Going viral isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be EP-041

Modern Marketers with Blake Beus and Greg Marshall

Blake Beus 0:00 So we were talking about going viral. And we we've talked about how going viral is not the solution, not the solution, right? Like, like, a lot of people want to, they want to go viral, viral and everything you want to have that content that just takes off. But I think the words you used were going viral is not what you think it is. Yeah. Or something along those lines, right. So like, why why do you say that? Well, I

Greg Marshall 0:26 think, well, it's, what I do want to say is, I don't think it's not valuable. But it's not what you think like, going viral is not actually going to get you all of the sales that you think you're going to do. But there is a way to use it. Right? So most people have the idea that, well, if I can get this video or this post or picture, whatnot, seen a couple million times, then that alone will generate more sales. And I just haven't seen that to be the case in many instances. But there are ways to capitalize on that. So I know you said you had someone that recently had a post go viral.

Blake Beus 1:07 Yeah, so I have an office at. They call it a creative studio, that it's an old parking garage, they've converted into a bunch of different studios for artists and things and I kind of got in super early on they weren't entirely sure if it what what if it was going to be for artists or something else, or kind of working spaces. And so I'm, I'm the soul, not like artists sculpt or whatever, I just have my corner office and I just work out of it. But I like being around the creative energy. And I oftentimes talk with him about marketing and things and they have questions about all of that stuff. And we'll one girl she does. She she does these amazing. One one of these artists in name's Sarah Austin. Anyway, I'll mention her because you should go like check out her stamp. But she had, she does these amazing wood colored pencil drawings. And she had a real that went nuts. And she had four or 5 million views. And I think when she had that post go viral. I think she only had a few 1000 followers. Yeah. Right. So that was a big deal. Yeah, she's super excited about it. Got a ton more followers, I think her follower count went up by almost 20 grand. Yeah, like that. Super cool, like very exciting. And I was talking with some of the other artists there. And you know about that, because they all want to go viral and everything. And, and it turns out, she didn't really, she got a lot of followers got a lot of kind of traction and things. But none of that really converted over into sales. Yep. Right. And so none of it turned into selling of her art or anything along those lines. And so we were just kind of chatting about that. And I mentioned this to you. And that's where we kind of came up with this, you know, idea. Now, now she's putting into play some, some sort of a sales process, putting together some offers that she thinks might resonate a little bit more with the Instagram crowd maybe be a little bit more of an impulse purchase. And kind of exploring that a little bit. So it hasn't been a bad thing. But it's also like you go viral is super exciting and cool and everything, but it doesn't, it doesn't always translate over

Greg Marshall 3:25 into sales. Well, it's actually a good lesson, too, for if someone goes viral, they themselves can actually see that just being seen more, doesn't complete the actual sales cycle. Right, right. And so here's here's basically what Blake was talking about. She's coming up with offers and things like that is now what you can do is retarget. So anyone who watched that video, right or engage, you can retarget them with an ad with a direct offer. That's that basically sells something related to what that video was. Because one of the things that happens, posts that go viral on social media are never sales oriented. That's like the opposite of what the platforms actually want. And so if you go viral, it's not going to be something where you say hey, by the way, I have something for sale, right? That will almost never if it might even be possible say that will never happen.

Blake Beus 4:19 It almost will guarantee that if you have that in there, you won't go viral.

Greg Marshall 4:23 And so with that being said, if you go viral, the way to take advantage of this is to basically create retargeting ads that gives a direct offer and retargeting ads are something you pay for on these platforms, but they're very, they're very useful because that's how you can take advantage of all of that free reach that you got, right? But if you don't do that, and you only try to go viral. There's pretty much the reason why you don't get sales because there's no sales language in it right of saying you have something to offer them,

Blake Beus 4:54 right. And I like what you're saying is it doesn't really complete the circuit. It's it's part of the puzzle and If you just kind of take a big step back and look at just marketing in general, the the broadest form of marketing you need to do is get in front of people that are interested in your product service, whatever you're offering, and get them to become aware of who you are, who your business is, and everything. And you can do that in a lot of different ways. And going viral is just one of those ways. But getting people aware of who you are, doesn't complete the rest of that customer journey. Exactly. And it doesn't mean that all of those people are ready to purchase or even interested to purchase, even though they're in that, in that industry. It's just like, you know, if you're a used car salesman, you have this lot with all of these great cars on there. But no one knows who you are, no one even knows that the lot is there, you're not going to make any sale. Correct. So you've got to start putting some signs up and some other things to say, hey, we exist, and we're over here. But that, too, isn't gonna guarantee any sales either. Because once someone walks into the parking lot, you have to complete the sales cycle Exactly. And so you have to have in place some of these other things. And I don't know, I think a lot, a lot of times people think, Well, I have some products and things for sale on my website. So once they get there, they they will

