The world’s first Facebook Keyword tool

The #1 thing Facebook marketing has been lacking up until now has been a really decent keyword research tool. Facebook’s online tools appear to have been developed in the early- to mid-1960’s. They don’t suggest ideas and they’re just plain clunky.

Stephen Juth is a long-time Keyword software Jockey and long-time friend of Planet Perry. His software tool CashKeywords not only has a superb suite of keyword tools for Google AdWords, but now has a Facebook tool too. It queries the Facebook database and then combines the results with Google-related data to make a truly useful and powerful tool.

Watch the video here

Perry

Outsourcing Disasters and Duplicating Failure

I’d like to make a brief, but obvious point today, because there’s something I see over and over again across dozens of students and hundreds of customers…

“Outsourcing Disasters and Duplicating Failure”

The desire to duplicate oneself and offload work is only human nature. In fact, it’s one of the strongest elements I’ve observed in the entrepreneurial mindset.

So it’s only natural that people want to COPY other sales systems, and OUTSOURCE all the work involved in building their own.

The problem comes when people don’t take the time to ensure they’re copying SUCCESS, and when they try to OUTSOURCE something they don’t really fully understand or know how to supervise.

Because here’s the secret…

The success of a sales system doesn’t lie entirely in the words on the sales page, or even necessarily in the system as a whole.    It relies much more on the understanding the writer has of the market. And since copycats can’t legally plagiarize the whole system, absent this understanding, they wind up copying an empty shell.

Moreover, it’s rare that a WHOLE system is successful. Lacking an exhaustive understanding of the market in which the system operates, people are prone to copy the failing elements just as easily as the successful ones.

In other words, many competitors are succeeding in spite of bad marketing, because just a few elements are right on target.  Without thorough research and market intelligence, how do you know you’re not duplicating their failure?

There’s also a lot of talk these days of just outsourcing your marketing, or your market research, Glenn-Style.

Now, I’m totally in favor of getting help to scale up your operations. In fact, I’ve been working through John Jonas’ materials, and they’ve helped me to hire no less than 8 people in the Phillipines now.    (You can watch the Outsourcing Webinar Replay through my affiliate link here.  John has a lot of very useful advice for hiring full timers at $300/mo, and provides some training to get them started.  I have a LOT of good experience with his hiring advice and resources, but can’t really say one way or the other about the training he provides for the outsourcers — I’d prefer you used them to do things you already do very well and just want to offload from your plate)

There’s a LOT you CAN outsource. You CAN outsource all the grunt work of setting up your automatic intelligence machine, doing some of the initial scanning of social media conversations, installing and managing your websites, installing wordpress blogs and plug ins, doing routine backups, setting up your surveys, programming scripts and databases, running through the first set of codes for your survey analysis, transcription, audio editing, video editing, article distribution, social bookmarking, data entry, a very, very rough first draft of your copywriting, and so on)

But in my opinion, you can’t outsource the STRATEGIC THINKING AND MARKET IMMERSION necessary to succeed in a project, especially in today’s competitive adwords auctions.

Somewhere along the way, if you want to build a REAL business, you’re going to have to spend a few hundred hours immersed in the market yourself.

Because no one’s really going to care about it like you do.

And because without doing this, you’re NOT going to pick up the subtleties which allow you to connect with the market above and beyond  your competitors.

You simply won’t know what your customers “smell like”, and they’ll sense your templated, outsourced approach.

Because prospects in any market can “smell” honesty, integrity, and passion when it’s poured into a project.

In my experience, the people who try to outsource strategic thinking and market immersion wind up with MORE work, not less, in the long run, because their systems simply don’t perform.   (You CAN partner with someone to champion a market for you, but only if they’re tested and proven in their entrepreneurial and strategic thinking abilities… and if they’ve got enough upside potential and skin in the game to make it worth their while)

A long time ago, I heard Brian Tracy say “if you want to make a mark in your market, make 100 phone calls to prospects and I promise you you’ll never look back”

At the time, I was starting a psychology practice in the midst of the collapse of  indemnity insurance (doctors could no longer get so easily reimbursed for their high session fees as the big companies cut off the gravy train).   My colleagues were all terrified, complaining, and going broke.

What did I do?

I made a few hundred phone calls to every psychologist, psychiatrist, counseling center, etc. I could find on Long Island.  I asked them if they had any patients they were having trouble working with.  I asked how I could help them.  I asked if I could volunteer to see clients for free at their clinic for a day.   I asked if I could work for them in any capacity whatsoever.

I also set up focus groups and individual interviews with people considering seeing a psychologist or counselor.

18 months later I had a private practice with 65 patients. (By the way, for any psychologists considering advertising, one of the critical insights was that no one looked for psychologists, only for counselors, ’cause “you’ve gotta be sick in the head” to see a shrink, “but everyone needs a little counseling sometimes” )

Why?    I knew what the market wanted cold.  I had more connections than any of my peers.   I WENT THROUGH THE IMMERSION EXPERIENCE.

I’ve got several coaching students now who are really getting the value of this.

One of them spent the bulk of this year doing low-end consulting with literally hundreds of people looking for help with a particular software program.   He’s now set up a lucrative PPC lead funnel in this VERY competitive space, and I’ll be utterly shocked if he doesn’t have a million dollar business in 18 months or less.

Another one got so psyched about immersion, he decided to make 1,000 phone calls to prospects in his market.  ONE THOUSAND.   Then he developed a training system based on his experience.  (I can’t imagine anyone else’s training system in that very, very competitive market could possibly be any better.  I can’t imagine any prospect not instantly sensing this after just a little exposure to his materials)

Moreover, both of these gentlemen are NOW in the ultimate position to leverage themselves and outsource their work.   NOW they can replace themselves, and begin building multi-million dollar enterprises.

