0 (2s):
Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. With great shows like Success Story Podcast. Today, we're pulling a timeless EOFire episode from the archives, so the giveaway may not be active and we'll be breaking down how to create profitable Facebook and Instagram ads that get results. To drop these value bombs, I brought Rick Mulready into EOFire Studios. Rick is a host of the Art of online business podcasts and an industry leading expert in teaching online experts how to take their online business To the next level. Today, Fire Nation will talk about the Facebook algorithm that gets you the results you're looking for. We'll talk about the mindset and your willingness to test and be patient when running your ads, and then also how to understand your targeted customers and so much more.

0 (50s):
And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Rick and our sponsors. The best podcast listening app in the world is here and it's called Podopolo. Visit Podopolo.com. Download the app, mention JLD or EOFire when you sign up for a free account and start listening now. That's P O D O P O L O.com. Success story hosted by Scott D. Clarey is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals success story features Q and A, keynote presentations and convos on sales marketing and more. A recent episode on how to protect your business in times of crisis is a must.

0 (1m 33s):
Listen, listen to success story wherever you get your podcasts. Rick, say What's up Toy Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know.

1 (1m 48s):
So good to be back on here. Yes. Talking to Fire Nation, I think this is like number three, right?

0 (1m 52s):
This is number three like that. This is third time is the charm.

1 (1m 55s):
I am super, super honored to be back on. Thank you. Something that people don't know about. All right. So I have two things actually and one of is a story about you and this show that I don't think, you know actually.

0 (2m 8s):
Okay.

1 (2m 9s):
So the first thing, which is a random thing is that I used to be the scouting coordinator for the Washington Capitals Hockey team. Huh. And that meant that I was the liaison between the general manager and the scouting staff. So I worked in the GM's office and I worked with the scouting staff and I was not a scout myself, but I worked with the scouting staff and it was amazing. Like I did that for five years and I was like, this is the greatest job ever. Are you

0 (2m 38s):
Still a big hockey fan? Like to this

1 (2m 39s):
Day I'm a Die Hard Capitals fan. Okay.

0 (2m 42s):
Yes. Are they, have they been good at all recently?

1 (2m 44s):
Yeah, they were having a great season. Oh cool. They won. They won two years ago. They won it all two years ago. Wow. That was like the greatest, you know, is

0 (2m 51s):
That the Washington Capitals? Yes. And so in the Washington Nationals. So I mean, wow. That's becoming like, that's becoming like the, the Boston of sports towns.

1 (2m 59s):
I know. Seriously. Yeah. It's coming pretty good. The second thing that people don't know, and this is more of like, it's not about me, it's more about, so what year did, what year did the podcast start for

0 (3m 13s):
You? September, 2012.

1 (3m 15s):
Okay, cool. So I was like, I have my years. Right. I remember sitting in the dining room of Adam Baker who was one of your top, I wanna say top 25 guests

0 (3m 27s):
First. Yeah, he was, he was in my Power 20 actually

1 (3m 30s):
First. Okay. First 20 cuz he was my original coach and I was in Indianapolis when he, when he used to live there, I was sitting at his dining room table, we were doing some coaching and he was like, I gotta do this interview thing. What for this John Lee Dumas guy for this crazy Daily podcast that he's starting. He's like, I don't think this is gonna last. Cuz you were told that all him all along. Yep. Right. And he's like, I don't even know what it's, and I'm just, for me, I was like, I don't know, like I don't,

0 (4m 3s):
You're like, what's a podcast?

1 (4m 4s):
Yeah. Like I never, I never heard of the guy and he's gotta do what? Like, all right dude, I'll be right here when you're done. And here we are seven years later and I don't even know what number you're on.

0 (4m 16s):
2,316.

1 (4m 18s):
Yeah. You have shown everyone that who said, what is this guy doing? Look what you've done now.

0 (4m 26s):
Oh man. That is

1 (4m 29s):
Crazy. I don't know if you knew that. I don't know if you knew you knew that story.

0 (4m 31s):
So you know how I, I did not, you know how I got Adam on my show actually, which is pretty funny. I mean he might have been, probably would've come on at some point anyways, but I remember I really wanted to be part of the Power 20, cuz that was back when like Man versus Debt was huge and he was like all over the place and he was doing a, he had, he had done a movie, he had, like Pat Flynn was in the movie and Scott Densmore was in the movie and he was having a premier down in New York City and like, like partial credits or whatever like movie credit was being like, so he was fun, he was crowdfunding it and it was like 2,500 bucks. And I was just like, that's so much money cuz you know, I was just obviously starting off and I'm like, I really feel like building this relationship will be worth it.

0 (5m 13s):
And so like I POed up the money and I went down to New York City for the premier. Like I met him in person and I mean he like hand introduced me to so many people in that room that ended up being later guests on my show. And it was like one of those things where I look back and I'm like, man, that wasn't a lot of money, but that was a really worthwhile investments Yeah. To make that happen.

1 (5m 33s):
I didn't know that full story, but now that you say that, I do remember something about that because his movie was, I'm fine, thanks. It was the documentary. That's it. Yes. And, but I do remember something about like, you honing up that money. I remember hearing about that and yeah, 2,500 bucks is a lot of money, but holy cow, what an investment that you made

0 (5m 53s):
Fire Nation invest in thyself. And we're actually gonna be talking today goods segue, S E G U e on investing in yourself because we're talking about how to create profitable Facebook and Instagram ads that actually get results. And there is nobody that I would be talking to that I have a higher steam that I hold than, than the Rick Moray that we're talking to here today. And I, and I do mean that, I mean Indy Porterfield goes to you for this stuff. I go to you Pat Flynn. I mean people that are crushing it in the online space know that you're the guy to talk to when it comes to this. Cause you keep your finger on the pulse, you know, you run Mastermind, this is what you do.

