by: AskPat 318 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to AskPat Episode 318. I hope you're doing awesome today. I'm feeling great, hope you are too. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.
Now, let's get to today's question from Jim.
Jim: Hey Pat, this is Jim, and I appreciate all you do. I have a website that offers PhotoShop tutorials. It's called MicroTutes.com, and there are over 500 of them. They're all less than 60 seconds each, so they're very quick and to the point. My question is, I've been using Facebook ads and getting pretty good email signups. I want to build my email list up to 1,000 before I begin offering a digital product. But a lot of the ones that are signing up are from other countries, like Pakistan, and China, and Philippines, and things like that. Just curious if I should restrict the Facebook ads to just the United States? Because I want to make sure when I begin selling a digital product that we would make a payment for it via credit card. That's my question, and appreciate all you do, and hope to hear from you soon. Thanks, Pat.
Pat Flynn: Hey, Jim, what's up? Thank you so much for the question and I, first of all just want to tell you how much I love your site, and what the concept is like, and the idea of it, and just the whole idea behind it. MicroTutes, which is, of course, micro tutorials, and they're all under 60 seconds, which I think is a great concept, and I love how the tagline says, “Get to the point.” It's really cool, I love this idea, and I love that you're starting to build your email list, and you are planning toward monetization, and putting these videos together. I really like the idea and the concept, and I like that you're using Facebook to build your list too.
This is something that Amy Porterfield talks about all the time. Her main source for building her email list is Facebook. Now, typically she'll drive ads to a webinar, where she'll collect email addresses that way. That's a great way to filter through the people who will understand what you're all about, and what you have to offer them. That might be something worth considering, on a side note here, Jim. Facebook ads to a webinar, whether you hold them as a Google Hangout, like John Lee Dumas style, or Amy does it on GoToWebinar.com. That'll help you build your email list at the same time, while also showing them what your videos are like.
Maybe you do a 30-minute webinar, really short. Similar to how small these things are. Obviously, relatively, because webinars are typically an hour and a half to two hours long sometimes. Maybe you just show five or six of these tutorials, and show people some tips that will blow their minds. At which point, you would then be able to sell them, sell them stuff, pitch them stuff, or if not, then at least they're on your email list at that point, and you've provided a lot of value for them. Maybe they don't buy that day, but they buy down the road. Maybe you put them into a funnel using InfusionSoft or some email service provider that then will keep contacting them. Keep giving them these high quality things. That will then help them get over the fence, and purchase something from you down the road. Getting them into a webinar is a great idea.
Now, even if you get them to your page, and just signing up. I mean, I don't know where you were driving the traffic to. Hopefully a landing page of some kind, and not just your homepage. I think your homepage could use a little bit of work, if that's exactly where you're bringing people to. You could use something like LeadPages to create really nice quality, high quality landing pages for people who come from Facebook. Although, I'd make sure to not have any pop-ups or lead boxes on those pages.
I think it was Rick Mulready from RickMulready.com, and also The Art of Paid Traffic, who talked about how Facebook's cracking down a little bit on where people are sending people who click on Facebook ads. For example, if you send people to a lead page that then has a pop-up, not just lead page from LeadPages, but any landing page that has a pop-up. They're going to discount that, and you could potentially get banned. Just something to keep in mind. Again, RickMulready.com. He’s an expert at Facebook ads, so you should definitely check him out.
Anyway, going back to your original question, so sorry I've taken so long to get there. I just wanted to talk about all these important points for you too, Jim. When you are targeting Facebook ads, you want to target who your target customers are, obviously. Yes, you're going to have access to more people if you open it up to all those different countries. You could potentially lower the cost per lead, but you want to have the right leads in there. You don't want to be misrepresented in the campaign members and the conversion rates if you're not targeting the people who you want to be customers. I think English speaking countries, for the type of stuff that you're doing. Especially because they are tutorials that are in English, and that's who you're targeting, and you want people to be able to verify and pay through a credit card.
If that is indeed the method that you want to do, which is obviously very popular. Then targeting the US, targeting the UK, targeting Canada, and targeting Australia would be the top four I would do, at least to start out with. I've heard in the past that Facebook has not been totally honest with people in terms of, maybe they're not being dishonest, but they're also not being fully upfront with where they're getting their leads from sometimes. A lot of the times they just serve a lot of those ads to those other countries, who will then click through.
I know this was an issue, I think. TheVerge.com did a little video on Facebook, and somebody actually tested on where they got Facebook fans from. Now, this isn't leads to an email service provider, but similar, in a similar way, they tested collecting Facebook likes for a page, and where those likes were coming from. A huge amount were coming from countries like you mentioned, and were not really who they wanted on their list. Yes, target the US, target those other countries. Yes, you're probably going to pay a little bit more, but you're going to have higher quality leads as a result.
Now, if anybody else out there has any opinions on this, I'd love to hear from you, because I'm not a Facebook expert. I haven't even run too many ads yet to be comfortable enough to really teach somebody how to do it. This is just my thoughts based on some of my friends who do this, and my own experience doing a little bit of Facebook ads. If you have something to share, and help Jim out, use the hashtag #AskPat318, because this is episode 318, and leave your comment for Jim.
Jim, hopefully that answers your question, and a little bit more. Thank you so much. An AskPat t-shirt will be headed your way for having your question featured here on the show. For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page.
Now, as always, I like to end it with a quote, and today's quote comes from Jim Rohn. Who was also the person who said, “You are the average the five people you spend most of your time with.” But, that's not the quote I'm quoting today. The quote I'm quoting today is, “You must either modify your dreams, or magnify your skills.” Boom. Cheers, take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat.