Episode 100: 10 Biggest Takeaways from 100 Episodes of Perpetual Traffic

Join us as we celebrate 100 episodes! Thanks to everyone who helped get us here, especially the listeners—we couldn’t have done it without you.

To commemorate this milestone, the experts are sharing their favorite episodes they consistently recommend to friends, peers, colleagues, and mentees alike. From how to acquire traffic to closing a sale with video advertising, from how to reach new customers using Facebook Messenger to crafting compelling, high-converting ad creatives, these are the favorite tips, strategies, frameworks, and ideas of the PT crew.

Then, listen as our Editor, Darren Clarke, details what it takes to create a slick, engaging podcast that has generated 1,845,142 downloads in two years. Darren shares how you can make a podcast that listeners continually return to and what a podcast sounds like without an editor.

 

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:

  • What your marketing must include so you can effectively convey why someone should buy from you (« this is true for all marketers, no matter your industry).
  • How to use video advertising to give yourself the best chance of generating a conversion while filtering out traffic that’s not going to buy.
  • How to use Facebook Messenger to connect with your audience, reach new customers, and stand out from the crowd.
  • How to create a polished podcast that listeners continually return to, even if you’re on a budget or not a sound editing wizard.

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Inspirational:
Episode 01: The Future of Paid Traffic
Episode 05: Blog + Paid Traffic = ROI [Case Study: Betty Rocker Part Two]
Episode 14: Frank Kern on Selling High-Dollar Products and Services with Paid Traffic Campaigns
Episode 56: How DollarBeardClub.com Generated 100 Million Video Views in 13 Months

Educational:
Episode 63: How Ezra Firestone Sold 84,583 Jars of Face Cream Using Video Ads
Episode 67: The Proven 3-Step Formula to Transform Your Business with Video Ads [Part 1]
Episode 80: Facebook Messenger Ads: Everything You Need to Know

Actionable Takeaways:
Episode 84: Ryan Deiss: 7 Questions I Ask Myself Before I Finish Writing Ad Copy
Episode 85: 6 Elements of a High Converting Ad Creative
Episode 34: 14 Elements of Persuasive Ad Copy

In observance of Episode 100, we’re sharing a few of our favorite pictures of the Perpetual Traffic experts over the years…

march15

(Left to right) Ralph, Molly, and Keith at the Facebook office in Austin, March 2015.

Keith-Ralph-Molly-T&C-2016

(Left to right) Molly, Ralph, and Keith getting ready for Traffic & Conversion Summit 2016.

Keith-Ralph-Molly-Ryan

(Left to right) Ryan Deiss with Ralph, Molly, and Keith at Dominate Web Media’s Certification Program in Austin, 2017.

Episode 100 Transcript (swipe the PDF version here):