0 (6m 34s):
I mean, you are the guy, and let's be honest, we've been seeing ad costs rising for some time now. So break it down for Fire Nation. What is the dilly yo

1 (6m 45s):
Yeah, this is one of those things where everyone has, they're like, wait, are ad costs rising? It's

0 (6m 50s):
Like, well just me.

1 (6m 51s):
They've been rising for several years now. Right? And there's, there's a few different reasons and, and we're recording this right now in the middle of November, 2019. So number one, we're in q4, right? This is the holiday time. Ad costs are always gonna be higher this time of year. Yeah. Seasonally you're gonna, you should accept, you should expect that. But on a, on a bigger picture, you know, there, there's like, I think the number that Zuckerberg came out with earlier this year was there's 7 million advertisers now on Facebook and Instagram and that's a lot of advertisers. So that is a lot more competition for the limited ad space that you will find on Facebook and Instagram.

1 (7m 35s):
And so, you know, it's a whole basic of economics, supply and demand. When there's really, really high demand and limited supply, our ca our costs are gonna go up. And so that's the overarching reason that costs are going up. And then the third thing in addition to that and the, you know, the holidays is the political landscape. So, you know, 2020s in election year while advertising has already started for that. And so that drives up the cost as well. So in addition to those 7 million advertisers, now you have all of the political advertising and, and you know, and look, I mean as a, as of right now from a topical standpoint, there was, you know, question whether Facebook was gonna continue with the political advertising and still allow it.

1 (8m 22s):
Last I'd heard was that they were going to, that just means more competition. The supply is still the same. And so that's gonna continue to drive cost up as well.

0 (8m 33s):
I mean I can just remember so clearly having you come over to Kitten, my place in San Diego cuz we were trying to come up with an ad campaign for podcasts Paradise and all those webinars that I was running on a week, week to week basis. And I mean our costs, you know, per registration was super low and you know, we were able to drive a lot of traffic and get, get a lot of people showing up and do a lot of sales on a consistent basis. And I mean those numbers have gone up like 3, 5, 7 and sometimes even 10 x where they were like back in 14, 15, 16 timeframe. So I mean that's another reason why Fire Nation, like you could strike while the iron's hot. Like when things are working double down, like when, when webinars were working at the level they were back in those years, not that it's not working now, they still are, but back then, I mean it was just like honestly the iron was so flipping hot that I was just doing 'em every single week.

0 (9m 28s):
In fact I was doing two web live webinars every week. One for my webinar on fire course teaching people webinars, remember that? Yeah. And then I was doing, following that up with the Podcasters’ Paradise and just doing sales and sales and sales and sales. Yeah. And it was awesome. So strike one of the irons high and that's just an aside for like taking opportunities as they arise. So what can people today Rick do to really set themselves up for success in today's market?

1 (9m 55s):
That's a great question cuz because based on that first question of like, alright, ad costs are rising, you know, the reasons that we discussed, oftentimes the question comes up like, should I even do it? Should I even dive in or should I continue doing it if someone's already doing ads and I absolutely the fire is still hot. Yes, for, for ads, no they're not the cost like what we're just talking about. But the opportunity is a hundred percent still there. Take a placement on Instagram, say like Instagram story ads. Holy cow, there's so much supply, excuse me. And the demand there isn't a whole lot, right?

1 (10m 36s):
Because advertisers just haven't jumped on board yet. So there's still a ton of opportunity and it is still the most cost effective and efficient way to be advertising your business online between Facebook and Instagram. Now, from setting up, setting yourselves up for success, once you're jumping in, even though costs are are a little bit higher, there's some things that you can do to definitely set yourself up for success. And the first thing that I see people doing is they're over complicating the campaign setup. And so the key here now in this day and age is to simplify that setup. And the reason for that is that the Facebook algorithm, sort of like the technology that runs in the background, once you, once you're gonna be running ads like, you know, sort of the delivery system if you will, of the, of the, of all the ads, the it has gotten so smart, it every year it gets smarter and smarter and smarter.

1 (11m 32s):
What I mean by that is it knows where to find the people that you're trying to reach. Say for example, if I'm targeting fans of, I don't know Amy Porterfield, the algorithm has gotten so smart, it's set up to get you results, right? Like a lot of people think like, well no it's not because whenever I try ads they don't work. Well. The algorithm really does want you to succeed and why do you think that might be the case?

0 (11m 58s):
So you keep paying them money.

1 (12m 1s):
Absolutely. Right? Like, cuz if like your ads are working, what are you gonna do? You're gonna keep advertising, you're gonna keep paying money on it. And so trust the algorithm. But with that said, set yourself up for success with the algorithm and simplifying the setup. What I mean by that is doing something like, all right, I have one campaign that is my cold audiences. So, so for example, I'm gonna target, you know, other interests, meaning like other fan pages, other Facebook pages and that are relevant to my business and, and, and who I want to be reaching and I want to, you know, I want to advertise to a potential audience size of say 2 million people.

1 (12m 44s):
Okay, cool. So I'm gonna figure out my target audiences into my ad set, my audience size is roughly 2 million people. So that is a big difference right there because I dunno if you remember John, like a couple years ago, it used to be like, all right, let's try to get that around 500,000, right? And even before that, it used to be like, oh, let's get it to a couple hundred thousand or if it would be, it'd be okay if this was like 30,000 people. Well those days are gone right now for everybody listening. Like the, the thing I always hear about this one particular is like, they're like, I'm in Denmark or, or you know, a smaller country and they're like, the entire population right, is a few million people.

