SPI 439: The #1 Most Underrated Way to Grow Your Email List and Brand Today (Let Me “Quiz” You)

SPI 439: The #1 Most Underrated Way to Grow Your Email List and Brand Today (Let Me Quiz You)

Pat Flynn:
All right. I want to start off this episode by quizzing you real quick. Of the three following options I'm about to share with you, which one do you think is the best, and most efficient for growing your email list, and bringing a high quality lead into your ecosystem? So, I'm going to give you three options right now. Number one, telling people to subscribe to your newsletter. Number two, offering a lead magnet or a downloadable to have people subscribe to your list, or number three, having people participate in a quiz that matches with a goal or need they might have, which one? Number one, number two, or number three?

Pat:
If you've guessed number three, then you're in the right place because, well, you can just probably infer that because of the title of this episode, but this is definitely one of the best ways, if not the best way right now, to grow your email list. So, if you're at all interested in growing your email list, and not just growing it quickly, but more importantly, growing it with quality leads, and based on people's answers of these quizzes, the ability to take people on a journey that relates to those answers, there's just so much great opportunity here.

Pat:
And today, I'm very stoked to welcome in somebody who I met in-person last year, who demoed me a software that blew my mind. One that I'm actually diving into right now. It's called Outgrow. If you go to smartpassiveincome.com/outgrow, that is my affiliate link, but make sure you listen to the episode. You don't have to go there now, but we're going to have a conversation with Randy about why quizzes are important, how to use them, the different use cases. And you'll hear my brains turning, you'll hear the gears like ... That's what my gears sound like.

Pat:
You'll hear that here in this episode, as we just go back and forth and talk about different ideas. And I guarantee you, by the end of this, you're going to get inspired to create a quiz, whether it's a simple quiz or a more complicated calculator type thing, which you can do too. And you're going to see the different use cases, how it might be useful for you, and I guarantee you're going to want to do it too. So, again, check it out if you want to now, smartpassiveincome.com/outgrow, or wait until the end. But either way, thanks for being here. Let's do this.

Announcer:
Welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, where it's all about working hard now, so you can sit back, and reap the benefits later. And now your host: he was once in a Quake 2 Clan, which is a video game. Yes, a video game clan, Pat Flynn.

Pat:
What's up everybody, Pat Flynn here, and welcome to session 440—440, how crazy is that?—of the Smart Passive Income Podcast. My name is Pat Flynn. I'm here to help you make more money, save more time, and help more people too. And one way to help us by helping others is to create a quiz or a calculator that gives people answers, and direction so that we can take them further on that journey. It is much more attractive than just saying, "Hey, please subscribe to my list." Because you know what that actually is code for? "Hey, let me send you more emails." And people don't necessarily want more emails, or they don't know they want those emails yet until they're in there, which is why we need to bring them in further, and more likely with something else.

Pat:
A lead magnet works pretty well, a PDF file, or some downloadable. However, the best thing working right now are quizzes, and calculators, and excuses for people to interact with you to then pull information, and give you their email address to get support. Check it out. You're going to hear from Randy from Outgrow.co, you go to smartpassiveincome.com/outgrow. You'll be able to check out that tool right now. You're going to be blown away. Listen in. Here we go. Hey Randy, welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast. Thanks so much for being here today.

Randy Reyess:
Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Pat:
I'm excited because we're going to be talking about something that has been around for a while, but I think entrepreneurs and business owners are finally catching on to just how valuable inserting quizzes into their brand can be. And I'd love for you to speak a little bit about what quizzes are, and the different use cases for them. And then we'll dive deeper from there if you don't mind.

Randy:
Sure. Yeah. So, the way I like to think about quizzes is at a high level, people usually just think of a BuzzFeed quiz. And BuzzFeed is a great example of how this can be engaging. But the traditional, "what type of Friends character are you," or "which Disney star are you?" is only a small example of what quizzes can be. And the way we like to think about them, or it's more like an interactive tool, or a personalized recommendation. So, you can lead people down a certain flow, or a set of questions, and then give them a very specific recommendation in terms of which plan they should get, or which plan is most relevant to them.

Randy:
What shirt best matches an outfit, or the wardrobe they already have. And so, the power of these interactive tools suddenly becomes much greater than a simple, basic quiz. And so, that's the way we like to think about what these can actually accomplish.

Pat:
Yeah. I like the idea of the quizzes like a filtering process, or a way to guide people into something else. And the traditional way of guiding people across our website, or within our brand is to just simply write a whole bunch of stuff, and hope people will click on certain links depending on what they need help with. But a quiz is really cool because I think the big draw of a quiz is like what's my answer going to be? Right? Where am I going to end up? Which is why we want to know what Disney princess we are. Jasmine for me, by the way.

Pat:
And then also, you know, what Friends character? I'm definitely a Ross, but you can use this in your brand too. So, even you, and I, and Zak over at Outgrow.co, we've discussed quizzes for the SPI brand, for example, "Hey, which podcasting equipment best fits your budget?" And then of course, what might happen after that? A person can go because they've been guided to there to click on an affiliate link, for example. Or, "Hey, which part of the journey are you in, and what articles might be best helpful for you now too?"

