Episode #070: The NEW Way of Marketing in 2024
The NEW Way of Marketing in 2024
In this weeks episode of the podcast we're talking all about the NEW wave of advertising and marketing that I predict is coming in 2024. It's going to change the way that we grow our list, sell our products, and of course... LAUNCH.
Tune in to learn how you can still profit while the industry shifts.
Links Mentioned:
Not Your Average Membership (Code: BFCM49 Through 11/27/23)
Full Transcript:
Zach Spuckler [00:00:00]:
This is Not Your Average Online Marketing podcast episode number 70. And in this episode, we're talking about marketing going into 2024, Some of the major shifts we're seeing in the way that people market and grow their business and what you need to do to be profitable and productive in 2024. So let's get into it. Hey. Hey. Hey. Not so average marketer. Welcome to another episode of the podcast.
Zach Spuckler [00:00:24]:
Now I I'm stoked because I love episodes where I get to tell you what I'm seeing and and some of the trends that we're noticing in the industry. And, you know, I think that going into 2024, we're gonna see some pretty radical shifts in the way that people are marketing successfully. And if we're being really candid, 2024 has nothing to do with it. That's just the year. Right? This stuff is already happening. And so what I wanna do today is talk to you about what I'm seeing, like as the new way of marketing going into 2024, some of the shifts that I'm noticing and that We've been playing with for about a year, maybe even a little longer, without realizing it that have been doing really well for our business. So I think that the most important thing is to start by talking about what I call, like, the old way of marketing. Right? And I've been doing this for almost 10 years now.
Zach Spuckler [00:01:16]:
And back in 2015, I remember this very vividly. I did a webinar around Facebook ads, and I just put money that I had generated organically into advertising. Like, I just ran a ton of traffic to this webinar registration page. I had this webinar. We converted, like, a ton of our traffic. We had, like, a Six to 10 x ROI on our ad spend. I don't remember the exact number, but all of that to say, like, it was a gangbusters hit. Right? And so for a long time, people have kind of been preaching this like, oh, you know, do the do the webinar.
Zach Spuckler [00:01:49]:
You know? Run the ads to your webinar. Validate your offer. You know? Sell it before it's made. You know, all these things that we've been hearing for, you know, if you've been around for years years. And the reality is that when something is done over and over and over and over again, the market becomes savvy to it. You know, people now know, especially in the b two b space, that if you're doing a webinar, you have something for sale. Right? There's no Mystery is shrouded around that. People don't think that you're doing a webinar to, like, teach them out of the kindness of your heart with no strings attached, nothing for sale.
Zach Spuckler [00:02:24]:
Right? And don't get me wrong, you can absolutely have pitch free webinars or you can teach because you you love it and not expect everyone to buy. But the expectation from a consumer perspective is that if I click on an ad, eventually, I'm gonna be asked to buy something. Right? That's just the consumer mindset these days. And so this is what we lovingly in our business refer to as the old way of marketing, the old way of advertising. And really, it was like this 10 to 20 day cycle. Right? You would do ads to a webinar, challenge video series, whatever. Make a pitch. Make the sale.
Zach Spuckler [00:03:01]:
Right? The problem is that, point blank, it's just not as effective as it used to be. Right? And the reality is if it was that easy to just run ads to a webinar, isn't that what everybody would be doing? Like, to run an ad to a webinar every week, make $20, move on. Like, that's what people would be doing. And, honestly, I have a a good friend that did that for years. That's what they did. They did a webinar every couple weeks. They would run ads to it. That that was the business model, and it works.
Zach Spuckler [00:03:31]:
But here's the thing. In 2024, like this quick instant gratification cash game, it doesn't work like it used to. Right? And if you've been in this business for more than 2 years, you've probably seen, like, a decline in performance on just, like, Cold ads to an offer. Right? They don't work as well as they used to. K? So that can be, like, a little daunting. Right? It's a little bit of a Debbie Downer to start the episode being, Here's what's not working, but I want you to understand that, like, if you're still in this mindset of, like, oh, I can just Put a dollar into Facebook ads today and take $5 out on Friday. Like, that's the wrong mentality to be in. So That can be kind of scary because we we want that instant return.