I guess what I’m saying is,  we’re all in such a hurry to get away from the market, most of us never get into it deep enough to truly succeed.

And so we look for the short cuts…

And wind up copying failure, or outsourcing things we don’t really understand.

I’m not invulnerable to this…  I’m human too, and always fighting a tendency to get lazy.  (Plus, when you get a little money and can easily afford the help, it’s easy to think “I’m above this now”)

But when I look back at my successes, the #1 thing they all had in common were a passionate immersion period in the market, right there in the trenches with the customers and competitors.

Have YOU really immersed yourself in your market?

Something to think about,

G

Get in the Club Already, Huh? |  Get Step by Step Hand Holding and Motivation to Do It |  Blueprint for Beginners

10,000 Hours + getting more traffic to your website

Just the other day I was doing a phone consultation with a customer and he said, “If I were going to invest my 10,000 hours in Pay Per Click, where would you suggest I focus my energy?”

I like the 10,000 hour concept & I talk about it a lot.

Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers” is all about the idea that the most talented boy-wonders (people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and the Beatles) were successful not because of innate talent but because they got a chance to invest 10,000 hours in their chosen profession, and they got their ten thousand hours in early.

I replied: “I’m not sure there’s 10,000 hours worth of stuff to even know about Pay-Per-Click. There’s a keyword, there’s an ad, there’s a bid price. If you spent ten thousand hours studying that I’m not sure what all you would study.”

“However,” I said, “You can most definitely invest ten thousand hours in understanding what came *before* that click and what comes *after* that click. The story, the psychology, the progression of keywords from first inquiry to sale, the art of gently leading your customer where you want him to go.”

And I can assure you, if you invest ten thousand hours (5 years worth of career time) aggressively honing your chops you will be a master marketer. You’ll be in the driver’s seat of one of the most lucrative careers in the world today.

Yesterday on our Facebook group call, someone asked me what kind of advertising I would specialize in if I were starting out now.

There’s no one answer. Google is great for some businesses. Especially B2B. Facebook is great for B2C, especially things that deal in peoples’ personal space.

But most importantly, know this:

You can’t become a master 12 different kinds of advertising, ever. Let alone master 12 things fast.

But that is completely OK!

What you can do is master one or two. In just a few months you can develop great AdWords chops or great Facebook PPC chops. Many are becoming masters of both.

The most important thing you can do is *narrow* your focus. The worst thing you can do is react to 150 different emails that show up in your inbox this week, each pushing you to do some different, “brand new” thing.

Less is more. It’s less stress, it’s more focus, it’s more effective.

You don’t have to be great at everything. Just get really good at a few things that work. When you have that laser focus, then no matter whatever happens, you’ll never go hungry.

Perry

My Favorite Blog Comment Ever

I’ve had thousands of comments on my blog. But my favorite one is  from Alan Kirke who, upon seeing a picture of Sharon in a post said something like “the biggest learning is that if dude like you can get a babe like that, there’s hope for me yet”.

Which inspired me to make the little caricature above.

Of course, you’re seeing the best picture of her, and the WORST picture of me. And of course, I didn’t look like that when she married me (but she did!)

Still, it’s a very interesting point.

Joe Jackson noted in a fabulous tune from my youth  (“Is She Really Going Out With Him?”):

Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street
From my window I’m staring while my coffee grows cold
Look over there! (Where?)
There’s a lady that I used to know
She’s married now, or engaged, or something, so I am told

Is she really going out with him?
Is she really gonna take him home tonight?
Is she really going out with him?
‘Cause if my eyes don’t deceive me,
There’s something going wrong around here

But–and for all you suave marketers out there, the point is coming  soon–this song got very popular for a VERY good reason.

Because if ONLY alpha males could find such an attractive, smart, supportive mate, then only the absolutely most fit evolutionary specimens would have any reason to hope.

But it’s simply not true.

Dudes like Alan and I take heart when they see “pretty women walking with gorillas” down our streets.  It reminds us wit, intelligence, love, and just plain hard work can catch a mate almost as well as a stunning set of biceps and abdominal muscles.

Now, go have a look around the Google Adwords Auction… pretty much any one.

Sure, you’ll find some “alpha males” in the top spots, but in almost every market you’ll also find at least one gorilla holding his or her own.  (Try monitoring the auction for a month to see who’s really winning the game)

You’ll scratch your head wondering what they’re doing there, in the midst of all the big players, how on earth did they ever scratch out that territory?

But still, there they are, plain as day, buying clicks every day for months on end.

Because “pretty women” (e.g. the most attractive customers) in the adwords auction are attracted to wit, intelligence, love, and just plain hard work (e.g. research)  too.

Which means, you’d don’t have to be a superhero to build your business.  Just willing to work a little harder and study a little more, like the big hairy dude in the picture above.

For what it’s worth,

Dr. G

Get in the Club Already, Huh? |  Get Step by Step Hand Holding and Motivation to Do It |  Blueprint for Beginners

Results from Facebook ads in 1 day

Facebook FastTrack student Lisa Ziegler of Nokomis, FL sent in shortly after the class started:

“So….It’s 10:22am EST on Friday. I’ve already gotten 2 conversions from my NEW ad that just got approved this morning. Cost per conversion…..$ 3.27 Cool, Alright, Yeah!

She paid 55 cents per click and got 8,053 impressions in just part of a day.

***Important difference between Google and Facebook:

The cost of a Google click depends on what the person is looking for.

The cost of a Facebook click depends on who’s looking for it.

Right now, most advertisers have no idea how to target the kinds of people they ought to be reaching. So some traffic is super bargain priced.

Perry Marshall