to do around here. I can maybe take out my significant other and show them a great time, or I can just go and have a blast that I didn't even know that existed in this area before.

10:37I I mean, think about how that would make you feel. Isn't that something you want to bring to prospective clients and customers in your life? And as you can tell, Dan is a hack master. And by that, I mean, he knows some great hacks. It's going to improve your life and business. So we're going to be talking about some hacks when we get back from thanking our sponsors. There are plenty of things to worry about when trying to grow your business. Don't let tech be one of them. If you're looking for the right tools and a platform that connects your team seamlessly, then look no further than HubSpot's customer platform.

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11:49Get ready to grow with HubSpot's customer platform. Visit HubSpot.com to learn how HubSpot's customer platform can help you grow your business. Do you have a message inside that you know is meant to be shared with the world? Giving a TEDx talk is one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world, and Thought Leader can help you get there. Thought Leader is a speaker coaching company that has helped over 550 and counting coaches, speakers, entrepreneurs, authors, and experts land TEDx talks. Thought Leader is not affiliated with TED or TEDx, but they're able to get these results because their founder, Taylor Conroy, is a four-time TEDx speaker himself and past EOFire guest.

12:26You might be thinking a TEDx talk sounds great, but where do you start? Taylor has put together a free training that's going to teach you how to land a TEDx talk in as little as 90 days. Join Taylor to learn exactly what TEDx organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online, and more. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire. Join Taylor for this free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs. That's thought-leader.com slash fire. Dan, I love hacks. And as I mentioned before the break, Fire Nation loves hacks as well.

13:04So what is your number one hack to help Fire Nation get started with this thing called personalization? Personalization is going to be really, really helpful for kind of pushing your business forward, right? And one of the problems that people have is like, what are we going to personalize? How do we actually get the information which is going to enable us to personalize this experience? And we were working with a cool company called Forks Over Knives, and they're an amazing vegan brand. They were a world-class documentary on Netflix, number one documentary for many years on Netflix. And their whole mission is about getting people to stop eating meat, right?

13:37And getting people to stop eating meat is a hard thing. I don't know if anybody's gone vegan before, but it's not easy. And the whole thing that happens is when somebody signs up at their website for a recipe or for their meal planner, for any of these things is we have to understand where they at in their journey to become vegan. Because, you know, you might start to go vegan and you jump in two feet in your first week and you're like, I'm going to try this. And then you get to your second week and you're like, man, that that was really hard. Like going vegan is difficult. Everybody has a different place.

14:05There's other people that are completely vegan, right? They don't eat anything. There's any meat. There's other people who are vegetarian who are trying to make their way to vegan. And understanding where that person is in their journey is extremely critical to the success of their business, to the success of those people, and ultimately for them to sell more product. So a great way to do this is once somebody signs up to your email list, send them a welcome email thanking them so much for signing up. But ask them a simple question that's going to help them and help you for your business. So with Forks Over Knives, we sent them an email and we said, hey, thanks so much for joining our email list.

14:38we're looking forward to sending you great content that you're going to care about. Nobody wants to fill your inbox with spam. Just do us a favor. Let us know where you're at in your vegan journey. And then there was five separate buttons on there. One which says I'm struggling to become vegan. One that said I'm vegan curious. One that said I'm totally vegan. And a few other options. And all they did was they clicked on one button. It took them back to the website. And there was UTM tracking codes on that. So when they hit the website, our analytics loaded. We knew how vegan they were or how vegan they were not.

15:06our marketing automation tool picked this up and it added them to a separate segmentation list. Now, this is really important because now as we're sending them their nurture sequence, as we're trying to walk them through their journey on the website, and also how we're trying to recommend products to them, we're able to give them the right product at the right time and also walk them through a journey which would make them more successful at becoming vegan. Because if you're more vegan, you're going to buy more Forks Over Knives products. So if you're vegan curious, we're probably going to say, hey, you know, the best way to get started is check out our online meal planner.

15:38And you know what? If you're vegan and struggling, you should probably try our cooking course because that's gonna be what really pushes you over the top. And if you're fully vegan, you know what? Just go buy our grain kits, go try our salad dressings. And that really had a massive impact on their revenue. And it's simply by sending your first welcome email saying, hey, why don't you tell us a little bit more about you? And with RealThread, we use this same exact thing except for we asked what title were you at the company? Are you the CEO? Are you the marketing manager? Are you the HR manager?

16:06And that helped us better understand, hey, what is the type of content that we should be sending these people? And that small hack we've used across dozens of businesses. And I hope you use that in your business soon too, because it's really gonna help you personalize their journey. Well, one thing that I'm really curious about beyond what we just shared is funnel hacks. So we all know about funnels here at Entrepreneurs on Fire. I mean, I've had a Russell Brunson, Mr. ClickFunnels himself on the show multiple, multiple times. And I'm always encouraging Fire Nation to have nurture sequences, have a funnel, you know, have an experience your customer, your clients going through.