Zach Spuckler [00:04:18]:
We want that kind of I don't wanna say guarantee because nothing is guaranteed, and I know most of us know that. But it's like, we want to feel like we have some sense of control. And when you were used to do this old way kind of quick cash cycle, It felt much more in control. Right? You had that period for, like, 5 to 7 days where you had spent all the money on the ads, but you started pitching, and then the money started coming back in. And it gave us this kind of sense of, like, control. Well, I want to share with you what I recommend that people start doing kind of like the new way of advertising and marketing. So number 1, we've started looking at our business in 90 to a 120 day cycles. Right? So a cycle includes 3 key elements.
Zach Spuckler [00:05:05]:
It includes a building phase, a nurture phase and an offer phase. K? Now there can be some overlap between those phases, and we'll get into this. But, Essentially, what we now do in our business is every 90 to a 120 days, we put an ad out to grow our email list. Right? And, really, we have an ad growing our list unless we're launching running 247. But what I do is I spend at least 30 to 60 days every cycle, every 3 to 4 month cycle, growing my email list with ads. And you can absolutely leverage organic strategies in there too. But for me, not a huge social media fan. I'm working on it.
Zach Spuckler [00:05:48]:
But I just I advertise. Right? So I'm growing my list. Right? So I'm not growing my list by running people to a webinar or a launch. I'm simply Promoting a freebie, an opt in, you know, it can be a toolkit. It could be a workbook. It could be a PDF, an audio, a video. It doesn't matter so much what it is, But it does matter that it's aligned with what you wanna sell at the end of this cycle, which we'll get to. So The point of this is that what most people are doing or were doing is they were trying to grow a list of of audience members that would just, like, buy I within the 1st 7 days.
Zach Spuckler [00:06:25]:
And the market has just become more discerning. People need more time to think. They need more time to get to know you. They need more time to test what you're telling them will work. And so the the buyer life cycle, the time from somebody to become, like, interested to a purchaser is just longer. And so we said rather than resist that and say, like, oh, what do we do to make people buy from us sooner? We said, what if we play a longer game? And so what we're doing is we're spending time every single 3 to 4 months growing the list pensionally. And we try to add at least like, in an ideal world, I wanna add a 1000 people to my list a month. We typically get closer to six to 800 when we're advertising really aggressively.
Zach Spuckler [00:07:11]:
So that's something for us to explore. But I wanna grow that list consistently. I wanna get new people on the list every single day. K? But that's just the 1st piece. The 2nd piece is that you have to nurture and connect with these new leads. Right? So you can't it's not enough to just build a list of potential buyers. Right? It's important that you nurture them, and nurturing requires consistency and content. K? I wanna come with a big disclaimer.
Zach Spuckler [00:07:38]:
If you're an avid listener of the podcast, you may know a couple weeks back, I did an episode where I talked about how I basically, like, Disappeared from the podcast for 10 weeks. Right? And for essentially, like, a full cycle, a full 90 to 120 day cycle, I didn't have podcast going out. Right? So how did I continue to nurture my audience? Well, I share that with you not because I want you to think I'm a terrible podcaster. Hopefully, you don't. But because I want you to understand that nurturing isn't just about, like, blogging or podcasting or posting on Instagram. For me, the way that I think about nurture is regular and consistent communication with the leads I've generated. And so even though I wasn't necessarily podcasting, I was emailing my list pretty much every week. I was telling them what I was doing, talking about changes in marketing, talking about Trends, advertising, making small offers, which we're gonna talk about.
Zach Spuckler [00:08:31]:
But the point is, I nurtured the audience that I built. There's 2 to 3 core ways that I nurture my audience. Maybe 2 and, like, number 2 has a 2 a and a 2 b. Right? Number 1 is that consistently emailing them. Right? So I'm sending them an email. And if I wanna keep it simple and I have content being produced, blog, podcast, whatever, that I will just send them. So, like, I when this podcast goes live, we'll email it to our list. Right? Super simple.
Zach Spuckler [00:09:01]:
But number 2, We set up an automated sequence to all new subscribers anywhere from 5 to 14 days. Like, 5 is minimum, but we go up to 14 days now, And we just talk to our audience, and what we do in that initial nurture is we Talk to them. We tell them what to expect from us. We set expectations. We also share content. K? So some of our best content, even though my podcast wasn't, like, live and roaring and, like, crushing it, we have, like, 200 backlogged episodes that we've done over the years. And we pulled some of our best episodes, and we shared them with the new subscribers. So we were like, hey.