Greg Marshall 6:21 die. That's absolutely false. And it never works that way. And you have to really sell it. And you know, we've talked about this before, I've worked with influencers that had hundreds of 1000s of followers and can't generate any sales. And it's not zero, like literally 00. And it's not that they're bad people or even their audiences are unqualified, it's that they're not using the right messaging and language to get someone to actually purchase and there's a skill behind that it's not, hey, you know, I have this for sale, buy it, it's you have to really persuade and influence the audience to even want to buy and a lot of that has to do with transfer of energy and emotion and excitement. And that's kind of the the side factor to how to make this all work. Because I've noticed that people that are building followings online, they they're very good at building community. And they're very good at the awareness, building awareness, right, but you have awareness, nurture, close, that's actually how you monetize whatever it is you're doing. But if you just only focus on the awareness part, and you're not nurturing, and then you're not closing, you're not going to be able to see the revenue and sales that you're working so hard to get. And that kind of that that basically takes away the mystery of like, well, we've got all these followers, but people aren't buying from me. And why? Why is that? Well, because you're missing a key piece of you actually have to influence them.

Blake Beus 7:55 Yeah, and because I'm a huge nerd, one of my favorite things I do on them on social media. So I, if I ever see a real or a tick tock or whatever, that just has millions and millions of views or whatever, I will oftentimes just go to their profile, and see what their sales process is like. And you can tell very quickly, those people that are making money off of their viral, you know, strategy. Yeah. And those people that have are making no money. Yep. And it's almost always this, right. The people that are making money are those that actually have a sales process in place with a direct next step. It could that next step could be a small kind of impulse type purchase, or join my email list, or some sort of next step, because social media is very non committal. I'm just swiping through things. So you need to get a little mini commitment. And then they have that next step. And then I will sign up for the newsletters, and see what their process is. And they increasingly give me the next step, next step, next step to try to get into purchase. And those that make really good money will have their own brand surrounding. You know, there's one person that has her own hair product line, and it's like her product line. That didn't happen overnight. That was an intentional thing that took her probably five years plus of her social media journey to create that. But now it's I'm guessing it's an extremely profitable channel for her because it's easy. It's like an easy transition that

Greg Marshall 9:32 flow and social media is the perfect awareness tool. Right? So you drive awareness and then when you talk about nurturing, that's giving them a small commitment, like you said, joining an email list, a newsletter, maybe watching a webinar or maybe consuming some other content, but usually the nurturing of free call. Yeah, and usually that the nurture sequence, goes from social media and then tries to move them off of social media, that's typically how you kind of nurture them. That's how you can also pre qualify who is really interested. So it's like, you're taking an offer and saying, you know, hey, here's this piece of paper, go check out our, you know, restaurant down the street, you know that the person handing those out, you can get a lot of those out there for awareness, but only a certain percentage will actually walk inside the doors to your restaurant. That's nurturing right? Now they're actually taking a look to see what do you have to offer the closes then to go ahead and actually buy something? Right, right. So we've got all these different food products that you can try? Would you like to buy one? And that's essentially how that works. Look at social media is just the perfect awareness tool to be able to get yourself out there and to build relationships with people. Yeah,

Blake Beus 10:50 yeah, absolutely. I think about this a lot. I think a good kind of comparison is Costco, meal free sample, right? Like, it's not a new concept. But as as someone with kids, the number of times we're driving past Costco, I mean, this has been different since COVID, starting to come back. But we would drive past Costco and the kids are like, Can we get some free samples. And then I swear, every time you go in there, it's over here. So that's actually 150 to $300, you know, payment to do something because I always find something that I want. But they get you in the door. Because I'm not driving past Costco and thinking, I need to spend $300 at Costco. No, but I would drive past Costco and think I need that buck 50 Hotdog for my kids, because they're hungry. And it's fast and easy. And it's gets good southern nursery. And so you know, that's a small little decision, I make that decision. And then it's game over. Because they've got me real good with everything in

Greg Marshall 11:48 this new computer. groceries, you walk out 1000 dogs,

Blake Beus 11:54 or this new thing, they always have these things that are only there for a few weeks. But anyway, but it's the same thing with your social media, right? You're getting them in the door. The your social media is essentially the Costco signup. Yep, right? That's what that is the Costco sign, and then that little booklet that they send each month with those deals, that's your social media. Yep. But you got to get them in the door next, and getting them in the door on social media is those join the email list or book a free call, or maybe here's $1.50 hotdog, you can buy something, get them to engage in some way off of social media. Yep. And then take them to the next step.