1 (13m 24s):
They're like, how am I gonna do that? I get it. Just do the best that you can, right? That's like, or or if, if there's a local business listening, it's like, all right, my audience size isn't that big, just do the best that you can on that. But so a little bit larger audience size and then do test a few different types of ads within your ad set. And then the other thing too is fewer ad sets. So ad set is like your target groups. Okay, I dunno if you remember but we used to break out, like we'd have like a mobile ad set,

0 (13m 57s):
Like sometimes it was ridiculous, I remember like logging on and it would just be like this pages of like these little micro ads.

1 (14m 5s):
Exactly, exactly. And those days are, I mean is does that have its place for more advanced? Yes, for sure you can still do that. But I remember a campaign I had, or yeah, campaign I had years ago that had literally 762 ads,

0 (14m 22s):
I mean come

1 (14m 23s):
On. And it literally stopped working like power editor back when it was power, it stopped working, it broke, it like froze up and I was like, okay, too many assets in here, but those days are gone. So it's more like, alright, three to five, let's just say rough ad sets and then maybe three to five ads per ad set, larger audiences. And I would recommend, especially when you're starting out, even when you're doing 'em for a little while and getting some result, do the all placements options. So you're letting, again, you're letting the algorithm do the work for you. Whereas again, before we used to break everything out and we were trying to game the system a little bit. The algorithm has gotten very smart, the simpler the better.

1 (15m 4s):
And that is gonna set you up for success when you're doing your campaigns

0 (15m 7s):
Simpler the better. We're talking fewer ad sets, three to five ads per ad set, larger audiences and hey, trust the Facebook algorithm. It's not trying to screw you because if it screwed you, you wouldn't come back. It's trying to help you and that's gotten better and better over the years. So allow it to get the results that you're looking for. But let's be honest, I still hear this to this day and I'm gonna even like really spending that much time in this world. So you must hear it all the flipping time. Like when it comes to Facebook ad marketing, so many people are just like, I'm gonna just focus on other people's pages and like other pages and Facebook pages and all this stuff. Yep. Is this a strategy that still works?

1 (15m 44s):
It does. Especially when you're just starting out. And so here's what I mean by that. What Facebook really wants you to do is to be building your warm audiences as quickly as possible. And when I say warm audience, I mean like your email list that you upload into Facebook and you target your ads to your email list. I mean the engagement audience of people who are engaging with your Instagram profile or Instagram or engaging with your Facebook page, your audience who are engaging with your videos, all those types of audiences are considered your quote warm audiences cuz they're engaging with you, right?

1 (16m 25s):
They're likely to, they're likely gonna know who you are and a little bit about your message. So the quicker that we can build those warm audiences, that's really what Facebook wants you to do because then what you wanna do is create look-like audiences from those warm audiences. So let's just say you have, you know, all, all these people who have purchased podcast Podcasters Paradise, you upload those buyers into Facebook, now you have an audience of buyers, you can create a lookalike audience from that audience. Ooh. So basically what a look like audience is, you're telling Facebook, Hey Facebook, go find me as another other people on Facebook and Instagram with similar attributes as this people in my, we'll call it base audience.

1 (17m 13s):
So in this case here in our hypothetical is our list of buyers. Well that's a really powerful audience because the, the audience that you've just uploaded, they, they, they've taken out their credit card, they bought something from you. So now you're saying Facebook go find me other people, like people who have bought something from me. Yes. That's a really powerful audience. And so what I recommend for people do is prioritize the warm audiences and then prioritize the lookalike audiences and then get into the cold audiences. So that's where I'm targeting other, you know, other Facebook pages, other interests and stuff like that. If people don't have warm audiences, if they're starting out and they're like, you know what, I don't have really an email list, I don't not doing video engagement audiences or anything like that, that's cool.

1 (17m 58s):
Start with the cold audience targeting first and start to build up those warm audiences.

0 (18m 3s):
Let's run through this Fire Nation, prioritize warm audiences and then create those lookalike audiences. I mean, I love that example you gave specifically because your buyers are buyers Fire Nations. So if you can get people that are like your buyers, good things will come. And then cold audiences with interest targeting. Yep. Now let's talk about a big mistake that a lot of people make and they don't truly understand who their target customer is. What do you mean by that?

1 (18m 34s):
So we could do a whole, we could do a whole episode on just this. We could talk for hours on this one. So when I ask, generally when I ask people, I say, all right, a scale of one to 10, how well do you understand your target customer? Inevitably I get like, oh, eights, nines. I'm like, oh yeah, definitely a 10, maybe some sevens. There might be some sprinkled in there, maybe twos and threes. Then on those higher ones, like the people who are, are saying, yeah, I definitely know my target customer then like I drill in on that a little bit and ask them some questions nine times outta 10. They don't truly have a full understanding of their target audience. I know this is something that you teach a lot, John

0 (19m 14s):
Jimmy, my avatar.

1 (19m 15s):
Exactly, exactly. And doesn't Jimmy commute to work like 30 minutes?

0 (19m 20s):
He has a 27 and a half minute commute to work.

1 (19m 22s):
That's right. I remember that. I love how specific that is. Yes. And so, but, but most people don't go to that detail, right? And so it's so important to understand the target customer to a whole other level when you are doing ads because you get to leverage the, all the targeting capabilities that we have on Facebook. And when I say on Facebook, I mean on on Instagram as well because all the same targeting capabilities that are on Facebook, you get on are on Instagram as well. So what I like to say that you want a holistic understanding of your target customer.

1 (20m 2s):
Here's what I mean by that. So I often use the, the example of I'm in the yoga niche, right? And so, okay cool, I'm in the yoga niche. I want to target probably women between, I dunno the ages of maybe like 28 and 50 who have an interest in yoga. A hundred percent that is, you know, that is the person that I want to reach. But now we have to kind of take it a step further and to be able to have a holistic understanding of that, of our audience there. What brands are they interested in? What publications do they read? What are their hobbies? What do they do on the weekends? You know, what types of TV shows are they watching? All of that stuff.

1 (20m 41s):
And so now I can take it say, all right, I wanna reach women between 28 and 50. Maybe they have an interest in brands like Lululemon, right? Because Lululemon share sells the type of clothing, yoga clothing, Pilates clothing, workout clothing. Maybe I wanna reach people who have an interest in Lorna Jane or Athleta is, I think this that's like the Yeah. Athleta, that's a magazine Yeah. For Gap I think. Yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, for in people who are interested in that, maybe they haven't, maybe they shop at Whole Foods, right? You know, so thinking about it from that perspective, and yes, you might be saying, well Rick, everybody who, you know all from a female perspective, everybody who shops at Whole Foods isn't interested in yoga.

1 (21m 27s):
Well totally, but you can tar. But there are, there are definitely people who shop at Whole Foods who are going to be your target audience. So what we would do there is we would target Whole Foods and let our messaging speak to the people who we wanna reach, who are within the Whole Foods audience. That make sense? Yes. Disposable income hopefully. Totally. Totally. And so, and, and just be thinking about those things and, and you have things like Yoga Journal magazine. Ooh, right? And so like most people don't think about these types of things. They stop at, well, alright, I wanna reach women between this age range who have an interest in yoga, which absolutely, but there's so many other opportunities to reach that target audience, right?

1 (22m 9s):
That most people don't think about. And it's also, frankly, the work, I like to call this the work upfront. So it's the upfront work that you do before even opening up Ads Manager to set your campaign up. But it's the work, it's like the unsexy work, right? It's like I have to think through my target customer, I don't wanna do all this work, but it's this stuff that's gonna differentiate you and set yourself up far more for success with your ad campaigns when you have this kind of understanding. Now let's take it even a step further. And this is called, and I actually recent, I recently did a podcast episode about this, but it's all about sub segmenting your target customer.

1 (22m 49s):
And so we can do that in the yoga niche example. So I mentioned people who have an interest in yoga. Well that's gonna be a beginner, like I have a student that I met with yesterday, she just started yoga. Like she's literally one week into it because that's something that her doctor recommended that she do. So she has an interest in yoga, but somebody who is like an expert, is it Yogi? I think that's right. Yeah. Okay. An expert yogi. That is a very different conversation to have with the someone who's been doing it for years versus somebody you know. And so again, and also too, somebody who's reading Yoga Journal magazine for example, is probably not that beginner.

1 (23m 34s):
It's probably more an advanced person. And so that's a different conversation, that's a different messaging to those people. However, they're still within my target audience if I'm in the yoga niche. And so again, this is something else that not a lot of people do is sub segment their target customer in that audience. And because that is, instead of having one conversation to your entire audience, how can you sub segment your audience and have the right conversation with the right person within your target customer audience? Does that make sense?

0 (24m 6s):
Makes sense to me and Fire Nation as a recap, you need to first have a holistic understanding of your target customer. Like I like how you use that phrase, that holistic understanding. In fact, I feel like that kind of goes with our yoga theme here anyways. And then Fire Nation get into segmenting your target customer. That's the next step in that process. And if you think Rick is done dropping value bombs on this stuff, you got another Think Common Fire Nation. We're gonna be talking about video troubleshooting, one tip for getting ads to work. And you are not gonna wanna miss that tip when we get back from thanking our sponsors ready to ditch your subpar podcast listening app and download an app that has every feature you want and need with more great features being added all the time.

0 (24m 55s):
The app is Podopolo and you can download it for free and start listening right now at Podopolo.com. PODOPOLO gives you access to every podcast at your fingertips with easy, discoverability audio and video podcast in every genre and language and instant recommendations. So the perfect podcast and live streams find you without you having to lift a finger. Plus Podopolo is interactive, so you can create and share short snippets and discuss episode with friends in your favorite hosts. My favorite feature, Podopolo, you create your own personalized up next queue so you can set it and forget it. Join me on Podopolo where you can interact with me, connect with others, ask questions, and share your thoughts on your favorite podcast.

0 (25m 35s):
Visit Podopolo.com, download the app for free from either App store, mention JLD or EOFire when you sign up for an account and start listening now. That's P O D O P O L O.com. Are you looking for a place where you can exchange ideas, shared knowledge, and find invaluable mentors, co-founders, and investors? Sounds too good to be true, right? Thanks to HubSpot, it exists. And right now you can get instant access to a community of 16,000 plus business builders at trends.co/mfm Trends is a HubSpot community for founders and entrepreneurs that tells you what the next big thing is gonna be months before everyone else, and delivers access to analyst, vetted business ideas and market signals straight to your inbox every single week.

0 (26m 20s):
Inside trends, you also have access to live virtual business training and Q and A sessions that feel like MBA lectures where you can learn everything from advanced marketing techniques to how to get fundraising from venture capitalists. A seven day trial of trends is yours for only $1 in a yearly subscription. Plus access to the community is $299 per year. Get a seven day trial of trends for only $1 at trends.co/mfm. That's trends.co/mfm. So Rick, we're back from the break and during that break I was thinking, and you know, I don't know why this came up, but you know, you and I for years and years and years, we're part of a weekly mastermind that used to meetings myself, you and Greg, Greg Hickman, and it was obviously a great time.

0 (27m 7s):
We had a lot of fun. We'd go on trips like, you know, every now and then. And I just had a flashback to the trip when we went to San Francisco and I had that little surprise waiting for us. And you know, I didn't even know I was gonna get to pull it off, but I, I, I texted Tim Ferris cuz you know, I I was helping him out with his podcast and I was like, dude, you stop by for this mastermind. He wrote back, he's like, yeah, sure I will. And I'm like, what? And I'm like, I'm like, I'm not gonna tell these guys I'm gonna make it a surprise. It was like the hardest secret I had to keep for my life, but I just knew that it'd be worth it when it happens. So he knocks in the door, I go down and answer, I bring 'em up and I'm like, Hey guys, you might know this guy. His name's Tim Ferris. And then he mastermind with us for the next five hours, took us out to dinner and hung out with us all night.

1 (27m 51s):
I I, I remember sitting in the living room there and he walks up the stairs, turns around the corner and I was like, that's, I like, just like stared at him. Yeah. I was like, that's Tim Ferris, why is he in our living room? What is it? How in the heck did this happen?

0 (28m 6s):
Oh man,

1 (28m 7s):
That was amazing.

0 (28m 9s):
That was just a memory I wanted to share with Fire Nation. It was such a good time. So long story short Fire Nation, be in a mastermind. If you can be the mastermind, John Lee dos do that, but if you can't just at least still be in a mastermind, it'll definitely be worth it.

1 (28m 23s):
So no promise is that Tim Ferris

0 (28m 24s):
Is gonna show up. No promises. No promises. So we gave a little teaser of a few things we're gonna talk about for the rest of the show. Let's talk first and foremost about video. I mean, personally, I I, I'm really kind of keeping my fingers crossed here because I do video every single day for Instagram. I like to be on video all the time. I just enjoy that as a medium. So what is the deal? Is it still important on Facebook and Instagram? What is going on there?

1 (28m 52s):
A hundred percent yes. And this has been something that has been talked about for a while, right? Like, so Zuckerberg came out, I wanna say like last year and said that within the next few years, you know, a platform like Facebook is gonna primarily be video.

0 (29m 6s):
Wow. So like no static images basically.

1 (29m 8s):
Yeah, exactly. Now obviously we haven't seen that yet, but we've seen inklings of that where Facebook's stories is front and center. When you know, you're on your phone and you go on the Facebook app and you're like, you know, the videos are right there at the time, right? And likewise, when you go on the desktop version right there at the top, you're on Instagram stories right there at the top also. They're within the feed Now as they're scrolling down it's like, Hey, did you catch these? Or whatever. So you kind of see them starting to do this a little bit, but video is absolutely where it's at. I mean, you look at Instagram stories, for example, Instagram tv I think they finally did some really cool things with, with Instagram, tv, TV where, you know, the, the preview of the video shows up in the newsfeed now, you know, to drive traffic to IGT Facebook stories is becoming more of an important thing.

1 (30m 6s):
And then also videos in the newsfeed, whether it's in your Instagram feed or in the, in the Facebook newsfeed, perform really well. Like, you get to tell stories. And like you said John, it's like it's a medium that you really enjoy. You get to, you know, your personality comes across, your teaching comes across in a very different way that can in a written or a static format. And so video, video, video, super powerful, you know, and, and one of the questions that people always ask is like, well, should it, what, how long should the video be? Right? And I laugh because that's like the million dollar question, right? And and the answer is you gotta test that out, right? Or like, we're talking 15 second videos or you know, you can do longer videos.

1 (30m 50s):
It really depends on what you're trying to do. You do an amazing quote type of video every single day. Every day, yeah. Which isn't a long video, no one minute. And what, yeah, what you're doing there is you're building engagement audiences as well, people who engage with that post. And so that's one of the other really powerful benefits of doing video is that you can build those engagement audiences. We were talking earlier about warm audiences, while this is an example where you can build audiences of people based on how long they engage with your video. So if somebody, if you're putting up 62nd videos and somebody watches 75% of that video, that's a pretty engaged person.

1 (31m 31s):
Yeah. Right? And so you can build audiences of those people and then turn around and create lookalike audiences of those people, for example. And so there's a lot of powerful things there also, when, when you're doing a 62nd video just organically in your feed, you're built that and, and people are, are engaging with it, you are contributing to building that warm audience of people who are engaging with your Instagram profile. And again, you can turn around and create lookalike audiences out of that. So video is really powerful on a lot of different fronts from, you know, just getting your points across to building connection with your audience.

1 (32m 11s):
They can see, you know, you as a personality, excuse me. And also building those engagement audiences for based on how long somebody's watching your videos. A hundred percent you should be doing video.

0 (32m 23s):
And not to mention you're putting into the reps Fire Nation. I mean, you're actually doing something that's building a skillset, you know, frankly, like researching a quote online and then making it into a pretty font and then posting it as a static image on your Instagram, that's not really building up a certain skill. I mean, anybody could do the exact same thing. Anybody could do the exact same thing, but you know, for me to do a quote and then do a 45 second riff off of that quote, I get a little bit better every single time I do that. Yeah. And believe me, I'd rather have a hundred people watching that video than 2000 people liking a static image of just words on a page.

0 (33m 3s):
Cause they might even know that that comes from me. I mean, they're just like looking at a quote, they like, they're tapping it, they're moving on. But when they're watching my video, they're seeing my eyes, they're seeing my personality and, and the value I'm trying to give to them. I mean, that's a whole other level of engagement of value that you're giving. But Rick, even with all of this great advice, let's say that my ads still aren't working very well. Where do I just start with the troubleshooting process?

1 (33m 28s):
Yeah, another million dollar question,

0 (33m 30s):
Right? I only ask seven figure questions. Those are my only questions.

1 (33m 35s):
I love it. Well, the first, because this gets overwhelming really fast, right? Because Facebook gives you so many stats to look at and you know, people are like, oh, it's like, it's like you're, you know, a deer in headlights sort of thing. Like I don't even know where to start and you freeze because there's, so, there's an overwhelm of of things to look at. What I'd like to tell people is first and foremost, look at the stat that is most relevant to the objective that you're doing. So for example, if I'm running a campaign to get webinar registrations, well my, my objective is gonna be conversions because I want people to click on my ad, go to my landing page and register.

1 (34m 17s):
So the first stat in that case, what I'm looking at is what's my cost per registration, right? What's my cost per lead at that point? And so if you look at that and you're like, holy cow, this is way outta whack. Now you get to start to look at some, some of the other stats to kind of paint the picture as I like to say, because this really isn't art. It is not an easy thing when you're first starting out to try to piece all this together. You're trying to, you know, kind of tell the story of what's going on with your ad campaigns through the data. And so if your cost per lead is really high, let's just say you're like, you know, you know what, it should not be $35 for my cost per lead. What's going on here? The next stat I'm really looking at is what is my conversion rate on my landing page?

1 (35m 3s):
Meaning what is the percentage of people who are landing on my registration page and actually registering, because we want them to do that, that, you know, for that type of stat, we want at least a 20% conversion rate. And so let's just say that you calculate that, or if you're using a tool like ClickFunnels or Insta Page or whatever it is, oftentimes they'll tell you what the conversion rate is right in there. So you don't have to calculate anything. Let's just say that your conversion rate's like 8% on that, that kind of tells you there's a disconnect between your ad and the the registration page. So you can start to look at, oh, maybe I need to look at that and say, oh, is it the same image or the same copy?

1 (35m 47s):
Or like, how am I, you know, what am I doing there? Is it consistent between the ad and the landing page? Another thing I wanna know is like, what's the clickthrough rate? Meaning what percentage of people who are clicking are, who are seeing my ad are actually clicking on the ad and going through to the landing page for that. I'd love to see at least a 1% clickthrough rate. Now that's the link click through rate, meaning percentage of people clicking on the ad and going to the landing page. And let's just say from there you look at it and like, oh, I have a 2% click through rate, something's up there. And so that, my point here is you get to use the data to start to make decisions on the types of things that you could, you could possibly start to make changes too.

1 (36m 34s):
And, and using that at that click through rate example, like right, I have, I have a low click theory rate. Well maybe my message isn't, isn't resonating with the target audience or you know, or I'm just completely targeting the wrong audience, right? So you let the data dictate the types of actions that you're going to take to try to fix things and improve things. If

0 (36m 54s):
I could sum it up in one sentence, Fire Nation, it would be use your data and know your numbers. Those are things you have to have a good focus on, a good grip on. Otherwise, I mean, you're just throwing money at the system. Now, Rick, we did tease this before the break. If you could only give one tip to somebody for getting their ads to work, what would that one single tip b,

1 (37m 18s):
This is gonna probably anger a lot of people because hate or something. Yeah, but you, this is like, I know you talk all the time about this, and this is mindset. Mindset is the key. Like if I could say one thing to somebody when it comes to using Facebook and Instagram ads, marketing their business, selling what I mean overall, you gotta have the right mindset. And what I mean by that is you have to be willing to test and be patient when it comes to running your ads. Because so many times, and I know that you've seen this and you've, you hear this all the time too, so many times somebody tries out their ads or, and, and they're not getting the results and they're like, oh, this doesn't work.

1 (38m 6s):
Facebook and Instagram ads don't work. Well, they do work. You have to be willing to test and you have to be willing to be patient with this. And you know, like, all right, this one, this didn't work. I'm gonna try this target audience, so I'm gonna try this message, I'm gonna try this video. You have to be willing to to do that. And so many people come into ads wanting to play this short game, meaning they want instantaneous results. Meaning I wanna, you know, they wanna sell 50 grand in the next three days. Well, is that possible? For sure. But I wanna encourage Fire Nation here to be playing the long game when it comes to their ads. And that means a willingness to test and a patience that they're gonna play the long game and and, and figure it out nine times outta 10.

1 (38m 55s):
The people that give up, they're so close to figuring things out and starting momentum, but they don't get there because they've given up. And you have to have the right mindset when it comes to ads. You have to be willing to test things out and just kind of go with the flow. Like Facebook and Instagram, you know, the, the, the platform, you know, it can be a little bit clunky sometimes it's just part of the game, guys, this stuff works. But you have to be willing to go with the flow to test things out, be patient along the way. And when you do that, that's when you're gonna be successful with Facebook and Instagram ads.

0 (39m 33s):
And listen, Fire Nation, they know, they know there's no magic bullets. They weren't expecting one, they know there's no shortcut for success. They know cause we hammer it every single episode, put in the reps, test trust, persevere, be consistent, make things happen. Fire Nation, we've been saying this for years now, we've been saying this for 2300 plus, 2300 plus episodes now it's all about the mindset. It's all about the willingness to be patient and test and listen. If there was a silver bullet, it wouldn't be a silver bullet because everybody be doing it and then it wouldn't exist. It's just the reality of the world. So you need to be willing and able to put in the work. So Rick, as we wrap up here, let's just take a step back.

0 (40m 17s):
You've kind of given us the one big takeaway already. So we'll skip past that part and just kind of get into what you have going on right now. Like you've recently made a brand change. Tell us a little bit about that. Tell us a little bit about, you know, what is working in your personal business right now and then we'll say goodbye.

1 (40m 34s):
The brand change for the podcast. That was a scary thing. Yeah, I

0 (40m 38s):
Remember you reached out, you're like, I'm doing this. Yeah.

1 (40m 41s):
And you're like, I think it's a great idea. Yeah, so, so I recently changed the name of the podcast from the Art of Paid Traffic to the Art of Online Business. It's not a huge change in name, but I, I felt like it more encompasses what I actually talk about on the show. And the thing of it was, is like the content, what I talk about on the show, the topics, the guests, all that, none of that has changed because I actually started introducing a little bit of a shift in the show because originally it was all, you know, pay traffic, all ad stuff. But then I started to introduce like more mindset stuff or I started to introduce like productivity, you know, all the stuff that's, you know, it's running a business.

1 (41m 24s):
And I was doing that for like a year, but I just never officially announced it. And finally I was like, you know what? I've, the, the, the reaction, the feedback, the insight from, from my listeners has been amazing. So I'm gonna go all in on making this change because I, I feel like, you know, I've been teaching ads for so long that one thing I've realized, and I don't know why it took me so long to realize this, but after just one piece of the puzzle, right? Ads are critical to growing your, to growing your business. But there's all kinds of other things that you need to have happening in your business if you want to grow, you know, for long term a sustainable and impactful online business where you're helping tons of people, you know, things like offers and building your team and mindset and you know, all that different types of stuff.

1 (42m 16s):
So that's what we're talking about on a podcast. Again, there's no change there, but that was really scary. It was like, am I gonna lose all my listeners? Totally. People are people gonna just, you know, like screw this, I've been listening to this and now he's changing a little bit. And it's, I really was careful in how I communicated that and I really haven't noticed a drop off in listenership. The other thing too is like, you know what if I lose people, that's cool because I'm keeping the people that I want to be helping and who should be listening to the show cuz those are my, that's my audience. So I was more okay with, if I did lose people, I'm, I'm keeping the people that it attracts the people that I want to be helping.

1 (42m 57s):
So that's been good. It's been six weeks, seven weeks at the time recording. This hasn't been that long, but it's been really good. What was the other question? What I helped, what else I have going on in?

0 (43m 8s):
Yeah, like what's working in your business right now? Like I, I know what's working in your business cause obviously I follow you, but I think it's really cool like some of the things you're doing now that's really kind of bringing in the revenue and bringing in the success.

1 (43m 19s):
The biggest shift that I've gone through here in 2019 is simplification. I used to want, and you know, I talked, you and I have talked a lot about this. I used to want a big team. I used to want an office that people came into. You know, I used to want, you know, six different offers and all this stuff. And then when my daughter was born almost a year ago, that just changed like my whole perspective on everything. And I know that you're huge on lifestyle and you know, building your, building your life around your business and not your business around your life, right? And so I wasn't that way for a long time. It was just like, go, go, let's build this business. What

0 (43m 58s):
Was the biggest your team ever got?

1 (44m 1s):
Well even at that, it wasn't that big. I had three day to day plus a bunch of contractors.

0 (44m 8s):
Got it.

1 (44m 9s):
And even at that, it was not that, you know, that's not that big a team, but I really wanted, you know, it's like so cliche but like I really wanted a few A players and then some contractors and that's it. I wanted a lean business where we're having a huge impact and also increasing profitability. You know, no one ever talks about the profitability of the business. That's true. They always talk about revenue. But if you're like, you know, you're doing whatever, let's say you doing a million dollars and you are, you know, 15% profit, like it's, you're not keeping a lot of that money. And so that's the part that I really worked on this year. So I have, I, and I've been through here in 2019, I've been through three offices.

1 (44m 53s):
Wow. And I was like, you know, and for one reason or another I was like, no, this is not what I want. And I thought I did. And so that's,

0 (45m 0s):
Was each one like getting smaller progressively or was it just like different locations or what was it

1 (45m 6s):
The first one I started off with this year, well I was in a co-working space the very beginning of 2019. Then I moved to this two floor office space that was like 1400 square feet. Cause I had this idea, I was like, oh this is gonna be great. I have a conference room, I want people coming in. Like it was on top of a Starbucks, like literally on top of Starbucks. And I was like, this is amazing. But after a few months there I was like, this is not what I want. And so yeah, so then I went to another office and lo it was a lot smaller and then location was better too. Yeah. But even, even then I'm like, you know what, this is not something that I really want. And so like how do I keep simplifying things? How do I streamline the business?

1 (45m 48s):
In addition, what I wanted to do was I wanted to have two offers. I wanted to sell my foundations Facebook and Instagram ads course. And then I have a six month mastermind for, it's called Excel the Accelerator Mastermind. And it's kind of a group coaching slash mastermind with people who are already generating revenue in their business. And it's not just Facebook ads. Again, this is that it aligns with the shift that I made with the podcast where it's about growing your online business. And yes we do talk ads and go dive into all that, but it's all of that stuff. And so again, this kind of went back to, I thought if I cut down and simplified with the number of offers that my revenue would suffer, well my revenues back up this year as is profitability.

