1 00:00:01,100 --> 00:00:07,340 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn from an internet marketer with over a billion dollars in online sales on how to use landing 2 00:00:07,340 --> 00:00:11,140 Narrator: page sales funnels to sell your invention direct to end buyers. 3 00:00:14,830 --> 00:00:23,810 Narrator: You're listening to the Product Startup Podcast, the show that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors, 4 00:00:24,150 --> 00:00:33,610 Narrator: product developers, and hardware industry professionals. Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial idea to getting your 5 00:00:33,630 --> 00:00:41,550 Narrator: product on store shelves. We're taking you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business. 6 00:00:41,770 --> 00:00:46,150 Narrator: Hosted by Kevin Mako, one of North America's leading experts on hardware 7 00:00:46,150 --> 00:00:48,370 Kevin Mako: development for small product businesses. 8 00:00:49,070 --> 00:00:58,730 Kevin Mako: Now, onto the show. Welcome back, everyone. Today I'm very excited to introduce Marco Torres to the show. Marco has been selling online for clients for 25 years 9 00:00:58,730 --> 00:01:03,610 Kevin Mako: and has sold over a billion dollars through direct-to-consumer internet marketing. He has 75,000 10 00:01:03,610 --> 00:01:07,730 Kevin Mako: and followers on his two Facebook groups dedicated to online selling and affiliate marketing 11 00:01:07,730 --> 00:01:16,070 Kevin Mako: and is the owner of Marketing Boost, a company which helps thousands of clients with free upsell coupons to their customers. Today, Marco is going to share some valuable knowledge 12 00:01:16,070 --> 00:01:24,430 Kevin Mako: on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can use a single landing page sales funnel to launch a new invention product or to scale or improve an existing product's 13 00:01:24,430 --> 00:01:30,170 Kevin Mako: online sales and some tips and tricks along the way to optimize conversions. Now on to the episode. 14 00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:33,760 Kevin Mako: Hey, Marco, welcome to the show. Hey, Kevin. Hi. Thank you. 15 00:01:33,840 --> 00:01:40,560 Kevin Mako: Thank you for having me. Excited to talk to you today about marketing directly to end consumers for new products that are launching on websites. 16 00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:46,520 Kevin Mako: And especially to have you on the show to talk about it, you have been in the internet marketing space for 25 years. 17 00:01:46,620 --> 00:01:50,840 Kevin Mako: That was before the big internet companies we know today were even a thing before the word internet 18 00:01:50,840 --> 00:02:00,820 Marco Torres: marketing was even a buzzword. Exactly. No, I actually was a spammer before they called it spam. I was doing 100 email, 100 million emails 19 00:02:00,820 --> 00:02:10,200 Marco Torres: a month back in the late 90s. When everybody had their AOL account, and they all loved to their AOL, and they actually loved getting email back then. 20 00:02:10,380 --> 00:02:20,220 Marco Torres: Everybody got that little sound effect going, you've got mail. And they loved it back. They paid their 1990 a month so they could get on the internet and find stuff via email 21 00:02:20,220 --> 00:02:24,640 Marco Torres: because there wasn't a Google. There wasn't a, that was, asked Jeeves back then, I think it was. 22 00:02:25,420 --> 00:02:33,820 Kevin Mako: Yeah, I was a real early adopter. So I remember those days. I remember the dial-up days. So it was amazing that you were pioneering some of the commercial side of the, 23 00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:39,280 Kevin Mako: things. So I want to bring it forward to talking about sales funnels and talking about landing pages 24 00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:44,600 Kevin Mako: because that's really important around the subject of selling your product on your website directly to a customer. 25 00:02:44,820 --> 00:02:53,420 Kevin Mako: Whether you're a new hardware startup and you're planning to eventually sell direct to consumers online or whether you're an existing brand and an existing company 26 00:02:53,420 --> 00:03:01,780 Kevin Mako: that manufactures something and you're looking to increase your market sales, today's conversation is really key because we're talking about what is on the page to 27 00:03:01,780 --> 00:03:09,240 Kevin Mako: actually convert that customer from being interested in your product to actually pressing the buy button and whipping out their credit card to actually purchase that. 28 00:03:09,540 --> 00:03:12,860 Kevin Mako: So first and foremost, just start with defining what is a landing 29 00:03:12,860 --> 00:03:21,760 Marco Torres: page and what is a sales funnel and how do those terms interact. Thank you. We're all familiar with what used to be called websites. You build a website for a product. 30 00:03:22,560 --> 00:03:31,940 Marco Torres: And the big depth to me, the defining factor between what is a website, what is a landing page or a slash sales funnel, which is like the new keyword. 