The Perfect Digital Marketing System: Cut Your Costs and Scale with Certainty with John Lincoln: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, 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 Imperfect Action. Today, we're pulling a timeless EO Fire episode from the archives, so the giveaway may not be active, and we'll be breaking down the perfect digital marketing system. Cut your costs and scale with certainty. To drop these value bombs, I have brought John Lincoln into EO Fire Studios. John is the CEO of Ignite Visibility, which is a three-time Inc. 5000 company. John is also an expert digital marketing consultant, search engine land search marketer of the year, author, film producer, and teacher at UC San Diego.

0:44And today, FarNation, we'll talk about the abundance online and how to drive revenue leads. If you're not there, you're making a mistake. We'll talk about putting in the time, getting the framework into place, knowing your audience, and understanding the unique value proposition you're giving them, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to John and our sponsors. As business owners, it's part of our job to stay ahead of the curve. And with AI stealing the show these days, it's time to study up. But where do you even start? Start with HubSpot. HubSpot's AI power tools, including their content assistant and chat spot, are changing the way you create content and communicate and serve your customers.

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2:06John, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know. Yeah, hey everybody, John Lincoln here. Excited to be here. One thing you might not know about me, I've surfed in 10 different countries around the world. I'm a huge surfer, been all around the planet doing that. It's one of my favorite things to do. Have you watched the movie Endless Summer? Only about a million times. You know, a big scene in there is the West Coast of Puerto Rico is in Rincon, and that's where they film a large part of Endless Summer. Yeah, that looks like a fantastic wave.

2:41There's some really good waves in Puerto Rico, some pretty heavy slabs, actually. I've never made it down there, but I hope to one day. Well, hey, Puerto Rico is paradise. And Fire Nation, as we were talking about in the introduction, we're going to be talking about the perfect digital marketing system where you're going to be able to cut costs and scale with certainty. And of course, I have brought John Lincoln on the mic to break this down. And John, I just want to dive right into it because we have so many value bombs to cover today. So how can we, Fire Nation, identify the best places when we want to start advertising online?

3:18Sure. So a lot of this is from my book, The Forecaster Method, which is on Amazon. And a lot of this comes from my work with clients, you know, over the last, you know, couple decades. But, you know, I think the best place to start is in your own Google Analytics. So looking at all the sources of traffic, how it hits the website, the specific landing pages, the conversion rates, and then developing a cost per acquisition, and then trying to scale, you know, the places that are working the best for you right now. So that's a really great way to start. But then in addition to that, if you want to test a new network, create a test budget,$5 ,000 to$10 ,000.

3:55And of course, that depends on the business size. And then develop a CPA and then weigh that cost per acquisition, how much it costs to get that lead or that conversion against your other traffic sources. And then once you know kind of how it works in relations to your other, then you can create a model to scale. And you can scale that just like you would all the other sources and use that to kind of determine which one has the highest return. Fire Nation, if you're not keeping your finger on the pulse of your Google Analytics, it truly is time to start. I mean, I was not for the first couple years of my business.

4:28And it was kind of like this blind leading the blind thing where I was just like, Oh, okay, like, I think I'm getting more traffic. I'm not sure I'm not even sure where that traffic is coming from or where it's going to exactly. But, you know, I mean, like, let's just keep, you know, doing the things we're doing, because, you know, that's what we're supposed I was like, oh, wow. So like, this is where people are coming from. And oh, wow, these are the actual pages that people are going to for certain reasons. They're ranking on Google that I didn't even realize. And so I wasn't able to go look at these Google Analytics and say, okay, these are my top performing pages.

5:02Let me go number one, improve them, improve the keywords and the images. But number two, I was putting these great calls to action then at the top of these pages because this is where a lot of my traffic was coming from where before there was no calls to action. There was no links to anything that was going to get people into my funnels. But after studying the Google Analytics, I was able to say, okay, these are my best performing pages and posts for whatever reason, let's improve them. And let's make the most of this traffic that's coming in. But what I want to move into next, John, because this is where I know a lot of people within Fire Nation are going to struggle is actually knowing how, how to test new audiences, and then determine those winners.