Zach Spuckler [00:09:43]:
You just joined our list. Listen to this episode. You just joined our list. I know you're struggling with this problem. Listen to this episode. Right? The other thing that we did was we make offers. So This is kinda counterintuitive. Right? And you don't have to make an offer in your sequence, but we have low ticket offers in our business.
Zach Spuckler [00:10:00]:
And when I say low ticket, I'm talking under $50 to $100. And what we do is we make an offer to our audience that basically says, like, hey, if you want a taste of what it's like to work with us, Come by our low ticket offer. Right? Now if you don't have a low ticket offer, that's okay. You don't have to make a low ticket offer, But I still recommend you offer people to get on a waitlist for when you do launch your primary offer. Okay. Here's why. You remember what we talked about earlier? That kind of like 10 to 20 day quick cycle of like, somebody subscribes, then buy from me. If you take that approach with a higher ticket offer, really anything over $100, people are gonna have resistance.
Zach Spuckler [00:10:40]:
They're gonna wanna think about it. But if you have a low ticket offer under $50, I think of that more as an invitation to learn what it's like to work with me. It's an invitation to Check out my content and see if you resonate with me. Right? It's a way to start educating and training my audience to, number 1, buy from me, but number 2, to see how I teach, to learn literally, like, to take the action of learning from me, which of a higher ticket or a recurring offer comes around is gonna be easier. Right? So I make the offer that's like, come join our Facebook ads boot camp, which leads into our membership. Right? Second thing is if you don't have a low ticket offer, I'm not saying run out and create 1. Right? This is not me preaching low ticket offers. I'm just sharing what's working well for us, but I would do a wait list.
Zach Spuckler [00:11:31]:
K? So same concept is, like, you can start talking about your offer without asking for the transaction. Right? You can say, like, I've got this great course. It's coming out soon. I want you to be the 1st to know about it because I know based on you opting in for this thing, you're struggling with this. Get on the wait list, and you'll be the 1st to know about it. No obligation. Just check it out. We do that because 1, wait lists of people who opt in for interest tend to convert higher.
Zach Spuckler [00:11:55]:
It Also gives you a quality subset of your audience to talk to if you need to do audience research. It gives you a list of people to test and litmus test your offers to, and it gives you something to talk about in your emails while seeding the idea that you have something coming. Right? So Let's just take a step back for a second and kind of recap where we're at. So number 1, we're building our list all the time. For us, personally, with ads, you can do ads and organic, but I recommend you be adding people to your list pretty much daily, if not, you know, every few hours, with your content. K? So our list is always growing. Then when people get on our list, they go through a 5 to 14 day sequence that's like, Come check out my stuff. Come join my content.
Zach Spuckler [00:12:44]:
Follow me on Instagram. Get on my wait list. Buy my low ticket offer. Right? It's things that warm them up into a really qualified quality lead that wants to learn from us. Right? We do that automatically over 5 to 14 days. Then we also communicate with them weekly. And whether that be through A podcast, a blog, or just an email, we're staying in regular communication with these new leads. We're not getting these leads and then saying, Well, I'll come back to them when I have an offer.
Zach Spuckler [00:13:13]:
We're saying, I'm nurturing the relationship now so that when I have an offer, there's an existing relationship. Because it's easier to get somebody who has a relationship with you to buy from you than it is to form a relationship over the course of 10 to 20 days, enough that people trust to spend a higher amount with you. Okay. So this is happening over about 60 to 90 days. Okay. I've got this whole thing running. I'm emailing my audience, and then in month 3 or 4 of this cycle, I will make a big offer. K? I'll do a launch, a webinar, a challenge, a video series, whatever you're comfortable with.
Zach Spuckler [00:13:52]:
I'm not sitting here saying webinars don't work. And I really should have said that earlier, like, this is not a boo. Webinars are out. Webinars are bad. This is a boo Trying to treat Facebook ads like an ATM that spits out money on demand instantly with a webinar is old school. That doesn't work the way it used to. Right? And webinars still can work really well when given to an audience of people that care, an audience of people that have been nurtured, an audience of people that are looking for additional support and training. Right? So We make an offer.