31 00:03:32,260 --> 00:03:41,700 Marco Torres: They're referring to landing pages as sales funnels because you don't want them just land there. You want to bring them in through your sales funnel to hit your landing page 32 00:03:41,700 --> 00:03:50,220 Marco Torres: and then continue down a sales process whereas they come in from a prospect, they land on the page and they're seeing sexy looking graphics 33 00:03:50,220 --> 00:03:59,900 Marco Torres: and great copy and calls to action that continue to take them down that funnel and reading and you've got to have a good copy that's going to keep them in, 34 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:06,360 Marco Torres: keep them reading about the product, what it does, how it works, what the benefits and features 35 00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:13,080 Marco Torres: are, and how those relate to my need or my problem, how does your product solve my problem? 36 00:04:13,560 --> 00:04:18,960 Marco Torres: As I continue to read down the sales funnel, you continue to scroll down and scroll down, 37 00:04:19,140 --> 00:04:24,660 Marco Torres: and I continue to get, you know, little by little selling myself on your product and service, 38 00:04:24,660 --> 00:04:34,320 Marco Torres: including, you know, you'll need to add things like, you know, testimonials throughout the process. A verbal sales pitch. I need to bring you in. I need to grab your attention. 39 00:04:34,540 --> 00:04:42,560 Marco Torres: Then I need to overcome the objections before you gave them to me because we're not in a two-way conversation where you start telling me what your fear factors 40 00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:50,300 Marco Torres: are about my product. So I've got to assume or I need to know my client to figure out what are they going to think 41 00:04:50,300 --> 00:04:59,100 Marco Torres: as a negative that I need to overcome during the sales process until we can get. get further down in there and start showing those calls to action, take action now, buy one now, 42 00:04:59,640 --> 00:05:08,780 Marco Torres: you know, buy two, you know, and start adding the incentives, as I like to refer to add value versus discounting so you're not competing over price with similar products 43 00:05:08,780 --> 00:05:15,480 Kevin Mako: and competitors. That's a great overview. I appreciate that top to bottom. Let's break down each individual section because it's important. 44 00:05:15,580 --> 00:05:22,540 Kevin Mako: First of Formars, we're starting with the concept that this is one page or you may have multiple pages on your website, but the point is the customer is 45 00:05:22,540 --> 00:05:30,840 Kevin Mako: clicking from somewhere and they're landing on this page. And it is one long page of information that essentially starts them at this top of the sales funnel. 46 00:05:31,560 --> 00:05:39,860 Kevin Mako: And as they read down the page is more and more convincing so that at the end, at some point, either in the middle, at the end, they're going to place a purchase on it. 47 00:05:39,940 --> 00:05:46,300 Kevin Mako: How you structure this page and what you're doing in this page is really important. It's incredible. I've seen a lot of these pages built for a lot of 48 00:05:46,300 --> 00:05:50,020 Kevin Mako: hardware customers and a lot of hardware products, especially new products that are getting to 49 00:05:50,020 --> 00:05:58,940 Kevin Mako: market. And it's amazing when you look at the concept of a landing page or sales funnel, how many things are actually missing from a sales funnel page, basic things. Whereas if you 50 00:05:58,940 --> 00:06:03,900 Kevin Mako: have those things, at least in their basic format, it substantially increases the probability 51 00:06:03,900 --> 00:06:10,020 Kevin Mako: of that customer converting, which means you're making more sales per dollar spent on ad spent to actually get that customer there. 52 00:06:10,180 --> 00:06:17,360 Kevin Mako: Let's start at the top of the funnel. First of all, can you explain a bit about what these sections are and why they're so important and why you're 53 00:06:17,360 --> 00:06:22,180 Kevin Mako: kind of starting in a funnel process from big picture at the top of the page down to very 54 00:06:22,180 --> 00:06:31,660 Marco Torres: narrow, specific solutions at the bottom of the page to convert them to sell. Sure. And for starters, we want to make sure we understand that the sales funnel means is not going 55 00:06:31,660 --> 00:06:40,480 Marco Torres: to have a bunch of navigation buttons like a website. So you're not going to give them options to, you know, about us, click here 56 00:06:40,480 --> 00:06:47,340 Marco Torres: to, you know, see other similar products. You're just going to eliminate all the, you know, other places that they might. 57 00:06:47,360 --> 00:06:53,320 Marco Torres: click away to that would distract them from going and reading and continuing down that sales 58 00:06:53,320 --> 00:06:59,540 Marco Torres: funnel. So right off the gate, there's no navigation other than whatever the call to action is, which is, you know, by today. 