16:39And you have some pretty cool examples of this, specifically with Mountain Goat software. So talk to us about funnel hacks and share that example. This one is really specific for online education and online courses. There is definitely a playbook for how you want to be able to sell your online course, right? And there's a lot of different ways that you can set up your landing pages and all that stuff. But if you're a company that's got multiple online courses and multiple assets you want a cell, if you've got a video course, the first thing you want to do is get them to the landing page that has a video that overlays the course and basically explains what it is.

17:13And the first offer that you want to give them is give us your email and we'll give you access to the first lesson for free. This is going to be a huge lead generation driver for you. It's going to get a ton of people into the course and get them started. And you want that first lesson to be amazing. You really need it to be good because obviously if the first lesson sucks, that means your whole course sucks, right? Now, once they're in there, you've got to be able to leverage that email with a nurture sequence to really, really sell that course and to get them moving forward. And you probably want to spend advertising dollars to get them going.

17:44But once you get them into that first lesson, at the end of that first lesson, you need to also give them some sort of badge or some sort of kind of incentive for them to add to whether that be their LinkedIn or add to Facebook, something that they're going to share. And a common thing that we've done is, hey, you've completed the first course. Here is your badge for doing agile development. Share this with your friends on social media. And what this does is it starts to create a flywheel for your business, right? If you follow this simple playbook, not only are you going to get people that come in and start taking the course, you get emails, you now own that, you can push those people into purchase.

18:19but you also start getting those people who are coming in just testing things out, sharing your course online with other people, which are gonna add more people into the course. And this is a very, very easy way to set up your online course, but you'd be blown away the number of companies that missed this out. And we set this up with Mountain Goat Software and it had an amazing impact on their business. Fire Nation, again, what I want you to be doing right now as Dan is talking and giving these great examples from specific businesses that he's helped, how does this apply to your business? How can you apply this to your business, to your life?

18:51How can you do this and what you're doing day to day, week to week, month over month? And Dan, you've dropped some pretty serious value bombs with us here today. Of everything we talked about, what's the one key thing you really want to make sure Fire Nation walks away with knowledge-wise from everything that you shared? The biggest thing that I would just say is that if you can build a really, really good marketing stack and you can do a lot of personalization and automate as much as you can, right? Really, you're going to be able to step away from your business a little bit more and get more free time back to your life.

19:25So build a really good marketing tech stack that can automate the business, personalize all the things that I talked about and take some time off, go on vacation like I am next week, right? And I don't have to worry about it because a lot of my business is already taken care of through that tech stack and automation. Fire Nation, I feel the same way. I I just took a 17-day wellness retreat where I kept, you know, in check on email. But I mean, because of my systems, my tools, my automations, my funnel hacks, you know, all the things that I've focused on over the years, I'm able to do stuff like that.

19:52Kate and I took a 90-day European trip a year and a half ago just because we could and we made it happen and we've done it before. And so that's one of the things you really want to focus on when you're creating your business, when you're going through this kind of lead scoring mentality. So Dan, share with us with Fire Nation how we can connect with you, how we can learn more from you, any call to action you have for Fire Nation, and then we'll say goodbye. I've got a great one for you. I'd love for everybody to get a free copy of my new book, Build Cool S***. Now, it's really easy, though. I want you to test out this texting bot, and this will show you how awesome you can build your stack.

20:31So pull out your cell phone, go to this number. You're going to text the number 415-915-9011. Once again, that's 415-915-9011. And I want you to text the word FIRE to that. And it's going to text you back, ask you for your information, get you totally walked through the process, completely automatic, and then also ship you a book all automatic. So go check that out. You'll love the book. It talks all about real threat in there. It talks about these other case studies I talked about. And then if you want to ask me a question, just go to LinkedIn, look up Dan McGaugh and hit me up. Always happy to help out however I can.

21:05Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And hello, you've been hanging out with DM and JLD today. So let's keep up that heat, please. Head over to eofire.com. Type Dan in the search bar. The show notes page will pop up with everything that we talked about today. Best show notes in the biz. And one more time, Dan, let's get that phone number for Fire Nation to text the word fire to. Absolutely. Phone number is 415-915-9011. Fire Nation, take action. Get his book for free. I know you got a ton of value from this conversation today. Take that next step. Keep educating yourself.

21:47And Dan, thank you for sharing that truth, that knowledge, that value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation, today's value bomb content was brought to you by Dan. And if you've ever thought about creating a podcast of your own, the podcast journal is for you. It is a gorgeous faux leather journal that will guide you step by step in both the creation and the launch of your podcast in 50 days. That's five zero. Visit the podcast journal.com use promo code podcast for a$15 discount. And thank you for listening to my podcast. And I will catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side.