If you’re a marketer or entrepreneur and your business isn’t growing as fast as it should, I’m willing to bet that the REAL REASON you’re stuck isn’t what you think it is.
…but are any of these factors the REAL REASON you’re stuck?
I don’t think so.
In fact, I believe…
The REAL REASON your sales have stalled…
The REAL REASON your new product hasn’t launched…
The REAL REASON you just flat out aren’t making as much MONEY as you should be making usually comes down to one thing…
Here’s the deal: Most “winning” marketing campaigns stop working at scale.
If you’ve ever advertised on Facebook, Instagram, or Google, tell me if this sounds familiar…
You launch a brand-new campaign with a fairly small test budget.
After a day or two, it’s clear you have a winner! Volume is small, but the campaign is profitable, so you ratchet up the budget.
As your spend increases, so do sales. Immediate ROI dips a bit, but you’re still in the black, so you pour on a little more budget. Ok, so if you’re anything like me, you pour on A LOT more budget. After all, we have a winner…
“It’s time to scale!!!”
Next thing you know, you’re telling Facebook and Google… 🙂
But then, something happens…
Conversions drop…sales dry up…and your winning campaign becomes a big, fat loser. You do your best to optimize the ad copy and targeting, but nothing seems to work.
Even more frustrating, when you drop your spend back down to the original test budget levels, the campaign is still a flop.
“What happened?” you ask yourself…
“Why do profitable campaigns suddenly become unprofitable the moment you try to scale them?”
Most marketers won’t admit it, but THIS is the question we’re all DESPERATELY trying to answer.
And the good news is, I’m about to do just that…
It turns out, the secret to “profitable scale” has almost nothing to do with your skills as a media-buyer. Yes, there are things you need to know and basic rules you need to follow, but at this point, clicks in Facebook, Instagram, and Google cost what they cost, and there’s little you can do to change that.
So, if the secret to profitable scale isn’t in the ad-buying, then what is it?
The liberating truth you must understand is this…
I’ll say that again, because it’s important…
“There’s no such thing as a traffic problem.”
Today, it’s easier than ever to get traffic to your website.
Buying traffic is a lot like buying a book.
If you want a book, you go to book store (a.k.a. Amazon) and you order the book.
Similarly, if you want traffic, all you have to do is go to the “traffic store,” (a.k.a. Google and Facebook) and order up some traffic.
You may not fully believe what I’m about to say, but trust me…
…traffic is the easy part.
The more challenging piece of the puzzle (and the secret of “profitable scale”) is what happens to your visitor AFTER they hit your page.
To put it another way…
I realize this is all a bit cryptic, so please allow me to explain…
The chart, above, describes the four market-types that exist at all times and in all industries and verticals. They are:
Can I be blunt with you?
The fact is, it’s fairly easy, to build a marketing campaign that converts to your “Ideal Market.” These are the people who want what you’re selling, and (more importantly), they already know, like, and trust you. This is equivalent to sending a promotion to your own customer list…
…it just doesn’t take a world-class marketing genius to pull that off.
Similarly, building funnels and campaigns that capture your “Available Market” is also fairly easy, because these are the people who are actively looking for a solution that you provide.
Sure, you’ll need to do a little work to convince them that your solution is the best, but the”heavy lifting” of demand-creation is done, because they’re quite literally SEEKING a solution that you provide.
But here’s the problem…
Both of these groups, the Idea Market and the Available Market, are relatively small.
In other words, while these campaigns might generate high conversions a solid ROIs, they…
…do…
…not…
…scale.
Nearly all the funnels I see that work at first but then fail at scale have the exact same problem…
…they’re all targeting the wrong audience-type.
They’re either targeting the Ideal market, or they’re targeting the Available Market, but almost no one is actively creating campaigns and funnels designed to convert the ADDRESSABLE MARKET, which in any niche is at least 10X the size of both the Ideal and Available Markets, combined!
So, if you want to grow your sales and profits, your mission is simple…
You need to build a funnel that can profitably scale to cold media, and to do that, you need to build evergreen campaigns that can attract and convert not just your Ideal Market, but the MUCH LARGER Addressable Market and the EVEN LARGER, Scalable Market.
And to do that, you’re going to need a “Napkin Funnel”…
Yep, that’s a picture of me, and yep…
…that’s a framed napkin.