59 00:07:00,180 --> 00:07:06,000 Marco Torres: So then as you go down, you know, you're, you're, you're creative, you need, you know, the graphics to go with it, the copy. 60 00:07:06,940 --> 00:07:16,080 Marco Torres: You need to have some way to put some credibility into what your product is. You know, have you, have you written press releases 61 00:07:16,080 --> 00:07:21,900 Marco Torres: about it? Are you have you, can you claim as seen on, on Forbes, Inc., Fox Business? You know, 62 00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:26,860 Marco Torres: can you get press releases going so that you can, you can claim that you've been, you know, 63 00:07:27,540 --> 00:07:34,980 Marco Torres: featured on credibility sites throughout somewhere in the world that, that you can claim, somewhere especially if it relates to your product or service. 64 00:07:35,640 --> 00:07:43,600 Marco Torres: Then, of course, you're going to get into, you know, as this, each section I refer to as you, you want to make it stand out with 65 00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:53,360 Marco Torres: graphics and copy about each benefit and feature, and then down to the next one. So as I scroll down, I'm seeing another benefit, another feature, another reason why 66 00:07:53,360 --> 00:08:02,440 Marco Torres: I need it, selling me on why I need it. It can't look like, you know, a technical book. It needs to be for the consumer. If you're going for the consumer, that's the goal here. 67 00:08:02,940 --> 00:08:12,220 Marco Torres: The B to C is not selling a lot of features, but selling benefits. So as we're going through here, we're we are describing a feature, but we need to 68 00:08:12,800 --> 00:08:17,480 Marco Torres: somebody's got to be a copywriter that's making it sound all, you know, exactly how it solves 69 00:08:17,480 --> 00:08:26,320 Marco Torres: my problem, not not all the, you know, what this widget was made from. It's got, you know, titanium and platinum, you know, who cares? What does it do for me? 70 00:08:26,820 --> 00:08:32,940 Marco Torres: So the product, sometimes those, you know, techie guys, we can get, take you guys and get really carried away describing their 71 00:08:32,940 --> 00:08:38,060 Marco Torres: product with all the technical stuff, but the consumer rarely is interested in that. So I would 72 00:08:38,060 --> 00:08:43,680 Marco Torres: recommend, you know, maybe saving that for a separate section in itself, you know, when it comes to the details, the tech details. 73 00:08:44,300 --> 00:08:52,120 Marco Torres: But mainly each section is going to be referring to the benefits to the consumer as you go along with graphics and 74 00:08:52,120 --> 00:08:58,820 Marco Torres: images and credibility. You're going to be overcoming those objections that we talked about as you rolled through. So we're going 75 00:08:58,820 --> 00:09:06,920 Marco Torres: to be talking about covering FAQs, commonly asked questions. We're going to have to have a section for testimonials. 76 00:09:07,460 --> 00:09:17,300 Marco Torres: So ideally before you launch a product to the consumer, you've given them away, least to people or you've had a beta users so that you can get, you know, have written reviews 77 00:09:17,300 --> 00:09:23,020 Marco Torres: or maybe even video reviews from clients. I strongly recommend video reviews. Most people won't 78 00:09:23,020 --> 00:09:32,100 Marco Torres: even watch all the video reviews or maybe not even one of them, but just showing that you've got three or four real clients that have a, you know, video testimonial 79 00:09:32,100 --> 00:09:40,000 Marco Torres: about your product is part of the proof because you can't really fake a video testimonial like you can or written one where I mean, I could 80 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:47,620 Marco Torres: write any written thing and put a picture of anybody on it for a written testimonial. But the video one is harder to do like that. 81 00:09:48,820 --> 00:09:57,280 Marco Torres: What else? And then if you can throw in incentives, we'll get to what I do with there. But, you know, psychology is proven that people, 82 00:09:57,800 --> 00:10:05,260 Marco Torres: rather than a discount, people prefer to value add products or services included in with a call to action versus a discount. 83 00:10:05,500 --> 00:10:11,320 Marco Torres: So if you're in a niche that's very competitive, you know, everybody, we're all competing against somebody, so more than likely whatever you invented 84 00:10:11,320 --> 00:10:19,300 Marco Torres: the product you're launching, there's similar products out there. And so, you know, when you get into a price war, then everybody's racing to the bottom and there's no profit left. 85 00:10:19,440 --> 00:10:27,080 Marco Torres: So we recommend, I always teach my clients to add value, whether it be, you know, buy one, get one, 86 00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:29,840 Marco Torres: worked a heck of a lot better than even 50% off. 87 00:10:31,380 --> 00:10:37,840 Marco Torres: Although that might be, you know, well, again, depending upon how you price it, you might be able to do that. You can do, but it's 88 00:10:37,860 --> 00:10:47,520 Marco Torres: of coming up with a 10% discount, add additional products, add additional service, give a, you know, support 90 days support free versus a price discount. 