Zach Spuckler [00:14:28]:
Now for us, just to give you a really specific context, we do a five day challenge around Facebook ads. And from that Facebook ads challenge, we lead to our membership where, it's $67 a month to join the membership, $670 for the year. And we have really good annual incentives to help us generate more cash. Right? So what ends up happening when you look at this really high level is that you end up growing an audience, building a relationship with an audience, and then rather than trying to pitch or sell or Push people into an offer. You're simply making an invitation that the right people will want. That's it. Right? So We do this every 90 to a 120 days. Now in 2024, we're honestly still planning.
Zach Spuckler [00:15:23]:
It's only November 16th when you listen to this, which, like, feels like the end of the world and at the same time feels like it's already 2024. So but we're still working on our plans for 2024, but we're thinking about launching, 4 times a year, which will be every 90 days. Right? It depends on a number of different factors. If if launching 4 times a year do you feel stressful, change it to 3. But here's what's really cool about this system and why I love it. If you you have a low ticket product or a wait list or something that you can sell in between launches that's, like, at a lower price point or even just growing the wait list in between? You kind of build, like, almost like an insurance policy, which is, like, exciting. I know. Insurance is the best.
Zach Spuckler [00:16:06]:
You build this insurance policy of, like, I've got this audience. They're maybe already buying my stuff or getting on my wait list, telling me there's interest in my course. And then I'm making an offer, and the goal for me is not to be profitable on my ad spend instantly every single month, which is, like, a little stressful. I'm not gonna lie. It's like that Need for control. Right? We want to be in control. We want to feel like we're profitable right away. But for us, we're trying to be profitable on these 90 day cycles.
Zach Spuckler [00:16:32]:
Right? We're putting resources out. We're building the list. We're putting out content. We're putting out podcasts. We're putting out emails. We're just We're reaching out to our audience that we're paying to build. We're warming them up, and then we're making an offer. And typically, we see a one and Half to 3, it varies quarter to quarter.
Zach Spuckler [00:16:51]:
I'm gonna be honest. But we typically see 1 and a half to 3 x return on ad spend over the 3 to 4 months. And you might be like, Zach, that's not a lot. Right? Totally agree. It's not a massive amount. We have a membership program that's $67 a month, so we're working in increments of $67. But in the off months, the months where we're not launching because we have a membership, We generate, all those recurring payments that aren't necessarily profitable from the ads we're currently running, but still profitable from the previous ads. So we see a much higher return on ad spend over, like, a 3 to 6 to 12 month customer life cycle of the membership.
Zach Spuckler [00:17:32]:
But you know me. I love transparency. I love numbers. I love to share the nitty gritty. And so I can't sit here and be like, we 10 x our ad spend. We don't. Typically, we spend like, last quarter, we spent around I'm I'm rounding the numbers just to be completely candid. But we spent around 7 and a half to $8,000 on ads, and our launch profited, fifteen Thousand, cash.
Zach Spuckler [00:18:00]:
That that is after the ad spend from the launch. So, really, we spent about 7 and a half, $8,000, maybe 9, and we made about 20 cash. Right? So, you know, we doubled our ad spend, And we're happy with that because now we also generated a 100 new customers in our membership, about 60 of them recurring. And so we'll generate money on those 60 people every single month, and they stick around on average 6 to 8 months. So rather than making a, You know, 4 or $500 sale. We're making 1 sale at 50 to $60, and we repeat that sale every single month consistently. Okay? So I know that that's, like, really specific to our business model, but I I wanted to share that intel for you just to give you something to think about in the way that we think about it. But there's there's one other note that I want to share with you, and that is that we rely on advertising.
Zach Spuckler [00:18:53]:
So if you're you're thinking about this and you're like, my list is not growing. I'm not reaching new people. I'm struggling to get in front of new people. I get that. I really do. We used to struggle with organic traffic, you know, after, like, the fall of Periscope, frankly. Periscope was great to us. This is, like, years years years ago.
Zach Spuckler [00:19:14]:
It was a live streaming app, like, before Facebook and Instagram live. It was great for us. We had, like, tens of thousands of followers. We're getting hundreds of viewers, and it was great. And then it kind of fizzled out, and we never really recovered organically. Like, organically, we've never gotten much traction. And so I rely on advertising, and what we do is we just have ads running every single day. And we have ads running to grow our list, Ads running to nurture our audience with some of our best podcasts, and then we also run an ad to some of our low ticket offers.
