Beginner’s Mind
What I learned about the Marketing Funnel Mentality at the 2018 Social Media Marketing World Conference can be summarized in a phrase: cultivate your beginner’s mind.
To develop a Marketing Funnel Mentality, you have to set aside everything you think you know about business and go back to thinking like a beginner.
What’s a marketing funnel? A marketing funnel is a method of attracting clients, customers and business to whatever you do.
What’s a Marketing Funnel Mentality? A Marketing Funnel Mentality is a way of thinking about your website, your products and your marketing that empowers you to reach new heights of professional success.
For those who don’t know us, we are the Game of Social Media.
Our focus is to bring social media marketing expertise to authors, small business owners and entrepreneurs, especially therapists and energy healers who are using their books to substantiate their practice.
Here at Whatissocialmediatoday.com, Catherine Carrigan and I, Ramajon Cogan, run a business to empower you to win what we like to call the Game of Social Media.
We’re not your usual boring business mentors. When you join our program, you’re going to be learning from Catherine, a medical intuitive healer, and me, Rama, a GNOD (gnarly old dude) who lives to ride my mountain bike.
We went to Social Media Marketing World 2018 in San Diego with the intention of bringing our business to the next level and to bring you, our clients, the latest greatest information as the field of social media may be the fastest changing industry in the history of business.
Catherine Carrigan and Her Dog Dixie
Catherine Carrigan is a medical Intuitive healer, host of the Natural Healing Show for UK Health Radio, an active blogger, a yoga instructor, a qi gong instructor, mother to Dixie The Healing Dog, and the author of eight books including six Amazon #1 best-selling books. Her published works include: What is Healing, Unlimited Energy NOW, Unlimited Intuition NOW, and Banish the Blues Now.
Her medical intuitive healing practice has grown each and every year as a result of building her social media platform, mostly related to blogging.
Her latest book, The Difference Between Pain and Suffering was an Amazon #1 Bestseller for 3 weeks before it was even launched.
Ramajon Cogan, Catherine Carrigan and Dixie On A Hike
I’m the other half, my name is RamaJon. I am the visionary behind the business. I am an extreme mountain biker, a systems analyst, a writing and publishing coach and a tai chi player and teacher. I’m here to Play the Game.
I’m also the author of the Amazon number one bestseller Sedona Mountain Biking: The Rise of the Gnarly Crew.
I work with authors, soup to nuts, especially ones who have stepped up to the marketing plate.
We encourage a cross platformed approach, a multi content procurement and creation platform strongly rooted in keywords and hashtags.
We provide year-long support to keep you on track and moving forward.
Why were we at this conference anyway?
Motivation baby. How do we jump-start our platform? We were ready to try something new.
Blogging is one of our main focuses while playing the Game of Social Media. We started our adventure at the Social Media Marketing World Conference by attending several copy writing presentations.
After all, for an author, writing copy should be easy, right?
This is how the Marketing Funnel Mentality began.
Ray Edwards: How to Write Copy that Sells without Being Salesy/Sleazy
Ray Edwards
Ray reminded us that when selling a product or service it’s 80% about relationship, 15% about the cost, 3% about urgency, and 2% asking for the sale. That puts everything into a clear perspective.
Here are a few very simple copy writing ideas that can help attract new customers and open the door to beginning that relationship:
- How to
- Top 10 reasons
- How to eliminate
- Best for
- Doctor’s secret
He went on to say, “Give away value first.” We have heard this over and over again for years. Give away your very best.
What I hadn’t realized was that what you weren’t giving away was establishing the relationship.
Amplifying the situation that you want to solve for people by explaining that it is even worse than it appears can help get your foot in the door.
Telling the story of the struggle behind the solution helps with the engagement.
Using testimonials will solidify the solution. It not only worked for me, but also helped these people.
And finally what the offer will do for your client, the before and after. How will it transform the client.
Has your book publishing company promised you marketing support when in reality they are not delivering the goods? To them it was only a line item entry to hook you into their program. They have very little ability to deliver on that promise, even if they had intended upon doing so. I know this to be true as I was a manager for a boutique publisher. I hate to say it, but it is always about them making money and not about helping you make money.
Ray helped me understand that I needed to amplify the problem before I can provide the solution.
Mike Kim: Magic Words: The Art of Using Persuasion, Psychology, and Nuance in Your Copy
Mike Kim
Mike talked about the seven phases for writing copy used for email marketing.
This will require practice and refinement.