Pat:
So, hopefully, this starts to give you a sense even immediately here, for those of you listening, how a quiz might insert itself into a part of your brand. How would you suggest, Randy, for brands out there to know, well, where do we even start with this? How do we know what to even create a quiz about?

Randy:
Yeah, that's actually a great question. And the way I like to think about it is you want to look at your funnel. Okay? So, first, just to think about the top of the funnel, middle, bottom of the funnel, and then once you've acquired a user, how are you going to engage with them afterwards? So, I like to separate out by category. And then I like to think about the questions people have, at each stage. So, they haven't even heard about you all the way down until they're a paid customer. What are the questions they have? Once you have a sense of the questions people have, now, you know how you can help them.

Randy:
And so, let's say you are an email marketing tool, and you want to figure out how people can better leverage email. So, the first question you're going to want to think about is, "Okay, if the person is considering an email tool, let me help them figure out, okay, based on their needs, the size of their audience, their budgets, the types of emails they're going to be sending, what can they do?" Right? As you know, obviously, ConvertKit has the global snippet features.

Randy:
So, if someone says, "Oh, I do different webinars every week, and then I want to use the global snippet feature." Then you're going to say, "Okay, well, this is a good tool for you." Whereas if they're coming in, and they're saying, "Oh, I have a very specific use case in a certain industry. And I need an email marketing tool that's HIPAA compliant or whatever." And then, you can send them to that right path. So, I think that's the way to think about it if it's top of the funnel. And then as you go down the funnel, it can be much more specific, like an ROI calculator, or a specific recommendation.

Randy:
"Okay. Which plan should I get? I'm interested in your product, or I'm interested in starting a podcast, should it be a guest podcast? I have the topics finalized, but now I want to see how long it should be, how often I should post." And so, that would be the difference between, "Okay, these are top of the funnel ideas. We're answering questions customers have at the top of the funnel versus customers who are really late stage, or about to buy. How do you do that?" And then the final thing would be once they've actually bought, how do I get them to stay engaged, give me feedback, and then refer other people to us?

Randy:
And then there, you can do a wide range of things around contests to incentivize people to know they can get a shirt, or they can get some Amazon gift card, or they can get some more product if they Share it, and Like the product, or if they give you feedback. And so, I think it all comes back to what questions do people have across the funnel. And then from there, it's about what type of content can I create to help them answer that question in a personalized way. So, how can it better complement a blog post that's a great piece of content but it speaks to a lot more people, but now how can I complement that with a piece of content that's personalized to my specific use case? And then that's how I would add it in.

Pat:
And there's different kinds of quizzes that could be offered. Right? And especially, in terms of like quizzes that can teach along the way, right? Like based on an answer, you can be like, "Hey, this is your answer. This is where most people fit in. Here's some education, move on to the next question." Right? Like that's a way to use a quiz, and have like an experience, right? It's not just about the final result. It's like, the individual answers, right? It can be used in that capacity?

Randy:
Yeah. I would say that's actually one of the most popular and powerful use cases. So, they're considered a subsection that we like to call graders or assessments. And the way we look at those are...the reason why they're so powerful is that you're giving someone a score. And the example that a lot of people like to reference is the HubSpot grader. So, around, I think 12 years ago, they launched a grader for your website. And it would just scan your website, and give you feedback on your SEO. And this was a free tool that they gave to everyone, but it gave you a personalized score for your specific page, but the score was just a piece of it.

Randy:
It would actually specify like, "These are the specific things you need to do with your tags. These are specific things you need to do with your robotexts." Et cetera. And this type of feedback is very powerful because you're basically giving someone what you would usually give in an initial consultation for free, upfront, but you're building trust with them. So, I think the concern a lot of people have, especially consultants, or if you have a course is, "This is a lot of value I'm giving to people. And is this going to cannibalize my sales?"

Randy:
But the way we like to think about it is, in today's world, in 2020, there's so many different options. There's so much competition, which by doing this, by giving them a lot of value upfront, you are now able to build trust with them because they know you're already giving them something of value before they've even paid you. And so, that's a lot more valuable than just the Contact Us form. And so, that's why these assessments and graders, which you mentioned, where you give them specific feedback for their use case, and you really help them, like a free consultation, or a free audit is very powerful.

Randy:
And it can really help build that trust, and your call schedule. The likelihood of them scheduling a call, giving you their information, and actually interested to work with you is much higher now that you've already helped them for free.

Pat:
That's great. I love the idea of thinking of these quizzes more as an assessment versus like how much do you know about something? It's like, "Hey, let's see where you're at now." And then based on their answer or their grade, because you can weight different questions differently, right? Or you put scores to different answers. You can go, "Hey, if you fit into this category, this is the recommendation. If you fit into this category, here's what I recommend you do." I remember that HubSpot SEO website audit grader, and the audit process. It's like a free tool, like, "Hey, let's see where your website is at." And I remember taking that, and it was highly valuable.

