Dropdeadcopy.com

Let’s talk about sex, baby.

Remember the last time you were in a bar, trying to get laid?

What worked better…

Strategy 1 – asking the girl you were attracted to if she wanted to sleep with you, or…

Strategy 2 – flirting with her, getting her all hot and sweaty, getting her back to your place for coffee and THEN have a wild, raunchy, passionate, sleepless night…?

That’s right Romeo – strategy 2.

That’s what today’s podcast with Rob Toth is about:

Flirting with your prospects so when you ask them to buy, they buy like people buy iPhones on launch day.

Sound good?

Rob Toth is a web marketing specialist with 7 years experience in 36 niche markets.



In this episode, you’ll discover:

How to presell the shit out of everything… webinars, events, conferences, sales, product launches and more (the secret is… flirt, Flirt, FLIRT – but how?)

The best presell strategies to use with email marketing

Why reminder emails like “Webinar starting in 20 mins” are a complete waste of time and space (and what you should be sending instead)

Webinar presell strategies that everyone should be using but no one does (an easy way to gain an instant advantage over your competitors)

Advanced but simple “mind control” tactics to add a little “pop” to your emails (ever wanted a way to control people’s thoughts? here’s how.)

Affiliate recruitment tips that you just don’t hear from mainstream guru guys

Why a launch without preselling isn’t really a launch (and how to have a blockbuster launch using email)

How to flirt like Casanova with your prospects (how to seduce your prospects to buy more products)



Mentioned:

Rob Toth’s website

Canada Marketing Summit

Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO

Raw transcript:

Speaker 1: Something’s coming that’s going to happen for $40 only. It’s going to be cool and you’re going to meet … Do you want to be part of it because it’s massive this kind of value?

John: Hey, podcast listener. You’re about to discover insider tips, tricks and secrets to making more sales and converting more prospects in the customers with e-mail marketing. For more information about the e-mail marketing podcast or to order this wanted guy, go to dropdeadcopy.com/podcast.

Hey, everybody. It’s John McIntyre here, the auto responder guy and it’s time for Episode 16 of the e-mail marketing podcast where we talk about the top tips, tricks and secrets for making more sales and growing your revenue with e-mail marketing. Now today, we’re going to talk about sex. Yeah, baby. That’s it. That is how to flirt with your prospects like a young Casanova and get them to buy more products. Does that sound good? Now really it’s just simple but effective pre-selling strategies to get people to buy more. Now, this is stuff like how to pre-sell webinars, events, conferences, sales, product launches and more and the secret is really just knowing how to flirt with your prospect and we’re going to get into that.

We’re going to talk about how reminder e-mails like webinar styling in 20 minutes are a complete waste of time and space and what you need to be doing instead. Now, this can really set you apart from your competitors. So stick around for that and affiliate recruitment tips that you just don’t hear from mainstream guru guys. So basically, a whole bunch of stuff that’s all related to pre-selling. It all can be done via e-mail. You can do it via direct mail as well. Like a lot of these strategies and tactics can be applied to your marketing everywhere, okay?

Now, to get the sure notes for this episode of the e-mail marketing podcast, go to dropdeadcopy.com/ep16 and before we get into it though, I thought you guys might like to know how the Drop Dead Copy list is going. So I have a daily e-mail list that you can sign up at dropdeadcopy.com/podcast. That wasn’t always daily. About two, three or four months ago, I switched to daily e-mails. I didn’t know how it would go and I also sell in every single e-mail including the first one which is the McIntyre method. Now, a few people have asked when the McIntyre method is going to open. At this stage, it’s not going to be for at least two to three months.

Now, I had the results of daily e-mails and selling in every e-mail which is sending more often than most people have the balls to do and also selling in every e-mail which a lot of people just don’t like doing. It’s working fantastic. The interesting thing though is that 25% of people are not subscribing. So one out of four people unsubscribes from that list, but the people who stay are extremely excited about what I’m sending them and they’re much more likely to buy the McIntyre method and other things I suggest. So it’s been a great experiment. I’m going to keep doing it and so if you want a good idea and you want something to do, start sending daily e-mails, either broadcast or load them up into your auto responder and sell in every single e-mail.

