Engagement & Frank The Barber…

The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation…
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

If I had a broad brush I could paint the internet marketing world – and the entire marketing world in general – in two colors:

transactional marketing, and relationship – or engagement – marketing

Frank the barber was all about engagement marketing. But before we talk about Frank let’s get the basics down first.

With transactional marketing there is no “lifetime value of the customer” – there is no list building, follow up, or focus on getting anything other than the sale (or the Adsense click).

A lot of people get drawn to affiliate marketing because of the transactional model – no customer service, no need to communicate with anybody. Just put up some pages and wait for the money to come in. Adsense is the same way. Hell, the entire Adsense model is based on this arbitrage approach.

What’s important here is that this is an immediate gratification approach to marketing.

And that’s ok. It is what it is.

When someone comes to your site you need them to do one of three things:

1. buy
2. bookmark
3. leave

Now, the BBL model applies to most any type of direct marketing but here the “buy” is really “B-U-Y”. It’s not just take an action like download a free report or subscribe to a list, etc. And that makes all the difference…

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Engagement marketing is different.

Here you’re some marketing version of a tantric Woody Harrelson or Sting and you delay your “gratification” (money) for a deeper and more lasting experience (money).

Now, you can pimp this model out and try and fake it. Does this sound familiar?

Squeeze page to a free report (or free access to software, etc.) -> OTO (one time offer) pages trying to upsell the visitor -> final download or “member” page…

Yep. Butterfly marketing.

Or how about:

Low priced $7 – $27 offer -> bucket offer (“get these 10 books for less than the price of 3″) -> final download page…

The point here is that the list you’re building here – whether it’s a buyer list or a freebie list isn’t the focus of the activity. You’re just trying to score on the first date so to speak.

AND.. any conversations you have with the person afterwards is really just to score some more. This isn’t really even “Friends With Benefits” marketing. You aren’t friends. You just want the cookies (money).

So I need to get something out of the way… this shit works.

Hammering your list with offers and deals does work. And if you peel back the clock 10 years it’s the dominant way the gurus taught any internet marketer to model. This was THE WAY Frank Kern – Mr. Mass Control – taught legions of followers to market. The funny thing is that Frank didn’t quite follow his own advice. Or better put – he was massively successful because he DIDN’T always follow his own advice. Kinda. More on that in a bit.

To be clear – hammering your list is NOT engagement marketing (at least not the way 99.98% of folks do it).

Most people don’t remember it but back in the day Stephen Pierce was a hot-shit internet marketer. His “Whole Truth” ebook was a massive success and Stephen parlayed his talent and experience later into becoming more of personal development and success coach. He even travelled with Tony Robbins for a time on tour. In fact, there’s a GREAT audio with Kern and Pierce where Frank goes through 7 secrets of internet marketing – or something like that. Massively good audio if you can dig up a copy.

Anyway, Pierce had this theory of emailing his list. He called it the “breathing” theory. It’s was simple:

Pimp every other email. Deliver content in between.

Now, a crude person like me might call this the “hug and fuck” model of internet marketing but that makes it seem like something base and crass. It wasn’t (and isn’t). With the H&F breathing model (heh heh) you focus each message on EITHER pre-selling or delivering massive content.

You can (and would) include affiliate/product links in the “content” messages – but that just isn’t the focus.

In a lot of markets this worked better than just pimping and hammering the list. But it still wasn’t a full engagement model for 99.98% of the people that tried it. And that’s why it flops with a lot of people.

Why? There’s no personality

Engagement Marketing

Engagement marketing is about 2 things:

1. the persona (“avatar”) of your ideal customer
2. the persona you are projecting in your messages

Get these two things right and you kick ass in ANY market you enter.

Want some examples? Let me give you three great examples of wildly different people and niches:

Underground Hypnosis (Trey Smith)

Combat Conditioning (Matt Furey)

Double Your Dating (David DeAngelo aka Eben Pagan)

You should be on EACH of these email lists. They’re very very different but freakin masterful in their own ways. You’ll learn TONS just by reading and re-reading each message.

