Presented live on Tuesday, March 3, 2020

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Can you win enough clients for a year…with a single blog post?

One freelancer did.

And she’s sharing how she did it today in a brand new tutorial.

TRANSCRIPT:

Joanna Wiebe: Nelliane, you reached out to me, you were in 10 X freelance copywriter. And then you recently reached out and said you had this really cool thing. And you’ve written a blog post on and I was like, you have to come on a tutorial and teach this. And so now you’re here to talk to us about it. So, welcome.

Nelliane: Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited about this. I think it’s really a game changer.

Nelliane: So, as you know this tutorial is about how I filled up my calendar for an entire year, using a single blog post. So it’s really exciting stuff. So I want to start with a question and that is, how big of a part does blog content play in your marketing and sales strategy? So, one being not at all, I hate writing blog content. Two, have tried but haven’t had results equal to the effort I put in. Three, I love it and it pays.

Joanna Wiebe: So for quite a few twos. Twos, Yeah.

Nelliane: That doesn’t surprise me at all. Any threes at all?

Joanna Wiebe: One or two threes, I think. More ones, but two is really dominating, like big time!

Nelliane: Awesome. I expected that. Now the really defining question is if you only had to write one single blog post and have it generate dozens of hot, ready to buy leads, every single month without fail for years after you hit publish, would you commit yourself to writing that one piece of content? Yes or no? Let me know in the chat.

Joanna Wiebe: No. Just kidding, they’re all saying yes!

Nelliane: Yes, I guessed that. So now I present this scenario, not as a hypothetical, but as the reality of what can happen for you once you learn what I’m about to teach you how to be, and that is the conversion blogging formula. But before I get into this formula. A quick back story of how this came to be. In March of 2018, after about two years of being a ghost content writer for some of the top marketers in the space, I quit. I had burned out to a crisp, beyond recovery and I decided that I would dive into copywriting. No clients lined up, no testimonials or case studies, mostly because I couldn’t speak about my work as a ghostwriter. And I did the only thing I knew how, and that is to write a blog post with the sole intent of making sales as quickly as possible and the results were so explosive.

Now before I dive into the results. I just want to show you the blog post in question. So I’m just going to exit out of here and scroll through this so you can see just the extent of the post. See, it’s very extensive, very substantial. I know that can seem intimidating to replicate something like this. But don’t worry I will show you how you can as well. So, it’s a whole lot!

So yes, let’s get back into the results. And I will be referencing this post throughout the presentation. So don’t worry, you will see it again. So the results. I got hundreds of subscribers and the first couple of days of being published, because this post, it was shared in the official click funnels group. And of course my subscribers continue to increase from there. I got personal invites to paid Facebook communities for free. Many of these community members ended up being paying clients or even join my email list and are still loyal followers to this day. I also booked my first 10 K funnel strategy and copywriting project from this blog post and of course every single, every single copywriting project landed in 2018 and beyond came from this blog post. That’s, with the exception of referrals.

I eventually developed a minimalist marketing methodology, based on this blog post and now I teach that to my coaching clients and lastly, I have a whopping two blog posts on my blog and continue to reap the financial reward from this minimalist marketing, method two years later. So now I publish at a rate of one blog post per year. So we’re two for one this year, so stay tuned for that. And none of this was by accident, it was all by design. Which brings me to my intention for you to be and that is I want you to understand exactly what goes into a high converting blog post, especially as it’s not traditionally known as a sales tool. And I also want you to come away with some immediately implementable strategies so you can put this client getting technique to work for your business right away. And if you can understand the overarching principles, the mechanics of getting words on the page is quite simple.

So here’s what we’re covering today. How a conversion blog post fits into a larger sales context. So where in your sales funnel does it fit? And how does it support and work with the other moving pieces of your funnel? Secondly, we’ll cover free conversion blogging principles critical to writing a high selling blog post and finally give you some makeover tips for executing this conversion blogging technique with dramatic results.

So let’s get started. How a conversion to a post fits into the big picture. What I found is marketers often obsess over getting as many people through their funnel as possible, but usually neglect the most critical piece which is how someone comes through that funnel in the first place. And that how, it lines in the most important sale that you’ll ever make. And that is the pre sell.

So what is the pre sell? It is the difference between the person who closes 20 to 30% of sales calls and the personal closes 70% of the sales calls. It is the difference between the person who has to convince to convert, and someone who just effortlessly converts, no convincing, no jumping through hoops necessary. And it’s also the difference between a potential clients taking weeks and months before they’re sold. And that same client confidently choosing you in a matter of days or even less.

Now pre selling is not to be confused with selling your product before you create it. That’s the thing, same terminology, but different concept. The pre selling we’re talking about here is about priming your targeting your clients for purchase long before you ask for the sale, so it’s about getting that logical and emotional commitment from prospects before you ask for anything.