89 00:10:48,240 --> 00:10:55,560 Marco Torres: Again, I've not, you know, all obviously depends on everybody's product or service. But the other thing is to, you know, stand apart from everyone else. 90 00:10:55,780 --> 00:11:05,440 Kevin Mako: We'll get into that later in the conversation is to use third party incentives that you can actually include as, you know, with the purchase, which is what my company provides. 91 00:11:05,520 --> 00:11:12,620 Kevin Mako: That is great. Lots of little tips in there as well. Well, it's something that's really worth noting in terms of the different pieces, the different 92 00:11:12,620 --> 00:11:17,740 Kevin Mako: sections of your funnel, and what elements you're using to do two things. 93 00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:26,540 Kevin Mako: One is selling, and I love how you mentioned it, Marco, to make sure that you're not selling features, make sure you're selling benefits to the customer. 94 00:11:26,680 --> 00:11:34,020 Kevin Mako: It's a different way of writing your copy where you're telling them what benefit they're going to derive from your product as opposed to the feature that it has. 95 00:11:34,080 --> 00:11:41,280 Kevin Mako: The feature gets them the benefit. But a lot of writers, especially when you're an inventor or hardware startup, you're focusing 96 00:11:41,280 --> 00:11:49,720 Kevin Mako: too much on the actual bits and pieces and not focusing on what the customer is really looking for at the end of the day. What do they really want? 97 00:11:49,780 --> 00:11:58,940 Kevin Mako: We've talked about this, a bunch on the show before about selling the value or the benefits, not the features, and that's critically important because the beauty of it is. 98 00:11:59,080 --> 00:12:06,020 Kevin Mako: I like how you mentioned it, Marco, as well, and it's particularly powerful around hardware products is you can always have another section that breaks down the details. 99 00:12:06,040 --> 00:12:10,600 Kevin Mako: else. If somebody wants technical information, they can dig into it more. They can go to a different 100 00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:15,460 Kevin Mako: section on your website or they can click for more details on the specs or they could just take a look at your design. 101 00:12:15,620 --> 00:12:22,760 Kevin Mako: And if you've designed a beautiful product and you've done a great job of engineering it, that's going to come out in features if they really need that to sell. 102 00:12:22,880 --> 00:12:28,000 Kevin Mako: But the reality is when you've got the testimonials and all that sort of stuff there, you're selling that value to the end 103 00:12:28,000 --> 00:12:34,180 Kevin Mako: customer in terms of what they are going to get at the end of the day. How is it going to make them happy? How is it going to make them feel? How is it going to improve their life? 104 00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:37,740 Kevin Mako: So that's one side. Now, the other side of it is objections. 105 00:12:38,500 --> 00:12:45,220 Kevin Mako: And I really like how you brought that up as well, because the first thing you're doing at the top of the funnel is generally selling the benefit that they're going to achieve. 106 00:12:45,960 --> 00:12:50,540 Kevin Mako: And then they're going to get critical. Somewhere around the middle of the page, they're going to say, okay, but do I believe them? 107 00:12:51,020 --> 00:12:56,600 Kevin Mako: And that's where you've brought in those sections, Mark, that you've mentioned are very important, the video testimonials. 108 00:12:57,320 --> 00:13:03,400 Kevin Mako: Looking at the product holistically from any sort of reviews or external things you had, as seen on or whatever else. 109 00:13:03,400 --> 00:13:09,980 Kevin Mako: The beauty about physical hardware products is that you have some amazing imagery to show. So you mentioned it a few times, Marco there. 110 00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:17,660 Kevin Mako: Make sure that you've got great copy, but also have pictures in each section to really visually describe what they're getting in terms of benefits. 111 00:13:18,200 --> 00:13:25,280 Kevin Mako: Well, as a hardware company, if you've designed a great product, you have all kinds of renderings, you have prototypes, you have the product being tested in different areas, 112 00:13:25,360 --> 00:13:29,320 Kevin Mako: you have the product going into production, all these things to validate the proof that 113 00:13:29,320 --> 00:13:36,140 Marco Torres: you're the real deal. And then you're going to seal it at the end when they're, you know, okay, they've been convinced on the benefits. Now it's towards the middle. 114 00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:42,960 Marco Torres: They believe that the proof is there. And at the end, you're going to drive at home with these extra incentives and benefits and all that sort of stuff. 115 00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:48,400 Marco Torres: And by the way, that call to action should be essentially in every section. 