If you want to know how I do it, go to dropdeadcopy.com/podcast, sign up to the list there. Do it now. Let’s go talk to Rob Toth about how to flirt with prospects.

It’s John McIntyre here, the auto responder guy. I’m here with Rob Toth, a web marketing specialist with seven years experience in more than thirsty six nation markets and now, Rob comes highly recommended from a number of you. And today, we’re going to talk about pre-selling the shit out of a bunch of stuff including conferences, webinars, events, Christmas sales and product launches. Now, it’s not all specifically related to e-mail, but you can bet there’s going to be a ton of stuff that you’re going to be able to apply in your e-mail marketing because e-mail, it’s a fantastic medium for pre-selling and anyway, I’m sure a lot of you do webinars, conferences, all that sort of stuff anyway.

So even if it’s not specifically about e-mail, it’s going to be very relevant and interesting stuff. Rob, how are you doing today?

Rob: John, pleasure being on here with you. I’m doing great, good myself over here in Canada.

John: Cool, man. It must be cold out there, huh?

Rob: In the summer? No, sir. We got our stuff. You guys have your winter right now but we got our summer. So it’s a … No complaints at all.

John: Okay. That’s nice. Cool. Okay. So we’ve been through pre-selling before we get into that, tell us a bit about yourself and who’s Rob Toth?

Rob: Sure. Yeah. I guess I’ve been kicking around for seven or eight years now doing primarily information products, info products, the internet marketing space and so forth via different clients and kind of rep share of opportunities, we’ve expanded beyond that into different niches, some really cool, interesting ones like ghost hunting, everyone comments on that one. I know you obviously hold the gambit of the popular ones like dating and weight loss and so forth. So played in different spaces now at this point, run my own conference kind of marketing somewhere which actually as of the time we’re of this call is actually, we’re just finalizing an idea that’s being sold off, but yeah.

I mean, it’s just been basically about seven or so, eight years I guess doing online marketing in different capacities, had some bigger launches, had some fun projects, been able to kind of kick around the different parts of the world to meet up with some business contacts or just kind of explore things. So been down your way, down to Melbourne actually for three weeks as well once, but I don’t know. It’s a whole … Just sales copywriting. I think that’s what kind of brought me into internet marketing world as initially was I did all … I was kind of doing contract and sales copywriting a while back, but then kind of relates to that …

I was kind of passing up a lot of cool projects that I was writing a copy for but I really wasn’t kind of taking forward and the rest of the bells and whistles which I really enjoy, so that kind of expand it from there. So …

John: Awesome, man. So it sounds like you’ve really done a whole bunch of different stuff, not just one thing.

Rob: Yeah, a variety kind of … I think most of us have the same kind of [inaudible 00:05:20]. Nowadays, I’ve kind of got that under control pretty well which actually is one company, one focus and so forth, but in initial days, like let’s do this. Let’s play with that. So it’s a … Yeah. I kind of had my hands in a lot of different [inaudible 00:05:33].

John: Nice, man. Okay. Okay. That sounds cool. So we already talked to you about how you went into that pre-selling stuff. So before you went into the actual, the nitty-gritty stuff, tell us … I think some people are thinking, what the hell is pre-selling but give us a little bit of background on what is it … Why is it important and why is e-mail and doing kind of follow up kind of stuff, why is it so useful?