Zach Spuckler [00:19:46]:
Right? So we're just Always pushing every single day to generate revenue, to generate engagement, to generate leads. Right? And if you're thinking about this and you're like, this is great in theory, but I'm not growing. I'd really encourage you to consider ads. Right? The other thing is keep in mind that nurturing requires email content and connection. And so you want to be thinking, like, in 3 months time, what am I going to be selling? Right? And I'm gonna give you a really specific example here. It's a little inception y, but, like, We're going into our Black Friday, Cyber Monday promotion where we're going to offer our membership. And so because the core of our membership Is teaching this 30, 60, 90 day cycle, helping you set it up in your 1st 90 days of your membership? If I'm going into a promotion on Black Friday, Cyber Monday about the membership, and I do a podcast that talks about the methodology, which is what I did today that teaches that, we're gonna Hopefully, seed the idea with content that you might be interested in the membership. Right? So the other thing is you don't just want to willy nilly throw content out there.
Zach Spuckler [00:20:50]:
You want to think about How does this content seed my next offer? Right? And finally, remember that growing the list grows everything. Right? The more people on your list, The more you can drive to your Instagram, your Facebook, your podcast, your YouTube, your blog. Right? The more you put the time in To grow the audience, the more you grow everything. That has just been my experience. K? And I wanted to share that with you because I think it's important for us to be thinking, How am I consistently and regularly growing the audience? Right. So if you're listening to this And you're like, Zach, this is great. Well, thank you, first off. If you're listening to this and you're going, Zach, this is great, but how do I actually, like, kind of, like, do it for lack of a better word.
Zach Spuckler [00:21:37]:
How do I put this into play? Right? And so I wanna share with you that You can do this inside of our membership. So our membership has a 90 day onboarding process. Right? And you can join month to month. You don't have to join for 90 days, though I recommend you just mentally We commit 3 months because what we do is in the 1st month, we teach you how to build your list consistently with advertising. Okay? So that is month number 1. You basically learn our process that we use to grow our email list every single day, no matter what. Always in ad running. Right? 2nd month, we teach you about nurturing that list with your automated sequence.
Zach Spuckler [00:22:13]:
Right? So remember in the podcast I talked about how we have, like, that 5 to 14 day cycle for all new leads. We're gonna teach you how to create your 1st 5 day new lead cycle, And we're gonna set you up with templates, samples, you know, everything you need to basically set up your 1st automated Funnel. Right? It's a it's a funnel, a nurture funnel. Then in the 3rd month, if you don't have a low ticket offer, but you're listening to this and you're like, okay. I See how a low ticket offer would benefit this process? Like, I'm seeing it, Zach. I'm seeing you say, like, oh, maybe I do want a low ticket offer to put into that nurture funnel, Or I wanna make an offer so that I can kinda hedge my bets, have that little insurance policy where I make a little extra money. In the 3rd month, we teach you how to develop a Product that complements what your core offer is, put it into your sequence so that you can actually grow Consistently, not just your list and your nurture, but also some sales of a low ticket offer to help offset all the the work you're basically putting in. Right? Now here's the big thing.
Zach Spuckler [00:23:18]:
Our membership used to be $49 a month. We've been doing that for 2 years. We've added so much to it. We've upgraded our membership portal. We've added a Facebook community. We have, added a coaching call every month because we serve the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand audience with different calls in different time zones. We've added bonus calls. We added additional bonuses.
Zach Spuckler [00:23:42]:
And so after 2 years, we basically had the conversation, myself and my team, And we said we wanna just keep improving, and that's gonna require that we increase the price, just to be totally blunt. Like, If we wanna keep adding new resources and new time commitments, like, we've got to increase the price to support that, and we've put so much content and value in there That's just waiting for you. It it was time. Right? We've had it for two and a half years. We've never increased the price, and it it was time. So That being said, if you're listening to this, you might be like, oh my gosh. I've been eyeing up that membership, Zach, and I didn't know the price was going And that's totally fair. Like, normally, when we do a price increase on something, like, you you see the emails and you see the promotions and you see all of this stuff from the marketer that's like, buy it now before the price goes up.
