Marketing Isn't Funnel Building

When you get down to the core of it, the list of roles Marketing owns is actually quite small. Powerful, but short.

 

Recently my revenue took another BIG jump, but funnily enough, I'm doing less of the things that MOST people spend ALL their time doing (e.g. funnel building and posting on social media)... 

 

So I started thinking about why this happened?

 

And it all came down to a very interesting principle that enabled me to come 2nd in an affiliate competition (that I didn’t even know was going on)! 

 

Here’s how it happened…

 

HOW TO BE A MARKETER

 

A few months ago, ClickFunnels was doing this BIG promotion for the One Funnel Away Challenge. 

 

I promote with the One Funnel Away routinely because I think everyone should go for it. 

 

Besides ClickFunnels itself, the OFA challenge has probably been one of the most life-changing things that ClickFunnels EVER put out - so I talk about it A LOT... 

 

Well, I didn't realize that my launch of makeaffiliatesgreatagain.com happened to coincide with the exact time when ClickFunnels was saying:

 

 "Hey, we got this cool contest going on." 

 

I had no idea that there was anything was going on… 

 

… and look where I ended up... *Holy Crap* it's amazing!

 

 I rode a jet ski for three hours and my back’s all sore 'cause I got six feet of air a few times… so you might get to see my fly one day - #Ouch! 

 

I haven't had a break where I just hang out, in quite a while, and…

 

 I'm at a point now where I'm trying to orchestrate some more self-care. 

 

I've worked my butt off! What I’ve done in the last year-and-a-half is pretty rare, but it's come at a cost!

 

So, I'm excited to start doing more self-care and stuff, (and, I'm just being open and real and honest with you. This is part of me documenting the journey, right?) 

 

For a little while, it was kinda rough. 

 

Here’s what’s funny…

 

I didn't know that I’d come 2nd in this affiliate contest until I got a message saying, "Hey, you're coming to Lake Cascade."

 

 I was like, "What are you talking about?" 

 

But that's not the point of this blog 😉

 

Instead, I want to share with you…

 

•  The 3 roles I have in my company

 

• Why it looks like I’m doing sooo much, but I’m working less than I ever have

 

• What marketing is NOT

 

WHY MARKETING IS IMPORTANT

 

My role in my company is the CEO, but I'm also the marketer. 

 

In the last four weeks especially, I've been thinking about my role as a marketer... 

 

But first of all, let me share *MY DEFINITION* of marketing with you…

 

Marketing is the act of changing beliefs with the intent of a sale. 

 

• Marketing has very little to do with logos, that's branding. 

 

• Marketing has very little to do with slogans, with color schemes; that's not marketing.

 

Marketing is the act of changing beliefs for the intent of a sale. 

 

...and so, how do you do that? 

 

I frequently get asked, "Steve, what's your daily schedule look like?" Or "Stephen, what do you do?" 

 

And I get it! ...and it's been interesting to look back and realize what marketing is not.

 

Now, as I say this, I might ruffle a few feathers, but just stick with me for a little bit, okay?

• Marketing is NOT the act of funnel-building

 

• Marketing is NOT the act of posting on social media. 

 

...those are ways to deliver marketing, but they’re NOT marketing itself. 

 

• Marketing is NOT publishing

 

… I’m NOT marketing now unless I choose to try to start breaking certain false beliefs. 

 

I do use my podcast and blog to launch certain products,  and you’ve probably seen me do that!

 

But put quite simply, marketing is the act of changing beliefs with the intent of a sale.

 

So it's been interesting to sit back and ask, "What activities in my company fit that description?" 

 

I'll be honest, at the time of writing this, I haven't built a funnel in six months.  

 

It looks like I’m doing loads of stuff because of the content that gets produced, and I'm not gonna lie; I work like crazy.

 

 I work my butt off between 9:00 AM and 6:00 PM. 

 

Going up to OfferMind, (or when there's a huge thing about to launch), I spend more time, but besides that, I only work 9:00 to 6:00…

 

But as I mentioned, my revenue is still growing in leaps and bounds.. 

 

HOW is this possible?

A: It’s simple!

MARKETING BY DEFINITION

 

 If marketing is the act of changing beliefs with the intent of a sale, (that's my own definition), what activities fit inside that description?

 

Marketing is...

 

•  Creating a sales message - kinda obvious because that's where you create the stories that change beliefs. 

 

• Creating the offer - 'cause the offer is gonna be orchestrated with those false beliefs. 

 

•  Creating campaigns - these cause the cash to come in

 

And so, recently, I've been focusing on campaigns like crazy, and there are multiple types of campaigns. 

 

Usually, I ONLY deep dive into campaigns in my $23,000 program, but I'm excited to briefly walk through some campaign fundamentals with you now.