Rob: Sure and you mentioned in the intro that this might not be all related to e-mail? Certainly pre-selling is done in many different ways, but what I actually had in mind was we do a lot of our pre-selling and I mean, we do … We use, sometimes we use direct mail and sometimes obviously, your web page can do pre-selling as well. But a lot of it is actually you’re doing with e-mail because it’s so versatile for that. So pre-selling essentially just flirting with the prospect that the way I kind of put it before you try and get them into bed with you, so it’s not trying to go up to the girls saying, would you like to buy or here’s a conference and they’ll come out and attend or here’s a product we just launched and therefore, buy it. It’s something that …

I think inherently everyone who is as, even Basic Marketing 101 knowledge knows that they should be somehow pre-selling, but I think either how they’re approaching it or just the fact they’re over … It’s an oversight where they have so many other things on the go with even for webinars. It says pretty popular these days. A lot of people are not even properly signed to webinars, didn’t announce them. One thing I see with a lot of guys, even big guys, they’ll run a webinar, they’ll … Bad ass webinar, tons of great content they’re going to put on there but all they really do is they keep selling, sending you the notification when the webinar is. That’s not pre-selling. That’s a reminder. That’s just … That’s not a tactic.

That’s just a mechanical task reminding someone when the event is. Same with conferences, I have friends who run conferences. Obviously, I run my own as well and often, all they put out is the reminders that hey, on this date, make sure you get a ticket because we got the conference coming up. And there’s no … Pre-selling is the part where you kind of massage and you get, build the anticipation, build understanding of what’s coming up which is obviously, it is pretty popular with launches.

I mean, to me you can’t really do a launch without pre-selling otherwise, it’s all you would be doing as a grand opening that nobody even knows it’s a grand opening. But yeah, pre-selling is kind of that factor and then once we dive in, I like to maybe bring in a couple of examples of how we did that using e-mail as well.

John: Sure. Let’s do it, man. Let’s dive right in. So let’s get into it.

Rob: All right. Cool. Well, let’s take a look at … First of all, the conference because that’s what’s fresh on my mind because actually as I mentioned right now, I’m closing some shop and some items and one of that is just kind of the marketing summit that I used to run that’s actually being closed down. So the world of kind of marketing has kind of been circling in my head and when I looked at was what we did, what I think a lot of conferencing don’t do, certainly some of them do, but I think everyone should do is we sent out profiles about the speakers that were coming up.

So essentially, we get almost like a baseball card worth of a buyer, the photo and their cool bio bits and then some description and probably even we do a short interview with them, two to three questions kind of bullet points, not a full podcast or training and then we’d send that out or in some cases, of course, we’d also host a teaser call. So kind of the pre-call so where before you even get to the event, you can hear a bit, a fifteen, twenty minute call or short webinar with the person and those are relatively thought of. But what we did was we actually loaded up the e-mails as well as … I used to take, get detail bios from each of our speakers.

I’d even have my assistant research the speaker in more detail because a lot of speakers just send over the same three paragraph, cut and paste that they use everywhere, but there’s really not anything too sexy to it. But anyway, we would send that on e-mail so before you even get to the event, it wasn’t just harping on hey, buy your ticket to come to the event. It was … We were essentially making each speaker cool. Here’s a content that’s … It really made you think. Here’s some of the best juicy pieces that we just sent you over via e-mail. Here’s what’s kind of unique and cool about their background and so forth. So before you even thought about the whole event, you … I really want to meet this guy. This is the person I’m reading about right now.

That’s the person I want to get out, too and meet up with and so we did the pre-selling for speaker bios and anything else, that was unique as well, like we had bonus days and so forth. So we pre-sold why you should buy the up sale. So before the card had opened for you to buy and register your ticket and then the up sale to that was this bonus day. Before you’d even get to the opportunity to buy that up sale, we’d let you know what we did the previous year and how cool that was and some testimonials and here’s some photos and here’s a blooper footage and here’s what we’re doing this year and it’s going to be even better because here’s what we’re going to do and essentially, it’s … You can’t buy at that point.