I’ll tell you the story of why I keep a 14-year-old napkin framed in my office in just a minute, but first, there are a few things you need to know about me…
I launched my first business and processed my first online sale in 1999. I was optimizing for the search engines before most people even knew what “SEO” stood for, and I started testing pay-per-click and social ads when clicks were measured in pennies…not dollars.
I’ve grown businesses in good times (the first dot-com boom and the bull run of the 2010s), and I’ve grown businesses in challenging times (post-9/11, The “Great Recession” of 2008, and the crazy times we’re living in right now)…
…and through it all, one lesson has remained true:
The ability to convert total strangers into customers AT A PROFIT is the single most valuable skill anyone can have.
Unfortunately, for me, I had to learn this lesson the hard way…
I want to tell you a story I don’t tell very often, because it’s a story I’m not particularly proud of.
The date was November 18, 2006, and I was sitting…alone…at a hotel bar in Dallas, TX, drinking too much, and feeling very, very sorry for myself.
The company I started a few years earlier was failing, and with a brand-new mortgage, a brand-new baby, and $248,000 in credit card debt, I was on the brink of personal and financial ruin.
How did it happen?
How did a growing and profitable business descend into a death spiral so quickly?
One word: Google.
Prior to 2006, virtually all my traffic came from the Google search engine. I was good at SEO, and I worked hard to get my websites into the top spots for hundreds of high-value keywords. Traffic was free, sales were steady, and business was very, very good.
But one day, Google changed the rules.
A new algorithm update was announced, and literally overnight, my sites vanished from the top spots for all but a handful of my most-profitable keywords.
Traffic went to zero and sales dried up instantly.
I panicked.
Knowing there was little I could do to get my rankings back, I shifted all my focus from organic traffic to paid traffic.
It was more expensive (obviously), but it was also more predictable. And at the time it was literally my only option.
And, again, I was desperate…I had to make it work.
It took nearly a year, but after a lot of trial and error, I finally cracked the code on how to generate buyers from scratch…from cold traffic…at a profit.
The only problem was…
Don’t laugh…
Back in 2006, if you could fog a mirror, you could get a line of credit.
I had two.
Between my lines of credit and normal credit cards, I somehow managed to rack up nearly a quarter million dollars in debt.
Yes, I had “cracked the code,” but at what cost?
And to top it off, my business was more complex than ever.
A handful of sites had ballooned into hundreds, and a single, simple conversion funnel had multiplied into literally dozens of hyper-complicated funnel variations.
Clearly, a year of “trial and error” had taken its toll.
So there I sat…drinking away my sorrows, and wondering what I was going to do, next.
Here were my options:
It felt like an impossible choice with no right answers.
But in my moment of peak-desperation, I looked up and saw something I had seen 100 times before, but never truly noticed…
…it was a stack of cocktail napkins.
Like many entrepreneurs, I had heard the stories of breakthrough ideas and billion-dollar businesses conceived on the back of a napkin.
…all born on the back of a napkin.
But what’s so special about napkin?
Why have they inspired so many breakthrough ideas?
Sure, napkins are readily available, and it probably doesn’t hurt that they’re often found in close proximity to alcohol (a well-known “creative elixir”).
But I think it’s something else.
I believe napkins inspire innovation, because…
Think about it: There simply isn’t room for complexity on a napkin.
The medium is small…just a 5×5 inch square. And the paper is thin…it tears easily. So, between its size and fragility, it is quite literally impossible to over-complicate a napkin.
So, even in my half-inebriated state, I knew what I needed to do.
I vividly remember saying to myself…
“If I can write a marketing plan on one of these napkins that will dig me out of the hole I’m in before I finish this drink, then I’ll go to bed and commit to working my ‘napkin plan,’ tomorrow…
…if not, I’ll order another drink, and commit to shutting down my business and looking for other ways to make money, tomorrow.”
I was at a turning point.
It was scary, but exhilarating.
I didn’t know what would happen, but I knew that tomorrow would be very different from today.
Without asking permission, I reached out, grabbed a napkin off the top of the stack, borrowed a pen from the bartender, and started writing…
And what I wrote that evening while sitting alone…at a bar…in Dallas,TX…literally changed my life.
Today that napkin sits in a frame in my office. Time and the sun have faded the ink, but the lines are still visible if you look closely.
Every now and then, someone will notice it and ask, “What’s with the framed napkin?”
“Oh, that?” I respond…
I know, I know…the name is a little corny…even hypey…
…but fact is, that little napkin (and the funnel I drew on it) was directly responsible for a million dollars in sales that next year.