Pat:
And then I wanted to take action because I knew what I needed to do, which was really cool. I've experienced something similar through a person, a leader who has been on the show before, his name is Michael Hyatt. He used to promote a course called Best Year Ever. And in fact, part of his launch strategy was to have people take a quiz. And I don't remember what software he used, or if it was just internal, but that's why I love Outgrow.co because they can just build it on your own. But he would ask you questions about different aspects of your life.

Pat:
And then at the end he would say, "Hey, these are the areas of your life that you need to work on for the next year, come join me in my course, so that I can help you with them." And it was just much more personalized of an experience. And I think we all have the capability to do that, which is really cool. So, in terms of types of questions, Randy, I know there's like scalers, there's like multiple choice questions. These are all predetermined answers to help us define where a person could go next, right? Not necessarily a survey, right? There's a big difference there, I think. Right?

Randy:
Yeah. So, it's really interesting because we started out as a calculator, and quiz tool builder. And then over time, we had to add a wide range of things based on the customer feedback we had over the years. And so, now we have chat bots, and e-commerce recommendation engines as well. But so the types of questions will vary based on the specific tool you're building. So, an example of a grader might just be a link. The input is just a link to your site, or a link to your blog, or something. And then you run an analysis using some API that gives you the information. So, the actual question type is very basic, and simple. But then there are many other types of question types. So, a popular one would be a rank. So, rank the importance of these five things to you.

Randy:
So, if let's say health is important for the example you mentioned about what do you want to do for the year? If your number one focus is health, or fitness, or diet, or whatever, it might be that now you have a ranked score for them. So, ranking can be very informative. You can have free text input as well, but then you want to figure out what logic you're going to use. So, for example, if I have a free text input question, you want to say, "Okay, what are the main keywords they're going to be using? And then, how can I set up logic, so that I can flow them intelligently to the right next question?"

Pat:
Ooh, you can create keyword-based logic from even open-ended answers?

Randy:
Yeah. So, you can basically, if this text contains this type of phrase, or this type of phrase, and then you can move from there. And that is something that is useful. But I think the best use case for this is to have an initial question. Okay? And then once they've answered that question, you have a logic jump, and you send them to the next question. And then you ask for text feedback. And that text input is used for your own information. And this way, even if they have typos, or errors, or things that are hard for your logic to fully understand, you already know the keyword therein, but you still get the full text answer they've written.

Randy:
So, if you want them to write maybe a few sentences, and you're scared of there being a typo, or some issue where they write something you didn't think of, and you don't have a logic flow for that, then you can do that as well. But the number of question types can vary significantly from the traditional rating to the ranks, to this guided logic jump I mentioned to a link, yeah, there's probably 20 different-

Pat:
And then, there's like calculators, right? Which are very useful too. I have a friend, his name is Todd, who has a website at Financial Mentor. And he had to build his own calculators for things like a retirement calculator, and all these other things, which has logic built-in, and then an assessment, and then next recommendations, right? In terms of like, "Okay, well, here's how much money you need to save every month from now until you retire, and whatnot." And you have those capabilities built into Outgrow.co too, right?

Randy:
Yeah. So, we have a lot of pre-made content. So, retirement, and mortgage, and insurance type examples are so popular in real estate, that we have a lot of pre-made content that you can pick and choose from, and then you can tweak it. But yeah, I think the challenge that people have with calculators is the math part. Sometimes refinancing a mortgage can get complicated depending on the interest structure of these mortgages. And so, what we've tried to do is basically say, "Okay, we're going to have pre-made content that basically has it all for you. And then, if you have a custom-loan structure, or you want to have some exotic, derivative financial calculator, and you're not like a financial math expert, then you can work with us, and we can help you with that since we've done so many of them."

Randy:
But you don't need a PhD in math to make most calculators. But if you are doing something that's complicated, we do recommend either working with someone. If you're using algo, obviously, working with someone on our team, and we can help you with the math, or you can get a math expert as a consultant to help you with it. Either way, I think you can still build something really powerful, and basically, walk people through the ROI of using your tool. How much time they save in their sales processes after they've gotten a consultation from you, or after they've taken your course, or after they've used your software. These types of numerical outputs can really help people better understand the value you drive for their business.

Pat:
I mean, I'm just getting a ton of ideas. Like, we're running a workshop pretty soon here. Probably will have already happened after this call, but it's about podcast advertising. And it would be really cool to build a calculator, to have people go, "Okay, well, how many podcasts listeners do you get?" Boom, boom, boom, boom. Right? Like how big is your email list? Boom, boom, boom. They put all these numbers in there, and then I can use some just quick algorithms or math to go, "Okay. Well, based on those numbers, you could expect that a sponsor would pay you this much money per month for how many episodes you'd be willing to share."

Pat:
Even within there, like, "Are you willing to do a mid-roll podcast ad which would give you a little bit more money because it's in the middle of the podcast, and if not, then that would remove how much money you can make." Just a little bit of math, and a little bit of thought. How valuable would that be for like. . . I need to be doing that.

Randy:
Yeah. I agree. 100 percent. I think podcast advertising is one of the fields where you just ... Because you remember how earlier we talked about how you can help answer the questions your audience has. And the people who are creating podcasts, you're obviously selling to your audience, making sure they're driving value, but you also, if you're selling ads as well, they're also a key stakeholder. And the questions they're always going to have is going to be like, podcasts analytics are still young. It's not where Facebook and Google Advertising is.