Below is my attempt at creating some copy using one of Mike Kim’s subject lines.
Not sure if this is for you, but…
Are you an author? Do you want to be an Author? Does the idea of being an Author appeal to you?
If so, you need to check this out.
What’s the most important part of the book?
Download this to find out…
I was running a boutique publishing program that promised the moon and delivered something less than excellence.
We were moderately successful at getting books written, revised and published. But, we failed miserably with helping the authors develop a marketing platform to sell books.
Even if we could have, we didn’t.
After working with hundreds of authors who had committed tons of time and money to write, revise and publish their books, it dawned on me that everything was ass backwards.
Unless you simply want to check that bucket list item off your list…
The author’s marketing platform must be built into the book at the front end if you want to stand even the slightest chance of selling copies.
Contrary to all our fantasies, no business, book or idea will sell on it’s own.
Being a writer has to be thought of like a business.
Stepping up to the marketing plate is the first and biggest step.
Play the Game to Win the Game.
The Game of Social Media starts with:
Defining the Marketing Platform!
This is done through the identification of the hashtags and keywords that will follow you throughout the Game of Social Media. This is your unique Digital Social Signature.
The creation and accumulation of content that will fill the social media marketing platforms begins and is an ongoing process.
We encourage a Swiss army knife approach for content creation:
- Cross platform dissemination of content that contains your unique digital social signature.
- Your Brand and branding.
- Used to drive traffic back to your marketing funnel and sales platform.
- Your pitch.
Because we feel that hashtags and keywords are so important in playing the Game of Social Media, we want to offer you Catherine’s #1 Amazon Best Selling book titled: What Is Social Media Today: Hashtags, Keywords and You, Oh My! For $1.27.
After you read this book which by the way was blogged and repackaged you may be ready to Play the Game of Social Media with us!
We help you develop your entire marketing platform, soup to nuts.
And we stay with you for a year and provide guidance and motivation.
Are You Ready to Win the Game of Social Media?
I’m not sure if the copy I’ve just written adheres to any of Mike Kim’s principles, so you better check him out in more detail. I’m just stoked that he provided the spark of motivation.
Darren Rowse: 10 Things I Wish I’d Known About Blogging That Will Shortcut the Growth of Your Blog
Darren Rowse
We teach blogging, content creation and blog marketing as one of the main blades of our Swiss army knife approach to social media marketing.
Most of what we know and have taught about blogging has come from Darren.
Darren is very approachable and we ran into him in the elevator and asked a bunch of questions before the presentation.
More understanding of blogging principles and learning from an expert is never a bad idea.
Catherine, who is quite an accomplished blogger, has been contemplating joining the ProBlogger Program. Just to get better – and no matter where you are at in your blogging or social media approach, you can always learn how to play the Game of Social Media at a higher level.
Guy Kawasaki: Achieving Social Media Success by Defying Conventional Wisdom
Guy Kawasaki
The Man, the Myth, the Legend. Guy Kawasaki is not a mountain biker but he is a surfer and that’s close enough for me.
This presentation was nothing short of brilliant in it’s simplicity. Taking the most polarizing subject of our time and choosing sides. In doing so, he left many people lost in the weeds wondering WTF.
What was the message?
GO ALL IN!!!
It’s ok to poke the dragon. It’s ok to create controversy.
But seriously, what ever we are doing, what ever we are creating, what ever we are selling, it’s ok to speak your truth and share your vision with the world.
Go All In.
Green Smoothie Girl: How to Grow a Blog to a Multimillion-Dollar Business Without Advertising
Green Smoothie Girl Robyn Openshaw
Green Smoothie Girl’s presentation opened my eyes the widest of any. And, I got to learn a new cool word.
First off. What excellent branding.
Ok, I know you’re curious about the cool word. The word is trip wire, and it can change your financial world. A trip wire is an inexpensive product, usually content of some sort, that builds trust and can actually be a huge moneymaker.
And yes, the Green Smoothie Girl Robyn Openshaw has built a multi-million dollar business creating them.
Many authors write books and blogs to lead clients to a coaching or healing practice.
A trip wire is an ideal additional trust builder and money maker. A beautiful graphic or info-graphic that can be either printed out, or as in Green Smoothie Girl’s example, they were laminated and actually mailed out.
This is a no brainer and could easily turn into your most profitable marketing strategy. Robyn Openshaw was by far and away the best example of how social media can rocket your small business to incredible success as she grosses about $5.4 million a year by bringing almost 100,000 new visitors a month to her website Greensmoothiegirl.com.