1 (46m 38s):
So those have been the two big shifts. Like, alright, let's have a really streamlined team of really solid A players. Let's streamline the other part of the business where it's like, right, how do I simplify it? No office, I'm in a co-working space right now. And then two offers very simply who this offers for, who this offers for, have that conversation and and sell those two offers. And I frankly have never been happier in the business

0 (47m 7s):
In Fire Nation. It's all about being intentional because Rick and I have actually been in a pretty similar journey in 2019 where Kate and I have been brutal and ruthless about curbing out any expenses that just don't need to be there. And now we've actually started publishing on our income reports. Our net profit percentage, which years pass was always incredible. And like the fifties and sixties now it's literally mind blowing. Like we are easily every month in the eighties we hit 90% one month. And it is just unbelievable to be able to keep all the money that we're making and you know, do other things with that.

0 (47m 47s):
And again, that's a business that we intentionally want to run. This is the business that Rick intentionally wants to run. A mutual friend of ours who we both love dearly and respect Amy Porterfield. She's growing an incredibly big team of incredible A players and she's doing amazing things there. And that's what she wants. And she's being intentional about that. And I applaud her for that. Things could change for myself and Rick in the future. We may make a shift in that direction, but we're intentional now about where we're at. Amy's being intentional now about where she's at and all of us are going after what we truly want in this moment. Knowing that hey, life changes, things will change. So Rick, if we wanna learn more about the podcast, about your offerings, about stuff you have going on, where do we go?

1 (48m 31s):
The podcast is called The Art of Online Business and where all the podcasts are, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, you name it, the show is there. I'm at Rick Mulready on Instagram, the website's rick mure.com and

0 (48m 47s):
If you hurry Fire Nation, you'll get to see Maya's first step on his screen.

1 (48m 51s):
That's right. She's so, she's so close, she's so close. Real quick, this morning before I, before I came into the office, we, Amy and I, my wife thought that she took a first step. She kinda like pushed herself off the couch and she took a step and then she kind of fell into Amy's arms and we both looked at each other like, wait, was that the first step?

0 (49m 11s):
No. Doesn't,

1 (49m 12s):
Does that

0 (49m 12s):
Qualify? It doesn't count.

1 (49m 15s):
I think that's what we came up with. It's like, nope, that doesn't count. That doesn't count. We're also gonna do a webinar together, right?

0 (49m 21s):
Amazing.

1 (49m 22s):
We have a training coming up and it's gonna take everything we were talking about here today to the next level and really dive into three effective strategies for creating profitable Facebook and Instagram ads. This is really a 1 0 1 type of training. And so this is going to be for people who have never done ads, who are intimidated by ads. You know, I hear all the time that Facebook ads make people wanna pull their hair out, they're scared to death them. I totally hear you. So this training is for, for, for those of you who are just starting out and who have not done ads before or you've been doing ads and you're not getting the results that you want.

1 (50m 6s):
And specifically for those of you guys who are doing webinars video series, you know, you're an online expert, basically you're a course creator. This training is gonna be for you because in addition to into teaching you three strategies that I feel like and I've seen over the years and we've perfected in my business as, as well as the thousands of students that I've worked with, I, I've kind of condensed this down into how I recommend looking at Facebook and Instagram ads for getting the results that you need to be getting now as an online expert business as well as there's three primary mistakes that I see most online experts making all the time.

1 (50m 50s):
And so I'm gonna take you through that, share what they are and then share the flip side how you can avoid what those mistakes are. So we've got that training coming up and the link to register for this is gonna be live training guys by the way, be answering our questions John and I'll be on there. It's rickmulready.com. Fire Nation boom rickmulready.com. Fire Nation register in coming out with John and me. It's

0 (51m 19s):
gonna be a great training. Rick always brings the heat on these things. So Fire Nation really wanna have you show up, ready to learn, bring your team, you know, have them there with you watching and learning as well because they're gonna be implementing all of these things to make sure that you make 2020 your most profitable year ever. So again, that's rick mare.com/Fire Nation world. Of course be having links in the show notes and you'll be getting an email as well. If you're subscribed to my email list with the links to sign up for this free webinar training, that's going to be incredibly valuable because you Fire Nation are the average of the five people you spend the most time with and you've been hanging out with RM and JLD today.

0 (52m 7s):
So keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com. Type Rick in the search bar for the show page links to for the webinar. Again, that's RickMulready.com. Fire Nation and Rick, I just wanna say thank you first and foremost for being a great friends. Thank you. Appreciate it brother for dropping Value Bombs to Entrepreneur on Fire listeners, Fire Nation for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation, today's value bomb content was brought to you by Rick and I really hope you do join us at the free webinar training where Rick's gonna drop all those value bombs going a lot deeper into some of the concepts we talked about today, but then giving you great structures and systems and practices.

0 (52m 51s):
Really, really great stuff. Rickmulready.com. Fire Nation, I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. The best podcast listening app in the world is here, and it's called Podopolo visits Podopolo.com. Download the app, mention JLD or EOFire when you sign up for a free account and start listening now. That's P O D O P O L O.com. Success story hosted by Scott D. Clarey is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals success story features Q and A, keynote presentations and convos on sales marketing and more.

0 (53m 34s):
A recent episode on how to protect your business in times of crisis is a must. Listen, listen to success story wherever you get your podcasts.