5:40And we love case studies or specific examples. So if you can come up with a couple from yourself or past clients, that'd be awesome. Yeah. Google experiments and Optimizely are two real basic ways to go ahead and create a test. And you can create different versions of pages within Unbounce and kind of go that route. But I think, look, I taught analytics at UC San Diego for eight years. and really all the data is in there. You can see right now without even doing a test, you can see which landing pages are doing well and which ones aren't. So what I love to do is I love to just take that existing data, find your highest converting landing page within your top landing page report and do that by source and then take that, look at that page, figure out what qualities on that page are doing really well and then take that and apply that to the rest of your website.

6:32And if you've got 10 different templates on your website, you know, not in a template is, you know, one individual design and only, you know, that, that type of conversion rate optimization strategy strategy is only on one page. You take that, you apply that same strategy to those other pages, you're going to see a huge jump in conversion. So that's one of the first things I love to do, you know, when I work with clients is just make sure right when they land on the page, you know, you've got your key differentiators, you say what you do, you've got a call to action, you've got all that above the unfold for both mobile and desktop.

7:04And keep in mind now with all the changes and the surge in online traffic now, I would say about 80 % of traffic has now shifted to mobile. And so a lot of people are really, really ignoring that part of their website. It's just a huge opportunity for a lot of people out there. Optimizely, Unbounce, just a couple of great tools that John mentioned. And I love that point about the mobile and the desktop. I mean, 80 % Fire Nation, That's a massive number. When's the last time you've pulled out your phone and you've checked what your best performing pages and posts actually look like on a phone? Because I've gone to some websites where I've really wanted to consume that information and they've been such a terrible mobile experience.

7:41I've just said, forget about it because this is how much they care about my experience on a mobile phone. I mean, they don't care enough for me to care and then I'm out. So you have to do that and make sure you're doing it on iPhone. You're doing it on Android. And real quick question, John, Because this is something that I've come up against as well. Nobody that I actually even know has an Android within shouting distance. So is there a way that you can go online and actually test how things look on mobile? Or do you have to have the phone itself? Yeah, absolutely. There's the web developer Chrome extension.

8:15And that's going to let you toggle between the different types of devices so you can see how each of the devices is performing. And I mean, literally just the other day, I went into Google Analytics. I looked at the different sources of traffic and different devices for a huge enterprise business. I saw there were no conversions at all on Samsung, went into the checkout process, checked it out, found that all the buttons were broken on Samsung. We fixed that. They were making an extra$50 ,000 a month immediately just by fixing and debugging things that weren't working on certain mobile devices.

8:48And people don't realize there's this issue. In addition to that, One of the things I love to do is just add three main calls to actions to the top page on mobile. And when you do that, you're going to see a very, very large increase in conversion rates because people, they often, they'll have that same desktop version that'll be resized and kind of squished down. And then it's just a bunch of text at the top. You have to scroll down 10 times before you even get to a button. So I know this stuff sounds super simple and super tactical, but I love seeing the impact that it makes on business. So a couple of tips for you there.

9:23Three calls to action at the top of the page in mobile. Very, very exciting stuff that you can try to implement Fire Nation and just, hey, see what works. And that was Web Developer Chrome Extension. You can toggle between iPhones, Android, Samsung, mobile, non-mobile, like that's key stuff. I'm actually going to be doing that Fire Nation because you just have to know how these pages are looking on all the different phones. I didn't even think about the Samsung side of things before John just brought that up. So let's talk about dollars and cents, because listen, maybe Fire Nation's listening, they have$100 to play with,$500.