Keith Krance: Hello and welcome to Perpetual Traffic, episode number 100. We made it to the century mark. This is Keith Krance, and a few days ago, Ralph, Molly, and myself were chatting. It’s been such a good time making this podcast, and it’s crazy how many times all three of us refer several different episodes out to friends of ours, students of ours, clients of ours, all different levels, when they’re looking for help. Even if they’ve got access to our coaching programs or have bought one of our courses or all of our courses, we still always refer back to different episodes, depending on what type of problem they’re trying to solve. They’re trying to scale out their campaign, they’re trying to run a video ad, are they just wanting better ROI?
  What we decided to do was all three of us went through all 99 episodes and listed out some of our favorite episodes that we recommend people listen to. The ones that we consider are the most useful for you. And we asked our editor, Darren Clarke, who’s absolutely amazing, and is going to be taking you through today’s episode, we asked him if he wouldn’t mind pulling out some of the best content and the best tips from those episodes. So, that’s what we’re going to do.
  Today we’ve got our favorite tips, strategies, ideas, frameworks that we’ve talked about, or one of our amazing guests has talked about, over the past two years and 99 episodes. So, Darren’s going to really emcee this episode, and announce each episode or tip as they go along. And we also asked him to add something at the end that he thought would be helpful for you as well. And once again we thank you so much for listening to this show. Thank you so much for leaving a review if you have, telling people about it, listening to it. We absolutely love it and we’re super excited for the next hundred.
  So, without further ado, Darren Clarke.
Darren Clarke: Hi there, my name’s Darren Clarke, and I’m the editor for Perpetual Traffic. The team wanted me to do something special to commemorate reaching 100 episodes, so they asked me to play soundbites of the top 10 takeaways from the show. So today is going to be like a booster shot for your marketing skills.
  So, I’ve broken it down into four sections: inspirational, educational, actionable, and then behind the scenes. First, the magic. There are so many things said on the show that are inspirational and life changing, it’s hard to narrow it down, but I wanted to play you four examples of some of the “Aha” moments. Second, to demonstrate the education that the show brings, I’ve picked some of the examples of how the team, the guests, bring amazing knowledge and insight. Third, for actionable and practical takeaways I’ve taken two amazing episodes featuring Ryan Deiss and Molly, and turned them into audio checklists. So, I’ve edited the whole episode down into supercharged soundbites. And then at the end of the show I’m going to take you behind the scenes and show you how to take all this amazing information and turn it into a slick and engaging show.
  All right, well let’s get right into it. First up, on Episode 1, we had Ryan Deiss, the CEO of DigitalMarketer, give an intriguing analogy of how the world of marketing has moved on.
Ryan Deiss: If you decided that tonight you wanted to have rice for dinner, this is probably how it would go down. Right, you’d say “You know what would be good for dinner tonight? Let’s have rice.” Okay, so what’s step one if you want rice? Well, you’ve got to buy a rice field. And then you have to buy … Is rice seed a thing, or is rice the seed? You got to figure that out. I’m sure it’s going to need irrigation. Those things when I see them in pictures are filled with water, people sloshing around, so you got to figure out how to get some water. It’s going to take some time to grow rice, so maybe you should plan on something else for dinner tonight, might want to push that out a smidge. That’s all how we all get rice, right? No!
  If you want rice, what do you do? You go to the store and you buy some freaking rice. Today, if you want traffic, you go to the store and you buy traffic.
Darren Clarke: On the first few episodes the team followed Bree Argetsinger, AKA “The Betty Rocker,” on her adventures in the world of digital marketing. Here’s an example from Episode 5.
Bree Argetsinger: I remember Ralph and I had a really difficult conversation one day, where I was like “Ralph just stop all this helpful stuff and just like help me make money right now. What’s the one thing we can focus on right now to help me make some money right now because I’m actually really strapped.” You guys remember I was really in that sort of roller coaster of I’d be up then I’d be down, and I was trying desperately to pull together a strategy that would solve my frustration of constantly being in that wheel of not ever having security, and having regular income coming in. I know from a lot of my friends in the industry this is a pain point a lot of us have struggled with, trying to find that consistency, right? I remember one day I almost threw the computer across the room I was so frustrated. It’s just like “Why can’t I figure this stuff out?”
Ralph Burns: Wow, it’s so amazing to sit here and reflect back on all the challenges and the frustrations that you had to overcome, and to see you where you’re at right now and all the success that you’re having. So, what did you do to overcome all these challenges?
Bree Argetsinger: Well, I guess that the number one thing was just not giving up. And I don’t have to be good at everything in my business, I just have to hire the right people to help me do what I do best. That’s why I’m so glad to work with you guys. It’s just been awesome.
Darren Clarke: On Episode 14, Frank Kern was the guest. Make sure you go back and listen to this, ‘because he had some amazing things to say about marketing. Let’s take a listen.