Greg Marshall 12:31 And I think the big kind of learning lesson you can take from going viral isn't what you think it is, is to put more thought, don't neglect the thought of the nurture and the closing sequence. Most people only focus they put so much focus on just the awareness, and they wonder why they're not getting the results that they want. And that's because there's literally no thought and to the nurture or closing. And if you take if you're someone who's very good at getting a lot of reach, and getting people to engage and, and communicate with you, all you have to do is start to focus on Well, what should I naturally give them next to basically prequalify them to say that they're possibly interested in taking another action, so that once they're there, it's a lot easier to close them. But it's pretty hard. You can't skip the nurture part. Right? Right. The nurture part is, people want to go awareness close, and get eliminate the middle part. And that's, that's a huge mistake. Because people don't make decisions like that they're not getting married off of a first date marriage, right? It's the first day then follow up dates and a bunch of series to kind of develop a relationship. They don't just say, hey, you know, great to meet you. Let's get married tomorrow, right. And that's what everyone's trying to do is they use awareness to close versus awareness, nurture, nurture, nurture, then close. And so unfortunately, the nurture part, you have to do it. Right. Right. And you can't speed up speed up through customers by when they're ready to buy. Yeah. And so you need to be in front of them. So that when they are ready to buy, they choose you. Yeah, right. Same thing with getting married. They don't just get married because you feel like it today. And they're just gonna get married tomorrow. You actually have to like put in the work and you think about what you have to put in the world. Think about this with your wife, right? Or your or your marriage relationship. Imagine if you were just like, I'm only gonna, you know, be aware to you so I can close your eyes, I can get something. Forget about me helping with the kids or cooking or driving anyone around or having a job and paying for things. Forget about all that. I don't want to do that. I just want you to do what I want you to do. And I'll show it what I want you to

Blake Beus 14:48 do. It's never never never gonna absolutely not. So I mean, let's talk about maybe some some specifics. I think a lot of people there's a lot of great information on going viral. out there, and I have a lot of thoughts surrounding that. So if you're the kind of person that has done a ton of research on how to go viral, you know, the best songs or the hash tags or, or how to do these little hacks to make people watch your video over and over and over again, through engaging or whatever, all of those things. Like how can someone shift from that mindset, because that is a very kind of, it's a different mindset, a siloed mindset into the nurture and the clothes mindset, because it's really not a, if you build it, they will come kind of situation that you've got to shift into this other mindset. And if people are like me, I have a hard time shifting from one mindset like that, where I've been singularly focused into this other kind of mindset. Yeah. So

Greg Marshall 15:47 I actually think, though, the way to shift and transition from one mindset to the other, is to actually ask someone who's really good at the nurture or the closing sequence and ask them for tips such as, here's, here's a perfect example, I come from the sales world. So I have a better ability to close and nurture more than the awareness part. Right? And so I actually have to ask people, well, how do you get more awareness? Right, Rudy, what are you doing to generate more of this awareness that you're doing? Because once they get in, I'm able to sell them? Right? When you go into a different mindset, you have to almost think all of these people that come through, you have to start thinking about speaking to them one, one to one mentally, right? That's the shift. The shift is like, Okay, what's their kind of inner ecosystem? Instead of thinking of mass, right? Because that's what awareness is, yeah, it's thinking in mass, how do I get the masses to start doing stuff? Right? Now you have to start thinking one on one. And that mindset is all about, well, if I had Blake come in, after seeing something, how do I need to speak to him? In order for him to want to take the next steps, a lot of it has to do with power questions, asking the right questions, and pretending you're actually speaking to this individual, and saying, like, what are their biggest desires? What are the biggest fears? What are the biggest benefits they want to get? What What would they like to ultimately achieve? And then start speaking this language, right? And so that language is a lot different than speaking to the mass, right? And that's how you shift your mindset into the nurturing clothes as you start to think one to one versus one too many. Right? And that's if you can combine those two. That's where you're going to be able to have a ton of success.

Blake Beus 17:41 Yeah. Yeah, I think I think that's really key is just trying to figure out what they want. So back to this artist. Yep. When I was talking with some of the other artists that were asking me questions, you know, how that would work. If you went viral and everything. My first question was, well, people who follow what, why would they follow that account? What what do they want out of that? And the answer was almost always, well, they'd like to maybe learn a little bit more about the technique, or they or they think the art is, is interesting, and they're trying to learn more. But when you go to their website, they're selling pieces, like physical art pieces, which is great. But there's no learning technique if you buy this physical art piece. So if someone's going to buy an art piece, they're simply buying it either because they like it, or they're big fans of the artist. But those things take a lot of time to kind of build up at scale. And so the first thing I said is I'm like, why don't you pair a physical art piece with something educational, and after talking a little bit I recommended. Let's find something that's really easy to do. I said, just do a quick time lapse of a small because she she made many of them make these smaller pieces that are kind of more approachable. I said, just record a time lapse of you doing one of these pieces in one sitting. So and then if someone buys that art piece, they get the exclusive time lapse video of that. And now Now they own on that video, and they're the only person that they have gets that video. But now they're learning. It accomplishes a few things, they get the piece of art, and it's a small piece of art. So it's not crazy expensive. They get to watch some of the technique and they can just learn by watching the artists themselves. It doesn't have to have their creative process interrupted by trying to explain what they're doing. Because that's, that's a concern. Yep. Because it makes it take a lot longer. And now they have this thing that kind of bridges the gap between what they're trying what the their followers are trying to get out of the social out of hitting the Follow button on their account, and making that sale. Yep. And so they're putting together a couple of those offers to test them out. And, you know, we'll we'll see how that works. But my guess is kind of that's yeah, my guess is too But that's the thought process, you got to think about, you're like, how do we how do we kind of bridge that gap?

Greg Marshall 20:03 You just have to. And I think that's why I read, I do recommend you reach out to people that are kind of opposite minded thinking, right? So nurturing, closing minded thinking, because like, for me, I have quite a few influencers that reach out to me, to help them close the gap. Because they're very good. I mean, I've got a couple of clients that get millions and millions of views every single week, across multiple platforms. But they, they're not super effective on their own, and selling the stuff. And so they have me to come in and actually tell them say these types of things. And that, in fact, we just had one. The other day, we did and just a few days, we sold 50, I want to say $52,000, it's like two, three days worth of product, and we sold out. And we so now I need to get more. And I keep telling him that we need to get more, but because I understand they're very good at driving that awareness. And if they can close the gap to being able to sell, right and nurture and close them better, then that's where they're able to put money in their pocket. Yeah, right. And just think like if we had unlimited products for this, so 50,000 and a few days, we probably could end up selling a couple $100,000 worth in a month. But we've run into this problem multiple times. And so I'm trying to have a talk with it with with inventory with inventory, because that's a whole nother game is when you're trying to scale inventory becomes a problem, when you become very good at the nurturer and closing, because then you have to plan this out, right? Like how do I ship out this many products, and this amount of time. So this is like a big learning curve. This, I think on the surface, people think generated money is like like a want like a single activity, and you generate it, but there's multiple processes in there, right? Awareness, nurture clothes, they got inventory, shipping things out. So this is like an ongoing thing that you have to just