So some of the quick benefits of pre selling. You condense the sales cycle, so it takes way less time for prospects to move through the different stages of awareness until they’re most aware, which is when the sale happens. You increase the conversion power of the other pieces in your funnel. You can also eliminate some of these other pieces altogether. So, for example, nowadays, I’m transitioning out of doing the sales call. So instead of just doing that sales call, I send prospects to my pre sell piece and I convert them via direct messaging, so no sales calls necessary. And that’s even with a higher ticket offer. And finally, you vaccinate yourself against future skepticism and resistance and you do that at the front end of your funnel. So, as close to that first touch point as possible.

So just to be abundantly clear, your conversion blog post is your pre sell piece of your funnel and it is just as critical, if not more than any other piece. So your landing page, your sales page, or webinar, whatever you use, this is just as important as that.

So, let us move into the conversion blogging principles, which is the crux of this whole thing. The first one, The selling power of your blog post is dependent on proof and specifically one type of proof. Proof gives you the credibility and believability factor. So you can have, without believability no sale happens, you can have the most persuasive messaging, the most enticing offer if people don’t believe in your ability to back that up, the sale is dead. That’s just the end of it.

So just a quick pop quiz. What do you think is the most persuasive form of proof? I mentioned that this technique is dependent on one specific type of proof. So which do you think it is? Is A, case studies testimonials B, C demonstration or D expert endorsements? What do you think? Let me know in the chat.

Joanna Wiebe: Lots of As, largely As, a couple Bs a few Cs now As Cs and it’s just a mix, but not any Ds. I’ve seen. Oh, there you go, forget what I said there’s a D. Mostly As, and now I think there’s a slight group thing going, or like, well, they said that that I’m going to. So let’s see the answer.

Nelliane: Got you, so it’s a range. The answer is actually C demonstration. The thing is seeing is believing. So if your prospects can see your process, your methodology, your solution and action. Then they can see themselves with it. Having attained their desired result. So remember a sale always happens in the imagination first. If they can’t see it in their imagination, then it’s unlikely that it will be a reality.

So how do you set your blog posts up to be the ultimate demonstration? It is all in your blog post topic, and I’m not necessarily talking about having a persuasive headline that is important. But in terms of the topic, it’s about the intent behind it. So what intention, do you have for the reader? At the beginning of this presentation I stated my intention for you so you should always be thinking around the same lines, what intention to you have for your reader?

So for example, the title of my blog post that got me all these client leads was simply Sam Oven’s funnel, under the hood of a $20 million plus webinar funnel. Now this is not even grammatically correct in the beginning, here, so it’s not even that much important. There’s nothing deliberately persuasive about it or crafty. It’s just the intent behind it is so powerful it sets me up to demonstrate my expertise and skill and funnel strategy and copywriting and that is the most important thing, demonstration.

So let’s quickly look at some of the topics that would work and what wouldn’t work. So a very detailed case study would work and under the hood or behind the scenes type post, so much like my funnel to add on that would work well. How to or a tutorial so much like these Tutorial Tuesday’s. That’s an excellent example. So, myth busting combined with thought leadership. So a listicles hybrid so you can combine a listicle with a how to or even thought leadership. So, for example, 12 observations from 12 years of being the hidden voice behind the who’s who of marketing. That’s a great example of a listicle combined with thought leadership. A review hybrid. So a review, combined with either a tutorial or behind the scenes. So, for example, how I use a Kajabi to run a seven figure information product business that is a great example.

So what wouldn’t work? There are topics that wouldn’t work as well. Rants. So this is the this is different from thought leadership. Rants are mostly based on completing thought leadership, you’re providing solutions. Expert roundups. This is an amazing post I love reading them, but they wouldn’t work here because it doesn’t say anything about your own individual expertise. Interviews wouldn’t work as well. So listicles is not set up for the demonstration factors. So if you don’t approach the listicle from the right angle, it won’t work. Same thing with reviews. If you don’t approach it from the right angle. If you’re just doing a review of the features of a product and comparing it to others, that would not work. And finally, myth both myth busting alone. So when you bust the myth, you leave a gap and unless you filling that gap with your own thought leadership, then it really, there’s no selling power in that. And the last one is anything entertainment based so that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t entertain or use humor, you absolutely should. But it means you need to combine that with something more substantial. So these are the topics that would or wouldn’t work. Just a general rule of thumb, you should be asking yourself does this topic allow me to demonstrate my skill, my expertise, my knowledge in a way that captivates the imagination of the reader? So can they imagine themselves with your solution.

And I hope you can see that, based on my examples, almost anything can work, providing you have the right angle, but at the same time, almost anything will not work if you have the wrong angle. So it’s all about the angle, which is what we’re talking about next.