116 00:13:49,100 --> 00:13:55,660 Marco Torres: So as you're going down, if I'm convinced and I'm ready to go ahead and click that buy button, I shouldn't have to look for it. 117 00:13:56,000 --> 00:14:04,460 Marco Torres: So I'm scrolling down the page and there's, you know, I just finished reading some reviews or right underneath the reviews. Hey, boom, buy one. you know, get one now. 118 00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:11,220 Marco Torres: Avoid the word buy. That's one of those key. Well, your copywriter, you should always look to get some help from a professional 119 00:14:11,220 --> 00:14:20,660 Marco Torres: copywriter, but typically, instead of saying buy, you want to refer to to get one now. You want to, you know, nobody really likes to buy stuff, but we all want to, we all love 120 00:14:20,660 --> 00:14:26,000 Marco Torres: spending money. You know, we all want to go out and we do love buying stuff, but we don't want to be told to buy it. 121 00:14:26,040 --> 00:14:31,800 Marco Torres: So you got to find the, you know, use the right keywords, you know, get one now, save money now, 122 00:14:32,200 --> 00:14:38,920 Marco Torres: solve this problem now, whatever it might be, and then, you know, that call to action literally in every section along the way. 123 00:14:39,460 --> 00:14:46,980 Marco Torres: And then you can, as you get down, I mean, this page can go on indefinitely because, you know, you'll know your client and if they are the techies, after 124 00:14:46,980 --> 00:14:56,060 Marco Torres: you've done the whole sales part of it, now you can get into FAQs, you can get into technical specs. And again, that section can still have another call to action. 125 00:14:56,460 --> 00:15:01,640 Marco Torres: So each of these sections, you know, depending upon your product may require, you know, your clients for that type of 126 00:15:01,800 --> 00:15:11,080 Marco Torres: hardware may really be into the technical stuff but at the end of the day we're typically we're selling the hole not the drill you know i walk into hard to home depot 127 00:15:11,080 --> 00:15:12,520 Marco Torres: i need a new drill i'm really 128 00:15:13,280 --> 00:15:23,060 Marco Torres: i'm trying to solve the problem of i need to drill some holes today to finish building a chair or this or the other so my problem is i got holes they need to drill i 129 00:15:23,060 --> 00:15:31,520 Marco Torres: don't care what kind of drill it is but when i get there now i need you know some some fancy packaging and everything else and a brand i recognize 130 00:15:31,520 --> 00:15:39,380 Marco Torres: or whatever. And now some of the specs will matter. But depending upon your consumer, they're really, oh, I need, you know, triple this and all this other stuff. 131 00:15:39,840 --> 00:15:49,240 Marco Torres: But the first grab is, you know, is the product on the right section of the shelves properly? Does it stand out? Is it right? You know, is your design good, right? 132 00:15:49,700 --> 00:15:57,140 Marco Torres: But now it gets into, again, we're selling a hole, not the drill. And now we've got to find out, figure out, why does this drill solve my problem? 133 00:15:57,320 --> 00:16:06,700 Kevin Mako: And why do I want to go ahead and spend more money on this drill than the other? Now it's the benefits. It's going to last me longer. It's going to hold up to heavy use. 134 00:16:06,900 --> 00:16:12,660 Kevin Mako: It's going to hold up to being left out in the rain. And I don't know. I'm just, you know, so what are the benefits to me that 135 00:16:12,660 --> 00:16:16,700 Kevin Mako: decide this, this drill is, you know, going to drill better holes than the next one. 136 00:16:17,520 --> 00:16:26,320 Kevin Mako: Interesting thing about so much of this web data these days, too, is you can start to hone in over time to see how far people are moving down the page before they 137 00:16:26,320 --> 00:16:35,860 Kevin Mako: actually buy your product, or are they leaving at a certain point in your page? So the nice thing about these, modular designs of a sales funnel landing page or sales page is 138 00:16:35,860 --> 00:16:42,380 Kevin Mako: that this data can give you very key insights on each of your sections to say, okay, this section is doing well and guiding 139 00:16:42,380 --> 00:16:45,320 Kevin Mako: people further down the page or converting them to a sale. 140 00:16:46,180 --> 00:16:51,560 Kevin Mako: Or this section is doing poorly. People don't like it and they're leaving when they get to this section. Maybe you need to 141 00:16:51,560 --> 00:16:56,200 Kevin Mako: reorder the sections, maybe you need to rewrite them or maybe you need to add different content or whatever it might be. 142 00:16:56,420 --> 00:17:03,760 Kevin Mako: But I even think about services like Hot Jar, which can actually show you heat mapping of precisely where people are moving the mouse down your page? What words are they 143 00:17:03,760 --> 00:17:05,400 Kevin Mako: highlighting? Where are they clicking? 