Blake Beus 22:03 Yeah, practically. So I think that demonstrates one of the misconceptions I see a lot when I'm working with people and chatting with people about how this works. And it's a misconception, I think it's very easy to have happen. And because on social media, you have a person, the person is the face of their business, even if it's it's their account under their own name and everything there that face. And so it's very easy to think, well, they're doing all of this pretty much by themselves, and maybe they have their spouse or husband or whatever helping behind the scenes. And it's simply just not true at all they have they they reach out to people like you and me to help bridge those gaps, because everyone has this specialty of their skills. And if if your particular specialty is getting that awareness, your specialty is probably not managing inventory, it's probably not even anywhere in that realm, you might not even know you need to manage, right. And that's fine. Like you, you shouldn't expect yourself to understand all of those pieces. If you're if your specialty is getting that awareness. Closing probably isn't a great specialty of yours, because they're they're still quite different. And so what you what you need to do is bring in some trusted people that could just be like a friend or an accountability partner, if you're a small business, and don't have the cash flow to hire someone or that's a consultant like you and me and that's what you know, we help a lot with or if you're bigger, that's when you start hiring full time or, or something along those lines. But I mean, I have a I have a client that I've worked with, that is really big and kind of the guru and success area. And they have on social media, it seems like it's all just them doing all these things. And it's because that's a simpler message. But behind the scenes say you have about 15 full time employees. Yep. And several contractors that help behind the scenes of that whole process of nurturing people writing the emails, getting on the phone calls to talk them about closing and then and then closing those those deals. But this is a company that does millions and millions and millions every year in sales, and they sell annual memberships and the annual memberships are anywhere from 10 grand a year to 250 grand a year. And and but on social media it looks like he's doing all this stuff myself. Not the case.

Greg Marshall 24:33 Well even I'm happy said that because that was one of my biggest misconceptions early on was you know, you see guys like you know, I think one of the big players has been doing for a long time. Tony Robbins you know, they call the the guru model right, which is you have the individual and then they have this huge team. They've got hundreds of people working for them. But on the surface it seems like Tony Robbins is the one

Blake Beus 24:59 doing it. Ever directing everything,

Greg Marshall 25:00 but he's not even close. And the same with Gary Vee, right? And Gary Vee is one that everybody knows. And he has, you know, he's got a videographer, he's got editors, he's got this huge team of people that are distributing his content. He's got certain networks,

Blake Beus 25:15 even coming up with content ideas. Gary Vee is not the guy coming up with all the ideas.

Greg Marshall 25:20 He's basically just a spokesperson, he really is. And that's what a lot of these businesses, that's what they are, is they, they're an individual, any personal brand that you see, it's not one person doing all of this. It's one person delivering the message, and a lot of people doing all the others.

Blake Beus 25:38 And so if you're out there thinking, you need to do all of this yourself. And you're asking yourself, why can't I ever get all of this done? That's why it's, it's it's a job for like five or 10 people minimum, right? But everybody's got to start somewhere. And so if you're, if you're doing this all by yourself, and you're looking for, okay, I need to bring someone else on, a great place to do is like I said, the accountability partner, find someone else that's doing something similar. If you're good at the awareness, find someone that's good at the closing and say, Hey, can we partner up and I will help you come up with awareness, ideas, and you can help me come up with closing ideas, and we'll meet regularly, and then maybe I'll even do some of your work for you. And you can even do some of my work for me, and do that trade. And then as that starts working, you can start looking into, you know, consultants, again, that's what that's what kind of you and I have have popped into space. And consultants don't have to be crazy expensive, it kind of depends on on the interaction. But sometimes it's like, Hey, I just need someone to meet with me once a month. Yeah, what's your what's your hourly rate for like a once once a month, phone call, that's maybe an hour and a half or two hours long, to help me organize some of these thoughts, whatever. Or it could be a full done for you kind of a thing. There's lots of different ways to kind of make that work.

Greg Marshall 26:54 But it's, trust me, it's worth it. If you're if you're investing in this for the long term, and you want to really grow a business. These are investments you should be making. And I know for my own business, I've made these investments and make them every month. And it's I would never not do it now. Right? Right. It's part of the business. And I know you cannot, you just can't get rid of it's absolutely necessary for growth, and it's very valuable. And people know, like, I have my assistant, she does a ton of stuff for me. And I can't now I can't even imagine trying to do all the stuff she's doing on my own. Like if I just can't even imagine it. So these are things that you have to think and structure. But you know, we started with going viral. It's not everything you need. This is a very valuable point. You need nurturing, you need closing and you need a team to help you. This is not a one a one person smooth, right versus this is you really need to have support and multiple ways. And you have to have strategy. And so really think about your business, simplify it first and go get the awareness, nurture close sequence down for your business, and then start thinking how do I amplify it?

Blake Beus 28:08 All right, there you go. Well, let's wrap this up. Greg, how can people get in touch with you?

Greg Marshall 28:12 You can go to Greg marshall.co book a free strategy session. And what about you know, just

Blake Beus 28:17 blink boost.com/sm3 is the best way to get in touch with me.

Greg Marshall 28:20 Great. Well Until next time, hope you enjoyed this, this nice combo podcast and I will talk to you later. Goodbye.