Randy:
And I don't have the metrics analysis they have. And so, it's not a bidding system for most podcasts ads, it's a preset price. And how do I know that the price I'm charging is fair? Because you don't want to overcharge your advertiser, and you don't want to undercharge them. You want to give them a fair price where they can still find value, but you're also getting fairly compensated. And with a model that you're talking about with a calculator where you can walk people through the variables, which is mid-roll, or entry, or end of podcasts. A length of the ad relative to length of podcast, number of listeners, and the number of ads.

Randy:
Some people have three ads or versus one ad. Some people have a coupon, and an offering, and that might also increase your take rate if you have a special coupon or offer. And so, if you can come up with approximates, obviously, it's not going to be exact, but if you come up with an approximation, and give people a range, now people can say, "Okay, let's start off with our advertisers, charging them at the bottom of this range." And you can become the de facto, like agreed upon calculator, if it's really good.

Randy:
Once it gets really good, then any podcaster who's working with a sponsor can use it, and say, "Hey, this is the Flynn advertising metric. And then [crosstalk 00:20:06] saying that I should charge X." Over time as you optimize it, I think it can become a standard for how people do it because now I don't think it's very mathematical. I think it's more-

Pat:
Yeah, and I mean, I have access to a lot of podcast companies who do this stuff. I can get actual numbers to put in there. And man, my brain is just spinning right now. I apologize, but just a podcast advertising calculator makes complete sense. I mean, that becomes almost an SEO play as well. Right? It becomes an authority play. It becomes a industry connector play, right? "Hey, I have the number one calculator and advertising company. Can we work together? And perhaps I can put you in as a possibility for a middleman company to help these people who go through here." Or I might have, and I do have, a podcast course that I can go, "Hey, by the way, okay, now you know how much you can make, but you might need to know how to find these advertisers. So, here's my course, so you can understand how to do that, or here's my YouTube video about how to do that." Or however you want to structure it.

Pat:
Like, can you all hear how just that one idea alone sparked all these possibilities? And I really love that. Question for you, let's say I have this podcast advertising calculator or whatever calculator anybody thinks of. I know that you can integrate with different email service providers, and other services. So, this also becomes an email list play, right? Like email list growth play, which I know is a primary reason why a lot of people use Outgrow.co, hence the word grow. But at what point does it make sense to ask for the email during this quiz process? Is it, "Hey, send me your email, then you get access?" Or is it, "You take the quiz, and then in order to get the results, then give me your email." Or what's the best strategy there?

Randy:
Yeah. So, this is a really interesting question. And so, I think there's many different factors that play into where to put this. It's basically a calculator in and of itself, like how do you figure out where the right place to put the lead gen form is.

Pat:
Right. Like the opt in area.

Randy:
Right. Exactly. And I think what we've seen is very significant. And I think it's really important to first determine the type of content you're creating, right? So, a mobile app cost calculator is a very informative piece of content. And so, usually, what we would recommend people do is they put the lead gen form right before the result. You ask them a set of questions, ideally, for mobile app cost calculator, you'd probably want to put eight to 12.

Randy:
So, you don't want to be too long, but if you want to give them like a reasonable estimate of a cost of a mobile app, you want to put eight to 12 questions, and then before the results you would put the lead gen form, and then you show the result. That's the standard way to do it. If you're doing a podcast advertising piece of content, that's also the result is so valuable that you can gate the result, and put the lead form right before the result.

Randy:
But there are a few areas where you could put the lead form in different areas, and you can segment the lead form into two pieces. For example, if you're running an ad, and you want to get the email early, you can put the email earlier up into the questions, and then ask for phone number towards the end if you're trying to schedule a call. So, there are different tricks that you can do. And we generally recommend, especially, when you're doing ads because people are on their phone. And if you have a longer piece of content, you do want to have some acquisition earlier on. And of course, you can do the retargeting pixel, and still have them on your retargeting channels.

Randy:
But we do like to get the email earlier on ads, and then the phone number late, if you're doing a phone number or schedule a call, or some people even charge for the PDF report. You can have like an overview of the result, and then charge the PDF report. That's obviously done at the end. So, you get the overview of the result, but then if you want to get the PDF detailed report, you have to pay a fee. And so, those things will be done there. So, I think those are a few things to take into account. And then, the value that you're giving them.

Randy:
If it's a fun thing like the Disney character thing, then you would put it on the results page, and lead gen will be like the key components. You then try to get them on retargeting, and then you would do that. But I think the email piece you mentioned is very important. So, once you get the email, then you want to make sure that automatically syncs with your ConvertKit or whatever email tool you use. And you're not just sending them the email information. You want to send other information about the person, so that your email flow isn't the same email flow.

Randy:
Like if someone comes in and says, "Hey, I already have a podcast, and I need you to help me figure out how do I upgrade my equipment?" Ideally, you would have a personalized email for that segment of people that answered the question in that way that doesn't go through, like, "How do I start a podcast?" But goes through, "How do I grow a podcast, or some other segment?" And so, those types of segments are useful, and I think are very powerful.