So that point wasn’t really to sell you right then. It’s just a plan to see … Hey, man. When we get this thing live, when we get the order buns live, you better be ready that we’re about to have the new quantity for the up sale, you better be joining us for that. So for Canada, market selling is the end and I think the third variant of that was the short tips. We’d release whatever the topics were, we take a look at what my speakers would be speaking about and whatever topics were being covered, I go find or whether … Obviously, if it’s something that’s my expertise well, I just write up, but basically we create this kind of punchy three to four bullet point teaser content pieces on the topic. So essentially, our pre-sells were a variety of things.

It was mostly though featured on the speaker. So pre-selling why you should come see the speaker even before the event ticket goes live and then also, the topic of why whatever it is, like Facebook advertising or video marketing or whatever, just bringing out some … Not the mainstream stuff that everyone knows but some cool things that you can apply in your business and then providing those content, but that gets the person excited about … Oh, wait. That’s a tactic we could apply. Let me go attend this conference so I can learn more about it and that’s another way to kind of get people excited about the topics and the speakers before even the opening of the card for them to come register their tickets.

John: Okay. Okay. One thing that I think is really important here is that I want to draw around … It was really useful when I thought, realized this is that if you don’t do this type of thing, if you don’t pre-sell people and really go to your best efforts to make them buy something, you’re doing your best prospect a disservice because they might really need … Yeah. I would get a lot of value out of the conference, but if you’re not pre-selling them because you’re too scared or too hesitant or you don’t want to sell anything, you’re actually going to make it hard for them. In a sense, you’re taking away the value that they could have had, which is why only pre-selling can be so important for the business and also for the prospect as well.

Rob: Absolutely and to me, that was … That’s one thing even though in the world of affiliate marketing for example, I’ve had affiliates who joined up to promote something and they typically … I mean, I used to be affiliate manager as well. I mean, that’s one of the … And I did that for a couple of years for probably a couple dozen of projects. So I saw the kind of the background of the members of what an affiliate can actually accomplish and pretty much like across the board. It wasn’t the guy with the big list that was making the dollars typically. I mean, of course in some cases, but typically, what was pulling the results was the person who was using anecdotes and using multiple e-mails for the same offer instead of the shotgun approach of the one e-mail that goes out.

And I mentioned that because there’s an affiliate or a merchant from the UK that … I won’t mention his name right now, but I was affiliate for and when I did a promo, I think we pulled in about 22,000 and my list compared to their speaking at that point was not that large. It was not significant but I was one of his better affiliates for the promotion but the reason that that worked is because even before the promotion, even before I sent out this kind of pitch about hey, here’s this guy and you need to buy his stuff. Here’s a link. So before those e-mails went out, I did an interview with him. So and the interview was there’s no one selling.

It was essentially content, short, 30-minute; I kept it short as well because to make it too long, no one’s going to listen to it. So I cut it short because we don’t have attention for that. So I kept it short and so, it was like a 30-minute of meeting the guy but all with content and then I followed that up with a pre-sell with my story of the guy, how I met him, what I think of him in a sense. Like it’s just basically the story aspect but that e-mail also didn’t pitch, but it left a lingering where it said, a PS, tomorrow, I’ll let you know about a couple of things that he’s doing that I think would be right for your business level.

And then, I did a two or three shot e-mail promo actually pitching the offer, but it was two steps before that when it was first an introduction of warm up to who the person is because if I just did a blanket mail out, or just a shotgun a mail out of here’s this guy and here’s his product, it’s awesome. Go buy it. It doesn’t matter how it’s worded and obviously, that wouldn’t be the wording but point is, it’s a one shot deal then just like you said, I think I would have done disservice for a lot of people because it was high value stuff. It wasn’t just about selling crap. He’s got some value stuff.

So instead, if I’m trying to make him, most money, I’m trying to make commissions for most commissions for myself, and I’m trying to get quality products into the hands of my subscribers, then doing a one shot deal is just insane. So even there, the pre-selling concept comes in play of how can I take the best points and before I even introduce the order links, how can I get people excited about this person and all his stuff.