That napkin saved my business from certain failure, and, most importantly, that napkin saved my family from financial ruin.
And while I didn’t realize it at the time, the “napkin funnel” (as it came to be known) unlocked the secret to profitable scale, and believe it or not…
…we’re still running a variation of that original funnel to this very day.
Now, I want you to have your own “napkin funnel”…
To be clear, this is NOT a course.
This is a live, interactive challenge where we will work together for 7 days to build a “Napkin Funnel” for your business.
Here’s how it’ll to work…
The challenge kicks off on Wednesday, September 23rd.
Each day, you’ll be invited to a live training where I’ll teach the core lesson, answer your questions, and give you a simple action item to complete prior to the next lesson.
You’ll also be added to a member’s only community where you can get all your questions answered in real-time and interact with your fellow “Napkin Challengers.”
The first two days we’ll focus on strategy (which is super-important, as I’m sure you can imagine), and days three through five we’ll actually design, test, and document your “Million Dollar Napkin.”
There are 5 lessons over 7 days (we built-in two “Catch-Up and Q&A Days,” so you don’t have to worry about falling behind). Also, each session is available for a limited time replay, so if you can’t make a session, you’ll still have time to catch up.
At the end of this challenge, you’ll have a simple, actionable marketing funnel that will get you brand new buyers from scratch, plus a 90-day guide for executing and optimizing your plan.
In short…
By this time next week, you’ll have your own “Million Dollar Napkin”…suitable for framing 🙂
So there you have it.
The secret to solving all your scale challenges could be just a napkin away.
I hope you’ll join us.
Ryan Deiss
Founder & CEO | DigitalMarketer
(and amateur napkin artist)
5 Days Of Daily Live Interactive Training Via Facebook Live: 60 minutes of daily live training from Ryan Deiss as well as a few surprise special guest trainers. ($295 Value)
The Napkin Challenge Private Facebook Group: Join a community of likeminded marketers as we work together to build campaigns that will scale to cold traffic and even share our
“napkins” as we go for feedback and advice. ($100 Value)
You Very Own “Million Dollar” Napkin: By the end of this challenge you will have successfully created your own funnel that will scale to cold traffic, so simply it will fit on your very own napkin! (Priceless)
Each day during the challenge we will stream LIVE into the Facebook group. All you have to do is head over to the group at the time of the call and we’ll be there streaming live (don’t worry, we’ll send you reminders too)
During these 60-90 minute calls, Ryan will go in-depth on the exact strategy he used to plan and build his “million dollar napkin” while helping you create your own too!
Engage with Ryan, the DigitalMarketer team, as well as fellow challengers inside the private Facebook group as we help each other plan our “napkins” and get valuable feedback to optimize your strategy.
And if you fall behind one day, don’t worry! All calls are recorded and available for a limited time right inside the Facebook group.
By the end of the challenge, you will have all the support and training you need to leave with your own “million dollar napkin” PLUS we’ll give you a 90-day guide for executing and optimizing your plan!
Ryan Deiss is an entrepreneur, author, and investor, and according to Shark Tank star, Daymond John, “His companies practically own the internet.”
Ryan’s entrepreneurial endeavors began while he was a college student, launching his first very first website and generating his very first sale from his freshman dorm room. By the time he graduated, this one online property had ballooned into 500, and a hobby had grown into a business.
Fast forward to the present day, Ryan is the Founder and CEO of The Scalable Company (Scalable.co), DigitalMarketer, Recess.io, and a Founding Partner at Scalable Equity, LLC, a venture equity accelerator that builds and acquires B2B media and software brands.
Ryan is the creator of the “Customer Value Optimization” methodology, and has introduced and popularized many of the digital selling strategies that modern companies now take for granted.
His company, DigitalMarketer, is the leading provider of digital marketing training and certifications. Its community has over 15,000 paid members, and over a half a million subscribers. Ryan is also the founder and host of the Traffic & Conversion Summit, the largest digital marketing conversion conference in North America.
Ryan is also a best-selling author and a sought-after speaker who has shared the stage with top business leaders and celebrities like Sir Richard Branson, William Shatner, Gary Vaynerchuk, Rachel Hollis, Tim Ferris, Daymond John, and Dave Ramsey.
Most importantly, Ryan is a proud father of four, and husband to Emily, to whom he gives all the credit for everything he has ever done.