Amy Landino: Vlogging Secrets From the Best Story Tellers on YouTube
Amy Landino
Everyone has been talking more video. So we all began making videos. Some long, some short. Are any of them any good?
Most of our videos are talking heads. The information may be great, but the visual appeal is static and boring and can make the eye tired and the finger move toward that dreaded click.
Amy gave some great tips for making video that keeps the viewer interested.
Make your videos dynamic by using different short clips. Voice-overs are very cool and allow you to use those different clips and still have continuity in your story.
Filling the thumbnail in a viewable, visually appealing way is another challenge.
AND, I can still hear these words echoing in my head.
Check it on mobile.
Make sure it looks and works great on mobile.
Keynote Speakers: Molly Pittman hosted Mikael Yang (Manychat), Andrew Yaroshevsky (Chatfuel), Linda Lee (Facebook Messenger)
Facebook Messenger Bots: An Alternative Future for Marketers and Creators
I have to be honest, this one was a bit over my head. I’m not exactly sure what the bot thing is all about.
But here’s a simple explanation. A bot is an automated software that has conversations with people.
But, it was very clear that Facebook Messenger had real potential. The open rates are crazy high and if a bot somehow helps automate this process and can be used in helping to establish the relationship, then I’m going to need to learn a lot more.
An estimated 1.3 billion people use Facebook Messenger to communicate. Over 200,000 bots are now live, Facebook Messenger is the next great marketing channel so we all ought to be pondering how to use it in our marketing strategy.
I did see right away how I could incorporate FaceBook Messenger into my weekly webinar invitation and will begin experimenting with it this week.
This could in fact be the most important addition to our Swiss army knife approach to social media marketing at the Game of Social Media.
The bottom line is that 80 percent of communication that happens through your smart phone occurs through text messaging apps. As marketers, we need to harness the power of these conversations.
Leslie Samuel: How to Create a Blogging Sales Funnel to Increase Your Revenue
Leslie Samuel
Leslie started his presentation by demonstrating what all social media marketing is about. Establishing the Relationship. He brilliantly used a marriage proposal as his metaphor. His analogy was so right on that it will always stick in my mind forever.
If you ask someone to marry you without establishing a relationship first, they will think you are totally nuts no matter how much evidence you present that you are a great person.
That’s what most marketers do – present testimonials and beg for a sale before they get to know you or establish a friendship.
Leslie Samuel went on to show us three different relationship building marketing and sales funnel sequences.
Through identifying the problem and explaining how the solution came about bolstered by success stories and a call to action at the end, free gifts and reminders are incorporated to provide a way of getting to know the customer.
This is where many of us are.
We have a book, a product or a service and we may have all three.
We have great consistent content that is branded and on line.
What we don’t have is the Marketing Funnel Mentality. Matter of fact, we never even thought of a marketing funnel. Sure, we thought about selling our stuff. We have been relying on converting old clients and contacts and friends of friends.
Leslie’s advice is to create a sales funnel and revise it and modify it and perfect it before moving on to the next sales funnel.
Incorporating the use of a trip wire in the process to help establish the relationship offers both a cheap way for the client to invest in you and can provide continued monetization along the way.
Leslie Samuel did a great job of simplifying the marketing funnel process.
Ann Handley: Creating Better Content in Less Time: 5 Real World Writer Secrets
Ann Handley
Ann’s presentation was dominated by her infatuation with E.B. White and Charlotte’s Web.
Her presentation was nothing short of brilliant for two reasons.
Be a writer first and write for the one person that needs to hear your words.
Second, be brief and to the point and make the difference, create the transformation.
She used the story of this classic children’s book as a metaphor for how we should all be using social media.
This message went over my head at first, so I went here to read what I had missed. In doing so, I stumbled upon just how masterful Ann really was.
I really didn’t think anything like this was even possible.
She has successfully branded Charlotte’s Web. Wow!
Heidi Cohen: How to Generate Quality Ideas to Fuel Consistent Content Creation
Heidi Cohen
Heidi gave us one of the densest presentations of the whole conference. She was non stop and provided an analytical approach to choosing which content ideas to pursue. This is a no nonsense approach to finding the biggest bangs for your content creation buck.
There was so much info provided so quickly that I’m pretty sure Heidi used some of Spock’s mind meld tricks. What I am convinced of is that every bit of information provided a way to sort through content creation woes with a method and purpose.