Pat:
Can you help me justify the idea once again? Maybe this is just me, but I know there's going to be people in my audience who are a little bit worried of having people go through a quiz, and then eventually going, "Hey, and before I give you the results, you got to give me your email." How do you position that, so that a person's more comfortable giving an email, and a person conducting the quiz or hosting the quiz is not going to get backlash for essentially like a click-and bait type of scenario where that I know is something that I've been worried about too, is like, "Hey, let me have you spend five minutes answering this thing, but then I'm not even going to give you the results yet, unless you give me the email." How do you justify that?

Randy:
Yeah, so I think it all comes back to the value you're providing. And so, if you're usually giving something like an assessment or that people usually would charge for like a consultation to go through your blog, or to go through your email marketing channel, it is a plan, and give you a recommendation of how you can be better. So, I think that alone is super valuable, that you're giving them something of value. So, if that's the case, you're giving them a lot of value then asking just for their email, it's something you usually charge is not a big deal. But there are a few things that we like to mention. One is, how you actually position this email, and how much fields you ask for, right? So, if you're only asking for name and email, that's not a huge ask, if you're going to give them something of value.

Randy:
Now, if you want to get phone number, or if you're doing a direct mail campaign, you want to get address, then that's a different question. And usually, I would segment them, I would put name, and email, and then I would put an address, or if you're doing a direct mail, or a phone number, et cetera, later. So, that's the first thing. The second thing is, the lead gen form doesn't have to appear as a question. What you can do is you can have the lead gen form appear over the results. Faint out the results, and show them, "Oh, there's a lot of results in the background. Like there's a lot of value you're going to get here. There's a lot of information. Give us your email, and you can see all this detail."

Randy:
And then, the last thing I would say is, during the content piece, right—for people who are really afraid of this backlash, during the content piece, you can get feedback. So, ask people to answer questions. Let's say you're answering first question, "Okay, my podcast currently is 12 minutes long, and I'm doing it once a month." So, your first feedback could be like, "Oh, maybe you should try doing it more regular." And you can have a specific explanation after the first page. It's like, "People who subscribe to your podcast, you probably want to do it more than once a month because you're just doing a small bite size, 12-minute piece of content.

Randy:
People can consume that a lot more than once a month, if you want to engage your audience. You can give that something of value right away. And so, as they go through the piece of content, they've already started to build trust with you, because you're giving them something valuable. And then at the end, you can give them a much more detailed, powerful thing. And if it's legitimate, when they give their email, they're much more likely to share it. And so, the reason why I smiled when you were talking about the podcast advertising example is because the mobile app cost calculator that we did way back was so powerful that the results would show you like a map. And it would show you how the price would change by geography, and how the price varied by feature.

Randy:
And so, you could see if you change this feature, well, price would go down a lot. And if I started out with my first version, and I built it in this geography, I can get a developer with a lower cost of living. And then, they can give me a good rate that's within my budget as a new startup. That became a standard. And so, people would share it on forums, and groups, and email lists because it helped them start something. And people didn't know much about mobile apps eight years ago. And so, now, it became the standard.

Randy:
So, this can be similar for podcast advertising. And in those cases, you're giving so much value that I think it's okay to ask for email. In that mobile app cost calculator, email was asked right before the results. And we even asked them to share someone else who would benefit from this. So, you share your email, and then who else do you think could benefit from it? And that's an optional field, but that could be something of value. If you're really giving them something so useful, you can say, "Hey, this is useful, give us your email." And then say, "Is there someone else you might want to recommend?"

Pat:
I like that a lot. A number of things I want to ask, and unpack there, the idea of educating as a person's going through the quiz is really intriguing to me. Because now, like you said, you're giving value. It almost means asking for an email, it's like, "Yeah, you've already given so much, of course, right now, I want more because you've proven yourself." And for my specific example with this podcast quiz one, it's like as a person is answering how many listeners they have, I can go, "Hey, and here's how we're calculating what the final result will be. It's based on the number of listeners, which is what advertisers look for."

Pat:
And typically, it's based on a CPM model. And I can essentially, teach along the way, and go and flip the next question where you tell me a little bit more about your show, which can, potentially, increase the amount that you get based on the size of your email list. So, click to the next one. And now, it's like, "Wow." It's like a blog post, or a YouTube video, but it's interactive, like you said. And it's personalized, and I love that. And so, by the time I'm at the end ... And can you tell me, can I put every individual person's answer/recommendation from each of the individual questions from the quiz in, essentially, a wrap up email that gets sent over?

Randy:
Yes.

Pat:
Just a, "Hey, put your email in here, I'll put all the results in it for you, and send it to you right away." That's possible.

Randy:
Yeah. That's the default, actually, that people would do. Is the default would be to say ... You'll have a results page. And then, as I said, you could have the PDF extra if you want to have a more detailed report that you can give for free, or you can charge for. And then you can send the email. And the default in the email would be to give them an overview. So, if it's 12 questions, or eight questions, you can give them all eight questions, or you can just give them the result, and the overview of the takeaways, and maybe the key questions.