9:59Or as you mentioned, like, hey, some people probably have$5 ,000 to$10 ,000. But the reality is, no matter if you have$1 or$100 ,000, you want to make sure you're getting ROI, that return on investment. So how have you found effective ways to determine how much we should be paying for a single conversion on our website? You got to look at how much the value of the customer is worth to you. I think that's the most important thing. So everybody needs to determine how much are they willing to pay and then use that to dictate their entire strategy for advertising. And that's for each individual business.

10:34But I definitely think you look at the value of the customer. I mean, if a customer is worth$50 ,000 and you've got$100 to spend for a conversion and you close one out of 10, I mean, you can build just an amazing model off of that. So it really depends on the individual business. But I think the most important thing is try to get three to six different traffic channels that are really driving consistent conversions for you. Figure out the cost per acquisition there. So how much it costs per lead, and then set the goal that you need on a weekly, a monthly, and a quarterly basis, and then build that model around for lead gen or revenue and find out all your numbers and then scale it from there.

11:15But the cost per customer, it's all dependent on each of the individual businesses. So you just got to run your own model on that. So we all should be setting goals. We all should be setting weekly, monthly, and specifically quarterly goals to make sure that we're really on pace to be growing our business at the rate we want to be growing it. So how exactly, John, can we scale our best traffic to hit those quarterly goals? Because we all going through this process are going to be able to identify what that best traffic is, but now how do we scale it? So, you know, really, once you get good at digital marketing, and once you have your cost per acquisition framework, and you've got it in a nice tidy dashboard, then it's really just a matter of turning the levers, right?

11:56So what I highly recommend everybody do is set up a data studio report, set up a data studio report and have that be a sources report. So what that means is it shows you all the different sources of traffic that are coming into your website. It shows you the number of conversions that you're getting. And then it shows you how much you're paying for that. And then once you have that dashboard, you have an incredibly reliable, you know, nice framework for an area where it's like, you know, you're controlling like an airplane, right? You know, you turn a dial, you know, it goes up, you turn a dial, it goes down and so on and so forth.

12:27Right. So what I find is that a lot of businesses, they don't have a good handle on their analytics. They don't have a good dashboard. They don't understand the different mechanisms that control, you know, all these different types of email marketing, paid media, SEO, social media. So if you understand all the different points within those journeys and you have a dashboard that shows you how much you're spending and how much you're getting, then it becomes super simple for each of the individual business owners and marketers to control that. So I think that's the first thing is really just get a clear visual of how much you're spending and how much you're getting.

13:04And then it's just a matter of reinvesting and reinvesting and reinvesting. You know, I like to have about 10 % of revenue allocation towards marketing. And I find a lot of people don't continue to scale based off of that 10 % of revenue metric based off of overall revenue for the business. But we've done that at Ignite Visibility. And that's why we're a four-time Inc. 5000 company. You know, we recommend the same thing for clients as well. You know, you continue to scale, you continue to reinvest. And then what happens is, you know, these leads or this revenue, it all just continues to snowball.

13:35And then you have more and more growth, then it becomes a matter of just having operations keep up with it. But that's kind of the framework and the system that you want to have in place so that you can scale confidently. Know your numbers, Fire Nation, such a key thing, like you just have to have your finger on the pulse of your business. This is your business, this should be your baby, keep the finger on that pulse. And I love, John, how you gave it that number 10 % of overall revenue for marketing. I mean, that's why John and his business has been able to grow and grow and grow because they are reinvesting back in themselves.

14:07In Fire Nation, we're going to be talking about creating a diversified portfolio of traffic so you don't just have that one dimensional traffic that could get shut off for who knows what reason. We're going to be talking about converting traffic for less than your competition. I mean, once you learn how to do that, Fire Nation, you will win and so much more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Success Story, hosted by Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversations on sales, marketing, business startups, and entrepreneurship.