Frank Kern: We as marketers, especially anyone who’s listening from the quote-unquote “Internet marketing community,” where most sales are built on the chest-thump factor, you know “Look at me, look how great I am.” With a higher level of client, they’re never buying your past, they are buying what they believe you can do for their future. So, if we accept that as true, if we say “Okay, people aren’t going to give me money ‘because I did something cool a couple years ago. They’re going to give me money because they think I can help get them a cool result.” If we accept that as truth, then we can immediately extrapolate that to the fact that hey, all of our marketing needs to demonstrate that they can have a better future by working with us. And the best way to demonstrate that is to give them a better now.
Darren Clarke: On Episode 56, Keith and Ralph interview Chris Stoikos from the Dollar Beard Club. They talked about how to tap into the creative process and come up with some amazing ideas for making video ads go viral.
Chris Stoikos: All right we all treat our bodies and our brains differently, they’re all capable of outputting different amounts of things. But you have to think of yourself as lines of code, and you never want to become a human algorithm that wakes up and just does the same thing every day. So, if your process is wake up, eat your food, drink your coffee, mix this big-ass soup in your stomach, then all of a sudden, your brain allocates a lot of its RAM to just breaking up the stuff you put inside you. If it’s not healthy it’ll take away your creative juice. So, when you have nothing else in your body, and anyone who’s ever done something to do with fasting or just eating a really healthy diet, doing lots of juicing stuff, you’ll notice that the state of clarity which you reach is absolutely phenomenal. And a line from Jamie Smart’s book Clarity, is that “The natural state of water is to be clear.” If you put your hand in, you stir up the mud at the bottom, only time is going to allow it to go back to standing still. So once that actually happens and the fog has settled, you can really tap into this creative part of your brain.
Darren Clarke: All right, let’s get into section two, education. Episode 63 is entitled “How Ezra Firestone Sold 84,583 Jars of Face Cream Using Video Ads.” In this episode, Ezra shares the secrets of his Facebook video funnel.
Ezra Firestone: Here’s a sneaky trick. A sneaky trick is to run your initial ad set, your video ad or your image ad, on a mobile phone. So only run it on iPhones, right, don’t run desktop, don’t run right side-rail on desktop, don’t run anything. And then all your re-targeting run on iPad and desktop. So, what you’re doing in that case is you’re forcing the user path to be starting on mobile and then ending when they’re most likely to make a purchase on a desktop or an iPad.
  And the reason that’s a good idea is because Facebook came out with a statistic recently that 33% of people who start on a mobile phone convert on a desktop. So, of people who convert, opt-in, purchase, whatever, 33% of them are starting on mobile and finishing on desktop, so people are moving to bigger devices to make purchases. And 67% of people, so two-thirds of people, are starting on one device and finishing on another. So, if you run your top level, your video ad that leads to your offer page, or your image ad that leads to your offer page on mobile, and then you run your re-targeting, that’s leading people who engaged in some way, they watched 50% or more of the video, or they made it to the offer page but didn’t buy, on desktop and iPad you’re giving yourself the best chance of converting, and you’re filtering out traffic that’s less likely to convert.
Keith Krance: Money. Love it.
Ezra Firestone: You take one thing away from this podcast, no matter what sales funnel you have in place, pre-sell page, long-form sales page, whatever you’ve got going, create a video ad that is done fairly well, that you then re-target people based on how much of it they consumed, you know 50%, 75%, 95%. That one strategy alone will be very helpful.
Darren Clarke: In Episode 67, the team discuss a proven formula for creating video ads. Here’s Keith detailing the three steps.
Keith Krance: Number one was the intro. The key to the intro is to get the viewer to see your video and stop and watch your video or click your video, click unmute so they can hear it. That’s the key. So, it’s all about having some kind of pattern interrupt.
  Number two is the middle, the meat of the video. This is where we gave you the EDIE process, right. E-D-I-E, which stands for “Educate, Demonstrate, Inform, or Entertain.” And you do not have to have all four of these in one video. Sometimes it’s just one, and sometimes you might educate and inform.
  And then step three is just a call to action. Having that seamless, authentic call to action is the next obvious step. And if you have a much longer video than you need to have, calls to action earlier in the video that are natural and go along with the message.
Darren Clarke: Episode 80 is a must. Molly is a pioneer with the Facebook Messenger ads. In this episode, she teaches you how to connect with your audience, reach new customers, and stand out in the crowd. Have a listen here, as she explains how it works.
Molly Pittman: So, there are two different types of ads, and I’m going to go through the specifics of both of them. The first is Facebook Messenger ads as a destination. So that’s going to be an ad in your newsfeed that looks just like a regular link ad, but once you click it it’s going to open in a message with that brand or that Facebook page. Whoever is running that ad, once you click on the ad it’s going to open right in Messenger inside of a conversation with that page. So, that’s number one. That’s Facebook Messenger ads as a destination.
  The second type of ad is called sponsored messages. So, this is Facebook Messenger as a placement inside of Facebook, and this is a totally different experience. So, when you’re sending sponsored messages, you’re actually sending messages to people’s Facebook Messenger inbox. It’s an actual message from your brand that’s appearing inside of their inbox like a message from a friend would appear. So again, the first is a destination where you click on the ad and it opens in a blank message with that brand. And the second is actually a sponsored message that appears almost like an email in their inbox, just like they would’ve received a message from someone else.
