You may have seen the movie Moneyball with Brad Pitt. It was a 2011 movie based on the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. It’s an account of the 2002 season of the Oakland A’s baseball team. The general manager was Billy Beane (played by Pitt). He and the assistant GM, Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill), attempt to assemble a competitive team with a limited budget for players. They had to build with undervalued talent by taking a sophisticated approach to scouting and analyzing players.
Baseball had been predictable for the most part over the years. And his idea was that you could find players for a lot less money but still essentially put together a team of misfits and come out winning. Baseball’s always been basically working off the idea and the premise that he who has the most money has the best team. The world of online marketing has also kind of utilized that same premise, thinking that if we spend enough money on marketing, we can ultimately get good results.
But that’s not true. One of the things that we have to consider is that all marketing is not equal. What I mean by that is that when we talk about marketing itself, we think marketing is just one marketing strategy, and if you do it well, it’s all going to work out for you. Nope. Absolutely not. I’ve done many things perfectly, to a “T,” and it didn’t work out for me.
There are ways to take the idea of marketing and put the odds in your favor, rather than just flying by the seat of your pants.
One of the best ways to demonstrate Moneyball Marketing is through advertising. Let’s just say I have a product that teaches you how to train your cat. I could run an ad on Google targeting people who are searching for information on how to train their cats, and hopefully, if my sales letter is good enough, then I’m going to get sales. Is that the right way? The answer is yes and no. Yes, it will work to a degree, but it could be a whole lot better.
How could we do this? It’s all in the targeting. Initially, we targeted people who searched how to train their cat. That’s pretty good. I mean, that’s a step in the right direction. But that is very broad. We want to increase our conversions, so how do we go about that? Well, exactly what are those prospects trying to train their cat to do? There are a number of things that people would like to train their cats to do—how to train your cat to use the toilet, to walk on a leash, to do tricks. We can search each one of these keyword phrases to compare them to each other.
You might think you would get better coverage being broad because focusing simply on “how to train your cat” would cover all types of training and get more eyes. Yes, that is true. But first, not all those eyes will be needing what your product trains cats to do, so those eyes could be worthless to you. Secondly, there are a lot more people advertising under the generic “how to train your cat” and where there are more advertisers for a term, the higher the price is to advertise.
When you narrow it down to say, “how to train your cat to walk on a leash,” the eyes that are seeing it are eyes that have specifically looked for it and are more likely to click through. And you will see a lot fewer advertisers, so your cost per click will be less.
As an example, let’s say that while you are doing your research, you see that there are six people advertising when you search on “how to train your cat.” You have to compete with those other advertisers for the click. But when you search on “how to train your cat to walk on a leash,” There are zero or maybe one advertiser. Competition is much lower or nonexistent as you niche it down which means you get a higher chance of click at a lower cost with a higher conversion. Why higher conversion? Because when they get to the site, they already know what you have to offer because it is what they searched for specifically— not generically.
Your clickthrough rate goes up, and your conversion goes up. And because your clickthrough rate went up, Google says that your ad in comparison to everyone else’s is more relevant. Even if you are the only ad there. Because you’re more relevant, Google decreases the amount that you spend on your ads. That’s how it works.
Google gauges advertisers on several different things. One of the primary things that they gauge and measure their advertisers on is the number of clicks that they get in comparison to all the other advertisers. That proves, in Google’s eyes, that your ad, in comparison to everyone else’s, is more relevant.
Because you’re more relevant, Google says, we’re going to charge you less. It’s a win-win for you!
If we advertised like everyone else (“how to train your cat”), that would blanket cover everything. While it may increase views, it will not help with clickthroughs and conversion because the views are not targeted enough. This is what I mean by moneyball when we’re talking about advertising and marketing online. This is how you have to think about these things in order to play the game the right way and get the best bang for your advertising dollar.
Another example of using the moneyball strategy is how you choose to sell online—via a sales letter which could be short form, long form, video, hybrid, etc. Via webinar or some type of funnel like an opt-in in page leading them to the sales letter or an option page leading them to sales letter then to an upsell.
I’m going tell you right now, the opt-in page to sales letter scenario is going to perform better overall than just the plain sales letter. If you were converting 3% on a sales letter without one and moved to having an opt-in page on the front, you’re probably going to convert about 5%-6%.
And if you want better than that, using the exact same product, but putting those people onto a webinar, it will double again. Some people sign up, some people won’t. But by putting these prospects onto a webinar, at a bare minimum (even if you suck) you’re going to convert at 10%.
Just think about this. You have one method which works, there’s no doubt about that. I mean, I’ve made millions of dollars selling via a sales letter, converting roughly around 3%. But when I started utilizing opt-in pages, they increased our conversion. We’ve had variations where we’ve had sales letters convert at even 20-30%. Yes, we’ve had variations where we’ve had massive conversions on a funnel type of idea with an option page in a sales letter. But even with that being said, one thing out converts everything else that we’ve ever done, and that is a webinar.
If you can get people onto a webinar and you spend some time with them, they see your presentation and you can explain everything there is to know about your product, you’re going to get a much, much higher conversion.
As an example, let’s just say selling a low end $97 product, I’m going to get 3% conversion on just a normal sales letter. Pretty good. But then I’m getting 6% conversion on an opt-in plus sales letter. Hey that’s better. But on that option plus webinar, I’m going to convert at 10% or higher.
Why? Because everyone’s expecting a high price on a webinar, and if I’m only selling a $97 product, I’m going to sell well because these people just spent 60 to 90 minutes with me, and they know everything about me. They know about the product; they know what the product can do, and they have gotten to know me.
Many times, we spend our time and the vast majority of our energy focusing on the 3-6% when in reality, the numbers say you’re going to make a lot more money if you just record a webinar and then automate the whole thing. That’s where the money is. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a sales letter. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have an opt-in page sales letter. I sell like that all the time.
What I’m saying is that you should put your focus on the methods that are going to convert best and, in many cases, be a lot less work.
Remember, on a webinar, it’s a little bit different because we can push the traffic; we’re not just selling one to one; we’re selling one to many. There could be a hundred people on the other end of my webinar and I’m selling to all of them at the same time as opposed to just selling to one person reading my sales letter.
The idea of moneyball is to make sure we are doing ALL the right things and that we are selling in the proper way and utilizing the right methods in order to get the sale. It’s utilizing the data—things like Google Trends. It’s about making small changes that reduce your cost and increase your conversions.
When you focus on the things that are working specifically for you and your market, you’ll be able to create a custom sales process that is highly tweaked for your market.
Now, go make some money!