John: Okay. Okay. Cool. So, skimming down the list, but what about webinars?

Rob: Webinars, that’s actually one I’ve got coming up here. I’ve got series coming up on a Rob Toth. I don’t think it’s okay to mention, robtoth.com … Irrelevant. Pont is, we’ve got a web class here coming up and I think that’s … What’s being done for that a little differently than again because anything … Any time I step into a new arena, what I do first is I kind of just spy on everyone who’s doing it right and then probably even a lot of people are doing it wrong. And so, I think that basic intel is something that we all do or else should do and so I’ve been taking a look at for the last couple of months, I’ve been taking a look at who’s running what and how.

And again, it’s just this lack of … I get about eight notifications of some of the aggressive guys about make sure you know the time and this event’s going to be held in. I mean, you didn’t sell me on that. All you did was you reminded me that it’s 8 PM on Tuesday or whatever.

John: Right.

Rob: So what we’re doing differently is we’re actually bringing in case studies because what’s being sold and I guess the … I mentioned briefly because it kind of ties in what the pre-selling is. When people join a web class, my web class format’s primarily content, a very short pitch it in and it’s a chance for them to work with me on a group setting and group coaching or whatever. So reason I mentioned that is the pre-selling or things like social proof, testimonials, proof from actual snapshots from previous stampings, case studies, all of it weave into content.

So even before you get to that specific web class, instead of me just saying, hey make sure you show up at 7 PM on Wednesday or whatever it is, you get actual content with a case study or something that essentially makes me look smart because that’s the end goal. And essentially taking some specific that I did, some social proof, some testimonials as well, but woven into a content piece and you’re going to get about five of those and again, each of those e-mails will also remind you of the time slot of when everything is but you’re going to get about five of those before the web class even occurs and then you get on a webinar and then of course we have our follow up process which is a whole different story, but one is …

We pre-sell you because you might now know, it’s just like on here, you’re just probably plenty of listeners who never heard my name before and even all those who might have heard my name, they don’t necessarily know my details. So it’s … If I want to have a better shot of you kind of coming to this, the webinar and first of all, it also helps with making sure more people show up because not only am I selling you the value that you’re getting this much free value from me before you even hold the web class, but on top of that, hopefully, you’re getting so many good insights, you’re like … Wow. Who’s this guy but he’s got some good stuff. I got to be on his trainings.

So again, it kind of pre-sells you on the fact you need to listen to what I’ve got to say because I’m here to deliver some good content. So even before a webinars, typically case studies filled with content leading up to the webinar is something that I would also invoke there.

John: Okay. Okay. So what we’re really doing here is we’re pre-framing whatever we’re trying to sell, conference or webinar, product, sales, that kind of thing … You’re basically trying to control the frame and you just send that … Don’t forget to shop on Wednesday night at 8 PM. When you give out this content, you’re basically just setting up this frame where whatever the webinar is, it’s going to be amazing. So when they show up on Wednesday, and when they keep hearing a time of that, you’re controlling the context of what’s going on here. You’re controlling … They think the guy’s an expert, that they want to be there. That’s good information and they want to hear about this, that it’s relevant to them and that’s … And someone like that.

So there’s a lot of frame control here. It sounds like a very advanced concept, but really what it is, it’s like just dropping things, kind of concepts in the prospects brains. So when you finally introduce the product or the offer to them, that’s kind of … They understand the offer in the context of everything that’s come before that.

Rob: Yeah. Actually, that’s a very good point, too but it’s … By building up the content or I guess tearing it down into multiple or smaller pieces, you do get them into a better understanding form as well and that’s exactly it and beyond that, just the fact that you’re selling them on the so-called expert or selling them on the topic or selling them on actually being on the event, even if it’s a free event, that here is not a mistake I find is people assume it’s a free event, so therefore, people just come, but that’s obviously not going to happen. What if … Whether it’s a free conference, free webinar, free anything, it’s free for money in just terms of just free from monetary cost, but it’s not free from time and people still have to watch their time.