Randy:
It just depends on how long it is. And I would say the average for questions is going to be ... So eight to 12 is for the very detailed one, right? And then the simple piece of content would be four to eight. So, those are the ranges that we see depending on if you're doing something that's a pretty powerful recommendation. Like you really want to recommend like which car you should buy, that's going to be probably, at least eight. And then, if you're doing something simple then it might be, like, which shirt should you get? You can have like a few, three to eight, even.

Pat:
Because I'm imagining a person going through this podcast advertising quiz, like they get the results there on the screen, but also I could send them an email summary. And then in the email, I could even say like, "Hey Jim, thanks for taking the podcasting advertising quiz, your podcast, the Jim Flynn Show. Here is your data for the Jim Flynn Show." And it can even be personalized and say, "Based on your numbers, which you said you get 10,000 to 12,000 listeners a month, we can calculate that this is how much you will receive. However, since you have an email list of ... " And then, dynamically, inserts their answer, 1,000, we can include an additional $500 a month for that. So, you could be looking at ... And like that it can almost feel like it's a real person writing it, but it's all machine. Right?

Randy:
Right. It could be fully personalized. Exactly. And the one thing that's really cool in this case with the podcast advertising, I just got an idea, is that people who are doing podcasts, they don't generally have brochures, the early stage ones.

Randy:
Yeah, they don't have like a PR deck, or a kit that they send for press, or for advertisers. And so, like this could be something you could charge for—but I'm just saying this as a thing—if in the email, you have an attachment being like, "Hey, we have all your information, and we automatically created this deck that you can share with advertisers."

Pat:
Woah.

Randy:
And so, now, they have a deck that when they send it to advertisers like, "Hey, this is a third party, Pat Flynn, or Smart Passive Income that valiated, gave us, created this form, this PDF."

Randy:
And now, they send it to a potential brand that's trying to advertise on their podcasts. And the brand's like, "Oh, okay, I see all the metrics. I see a chart. And then I can see some information. And you can make it look good." And now, they have a marketing asset that they can share. So, that's another example where you're really adding value.

Pat:
Woah. Dude, my mind is exploding. I'm also getting a little overwhelmed. I'm going to be honest. And I'm going to probably insert myself in the brains of my audience right now. It's like, this is really exciting. This sounds like one of those new things that I could get behind because we already have a lot of things to do. And I could see the value. It's just like, where do I start? And how do I make this simple? And I know we're talking, and getting excited about how cool and extra this can be. And it's starting to feel a little complicated, but it doesn't have to be complicated right at the start. Right? You can start simple, and you can grow from there. Right?

Randy:
I agree. 100 percent. Yeah. I think there are so many ideas. And, in marketing, if you speak to the marketing agency, or speak to someone in marketing, you speak to creatives, or you speak to an entrepreneur like yourself, you're going to easily come up with so many ideas because that's the natural way we do things. Entrepreneurs are creative; creators have ideas. The key thing though is to think about, where do you start? And I think, there are two main ways we've seen people approach how to begin. One way is to say, "We're going to go in, and do one piece of content that we love. And we're going to do it well, but it's going to be a pretty powerful piece."

Randy:
Like the video advertising, like mobile app cost calculator. That's one piece of it. It's going to be some work to get the math right. To get the formulas right. To get the results really to be useful that people are going to share it on forums on their own. So, that's one path that usually people think the idea is so clear to them. Like it's going to be a security assessment. We're a security consulting firm. We're doing a security assessment, and it's going to be like a legit security assessment. So, that's one path.

Randy:
The other path is to say, "We're going to start off with something simple." Maybe an exit intent piece on a blog post, or maybe to one of our top blog posts, we're going to create a complement piece that just says, "Okay, this is a blog post on seven things you should know if you're starting a podcast." Okay. All we're going to do is we're going to make this into an assessment. Of these seven things, which of them are you already doing? And which of them are you not? And then, we can give you a score. So, it's going to be a simple assessment. You're going to ask the questions you already have in your blog post. And you're going to put that either on the end of the blog post as an exit intent, as a time popup, whatever works for you, or even just chat using a chat bot.

Randy:
And it's going to be very simple. I already have the blog piece done. So, probably, is going to be live on my site in an hour, unless the design needs to double check your branding guidelines. But then that's a very easy use case. And that's the one where people tend to gravitate towards if they don't have that home run idea. So, that's I think the best way to start if you don't have like, "Oh, I'm going to do the full website grader, or the full one mobile app costs." And that's really easy because you already have the blog post. You're just taking all the content you already have, and just taking it into a piece. So, that's I think the best way to start.

Pat:
So, look at your analytics, maybe see what your most popular posts is. And then, you can just add an assessment, or an audit, or some quiz on top of that to really enhance that post and the value, but also to help you build your email list too. I know a lot of people who their primary email building strategy are these quizzes and calculators, which is really neat. I also love what you said earlier about how ... I didn't even consider this, like my "podcast advertising calculator" could become like the industry standard.