 

 I'm not gonna go into a crazy amount of depth…

 

But I want you to have a little taste of what I mean.

 

WHAT’S A CAMPAIGN?

 

A campaign is NOT ads. 

 

A campaign can include ads, but think back to the days when social media did not exist; think back to the days when marketers didn't have the internet…

 

 How did they get attention? 

 

A campaign is nothing more than orchestrated noise

 

… it's orchestrated noise with little tiny spurts of pressure here and there. 

 

And so to create a campaign, I'll build up pressure and then, BOOM! I release the pressure... 

 

And all these sales come on in.

 

• There are campaigns that are great for getting a product out into the marketplace. 

 

• There are campaigns that are good at keeping a constant drip of sales coming in.

 

 The 2 types of campaigns that  I want to talk about today, I call…

 

1. Launch campaigns

 

1. Evergreen campaigns 

 

But most of the time people are just doing ONE style. 

 

So what I've been doing, (and it's really nerdy, it's really geeky, but I absolutely love it), is hanging out with a whiteboard!

 

I know, it sounds really weird 😂

 

I’ve been hanging out with a whiteboard observing how people are collecting the cash. 

 

Now, just think about this for a moment…

 

 How many times have you been in *this* position...?

 

1.  You’ve got a sales message

 

1.  You’ve got an offer

 

1.  You’ve got a funnel

 

... but you don't have any sales!

 

 And you're like, "But Steve... but ClickFunnels... but Russell... I'm doing it. I've got the funnel. I've got the offer. I've got the message."

 

Q: Why aren't you collecting cash?

 

A: The campaign is the activity that collects the cash. 

 

A funnel is NOT a campaign. A funnel is the way to present the marketing.

 

A funnel just says, "Here's an offer, and here is a message." 

 

… that's all a funnel is.

 

But you’ve still gotta get noise for the funnel - that's a campaign.

 

Think about a campaign as being the orchestrated noise for your funnel. 

 

LET’S MAKE SOME NOISE!

 

Again, remember, there are two types of noise…

 

• Launch noise/ campaigns

 

• Evergreen noise/ campaigns

 

And what I've been doing is listing out (on my whiteboard) these HUGE lists of different campaign styles that people have successfully used to create noise around a product when they launch…

 

... or successfully evergreen that noise by creating perpetual noise around that product.

 

So, if we take Facebook ads... 

 

Facebook ads are a great way to create evergreen sales.

 

• Right now I have a webinar where we put $1 in, and we get $4-5 out, (and it's been that way for a long time, and I haven't touched it) - that’s pretty evergreen. 

 

That's an evergreen style way to use Facebook ads. 

 

• Another awesome way to create evergreen sales is by creating very specific podcast episodes that break and rebuild beliefs. As new people find the show, it breaks and rebuilds beliefs, and then pushes 'em over to go buy. 

 

That's another evergreen way to get noise around a product. 

 

Another one of my favorite ways is... 

 

• On Tuesday mornings, I'll go on anybody's show, (I've been doing that for a long time), and that's very evergreen, 'cause it's seeding me on all these other shows...

 

That's evergreen!

 

Evergreen styles are NOT usually explosive, but they're just enough cash to keep the doors open and keep money coming in.

 

I want to tell you guys something real quick here…

 

LET ME TELL YOU A SECRET…

 

 I have an internal funnel team, and now we're just about done building an external one…

 

... because so many people ask me to build their funnels.

 

As of last week, I have two agencies, but it’s still hush-hush

 

 (But you know about it now 😉)

 

People sometimes say, "Steven, you can do all this stuff because you have teams." 

 

My answer is, "Son, I have been broke many times in my life. I’m just resourceful."

 

 So let me give you ONE of the easiest takeaways that I can about how to get resourceful. 

 

Q: If I know that a team of professionals can build me a kick-butt funnel for 15 grand, but I don't have 15 grand, how could I get resourceful around that? 

 

A: Well, I'll tell you something I still do, (even though I have the 15 grand, I still do it this way)... 

 

I go and I talk to my funnel team and I say:

 

 "Hey funnel team, we got this really cool thing coming up. Okay, let's go build the funnel, and then I can pay you guys out in two weeks after the funnel's out and the dust kinda settles." 

 

And they're like: "Oh that makes sense." 

 

Q: So while they’re building the funnel, what do I do? 

 

My role as a marketer is three things: 

 

• Create a sales message

 

• Create an offer 

 

• Create campaigns. 

 

So as soon as I create a sales message, as soon as I create an offer, I hand it off to my funnel team... 

 

And they build the funnel while I build launch campaigns.

 

So when that funnel's done, I can direct all that pressure and all that pent-up noise over to that funnel - BOOM!

 

I get a bunch of sales, and then I pay off the team with the first round of sales that come in from my launch campaign. 