So you need to kind of sell them on why do they need to invest their time and actually listen to you or come to the event or come to the whatever. So that’s where this kind of comes in. And honestly, even for affiliate recruitment, I’ve got this kind of what I call the six step approach which I won’t go into because it’s not really relevant right now, but when I do affiliate recruitments, here’s our offer and here’s your link. Come make a ton of money with us which is just the stuff that I get in my inbox on a regular basis. What we typically do is especially if I don’t know …

Like if we go into a market where I don’t have a relationship with that merchant or we’re just simply cold approach on some top flares that we haven’t really worked a relationship with, the first two messages and it’s actually one’s an e-mail, one’s a direct mail and six steps process, but the point is, the first e-mail that goes to them is a warm introduction. There’s no link. There’s no you’ll make 66% with us on launch. There’s no click bank idea or any of that crap. It’s just basically says here, here’s why we’re approaching you because we saw this and looks like it’s a match. Here’s what we are coming up and we love to chat a little more if you have any questions right now, definitely reach me by phone or Skype, by e-mail or next week, I’ll send you a little more details.

Hope you’re well. Take care. It’s worded different then, but that’s essentially the theme of it, but point is, again, we’re … I guess as a [framing in 00:20:21] so maybe that’s a little more accurate but we’re basically setting it up to know that, hey, we’re about to send you an affiliate page. We’re about to try and solicit you to come into our affiliate program, but before we do that, here’s why good people and here’s why we think you’re a good fit and here’s what’s up. So there’s a bit of a warm up there, too. So a bit of a flirtation process rather than just going in for the kill and saying, hey, join our program, sign up and make a ton of money which I think a lot of affiliate merchant or merchants do that with their affiliate program. So that’s another thing there.

John: Okay. Cool and you got something written down here about follow up e-mails to a webinar. What are you sending there to a conference, to an event? How are you following up? You’re pitching products out to them?

Rob: Well, yeah. I mean, certainly the idea is just to close them but I do a courtesy call. We do direct mail piece and we do a courtesy follow up. First of all, courtesy follow up by e-mail from my assistant, then she also lines up a direct mail piece that goes up that essentially says, thanks for having attended. Just essentially resell them on here’s why limited time or limited quantities, opportunity to work with Rob and again, it’s worded differently but the point is, it kind of just sets up this message of here’s what’s covered and here’s why we’re glad you’d came and here’s by the way, don’t miss out on the offer.

So the e-mails you send, the direct mail piece that goes out and then later, when we send a courtesy call, all has the same kind of message of just building some merchants and so forth. But that’s a bit of a more follow up tactic rather than obviously a pre-selling but I mean, that’s … Once you’ve got someone, to me, it’s just like anything else. I think we all kind of know that the more touch points you can have or the prospect, the more option you have to sell to them and the more gestation period you give to them to actually understand what the offer is and understand the value of why they should dive in. It’s never … It’s certainly I would say a minority of cases, especially with the higher ticket offer where it’s a one shot deal where they heard about it and say didn’t pay up.

And especially we’re talking about … If it’s a thousands of dollars price tag versus a ten-dollar knick-knack; it’s not going to happen for one shot deals. So that’s why the pre-selling or pre-framing, setting that up so that they’re in their right minds, sending in a bunch of values, then they’ve come to a live audience where they … You build up rapport and then we do the follow up which is a separate deal but essentially there, then we have a multi-step follow up and it’s a multi-medium follow up as well on purpose. So we do e-mail, direct mail and voice. That I think goes a very long way for the conversion.

So, but again, it really starts with before you even come to our event, now that you registered, how can I keep kind of selling you, encourage you or make it exciting that you need to be on this thing? You can’t just … Because registering is one thing, but typically on a webinar, 33% I would say is fair average with your across the board blank statement. About a third of the people who register will actually attend the webinar and so, if you want to maximize that to get it closer to the … You will get 100% but if you want to get closer to 100%, you need to kind of give them the bullet points and the reasons and incentives and the value and so forth on why they need to be on there.