Darren Clarke: All right let’s get into part three, the actionable takeaways. On Episode 84, Ryan Deiss gave a list of the seven questions he asks himself before finishing any ad copy. This episode is amazing, so make sure you go back and listen to the full episode for all the details. But just as a tool for you, I’ve edited the whole episode into a two-minute soundbite.
Ryan Deiss: I came up with a list of seven questions that I ask myself before I finish any piece of copy, or before I roll out any ad, or even an email.
  Question number one, is “How do we make our offer appear novel, unique and distinctive?” We all want to know what’s the new, what’s the novel, what’s the unique? Question number two, “How can we make our plan seem simple?” What seems simple to us is not simple to our customers. Question number three, “What’s an opening question I can ask that when answered will trigger a desire for consistency that will drive a sale or action?” Question number four, “How do we pre-expose our audience to a concept linked to the desired emotional stimulus?” With number five, we’re asking “What mental links and associations, in other words kind of nostalgia, do we want to tap into and positively associate to our offer?” Question number six, “How can we use open loops, also known as the Zeigarnik effect, to hold attention and leverage through the close?” So how do we use this idea of creating an open loop, or a cliffhanger? Mystery is another way that you can do this. What’s a compelling mystery that you can leverage at the beginning of a message to hold their attention? Question number seven, this is the last and quite possible the creepiest of all-
Molly Pittman: So, the best?
Ryan Deiss: Incidentally, what I just did there was a bit of an open loop. Just so you’re paying attention at home, right. So, this is the last and possibly creepiest of all, “How can we create a visual or mental portal for the prospect to pass through to make them more open to new opportunities?”
Darren Clarke: In Episode 85, Molly has a checklist of six elements that you use to create compelling visuals for your ads. Here’s the list.
Molly Pittman: So, I’m going to run through the six things that I think marketing images should be. You’re not going to be able to include each of these in every image, but if you can include two or three you will be good to go.
  But the first one is something you must always do. Images should the convey the hook or the marketing message. And we’ve been talking about hooks and marketing messages a lot on the podcast recently because if you do not have a good marketing message, if there isn’t a reason that someone should take action, this isn’t going to work. The entire campaign will fail. So, number one you must, must make sure that your creative conveys whatever hook or marketing message you have set for this campaign.
  Number two, they should tell a story. Images that tell a story, especially video ads or Carousel ads on Facebook, it allows the end user to be able to see themselves inside of this story that you’re telling. And surprisingly you can tell a pretty long story in a simple image.
  Number three, display the product. Especially if you’re selling a physical product and you can show it in action, again in a video, Carousel, or image, that’s going to be very effective. Even if you’re asking people to click over to a blog post, or to download some sort of lead magnet, being able to convey and actually show what they’re going to get on the other side it’s very effective. You’re not relying on their imagination to create what this is going to be on the other side. You can actually show them.
  Number four, stand out in the newsfeed, or stand out in whatever arena you’re putting this particular creative in. I’m not saying create a totally irrelevant image that has nothing to do with your marketing message just so you get clicks. If you do that people are going to click but they’re not going to give a crap about whatever page they’re landing on the other side. Yeah, you want to stand out, but don’t be obnoxious, and don’t be what is number five.
  Don’t be off-brand. So even if this is your first ad that you’ve ever created for your company, whether you know it or not, you still have a brand. When you think about your company or your product you’re selling, what colors come into mind? What does your company stand for? What are you guys about? And if you can really set that in stone, which Brittany has done for DigitalMarketer, right, the gears, the green and the reds. A lot of the images and ads that you see from us have a flat cartoon look to them. That is called a brand. And if you can start to establish that it’s only going to help, because as people see more and more ads from you, they’re going to recognize and say “Oh, those are those guys over at DigitalMarketer. I immediately remember them because this ad looks kind of similar to one that I saw two years ago.” It doesn’t mean your creatives all have to look the same, but if you can establish some branding guidelines and colors, and maybe a certain look and feel that you’re going to use as long as it continues to convert and work for you, that will only help.
  And then number six, play off of emotions already associated with a certain visual. So, we used an image of an iPhone battery that was red, it was about to die. And the message that we were trying to get across was “Hey, we’re about to sell out of tickets to this event. This is your last chance.” We were trying to portray scarcity. Well what is an image or an icon in culture already that people already have associated scarcity with? And that would be definitely “Hey, my iPhone is about to die.” So, if you can figure out different icons or images that people already have associated emotions to in the past, you’ve helped to overcome a big barrier. They see the image, they automatically have that emotion associated to it. You don’t even have to explain, it’s already been done.
  If you can include two or three of these in every creative that you make, you will definitely succeed.
Darren Clarke: In Episode 34, Ralph goes through 14 elements of persuasive ad copy. So, to end our takeaways for today, let’s have a listen to what’s at the very top of Ralph’s list.