14:45One of Scott's recent episodes was with none other than Jack Canfield, where they discuss adapting to life's twists and turns. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts. So, John, we're back. And as I kind of teased before the break, we can't just have this one dimensional, one stream of traffic because who knows what's going to happen? We could get zucked, you know, and who knows what Mark Zuckerberg is going to do. We could get, you know, X, Y, or Z. I mean, so many things could happen to that one stream of traffic. How can we create a diversified portfolio of traffic? You know, I've seen businesses just completely wiped out overnight because they were too reliant on one type of traffic.

15:26It was all SEO or it was all Facebook or it was all Google or it was all Bing or, you know, whatnot, right? TikTok, Instagram. So it's really, really important that you have at least, you know, three to five. I like to have even five to ten different traffic generators that are coming into the website and that are driving real revenue. So, you know, it's a matter of testing and it's a matter of scaling. And then I also recommend that you never have more than 30 % of your digital marketing portfolio inside of one bucket. So you never want to have more than 30 % just in SEO or 30 % in Facebook. But I highly recommend, you know, start with the main networks.

16:04They're main networks, you know, for a reason. And, you know, we run, you know, over$50 million in advertising here at Ignite Visibility on the paid media side. A lot of that's Google and Facebook. And those are just fantastic networks. And when you build up your audiences there and get a really good handle on it from the top of funnel to bottom funnel to post funnel to, you know, all of that, they can be really, really powerful. So I generally recommend that people, they start off with Google, you know, then they add remarketing, then they go into Facebook, you know, they add remarketing there, they go into YouTube, they go into display, they replicate the Google account into Bing.

16:38And then once they've got that framework in place, in many cases, they're in a pretty good spot. Then you start kind of adding email marketing, push notifications, start tying all these things together, and then start getting into more niche networks, which could be a LinkedIn, could be a TikTok, could be an Instagram. And then you could end up going into over-the-top TV where you go into programmatic. You go into these large media buying areas. But the deal is, at the end of the day, is you can really make pretty much any network work online if you put enough time into it. And so it's really important.

17:14You just don't get too complacent. You don't just get too happy. Oh, I've got fantastic rankings in Google. I've got 200 ,000, 300 ,000 visitors a month. That's great. That's actually a huge liability for you. And if that got wiped out, your business would be in a really, really tough spot. So for me, MBA and all that background and everything and just loving financials and a nice balanced portfolio, that's really important to me for our clients. And I think of myself and our PMs and strategists here as kind of like a fiduciary for the client in ensuring that they've got a lot of different levers and a lot of different things that they can go to if one network gets bad.

17:50Again, Fire Nation, I love how John puts numbers to things. 30 % max in one bucket. I mean, if you're going over that, you're kind of getting into that risky zone and having at least five to 10 traffic streams. That is ideal. You have to figure this out. Now, John, something else that we mentioned we're going to go over is converting traffic, but not just converting traffic, converting it for less than your competition. Because if you can do that consistently over time, Fire Nation, you will win. John, break it down for us. Yeah, so that's really the name of the game because, you know, advertising is only going to get more expensive.

18:24So it's supposed to grow really consistently over the next five years. We're going to see significant growth in advertising, more people coming into digital, you know, in particular. So you need to learn how to convert traffic for less. You have to get into a habit of doing that. So a couple tests a month is kind of a good place to start. But really, you know, it starts with new audiences, right? And then it starts with the ad. and then it goes from the ad down to the landing page. And then it goes from the landing page into the checkout process or the funnel. And then it goes into post-conversion, right?

18:58So those are kind of like all the different mechanisms within any network. So any network really has that same framework. And when you start looking at like email marketing, for example, it's kind of the same thing, right? You've got the list building, you've got the email list, you've got the click-through rate, you've got the conversion rate, and then you've got any type of automation sequence, right? So it's very important, everybody, really, I think, you know, from the executive level, understand these levels of details. And what I've worked really hard on for the last couple of years is building a framework so that we can visualize this so that you can see the breakdown at any point within that type of journey.