Pat:
And what an authority play that is to say, "Oh yeah, like I am a podcaster, I teach podcasting, but I also have this podcasting calculator, and it is the industry standard for ... " I mean, wow, what picture does that paint about my influence in the podcasting space? Like, that's pretty cool. And we all have the ability to create, and not make it up because that makes it feel like it's like from thin air, but it's not. But you can create your own assessments, and scorings, and other things for your space. And it's very similar to how I know a lot of people write books on Amazon because it is an authority play. This might even be easier than writing a book, to do something similar.

Randy:
Yeah. I agree. I think there is a lot of power. I would say one thing though that I think is very important. Some people come and they're like, "Oh, I want to build like something very powerful like this podcast advertising, we're going to have an authority play." And they try to do it in 15 minutes without really thinking through the math. And the problem is, if the results aren't accurate, or you haven't put enough research into the results to think through, "Okay, well, this is the CPM, but let's also think through the click-through rate. And let's also think through the average revenue per lead or the customer lifetime value for the types of brands we're targeting. And then, let's think through what cost of acquisition they would be willing to spend."

Randy:
If you don't really think through this, and you don't have that analyzed, then it's not going to be as useful. Right? So, the usual thing we would say is, if you don't have all the metrics, and then let's say you only know podcasts in finance, right? Then that can be a great place to start. Start with finance podcast. If you have like a podcast advertising, and you don't have any industry segmentation, and the finance guys might take it, and be like, "Oh, well, my finance podcast, I can charge a lot more because these people are going to get a credit card, and credit cards customer lifetime value is much higher."

Randy:
And so, I think it's very important to either put the estimation at the end on the results until you get the data by industry. And then, once you have data by industry, and this is specific to your use case, and then it can be a lot more useful. And a good place to start would be to look at YouTube because YouTube already has a lot of these numbers. The CPM will vary on YouTube based on the type of YouTuber. If they have finance content, or they have just fun, engaging consumer-related content, and the CPMs vary.

Randy:
And so, I think those are things if you have the industry segmentation, and that's impacting the math, and you show them the numbers at the end, and you really put thought into it, and you get information from a lot of podcasters, that is when you have something that can really be used, that someone will actually forward to other podcasters. Yeah. You want something that just organically people would share with each other, that's when you have it, once you've actually done the work. So, there's a lot of times you'll see people who come, and they want to do something in five, 10 minutes, and not really think through the math. And then, it's just not likely for it to become the standard when the result isn't close to spot on. Like people look at it, and be like, "Oh, actually, that does make sense." That's the reaction you want to have.

Pat:
Yeah. I mean, I've seen these calculators, it's like, you go online, and you're like, what is that YouTuber's worth? What's their net worth? And it's like, "No, I don't know if that's true. It's just like pulling random numbers. And it's not very valuable." On YouTube, it's interesting because I know I've done some research on CPMs based on different YouTubers, and different channels. A lot of it has to do with where your listeners, and viewers are.

Randy:
That's true as well.

Pat:
Right? So, if I could, somehow, after ... Maybe I have some industry friends who can share with me their data, and I can start to extrapolate, and create some algorithms there. This is, again, sounding a little bit complicated, but I think we're talking about here like a pillar quiz versus like a supporting quiz, or supplemental quiz for some other stuff that you might have, which is still valuable too. So, man, so many possibilities, which is great. Before we move on to our final bit, here, can a person have the email thing be skipped, but still give the results? Like you can make it optional?

Randy:
Yes, you can do it. Yes, we can have a skip button. And there's a wide range of things you can do. To be clear, you can use it to your existing email list within a ConvertKit, or most email tools. You can put a piece of content within the email tool. And the first question will appear inside of the email, and they can answer the question. And so, then you don't want to ask them for their email because you already have it. You're doing a segmentation thing, or you're trying to do a schedule call thing, or a payment for a PDF type thing. In that case, you wouldn't even have an email form, you'll just automatically pass the email from ConvertKit to Outgrow.co, and then back to ConvertKit to qualify and segment the lead.

Randy:
So, emails isn't even required if you have the email and you're trying to schedule a call. But if you don't have the email, what usually people do is if they are putting a skip button, they put a Facebook, or Google Analytics retargeting pixel, and then they can retarget. And you can have a custom pixel, and say, "Okay, people who reach the results page, and then you can just retarget them on Facebook." That's what actually most people do. If the lead gen form is on the results page, then you'll put a retargeting pixel, and you can customize it saying, "Okay, for people who reach this far, I want this." Because you don't have their email address. So, you can do a lot of cool things there, but yeah, skip is totally fine. You can do that easily.

Pat:
That is super powerful. And I love the idea of putting a quiz for your existing email subscribers just right in the email itself, at least for the first question. And then that would take them to the quiz page, or lightbox, or module, or whatever. Like I can imagine a subject line being so powerful because it's very value-driven. What's your podcast advertising score? Or, how much money could your podcast potentially earn? So, it's very giving. That's why I love this quiz idea. It's instead of just asking for an email up front, you're actually forced to think, "Okay, well, what could I ask, or give, or serve my audience with in terms of a quiz, or a calculator that would already by default provide value, and thus earn better email subscribers?"