Heidi calls her approach to content creation the BRAVO method:
- Brainstorm
- Rest your brain
- Assess your best ideas
- Vet your ideas using keywords and data
- Outline your content
Since I rarely understand my method or purpose clearly, I think I’m going to spend some time checking this out further. She did make it seem so simple.
Melanie Deziel: 5 Branded Content Best Practices From the World of Journalism.
Melanie Deziel
For me, this was the most inspirational presentation of the entire conference.
What an amazing WOW factor. Melanie Dezieil produced a branded piece for Netflix promoting Orange is the New Black in the New York Times. I grew up reading the NYT.
Melanie’s storytelling was captivating but I couldn’t put my finger on the true message. The normal marketing funnel was obvious as it should be for a branded piece.
The giveaway was in how she held herself. The energetics behind the story.
What Melanie did was provide Excellence in a genre that is not normally known for excellence. As a result she transformed the one person she needed to, herself.
Providing Excellence in every step of the relationship in communicating with your customers demonstrates mastery of your trade.
Kate Ahl: Creating a Pinterest Marketing Plan for More Clicks, Subscribers, and Sales.
Kate Ahl
Pinterest is a platform that I have neglected and yet it provides a place where content lasts longer and can give us long-term marketing results.
Kate Ahl provided a great introduction for me and I realize that there is a lot more to Pinterest than I had thought.
My entire concept has changed and I got several ideas:
- Pins about what to do on your trip to the Big Island.
- Did I tell you I’m writing a book about Hawaii in the 1980s tentatively titled Finding Aloha: Aventures with Hawaiian Hippies and Holy Men.
- Pins about what cool things to do on your trip to Sedona.
- Did I tell you my first book was an Amazon #1 Bestseller? Sedona Mountain Biking: The Rise of the Gnarly Crew.
- Pins about Catherine’s 10-Day Yoga Program for a Pain Free Back.
Pinterest is on for this year. I’ll see you there!
#smmw18 will mark the real beginning of the Game of Social Media.
My thinking has been re-oriented by embracing the #marketingfunnelmentality.
The combination of the speakers that we attended led me to many Ah Ha moments.
There were so many choices of presentations to go to that my head was spinning.
We used Catherine’s intuitive super powers and muscle tested the speakers to determine which ones to go to. These were the speakers we needed to experience to grow our business to the next level. Asking for guidance made everything flow a lot smoother at #smmw18.
Before this conference I viewed marketing as if selling of the product was the end result. Now I know that establishing the relationship is really the end result.
That’s where I learned how the marketing funnel kicks in. The #marketingfunnelmentality will do the rest.
One of the biggest take aways is the trip wire. For most of our authors, small business clients and entrepeneurs, this is such a no brainer.
Catherine and I want to help you get the most out of next year’s conference.
Catherine will teach a free webinar on how to use a pendulum and/or muscle testing to make important decision making easier
Once the Conference Schedule becomes available Catherine will provide a Personal Conference Schedule reading. Catherine will only be available for the 1st 100 signups. The cost will be $37.
Her hourly fee is $150 for any one who is ready to change their life right now. Email her catherine@catherinecarrigan.com
I’ve taken you along on our journey at the 2018 Social Media Marketing World Conference.
Have fun, make more money, develop a Marketing Funnel Mentality and learn how to play the Game of Social Media with Catherine Carrigan and Ramajon Cogan
You’re probably aware by now that there are are two of us, RamaJon and Catherine Carrigan, and that we think of ourselves as the Game of Social Media.
Our collaboration comes out of the need for both of us to sell books and expand our businesses. Most of our clients are published authors, coaches and healers needing help to establish a social media based author’s marketing platform.
The one component that I felt was missing from the conference was the importance of hashtags. We empower our clients to get discovered in social media by identifying and developing their ideal keywords and hashtags.
Don’t forget you can download Catherine’s bestselling book Hashtags, Keywords and You, Oh My! for $1.27.
Hashtags, Keywords and You Oh My! Amazon Number 1 Bestseller by Catherine Carrigan
Read her book and if you think your are ready to play the Game of Social Media we want to hear from you!
We want to empower you to provide excellence and Go All In.
Otherwise, Catherine is more than happy to do her yoga, and I would not complain if I had time for another mountain bike ride. Even a short one.
Contact us if you’re ready.
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One last thing. I once interviewed an artist who explained how she spent 97% of her time marketing and only 3% of her time making art.
Don’t you think it’s about time to Play the Game to Win the Game?
Verified
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