19:33So, you know, what you want to do is understand your benchmarks, you know, where are you at now? And where do you want to get it to be? And if you can figure out that, okay, the ad's performing low, but the rest of that funnel is doing really, really well, you need to fix the ad, right? If the landing page is performing really, really poor, but everything else is doing great, you fix the landing page, right? If the checkout process is really, really low, and so on and so forth. So it's very important you understand every single mechanism. And all of that really starts with knowing your audience incredibly well, investing the time to make sure you really, really understand your customer.

20:10And then you've got a unique value proposition to get them into the system. And then the rest kind of all falls in line from there. The revenue is in the details, Fire Nation. You need to focus on those details. And then I love how you put that, John, understand your benchmarks. We have to understand our benchmarks. When we're doing these things and we're really laying things out and understanding this entire process, you are going to find out where you are converting the best, where your highest leverage points are, and you'll be able to convert traffic for less than your competition. Now, John, I want to talk Talk about driving massive business growth through digital.

20:50You've been able to do this. This is why you've been Inc. 5000 for so many years in a row. Break this part down for us. Look, it starts with competitive analysis a little bit. So Google Analytics has their benchmark report. So I would recommend you take a look at the benchmark report. It's going to show you where all your competitors are and where you are versus your competitors. You're also going to want to look at a tool like SimilarWeb or SEMrush. And there's also a tool called Pathmatics. It's going to show you all the advertising that all your competitors are doing, and you're going to get a visual on exactly what they're doing, right?

21:21So if you can take that and you can take your top competitor, the number one person in the market, and then you kind of take that and you make that your own, right? Where's the gap, right? Where's the gap in between you and where's the gap in between where your competitor is and what do you need to do to get there, right? That's kind of what life's all about, and that's definitely what all online advertising is about and business growth is about. But what I like to do is plot a systematic strategy plan, timeline, project plan, and a forecast to get there. And that's what's really, really important.

21:50You have to take the time and you have to sit down and you have to forecast quarterly goals, right? How are you going to scale your digital across each channel to make up the gap between you and your competitor within each of these networks that they're on until eventually, before you know it, you wake up one day and boom, you're as big as they are, right? So with these tools, you can see the exact ads. You can see the exact networks. You can look at your own business model, your own cost for acquisitions. You can do the things that I mentioned before, and you can look at all the way from the new audience to the ad, all the way down to past funnel to remarketing.

22:27And then what happens is, is over time, this stuff just snowballs and snowballs and snowballs. And one of my favorite parts is once you've been doing this for a while, right, which, you know, one of the ways we developed a lot of this stuff, one of our largest clients is Tony Robbins, you know, we've been able to build up just these fantastic networks of audiences. And these audiences we can go to at any time, and we can find people who love him and who want to interact with his stuff, right? And, you know, that's not just in that case. That's with all of our clients. That's with you. That's even on, you know, a mid or a micro level with the audiences that we have for Ignite Visibility.

23:04So you want to reverse engineer competition, find out the gaps, build the model, scale, get clear visualization, build audiences. And then I believe converting traffic for less in the future of the internet is building up your own audiences and then organizing those so that anytime you have a new product launch, you've got a new service launch, You can immediately go to those audiences and you can have the success that you had in the past or maybe even better success because this customer knows, likes, and trusts you. And I love that Fire Nation, building your own audience and then going to that audience when the time is right and saying, okay, let's grow this.

23:40Let's go exponential with my audience that knows, likes and trusts me because they've been consuming free, valuable, consistent content from me for X number of days, weeks, months, or hopefully years. Like that is the golden standard there. And John, you have shared so much value throughout this entire interview. What I want to do is this. Give us what you would consider the biggest takeaway from everything that we've already talked about that you want to make sure that Fire Nation really gets. Then let's move into the forecaster method. Break down why you wrote this book, why it's for Fire Nation.