144 00:17:05,700 --> 00:17:13,240 Marco Torres: Where are they spending some time? And you can start to gauge, especially as this grows and you get more and more people landing on these pages. You can get more and 145 00:17:13,240 --> 00:17:22,760 Marco Torres: more data about what's working and what's not working and applying these principles to your page, which brings us back to your tip about making sure that you have calls to action 146 00:17:22,760 --> 00:17:29,920 Marco Torres: all the way down that landing page to make sure that when they are ready, they click there and off you go. Yeah. And 147 00:17:29,920 --> 00:17:37,200 Marco Torres: A-B testing, you know, A-B testing refers to, you might build two or three of the same sales 148 00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:44,440 Marco Torres: funnel with different keywords, different stuff, maybe in different sections, depending upon, 149 00:17:44,520 --> 00:17:47,400 Marco Torres: you know, how you lay out that copy and images. 150 00:17:48,220 --> 00:17:56,080 Marco Torres: And we're careful with A-B testing, you want to make small changes along the way so you really know what are the differences. But when you 151 00:17:56,080 --> 00:17:59,860 Marco Torres: definitely want to do, send some traffic to one page and some 152 00:17:59,920 --> 00:18:05,700 Kevin Mako: to another and with different calls to action verbiage, you know, whether it's buy now or 153 00:18:05,700 --> 00:18:11,300 Kevin Mako: get one now or what have you and test all that stuff and see what does your audience respond 154 00:18:11,300 --> 00:18:17,100 Kevin Mako: to. And then if you, yeah, 155 00:18:17,370 --> 00:18:22,250 Kevin Mako: I forgot my train of thought there, but A-B testing is hugely important 156 00:18:22,250 --> 00:18:26,350 Marco Torres: on enhancing and optimizing that sales funnel. 157 00:18:27,040 --> 00:18:34,800 Marco Torres: Now, with the sales funnel that you're building, Let's say you get it to a point where you're pretty comfortable with it. You're noticing some conversions. It's working. 158 00:18:36,340 --> 00:18:43,860 Marco Torres: You mentioned something before this call about affiliate marketing. Just talk a bit about that, about how you can leverage a landing page like this to get more 159 00:18:43,860 --> 00:18:53,820 Marco Torres: eyeballs on it by using other people, essentially, to sell your product, to sell, to get traffic directed to your landing page. Yeah, I'm glad you reminded me of that. 160 00:18:54,400 --> 00:19:00,360 Marco Torres: Affiliate marketing has been a key asset to what I've done for decades, really, for different, 161 00:19:00,360 --> 00:19:05,320 Marco Torres: you know, the companies and products and services that I've marketed for myself or my clients 162 00:19:06,300 --> 00:19:14,780 Marco Torres: as I operate somewhat of it as an agency level. But affiliate market, one of my web, one of my Facebook groups, for example, is called 163 00:19:14,780 --> 00:19:20,200 Marco Torres: Marketing Boost Affiliates, where I've got 54,000 affiliates in that Facebook group alone. 164 00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:30,300 Marco Torres: And what affiliates are essentially, these are all entrepreneurs all over the world that they are, they want to sell products without building their own. 165 00:19:30,360 --> 00:19:34,280 Marco Torres: They want a good product or service that they can sell, that they can make a commission on. 166 00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:41,940 Marco Torres: And that's what they're looking for. And there's affiliate networks like commission junction, click bait, 167 00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:47,780 Marco Torres: and many others, that you can, you know, once you've got an 168 00:19:47,780 --> 00:19:57,760 Marco Torres: idea that your product acquisition cost, you know, you did your own marketing. And, you know, you know, it's costing me $50 to acquire a customer 169 00:19:57,760 --> 00:20:06,940 Marco Torres: to buy my $300 product. So you know that if it's costing you, $70 to get a deal, you're no longer making the money you need to make. 170 00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:16,320 Marco Torres: So the affiliates can come in and you can say, look, I can, you know, if you know your budget is $50, you might put it on the affiliate network out there for, you know, $25, 171 00:20:16,760 --> 00:20:17,520 Marco Torres: $30, $40. 172 00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:23,800 Marco Torres: And see, the affiliates might have be better marketers than you are and let them go to battle with it. 173 00:20:23,900 --> 00:20:30,240 Marco Torres: And you may actually, you know, you may have to make it, you know, where you pay all the way up to what you're willing to pay. 174 00:20:30,360 --> 00:20:36,980 Marco Torres: or you might be able to get it into the affiliate world for less than you was costing yourself. So now you've increased your margins. 175 00:20:37,580 --> 00:20:45,120 Marco Torres: And you've got an army of salespeople, of network, of entrepreneurs that know how to market on the internet to their audiences, 176 00:20:45,500 --> 00:20:51,540 Marco Torres: with their traffic, with their websites, you know, they're essentially publishers quite often. 