Zach Spuckler [00:24:27]:
And we didn't do that this time. We just increased the price to $67. We decided, You know what? There's enough in there. It's time to increase the price, and we we increased it to $67. So you may not even have known that the price went up. But Here's the cool news. Don't worry. I got you.
Zach Spuckler [00:24:43]:
For Black Friday, Cyber Monday, we're actually going to give you an opportunity from the time this episode drops, You're listening to it, so it dropped. Through Cyber Monday, November 27th, you can join the membership for the original rate of $49 a month using code b f c m 49. So that's like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and then the original price of the program, 49. And All you have to do is go to not your average membership .com, choose if you want to join it monthly or annual, and we will hook you up. That's it. That's all you got to do. So not your average membership .com. BFCM 49 is the coupon code, and you can join the membership for $49 a month.
Zach Spuckler [00:25:34]:
Now once Sorry. January. Jeez. I'm gonna leave that in just so you know. Leave that in. Not January. January is 2024. That's when you really gonna wanna be in there.
Zach Spuckler [00:25:45]:
But, as of November 28th, the day after Cyber Monday, the price will be $67. Like, that's just what it's gonna be. The next time we launch it in January will be our Launch, it's gonna be at the $67 price point. So if you've been eyeing it up and thinking about it, here's what I will tell you. Two big things. 1, we're gonna walk you through the process I shared today. If this episode resonated with you, this is the 1st 90 day process of the membership is putting you into your 1st 90 day cycle. Okay? Second thing is we have a 2 click cancellation and refund policy.
Zach Spuckler [00:26:19]:
So most memberships are like, oh, there's no risk because You know, you can cancel any time and we say, but you still risk that 1st month payment. Right? And so for us, in your 1st 30 days, whether you go annual or monthly, you cancel, We'll give you a full refund and it's 2 buttons to cancel. You click cancel in your portal, Enter your name and email and click submit, and you are good to go. That's it. Right? We don't ask a 1000000 questions. We have an Optional survey that you can tell us why you're leaving, which just helps us collect and tell and improve the membership. But there's no, like, wait. Stay.
Zach Spuckler [00:26:54]:
No. Hold on. Wait. We'll give you 5% off if you stay like, none of that. It's just if it's a great fit and you love it and you resonated with this episode, come grab it for $49 a month. No risk. If you decide, hey. This is not for me.
Zach Spuckler [00:27:07]:
We're gonna release you. That's okay. We don't want unhappy customers. We want thrilled people that want to be there. And if that ends up being you, then you locked it in for a great rate. So, you can head over to not your average membership.com. Use code bfcm49 to save off your membership. And, yes, that is in perpetuity.
Zach Spuckler [00:27:26]:
It's $49 a month off, all payments going forward. And, yeah, I I hope you get massive value from the membership. And more importantly or just as importantly, I should say, I hope you got massive value from this episode. And if you'd like a recap of anything we covered today, you can head over to heartsoulhustle.com/nyap070. Again, that's heartsoulhustle.com/nyap070, And we'll have the show notes, the transcripts, key information with timestamps, links to the membership, another, like a written out work version of that coupon code if you need it, all waiting for you over there. So check it out. And I want to leave you with this. Whether you join the membership or not, I am so Thankful to have you in the community.
Zach Spuckler [00:28:15]:
I love that you love the show. Hopefully, you love the show. And yeah. Like, you know, it it's This is how we're seeing marketing shift, and the reality is you can adapt or you can stay stuck. And I would encourage you, even if not everything in this episode You agree with a 100% or perfectly resonated. That's okay. Be thinking, what little things that Zac is sharing could I adopt? Could I adapt? Could I change? Could I tweet? Could I use? Right? We don't have to agree on everything. I always tell my clients and my students, like, if something doesn't resonate with you that I share, that's okay.
Zach Spuckler [00:28:48]:
You can push back and go, yeah. No. I'm not doing that. That's okay. Test. Be the owner of the laboratory that is the House of the experiment that is your business. Do you like that? Your business is just a big experiment, so play with it. Have fun.
Zach Spuckler [00:29:04]:
Test things. See what works. Don't box yourself in going, well, this is how it used to work, so I'm a keep doing it. Be willing to adapt, change, and test. Okay? So with all that being said, I hope you have an Incredible rest of your week. I hope to see you in the membership. And until next time, stay not so average.