NOTE: These guys are always testing so you might go to the homepage and have to look around for the subscription box to get onto their list. It’s worth the tiny bit effort though, trust me.

Let’s break this down. With engagement marketing you want a crystal clear picture of who you’re selling to.

Are they male or female? Age? Single, divorced, married, or engaged? Kids at home? In school? Great job? Make $150,000 a year? In debt up to their eyeballs? Secretly sneak in a little porn most nights online? Would rather camp than spend the week at the beach on vacation? Member of the NRA? Listen to NPR a lot? Did they backpack across Europe or do they work in the family business?…

Get the idea? Now, a little secret – most people really are living lives of “quiet desperation” just like Thoreau said. In fact this has been the cornerstone approach of folks like copywriting legend John Carlton for decades.

It’s common sense that you wouldn’t talk to J’Money and Nate Dog – two 23 yr olds just out of college and ‘livin the life – the same way you’d approach Gordon Gekko. BUT… here’s the key:

Everyone is insecure. Everyone is bored. Everyone wants to be distracted. Everyone is avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. (Not to get all Tony Robbins on you).

You get into their mind. You tap into who they are and what they want deep down inside. You ENGAGE those emotions – or at least provide some distractions from daily life…

And you cash big fat f’ing checks.

Oh, and along the way you can actually help people. Seriously. It isn’t all about capitalism and manipulation.

The next part is hard. It’s a simple question really – who are you?

I don’t mean this in some philosophical existential way. Nah, I am being a lot more practical. Who do your subscribers and visitors and customers link you are?

Truth be told I think “personality” and engagement is important in blogging and most forms of online marketing. But I think it’s CRITICAL for email and your lists.

Here’s why – if you’re an A list blogger people are coming to you. They get to TiVo when they access your content. So sure, you need to be engaging and provide good content and escape and all that. But fundamentally your blog readers are making a CHOICE to come to your site. They’re taking action on their own.

That’s HUGE because it basically means they are pre-sold.

With email, it’s a “push” model. You are sending your content to them and vying against their Facebook updates, the latest dirty jokes, and Amy’s zucchini bread recipe.

So… you need a personality in order to keep them opening the emails, reading (or at least skimming) them, and taking action by clicking on your links.

Some people get all weirded out by this “persona” and personality thing. They think it’s deceptive and manipulative – it’s just not honest. Well, that’s bullshit. Do you talk to your buddies from high school or the neighborhood the same way you talk to your spouse? Or your boss?

There is NOTHING wrong with creating a persona that’s “close” to who you think you are. But that’s not the same as you. No matter how hard you try, you project something to people and it isn’t who you “really” think you are. After all, if this shit didn’t happen you wouldn’t have all those tween, teen, and 20-something girls saying “but… he just GETS me” (of course implying the rest of us just don’t).

Ever call someone a “used car salesman”? That stereotype is a powerful persona. How about hearing the story of the spiritual guru that was caught diddling with the young female students. Why does this creep you out? Well (1) it’s just creepy and wrong and (2) we all apply a persona to these kinds of people and “pig” or “creepy serial rapist” isn’t in the model.

So while you may be against racial profiling in airport security lines when it comes to marketing online you HAVE to profile. And you have to APPEAL to the inner desires of your profile (polite folks like me say “demographic”). Capese?

Not doing this is death. I know a guy that had this great affiliate business – website had all these top 10 rankings for killer keyword phrases. Long tail AND all the high traffic short tail ones. His site was an authority site and traffic was never a problem. Shit, he even had a nice list of prospects and buyers.

But the list converted like shit. Why? No personality. No emotion. When he did mail (which wasn’t often enough) it was dry and bland. No strong call to action. No entertainment value. Nada. What a waste.

Now I’m telling you this for one simple reason:

Engagement marketing may be the road less traveled but it indeed makes all the difference. It’s a more stable business model. And for most folks it is CHEAPER and EASIER to execute (with a little practice

Frank the Barber

When I was growing up I only got my hair cut at Frank’s Barber Shop. I think I was 15 and Frank had sold his business before I even walked into another barber shop let alone one of these franchise unisex beauty places.