177 00:20:51,900 --> 00:21:00,120 Marco Torres: And they've got the traffic and they need different products to be publishing on there that they're willing to put on there without charging you advertising fees and only get paid. 178 00:21:00,360 --> 00:21:08,800 Marco Torres: when someone clicks from their link over to your sales funnel and buys. And then it's affiliate tracking software you'll need to plug into your sales funnel page, 179 00:21:09,160 --> 00:21:12,780 Marco Torres: but then that's going to track the sale where it came from, what commissions are due, 180 00:21:13,260 --> 00:21:20,800 Kevin Mako: and it's either paid directly to the affiliate company like Commission Junction, and then they pay the third, you know, the end user or affiliate, 181 00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:27,240 Kevin Mako: or you can build your own direct affiliate network little by little, and they're, you know, they're working directly with you. 182 00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:30,100 Kevin Mako: They're selling your product, and you're the one paying them the commissions directly. 183 00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:39,140 Kevin Mako: affiliate marketing can be huge for different products and services without even having to 184 00:21:39,140 --> 00:21:47,340 Kevin Mako: figure out how to market it. That's what they do. And that's what they do for your product and others. So big opportunity there with affiliate marketing. 185 00:21:47,620 --> 00:21:56,060 Kevin Mako: Affiliate marketing is a great option for new hardware innovations as well because you have to think of it from the perspective of these influencers. 186 00:21:56,240 --> 00:21:59,480 Kevin Mako: They are looking for new and interesting and clever. 187 00:22:00,820 --> 00:22:04,640 Kevin Mako: that maybe are difficult to find or people don't know much about because they want to be 188 00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:09,440 Kevin Mako: the innovators to present it to their audience and say, hey, look, I found this great new thing and thank me for it. 189 00:22:10,360 --> 00:22:18,860 Kevin Mako: And that is what's so amazing about people who are on this podcast right now. Pretty much everybody on this podcast is either developing or selling or in some part 190 00:22:18,860 --> 00:22:27,580 Kevin Mako: way of a new hardware invention, something physical. That is precisely the things that these individuals, these influencers, like you said, they're borderline, they're essentially 191 00:22:27,580 --> 00:22:35,140 Kevin Mako: micro publishers are looking for and they get paid by it because when they are able to direct somebody to your site, they get a cut. 192 00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:44,740 Kevin Mako: And the more interesting and clever and unique that the product is, the more money they're going to make. So the cool thing about influencers as well that I've seen 193 00:22:44,740 --> 00:22:54,320 Kevin Mako: is because the global marketplace is so big now, you can almost certainly find dozens, if not hundreds of influencers very specifically within your product 194 00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:57,000 Kevin Mako: niche that are in your 195 00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:06,120 Marco Torres: industry, your vertical, whatever you want to call it, or some are very highly related to the product that you're looking to sell, those people are very interested in 196 00:23:06,120 --> 00:23:12,960 Marco Torres: a new product because it's in their space and it's to their audience, which is how they build their credibility and how 197 00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:16,860 Marco Torres: their audience appreciates the work they do in finding these new products. So that's why, 198 00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:21,700 Marco Torres: as a new hardware startup, look at this as one of your many options to sell product. We've talked about 199 00:23:21,700 --> 00:23:31,220 Marco Torres: a lot of different options on the show, from wholesale, direct to retail, crowdfunding, and many others, this with affiliate marketing and a very good, well-designed landing 200 00:23:31,220 --> 00:23:39,520 Marco Torres: page or sales funnel is another arsenal to your toolbox that you can use to sell more product or to launch a new product. Exactly. 201 00:23:40,460 --> 00:23:49,500 Kevin Mako: And the software to do it, it's amazing, you know, right now technology is so powerful. The technology to launch, to have your own affiliate 202 00:23:49,500 --> 00:23:56,440 Kevin Mako: program where you're directly with your affiliates, you're not paying a third-party company like Commission Junction. When you do 203 00:23:56,440 --> 00:24:00,360 Kevin Mako: that you've got to have a higher margin because let's say you're paying them a 40% commission they're 204 00:24:00,360 --> 00:24:05,960 Marco Torres: paying their people 30 but if you were if you built your you know directly to you affiliates then 205 00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:15,040 Marco Torres: you know you can pay them a little bit more and make sure that they're focusing