The next conversion blogging, principle number two is frame it for big picture profit. So the framing effect is a cognitive bias, where people choose their actions, depending on how the options are presented. So let’s let’s play a little game here I will present you with two options, and I want you to tell me which one you think is the most persuasive.

So as a child, my mom would tell me eat your food, there are people dying of hunger. But my dad would tell me. And she would say this every single day because I was such a troublesome eater. But my dad would say eat your food, you can’t have dessert otherwise. Right? If you don’t eat your food, you won’t get dessert. So which one do you think is the most persuasive frame? A or B? Type your answers in the chat.

Joanna Wiebe: Yes, there hasn’t been an A, yet it’s all B

Nelliane: Yep, you’re absolutely right. So you probably have had the same experience right? So it’s B because A really did not fit the context of my worldview and that is so important. I never seen people so hungry, that they would starve to death. Right, there was an abundance of food around me. So every time she said that to me, I was just utterly confused. But when my dad would tell me that I wouldn’t get dessert. He knew what was up. He knew what would convince me so that’s that’s had the most effect on me.

So the next one. Which one do you think is most persuasive? A second example. A make more sales with your funnel, B stop your funnel from leaking profit. And just a hint, my funnel tear down it utilizes one of these frames, so A or B? What do you think? Let me know in the chat.

Joanna Wiebe: We do have a couple A’s now, but still largely leaning B.

Nelliane: Largely naming B? Awesome, so it is actually B and there are a few reasons this frame works, but the most critical one is it’s tailored to my target audience.I wanted to do funnel work for entrepreneurs who are already making sales they are already successful so they are in the frame of mind of optimization. So, leaving money on the table was the greatest fear. So it was not necessarily making more sales because they already made quite a bit of sales. It was just, how could they tweak it for bigger profit?

So if I had a different audience. For example, if I had a beginner entrepreneur frame A might have been the most persuasive right because they were not yet in the frame of mind of optimization, more so just how can I even make this work for me?

And final. Final one, which is the most persuasive? A, the price goes up by $5 after the early enrolment date, which is the end of the week, and B, get a $500 discount if you enrol by the end of the week. Which do you think?

Joanna Wiebe: People are going really fast now. Ooh, but it is torn. Ah, I would say it’s looking like it’s 50/50 B versus A.

Nelliane: Yeah, this one was actually the most difficult. So it’s actually A. A is set up to be a massive loss if they don’t take action, and B is set up to look like a gain if they take action by a specific date. So the intent is the same, but the, the result is different. So giving someone a discount to incentivize quick action is such a common, even overused practice, that people are very wary and savvy to it. So when you set it up as a loss. The intent is the same, but the resulting response is much higher. Right, the fear of loss if you’re a copywriter, you know this, fear of loss way more significant than the promise of gain.

So just some quick rules for framing. First one, the psyche of your target audience is the most critical consideration. So usually there are general rules for framing, but you should always go back to your, your target audience. What do they think and believe and know in that current moment? The second one, A loss is more significant or persuasive than the equivalent gain. And finally, go for a content or the frame that discredits of the concepts, ideas methodologies, solutions. So anything that positions yourself against the current way of thinking, that is fantastic.

Alright, so let’s move into the third and final conversion blogging principle which is persuasive message hierarchy. So the organization of you and architecture of your blog post is super important. So the timing of the message is just as critical to sales as the contents of that message. Now there are two ways that you can build out your message hierarchy. The first one is tutorial based. So it’s demonstration style. So you simply follow in the natural flow of how you implement your work or your expertise in real time. So my final tip on post, This is the other organization that I chose. So I just want to read us through exactly how I would conduct a funnel strategy and copywriting project, and follow the natural flow of that. So there’s not really much superior thinking involved in this one, you just doing as you would do in real time. And the second way to organize your ideas is through a carefully crafted sales argument. And if you’re a copywriter, this is not new to you, you know this. And of course, this one requires a little bit more thought, a little bit more research and strategy than the previous technique. And what is the sales argument? It is simply a way to meet prospects, where they are and take them by hand, step by step in a very logical way where you want, where you want them to go. And that is straight to the sale, right? And an emphasis on step by step and logical, you do not want to have any crazy jumps or baseless assumptions in your sales argument, because it hurts your believability and remember no sale happens with that believability and credibility factor.

So how do you start to organize your high converting seals argument? Three questions you should ask yourself. First one, what is the current stage of awareness? What do they know, feel and already believe? Second one, what do they need to believe in order to say yes? And final one, which is very, very critical, are there any beliefs that need to be reframed or dismantled? So your best sales argument, it lies in these three questions. So just an example to illustrate this.