Ralph Burns: Number one is be authentic, transparent, and have your own brand voice. And I think it was probably my father who said this, he said “Always be yourself because that way you’ll always know how to act.” So, in ad copy it’s the same kind of thing, is that you just have to be consistent with your voice. And especially on Facebook, you can be very informal. We’ve actually noticed that even though the next 13 principles here, or elements, are going to be a little bit more structured, we’ve also noticed that really informal ad copy, that kind of written like you’re writing it to a friend or like you would write in your Facebook newsfeed or on your personal profile, that type of ad copy sometimes it actually trumps the ad copy that’s more quote-unquote “Copy written.” So, the point is, is that if you have a voice for your business, and you obviously do if you’re a solopreneur, or if you’re a small business or small company, you have a particular culture in that company. So be yourself as much as you possibly can. Be authentic, be transparent, and it really transfers well in Facebook.
Darren Clarke: All right. Well there are some of the top takeaways from the last 100 episodes.
  So as promised, I’m going to give you a behind the scenes look at how we actually put the show together. Now for those of you out there who are actually already producing podcasts or audio content, or are thinking about doing it, I’m going to share with you some of the tips we have learned over the last two years. With Perpetual Traffic, what we’re trying to do is create a show that delivers the content in a very slick and engaging way. Our audiences today are used to listening to radio shows that have very high production values, so we want to make sure that we fit right alongside that.
  When recording the show, in an ideal world the team and the guests will be sitting in a recording studio just like I am now. But in the reality of today’s fast-paced business world we need to make sure that the show is fully mobile, where the host can record on the go. The great news is we’re able to achieve these results through post production techniques. The show is actually recorded all over America, in offices, homes, airports, back of taxis. The episode that we recorded with Chris Stoikos from Dollar Beard Club was actually recorded sitting on a beach in San Diego. So, using software like iZotope RX, I’m able to take out the background noise and repair the audio in much the same way as you would repair a picture in Photoshop. Now one of the great things about recording the episodes like this is it allows us to capture the chemistry between the people on the show. It allows for hosts to get into the flow and be spontaneous, and that is very conducive to the creation of something that is engaging.
  In editing the show, the key thing for me is to strip it back to the core message. So, an hour long recorded show, for example, might end up 30-35 minutes once it has been edited. One of the things Ryan always says is “When creating copy, lop off the first couple of paragraphs.” The exact same thing works here when editing audio. Often the most interesting parts happen when the guests are warmed up.
  Another factor that is crucial for creating an engaging show is the audio branding. So, what does that mean? Think of audio branding as an extension of your brand guidelines, by using custom music. You just heard Molly talk about consistency of colors and fonts and so on, with audio branding you’re creating music that feels and sounds like your brand. So, for example we create themes for each of the hosts. Now this is a subtle way of creating familiarity. It makes the audience connect with the hosts. They’ll start to recognize “Oh I’m listening to Molly, or that’s Ralph.” To create themes for each host I’ve taken elements from their personalities to inform the sound. Here’s something taken from Molly’s pallet. She’s the magician.
  Mr. Krance. He knows exactly where he’s going, and he’ll get you there, and he has all the technological know-how. Keith Krance, the pilot.
  And Ralph. He is wise in all things, but he’s also a rock star.
  We also use music as a tool, for example I use this sound to underline a soundbite or a quote. We use it to create flow and help reinforce the message. We use it like punctuation, from beginnings and segues and endings. It really ties everything together. You probably recognize that sound, it’s an organ played through a guitar pedal, and every time you hear it, it echoes back to previous episodes. The goal is that the audience would feel the music and not necessarily hear it. But it would complement the dialogue and set the tone. This really helps to give the show a produced feel.
  Now much of what an editor does may seem subliminal, but it all adds into the creation of something that has energy, flow, and punch. And hopefully, it will ensure that people come back for more.
  I know what you’re thinking, “How could I possible do all this?” But you really want to start making podcasts and audio content to help your marketing. Well, you can start by making some simple steps to elevate your audio to the next level. You can use software like GarageBand that comes with a Mac. There’s some great USB mics that you can buy from companies like ATR. And you can make your content more engaging by using royalty-free music from sites like AudioJungle. But the real key is content that is relevant to your audience, that is edited to really shine.
  Now, if you’re wondering “What would the show sound like without an editor?” Well, let’s take a listen.
Keith Krance: All right. Welcome to perpetual pain in the ass.
Ralph Burns: Velcome, velcome, velcome.
Molly Pittman: Perpetual pains in the ass.
Keith Krance: Put that in the episode somewhere.
Molly Pittman: That’s pretty great.
Keith Krance: We are super excited to … Sorry. Darren can you keep that one in?
  The suggested … Another tongue twister.
Ralph Burns: Oh no.
Keith Krance: All right so, today today we are going to … This is kind of going to be … This is going to be pretty much … This is going to be kind of like a two part … This is going to be kind of like part two of what we did back on episode eight, when we had a two-part series on really how to find … uh, that doesn’t really make sense.
Molly Pittman: Sorry, I’m like slap happy right now.
Ralph Burns: I know, me too.
Molly Pittman: Scratch that, Darren.

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