Pat:
I would imagine more quality email subscribers too who are ready to take that next step with you if you give them the results, and what's missing, or what the next steps might be. So, dude, this is so amazing. I also noticed on your website at outgrow.co, by the way, there's an affiliate link, if you want to go through, and check out Outgrow, definitely. And hopefully, by the time this episode comes out, we'll have some quizzes from my own that you could see on the page. If not, they will be very close to being done, because we've been working for a while.

Pat:
I've been continually getting distracted, but I promise you, this is something that my team and I are so excited about, but if you go to smartpassiveincome.com/outgrow, you'll see an affiliate link there. And it'll take you to a page with some more info. I see on your website, you have an idea generator. It seems to me that that's a big struggle for a lot of people who want to get into quizzes. It's just like, I need some ideas. Tell us about this idea generator, what people can look forward to there. And just where else might we get inspiration for what we could create quizzes, and calculators, and assessments about?

Randy:
Yeah, sure. So, yeah, the idea generator is based on ideas across industries. So, we look at the industry, that you're in. And then based on that, we say, "Okay, well, these are the types of content people create for top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel." And so, that's the idea behind the idea generator. And the way people come up with ideas sometimes is just asking your support and sales team, because the sales team are interacting with customers all the time, and they know. And so, what we say is, "Which of the answers does your sales team give?" That is, it depends, right?

Randy:
If it's the same answer to everyone, right? Then you don't need a calculator for that because you're giving the same answer. But if the answer is, it depends based on the number of users you have, or it depends based on your size, or if you already have a podcast, or you've already launched, et cetera, that's when it's a perfect example. So, your sales team, and your support team already have all these ideas. They already know it.

Randy:
They probably have templates that they've already written for types of questions which are more difficult. So, you can take that, and be like, "Oh, everyone's asking our sales people, how much does this cost for a mobile app? Or "what course should I buy?" You have a course let's say on writing a book. Well, if you can ask someone, "Do you have an idea for a book? Okay, have you started writing the book?" And then, you can guide them through which course makes sense based on where they are in their flow, and what needs and challenges they face. And so, those are the types of things we really like to focus on, are the questions you are already receiving. And then you know how you can help someone.

Pat:
Dude, that's a perfect answer, and a perfect way to end. And again, for anybody who wants to check out Outgrow, you can go to smartpassiveincome.com/outgrow. And you can join me in creating quizzes that are very engaging, and can hopefully serve our audiences better. And we can do that together. So, Randy, where else can people go? Or what else do you want people to know before we go?

Randy:
Sure. Yeah. So, one thing I'd like to mention also is that when they go to the affiliate link, smartpassiveincome.com/outgrow, we can give them an extended free trial so that they get extra time to really make sure they understand the tool, and have something that they can build that they would like to share with their audience. And then another thing I like to also stress on is, if you're not mathematically savvy, or you don't know how to build the logic, I strongly recommend using our chat on the bottom right, and just ask us questions.

Randy:
And we're basically there all day during weekdays, and U.S. time on weekends. And we're basically always there. So, you can ask us questions, and we'd love to help you guide you through some of the harder logic or math questions, if you're trying to build something a bit more complicated, and we'd love to help. So, those would be the two main things.

Pat:
That's awesome. Dude, Randy, thank you so much. Thanks to Outgrow. And I look forward to using more of the tool. And hopefully, other people who are listening to this, using it as well. Take care, Randy, we'll talk soon.

Randy:
Thank you. You as well, have a good one.

Pat:
All right. I hope you enjoyed that interview with Randy. And now, you're likely like me, you got the wheels turning, you're excited about, potentially, getting started. Now, like anything, if you know you have some other stuff you need to do, don't get distracted because this could be one of those bright, shiny lights easily. However, if you dive into it, you'll see that this has the potential to just massively change the game for you, and how you bring people in. Some of my own students are using quizzes now to help bring people into their ecosystem. Especially, if you have different products, or different kinds of offerings, or different kinds of avatars, or buckets in your audience, depending on their answer, you can send them in different ways.

Pat:
You can give them a much more personalized experience, and you can have them keep coming back, have them keep interacting with you, have them purchase, become super fans, et cetera. So, if you want to check out this tool, Randy, thank you again for coming on, and just dropping so much knowledge. I appreciate you and the entire Outgrow team.

Pat:
If you go to smartpassiveincome.com/outgrow, you'll see the tool that is my affiliate link. So, I do get a commission and a cut back if you do go through that link and make a purchase, and that is at no extra cost to you. And if you have any questions about this tool, let me know, or hit me up on at PatFlynn on Twitter or Instagram. Let me know that you got inspired by this. And especially, if you've created a quiz, let me know on Twitter or Instagram. I want to check it out. I want to share it. I want to see them all. If I get too many, I won't be able to share them all.

Pat:
But if you are some of the first, then absolutely, I'd be more than happy to do that. If you're doing a quiz thing, let me know at PatFlynn on Instagram or Twitter. And again, here's that affiliate link one more time, smartpassiveincome.com/outgrow. It's time to outgrow your competition y'all. Thank you so much. I appreciate you for listening in today. The show notes for this episode are available at smartpassiveincome.com/session339. And as always #TeamFlynn, you're amazing. Thank you so much. Peace out, and #TeamFlynn for the win. Cheers.

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