The Insights I've got from reading DotCom Secrets

The first step when building a successful funnel is determining your ideal customer.

Who do you want to assist? What is the precise description of your ideal customer? And I don't mean describing your ideal customer as "entrepreneurs who want to learn more about copywriting and are between 30 and 50 years old." That's way too broad!

Make your target audience much more specific. Why is that important? Because you want to attract customers who truly align with your offerings and whom you can best assist. To stand out from your competitors. You can liken it to "fishing." When you go fishing, you need bait. Suppose you only want to catch a pike; then you need dead bait as bait.

In the online marketing world, you can translate this to your lead magnet. A lead magnet is a "bait" to attract your ideal customer. It's a free product like an e-book that someone can request in exchange for an email address. The same principle applies to fishing. You want to catch a pike, and by using dead bait, it's much easier to find one. The pike gets the dead bait as a "lead magnet," and you catch the pike.

The secret formula consists of the following steps:

Who: Who is your ideal customer? What do they look like? What do they enjoy? What are their dreams, goals, and desires? What obstacles and objections do they have? Write all of this down.

Where: Where can you find your ideal customer? In which pond does your ideal customer swim? Are you even fishing in the right pond? And where can you find your ideal customer online? What blogs do they read, and what videos do they watch? What other interests do they have?

Bait: What lead magnet can attract your ideal customer? What's the bait?

Result: What result do you want to give your ideal customer? You're already at the top of the mountain, and your customer is at the bottom. You want to take your ideal customer to the top of the mountain. How will you do that? What journey does your ideal customer need to take to reach the top? Provide your customer with the result that will change their life.

The soap opera sequence means using storytelling in the email section of your funnel. You share your own story and then link it to your offer.

Think of it like a TV series that ends with a cliffhanger and continues the next day. By employing TV series (soap) strategies, your readers become curious about the next part of the story.

That's why a soap opera sequence works so well as an email strategy. Storytelling allows you to immediately build a relationship with your audience and grab their attention.

In Dotcom Secrets, it's explained that the soap opera sequence consists of 5 emails and is used right at the beginning of the email funnel (after signing up for your lead magnet).

After completing the soap opera sequence, you move on to the daily Seinfeld sequence.

What is a daily Seinfeld sequence?

You share events from your own life. These don't have to be major events; you can talk about what happened that day or share your thoughts. This doesn't necessarily have to relate to your business. By revealing something about yourself, you can quickly connect with your target audience.

In the book, Russell Brunson mentions that he used to send emails that were 100% value. Later, he changed this to 90% entertainment and 10% value, stating that it works much better. It's crucial to email daily to stay "top of mind" with your audience.

What can you share in a daily Seinfeld sequence:

- What's happening in your life right now?

- Is there something you're embarrassed about?

- Any upcoming vacations?

- Recent purchases?

- Any recent funny incidents?

Seinfeld emails can be categorized into three styles:

1. Episode style: What happened today, TV series-style emails.

2. Epiphany style: Inspiration, ideas, beliefs.

3. Educational style: How-to, checklist, Q&A.

The goal of Seinfeld emails is to lead people back to your offer through your stories. First, tell a story, and then subtly connect it to your offer using a bridge. This way, you sell something without your readers realizing it.

The concept of funnel hacking is to examine a successful funnel in your niche and then use it as inspiration for your own funnel. In other words: model what works.

Why invent something entirely new when you can take a funnel that you know works well? Of course, the goal is not to copy your competitor's funnel, but you can use it as a template.

There are 5 variables of a successful funnel:

1. Demographics: What are the characteristics of the people you want to reach?

2. Offer: What are you selling and at what price?

3. Landing Page: What does the sales page look like, what does the opt-in page look like? How does the main page of the funnel look?

4. Source: From which sources is traffic directed to the landing page? Is it a Facebook ad or a Google ad? Are there LinkedIn posts? And if ads are used, what do they look like?

5. Ad Copy: What does the ad look like that your competitor is using? What text is used? What images and/or videos are used? What does the headline look like?

It is important that at least 3 out of the 5 variables are known.

How do you find funnels that you can use as examples?

1. Make a list of competitors.

- Direct competitors: those selling the same product to the same target audience.

- Indirect competitors: those selling a different product to the same target audience.

2. Map out what your competitors are doing.

- Want to know what ads your competitors are using? Check similarweb.com to find out.

Various types of people enter your funnel. Some have no knowledge of a specific topic, while others are looking for advanced information. Therefore, each person in your funnel should be treated differently.

A good funnel consists of the following 7 phases:

1. Determine the "temperature" of your traffic:

- Cold: People who have never heard of you. Focus on the problem.

- Warm: People who know you a bit but need to build trust. Focus on the solution.

- Hot: People who have been following you for a while and are ready to buy. Focus on the product. Tell stories and share opinions.

2. Create a "pre-frame" bridge:

- Content to attract your audience before they reach the landing page. The goal is to get your audience in the right state of mind. It could be a blog article, ad, quiz, or video. Tailor it to the audience's temperature—long-form for the cold, reviews for the warm, and concise content for the hot.

3. Qualify subscribers:

- Encourage people to join your mailing list on the landing page to build a relationship. Use a lead magnet like an e-book or free video lessons.

4. Qualify buyers:

- Identify who on your mailing list is a buyer. Offer a low-cost product between €7 - €47 immediately after they join the list.

5. Identify hyperactive buyers:

- Spot the highly engaged buyers and present them with an upsell after purchasing the low-cost product.

6. Use the value ladder to offer more value to your customers:

- Send valuable information to your mailing list, building a relationship. Utilize the value ladder to offer products/services in the right order, starting with low-value, low-priced items and progressing to higher value and higher-priced products.

7. Change the conversion method:

- Determine the method to sell each product, known as the conversion method. Options include a sales page, webinar, or phone call, depending on the product's price. Higher-priced products may benefit more from webinars or phone calls than a sales page.

The funnel framework is the complete picture and consists of the components I just discussed. In Dotcom Secrets, it's also referred to as "the big picture."

The funnel framework begins with the type of traffic you send to your landing page.

There are two types of traffic:

1. Traffic you control:

- This is traffic you send to your landing page through means like advertising. You direct this traffic to an opt-in page where they can leave their name and email to join your mailing list.

2. Traffic you don't control:

- This is traffic you have no control over. People might end up on your website through another site. You guide them to a blog article on your website.

The people who then join your mailing list are the traffic you own. You possess their email addresses, and you determine the information they receive. You have complete control, and that's the power of a mailing list.

The next step is to use a soap opera sequence and daily Seinfeld sequence to "warm up" your mailing list. You tell stories and provide valuable information. This builds a relationship and instills trust. You present yourself as an expert in your field.

During and after the soap opera sequence, you make the initial offer. During the daily Seinfeld sequence, you can offer other higher-priced products, aiming to move people on your mailing list higher on the value ladder. I would recommend delving into the concept of the value ladder. It will certainly help you structure your offerings better.

These were the 6 key insights from the book Dotcom Secrets. If you want to read the book, you only pay for shipping via this link: >>link<<.