John: Okay. I think what’s helpful there is to kind of pull out the main concept that’s going on and it’s really … Whether you’re selling an event or a webinar or product launches or follow up e-mails, what’s really going on is in any relationship, there needs to be multiple touch points and the more touch points in the relationship, generally, the better the relationship is going to be. But what most people do is you just sense kind of like, for the webinar, the webinar is coming up.

It’s coming up, it’s coming up, same for the event rather than making this really high quality touch points with contents and stories and some really great marketing and buzz building stuff. If you’re trying to sell anything, pre-selling is just about start flirting with the prospects, same way you’re going to a bar and you know [inaudible 00:23:59] to sleep with you. You spend a few hours chatting with her and getting to know her and that type of thing.

Rob: Right. I was going to throw in a couple of sell in games real quickly if we have a few more minutes here. Talking about Christmas sales, birthday sales and the kind, I mean, birthday sales I run all the time. They’re not really applicable if you’re … I guess maybe a merchandise or brand that if it’s not based on an expert so to speak, then birthday sale won’t go far. So if you’re … We’re a catchup.com or something, we sell cat gear and the owner has a birthday and nobody cares. So it won’t work, but if you are, build yourself up as the voice or the authority that an entire subscriber-base or client-base listens to, then using a birthday sale I think is great.

But also Christmas sales and the logical other sales or any time you do a sales promotion and obviously launches but to me, launches are such a gimmick that I didn’t need the feel to cover them and you can’t … Maybe we’ll go on just a quick second on that. You can’t really do a launch if you have a brand new product coming out without building up anticipation. Otherwise, it’s just flat out not along within the terms of doing an event-based promotion launch, you have to have a pre-sell process. You have to have just like a movie coming out; you have the trailers and so forth coming out.

Transformers state doesn’t open in theaters tomorrow without notifying you six months in advance that’s coming and showing all the glitzy actors and then their special effects. So the same thing here, you need to be ready for that or you need to be doing the pre-sells. But for sales, which a lot of people don’t tend to do which is surprising is … Because I love them. It’s just like a sale in the department store, retail stores; everyone has sales, online, offline, even … Amazon has it. You signed up to it just by in kind of service, people on sales that’s typical but when you come into I guess more on the info market space that I’ve had most of my experience in, that kind of just this thing that you don’t really do.

You do launches; we don’t do sales which doesn’t make any sense. So you should do sales in my opinion, you should do at least one sale but I would do like the major events and again, birthday sales if it’s applicable to your business model, but even in those cases, what we do and I actually code … Well, we actually not program, but once you’re speaking with auto responders with our responder guy here, into our auto responders, we’ll set up a … What I typically do is a six-day sale format which is a $40 sale but it’s the four days leading up to it is a pre-sell. So essentially, six …

Those six e-mails will go out like at day sixth or whatever working backwards or day one and then it will tell them, hey this sale’s coming up and here’s why it’s cool going and so forth and they do maybe some contents, there will be a PS that reminds them that the sale is coming up. Day three, same thing content, whatever, so they keep this process go on day four, we let them know, hey tomorrow goes live and it’s only four hours, make sure grab it. And then there’s two days when it’s actually the sales happening so there’s e-mails that go out on those days and it sells them.

But again, a six-day promotion, $40 sale or six e-mails in a promotion, $40 sale, so 2/3 of the promotion or at least the way I’d run it is actually pre-selling because you can’t order that at that point yet. It’s just setting you up for the fact that, hey something’s coming. It’s going to happen for 48 hours only. It’s going to be cool. You want to be part of it because it’s massive discounts, high value, but I’m going to spend four days on the pre-sell and where I’m only going to spend maybe even two promotions on the sale because by the time I got you all warmed up, all you need to do is get the details of where to click and go order.