Why? The atmosphere. The personality. You walked into Frank’s and you were walking into the neighborhood. All the older men were there, reading the paper, getting their haircut, Talking about the Yankees, their wives, this and that.

Frank had a plate – a silver platter I’ll never forget it – filled with liquor. You’d go in, sit down, have a little drink, and talk sports and life. Now, I was too little to have a drink but my grandfather used to let me have a sip or two…

But my point here is that you didn’t go to Frank’s because he was the best barber, or the closest barber, or even the friendliest barber – sometimes Frank was a real bastard.

You went to Frank’s Barber Shop… because of Frank. And because of the people that went there. You IDENTIFIED with Frank’s.

Know what? That’s pure engagement.

Here’s the funny thing.

Everyone in the neighborhood knew Frank. Shit, people 20, 30 miles away knew Frank. The place – and he – was iconic back then. Time passes and Frank gets sick. He takes on a partner and eventually sells the busines and then dies.

Things were never the same. If you went to Frank’s you didn’t all of sudden go to Jimmie’s or Pepe’s or Mike’s. Everyone scattered here and there. I think most of us gave up and just started going to those unisex places.

Here’s that “funny” thing though – they published Frank’s obituary. It was long. Frank was a husband, father, business owner, tennis coach, and opera singer.

WTF!?

Frank was an opera singer. Never a star but he had bit parts here and there on a regular basis at the Met and nearby. Opera was “his life’s passion” along with coaching tennis.

Not cutting hair and shooting the shit with the guys. Not listening to the same 12 Sinatra and Dean Martin records. Not laying out a platter of bourbon and whiskey for everyone.

Fucking opera and tennis.

Who knew?

(Actually I knew about his love of tennis but that’s not part of the story.)

Frank was as Italian American as the rest of us. And his customers were hard working blue collar guys that liked the New York Yankees, a good drink, a paper, and spending a little time away from the wife and family.

And Frank.., well, he was “one of us.”

Get it?

The Reason To Talk To You

Now, the reason to engage with someone is up to you. You can be the expert and dish out sage advice and wisdom. You can be the reviewer – a regular Rodger Ebert – and provide honest and insightful reviews on the “best” stuff out there. You can even be the lazy underachieving surfer dude that makes money almost by accident.

The important thing is to identify your ideal customer and talk to them in that voice.

And the cool thing is that you don’t really even need a reason to talk to them – pretty much anything will do.

Like that episode of Top Chef you saw on the DVR? Mail your list.

You think Rafael Nadal needs a hair cut? Mail your list.

You’re worried about the latest diet fad you read in “Diet Fad Monthy”… Mail your list.

Sometimes you can report on stuff – just follow shit with Google trends and tell people about interesting things.

Sometimes you can recommend.

But almost all of the time you’re telling stories.

That’s the key. Stories. Remember – you’re readers want to be distracted. They want to escape and enjoy and smile and laugh and be taught (and led).

Hitting them over the head with “buy my shit” emails doesn’t cut it for long.

Now, I can count on my fingers the people that I think are really, really good at this. And my buddy Andre is one of the best.

He’s got this ninja mind control way of promoting products that he calls “soap opera” sequences. It’s pretty NLP and persuasion cool.

The thing is – he’s doing this with TINY lists. In internet marketing and other competitive lists. It’s really unreal.

What’s even better is that he’ll teach you some of the magic.

There’s two things you need to do:

1. Read Andre’s story of how he crushes affiliate offers with these tiny lists of his -> http://www.0tocash.com/go/arm2story

2. Then read the report he put together for you. There’s a big honking PDF image in the middle of the story. Click on it to read. Or here’s the shortcut -> http://www.0tocash.com/go/arm2story#report

Let me wrap all this up with one thing…

Listen, there’s no “one way” to make it online. Everything works, except when it doesn’t. But having a list and engaging with your people is an asset that pays you for years. It can’t be slapped by Google and it doesn’t rank one day and vanish the next.

Engage people. Make money. It’s not quite that easy but it can be pretty freakin’ close.

Remember:

Andre’s story -> http://www.0tocash.com/go/arm2story

Andre’s report -> http://www.0tocash.com/go/arm2story#report