 

Does that make sense? 

 

It basically means that the funnels that I've been creating for a while now, have NOT come from my business pocket.

 

Instead…

 

 The money has come from my early-bird customer's pocket. 

 

Do you see what I'm saying? 

 

As a marketer, I pull the same five levers.. and boom, cash, cash, cash, cash, cash, cash, cash…

 

And it's NOT around…

 

•  Funnel building

 

• Facebook posts

 

So what are the mechanisms that pull the money off the table? 

1. To get something out the door = Launch Campaigns

 

1. To keep the cash dripping in = Evergreen Campaigns 

 

MY ROLE AS A MARKETER?

I’ve got three perpetual tasks on my desk: 

 

1. How can I create more sales messages? 

 

1. How can I create more offers to fulfill on the sales message? 

 

1. How can I create campaigns/noise pressure that monetizes once the funnel's out the door?

 

It's funny how people in the One Funnel Away Challenge reach out and say, "Well, I built the funnel and I didn't make any money from the One Funnel Away Challenge." 

 

I'm like, "Then you didn't build a campaign, son? Right? That's not the funnel's problem, that's your problem. Go learn what campaigns are!”

 

Campaigns are NOT ads. 

 

• Facebook is destroying the term ads. 

 

• YouTube is destroying the term ads. 

 

… they're killing it. 

 

Campaign existed before social media!

 

 But now they call it, ‘Set up your Facebook ads campaign.’

 

They're killing it! Now we all think that an ad is a campaign. 

 

*NO*

 

Ads can be part of a campaign, but they are NOT the campaign.

 

 So go study ways to CREATE CAMPAIGNS!

 

 ...and my recommendation is to start watching how marketers are creating noise pressure around the products that they launch. 

 

In this game, I've realized I can outsource…

 

•  Funnel building - 'cause that's NOT marketing.

 

• Facebook posts - 'cause that can include marketing, but it's NOT inherently marketing. 

 

• A lot of my publishing  - which I do. 

 

It looks like I'm doing A LOT, but I'm honestly not…

 

... because those things are NOT marketing! 

 

Cash is the by-product of marketing 

 

And guess what marketing isn't? 

 

• Funnel building

 

• Posting on social media all the time, (I'm not saying it can't be part of campaigns)

 

• You spending an insane amount of time like responding to everybody. 

 

• And then being like, "Oh, I don't have any money coming off of it?" 

 

FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR WHITEBOARD 😉

 

You’ll need a pen to draw 2 columns: 

 

1.  A column for launch campaigns that you’ve observed other people use to generate positive noise and pressure around their product launch. 

 

1. A column about the evergreen campaigns that you’ve seen, "Oh man, look how they're perpetually getting sales off. That is amazing." 

 

When you look at it that way, you can step back and go, "Oh man, I need to orchestrate my launch campaign and my evergreen campaign in EVERY funnel before I start building it."

 

The funnel is NOT complete without the campaigns

 

… that's how you get the money off the table. 

 

Don't just build the funnel and be like, "The funnel hasn't worked." 

 

My funnels work because I generate noise to them, not because they exist on the Internet. 

 

I sat back and I started realizing, "Crap, I’ve won a few of these trips in affiliate contest now." 

 

I didn't even know this competition was happening, but the reason why it's worked so well is that…

 

I know my role, and then I outsource what is NOT my role. 

 

*Stop trying to be a solopreneur*

 

Alright, you reading this right now, you're in one of two scenarios. 

 

Either…

 

 You're currently selling a product and you've got a slick sales funnel and traffic...

 

 There are ads and you have content, bringing in new customers. You have upsells, downsells,  and phone sales. 

 

You've almost automated it, making money while doing everyday things. 

 

Either that's all set up and going…

 

 OR…

 

 The second option is you don't have any of that, and you're still trying to make this work and tie all of these pieces together. 

 

If you want my help, just go to capitalistcoaching.com and see where you can get started.

 

 It took me a long time to get the skills for all this to get moving…

 

• Writing the sales letter

 

• Making the sales videos

 

• Building the funnel

 

• Writing follow-up emails

 

• Promo campaigns

 

• Promo emails

 

• Fulfillment plans

 

• Fresh new ads

 

... there's A LOT. 

 

And the path to move forward is different for each person. 

 

So I created capitalistcoaching.com for you to check out where *you* need to start. 

 

Whether you're just starting out with…

 

•  No product

 

• No list

 

• No single clue on what to do next. 

 

OR…

 

 If you're like one of our BIG corporate clients who just need to add more revenue and scale your offer, go to capitalistcoaching.com.

 

 I don't really believe in shortcuts, but I do know you can speed up the path on the journey.

 

 Figure out the BEST place to start by going to capitalistcoaching.com now.

 

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