on your product versus somebody else's but um so affiliate marketing 206 00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:22,260 Marco Torres: is great of course social media get it out there you know everywhere else when it comes to marketing uh i don't know how much time we have left 207 00:24:22,260 --> 00:24:26,420 Marco Torres: how are we doing on time here we're pretty much coming to an end so you know something i want 208 00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:36,060 Marco Torres: to ask you before we wrapped up as a big part of the work that your company does is in something you mentioned towards the tail end of these sales funnels is offering extra 209 00:24:36,060 --> 00:24:44,020 Marco Torres: incentives, offering something beyond, rather than offering a discount, offer them additional value. Explain a bit about that and how your company works around that. 210 00:24:44,380 --> 00:24:53,160 Marco Torres: Sure. My company is called Marketingboost.com. And we provide complimentary hotel stays, 125 destinations around the world where we offer 211 00:24:53,160 --> 00:25:01,020 Marco Torres: these complimentary hotel stays. And we offer hotel savings cards. in $100 increments, $100, $200, $200, $300, $500. 212 00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:10,400 Marco Torres: And so, for example, with your, I've got a guy that one of my clients, he's selling a GPS device. He sells to put it in your car. 213 00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:19,800 Marco Torres: And what they do is they use our product to add value with the bonus. So if you buy one product, you know, one of his GPS device is great. You bought it for however much it was. 214 00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:25,540 Marco Torres: If you buy two of them, he throws in a complimentary hotel stay in Las Vegas. If you buy two or more. 215 00:25:25,540 --> 00:25:31,780 Marco Torres: So that's an example of how you can add value without discounting and increase the sale, you know, 216 00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:37,240 Marco Torres: because he only offered the complimentary trip when they bought a minimum of two of his devices or more. 217 00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:45,460 Marco Torres: So he's bumping up the revenue for himself without discounting and generating, you know, at least two or more sales of each of the product versus one. 218 00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:55,520 Marco Torres: So our product, we make it easy and affordable. It's only $37 a month to be a member of marketing boosts and have access to unlimited of the restaurant vouchers that we'd 219 00:25:55,540 --> 00:26:00,560 Marco Torres: provide as complimentary restaurant vouchers, the hotel savings cars or the complimentary trips, 220 00:26:01,180 --> 00:26:05,940 Marco Torres: go to marketing booths.com and you could, you know, join the Facebook group and start seeing 221 00:26:05,940 --> 00:26:13,160 Marco Torres: how thousands of other business owners around the world use incentives to grow their business without discounting. That's a little bit of that. 222 00:26:13,340 --> 00:26:22,460 Marco Torres: We also do, I'll throw in there, we do the white label glove service. We do build sales funnels for our clients. We provide the entire technology 223 00:26:22,460 --> 00:26:30,660 Marco Torres: for follow up, for email, for text messaging, for voice broadcasting, to follow up with prospects that's filled out of form that were interested in your product, for example. 224 00:26:31,660 --> 00:26:36,960 Marco Torres: So anyway, we're here to help. If you join our Facebook group, that's one way that you could just reach out to me personally 225 00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:46,800 Marco Torres: and solicit advice on how to launch your product. And if, you know, we'll share with you what we can and hopefully we can help you. That's great. Really appreciate all that. 226 00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:51,940 Marco Torres: And of course, as always, I'll put all the links in the show notes below. Marco, thanks a lot for your advice today and for being on the show. 227 00:26:51,940 --> 00:27:01,260 Narrator: Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast, the show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market 228 00:27:01,260 --> 00:27:08,160 Narrator: and turn it into a big success. This podcast series is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent, 229 00:27:08,360 --> 00:27:14,360 Narrator: the original and leading firm in North America to provide global caliber in -to-end physical consumer 230 00:27:14,360 --> 00:27:23,520 Narrator: product development to startups, inventors, and small product business clients. If you're looking for product development help on your invention, head over to Mako 231 00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:29,380 Narrator: -design.com. That's M-A-K-O Design dot com for a free consultation 232 00:27:29,380 --> 00:27:36,300 Narrator: from one of Mako-designs for design studios from coast to coast. Thanks for listening and see you next time.