So even for Christmas sales and whether it’s for an auto responder sale like I just mentioned or whether it’s for you have a birthday sale coming up, I’d do the same thing. You have a birthday sale coming up. I’m running this special before 48 hours, but again, I would do several e-mails before that just to lead you up to the sale and same thing with Christmas sales and so forth.

John: Okay. Fantastic, and then the last thing you’d written down here is interaction engagement in pre-sell … Should we begin if you would have replied back to e-mails?

Rob: Yeah. I mean, again we’re going to come back to the conversion point. The thing is that it’s kind of come down to, if you’re selling a $7 thing, you’re trying to sell 10,000 copies of, then having a bunch of people reply back … Unless you can actually … Even there I facilitate. I bring in some sort of customer support person to help with this. So even there, it’s applicable, but certainly even more so for a higher ticket, multi-hundred and multi-thousand dollar products … As much as possible, you want an open dialog. To me, that’s just Sales 101. That’s not really piece on, but the reason I added into the course here is when you do send out those pre-sells, whether it’s like for web classes within the case studies,

I typically have a question or an open-ended or some board that says reply back especially if what I’m selling is me because if I’m trying to sell the fact, you get to maybe have a chance to work hard and we’ve done some cool things and here’s some campaign numbers and I’m a big deal and so forth and I’m not … I’m not really arguing, but the point is, whenever I try to package myself, let’s hear someone deal with, then if the end goal is for you to get to or work with me, then one thing I want you to know is that I am available. I’m a real person. I am available to answer your questions. So I might … Into the case studies and to those pieces, I will always throw in things like …

Essentially find out what they thought about questions like what did you think about it because it’s too hard to answer that. So it’s a … If any time you need to make the prospect think, they’re not going to respond. What you want is the nature of responses of … If you could implement one of these three [inaudible 00:29:17] I covered, which ones are most applicable, right? Because I never won because we can make a ton of money or whatever, so that was kind of reflex response. Is that what you’re looking? And it says, now you got this kind of short list that would say people you could follow up with, and I would save their e-mails and just check, hey did you make it to web class school? Was that useful or not?

And now you have engagement but the point is, by them interacting, by them responding, because if you’re already kind of pre-selling, you already have a perfect environment to create this kind of discussion before the event of where there’s a conference, whether it’s a web class, whether it’s a sale. So before that, the more prospects you can kind of have this kind of interaction engage with or even the ones that don’t reply but they know that you’ve set up an opportunity for them to reply to you, that just makes it more real. Because they know it’s not … Just some blind name or whatever in the background.

They know it’s a real person and they can reach you if they wanted to even if they don’t take you up on offer replying to you, it does create this kind of engagement opportunity and that goes along with to kind of building up rapport and converting some of the sales as well.

John: Cool. I love it, man. This has been super good. We’ve gotten along here, but I’m totally cool with that. I like [inaudible 00:30:26] talked about it. So before we go though, give yourself a plug, man. Where can people find you and then we’ll say goodbye.

Rob: Vancouver, BC right now so come say hi. Robtoth.com, I guess. R-O-B T-O-T-H dot com. There’s really not much on there right now. The web classes will be rolling out and I certainly invite anyone if you want to come poke around. I do deliver some good content and I would say, and be happy to host anyone who wants to drop in on those.

John: Fantastic. Well, thanks for coming on.

Rob: Thanks, John.

John: Hey, everybody. Thanks for listening. If you want to discover more insider tips, tricks and secrets about driving sales in e-mail marketing, sign up for daily e-mail tips from your auto responder guy. Go to dropdeadcopy.com/podcast, sign up, confirm your e-mail address and I’ll send you daily e-mails on how to improve your e-mail marketing and make more sales via e-mail. You find out why open rates don’t even matter and the seven-letter word that underlies all effective marketing and much more.