Even, and now, even if you use the tutorial style organization that I spoke about first, you still need to have some elements of the sales argument in, please. So with my funnel tear down, some of the things that I needed prospects to believe were the current funnel, no matter the track record. So no matter whether it had generated zero sales or thousands of sales. It had infinite earning potential, provided they plug the leaks and notice how that ties back into my frame of fix your leaky funnel.

Second thing I needed them to believe was to distance themselves from this idea of funnel hacking. So I made sure to drive the point home that the pieces of the funnel that really few other sales, like the offer, like storytelling like experience, that cannot be hacked. And I also needed them to believe that the mechanics of the funnel almost irrelevant. Right? This is one of the ideas that I had to describe it, because many people believe that if we just have the right landing page, the right design, right webinar structure, right funnel flow, that is it, they’ve hit the jackpot. And that is simply not true. So these are just a few ideas of the beliefs that I had to solidify and my blog post.

So now I want to move to the final section of this, which is to give you some tips for implementing the strategy with dramatic results and I’m going to try to blow through this. I’m not sure what my time is here, but

Joanna Wiebe: You’re at the end, yeah. If you can blow through it, that’d be amazing.

Nelliane: Awesome. So I’ll just blow through this as quickly as possible, so we can get out of here in time. So the first tip is to be careful of the skyscraper technique. And that is a popular blog post technique where you research your topic and combine the best ideas into an ultimate guide type of post. But the thing is you not writing an ultimate guide type of post there. This is not purely informational, educational, it is a sales piece. So, it is essential that you showcase your own ideas, methodologies, processes, ways of thinking. So you can’t get someone sold on you if there is no you in that equation.

The second one is to hijack the conversations that are already being had about your chosen topic. So there are some topics we’ve built in interest be primed for niche by reality. So for example, when I researched sales funnels and went to the click funnels group and people couldn’t stop talking about Sam Ovens and his magic of funnel. They were speculating, guessing, gushing over it, and I thought that if I could contribute something substantial to this conversation, it would be a hit. And I was right.

So I want you to do the same thing. So this means that you have permission to stock and profit. So go to Facebook groups that relate to your industry and check out Instagram comments, check out Reddit friends. The thing about the online space is there are so many community-like atmospheres but there are no gates. There are no walls, you can just easily eavesdrop on those. So why not take that opportunity to find out what your people are thinking

The third one is to read your post in your imagination first. So I know that the biggest hesitation of blog content is how much time and energy that it takes to write. And so I know that the task of writing is daunting, long form is daunting, but I want you to decide on a topic first and just start engaging that topic in your head. Don’t write a word just engage all of the ideas that you have. What do you want to say to the reader? This is actually what I did with the tear down and even if it’s over 5000 words, it took me only a few hours to write. So less than a work day because number one, even if I was starting from a blank page. I was not starting from blank up here in my mind where the ideas come from, right. So start engaging those ideas in your head. And secondly, this is a great way to test the stickiness of your idea. So if you engage an idea for weeks and you sit down to write and it doesn’t demand your attention. It doesn’t demand space on the page, then it’s not an idea with enough pool, right? You may want to leave it out.

Fourth tip, do some strategic outreach. So if you choose a topic that has built in interest and viral retention, you only have the, you only have to plant a few seeds for that thing to take off and in a domino effect, get a ton of attention. So with the final tear down I reached out via email to about 10 contacts and that is how my post started making the rounds so usually this kind of cold outreach it, it is a numbers game. So you have to send a lot of emails, but not in this case, you only need 10 to 15 of the right contacts.

Joanna Wiebe: And. Oh, I was gonna say you should leave it as an open loop, but go for it. We’ve just got one minute left.

Nelliane: Oh, wow. And the final tip is don’t lose sight of the hidden ROI, and that is simply the results that may not be tangible, or measurable, or immediate, right? And just to demonstrate this with a quick example, last year I took a very long break from emailing my list. So it was over six months, don’t do that is a very bad idea to neglect to people, but I did it. And when I sent my first email after this long hiatus, I got a few responses from people saying, Hey, I remember you you’re the sales funnel girl, right? Welcome back. I’ve been a fan of you ever since you wrote that blog post. And I was so fascinated by that because I had done nothing to solidify myself as the sales funnel girl other than write the single blog post. So that would be an example of the hidden invisible ROI and it’s just as important as anything measurable like sales.

So that concludes our presentation. If you your next steps here if you want the slides. You can just enter your email at nellianestclair.com/tt-slides.

Joanna Wiebe: And then they can find you on Instagram also, @nellianestclair.

Nelliane: So if you have any questions about this to shoot me a direct message. And if you want to read the blog post in question, you can just go to, you know, hnellieanestclair.com/sam-ovens-funnel/

Joanna Wiebe: Awesome. That’s amazing. Nellieane, this was so jam packed with awesomeness. Thank you so much.

Nelliane: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Joanna Wiebe: Thank you. Take care. Bye.