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Belcher with another What’s Working Now Interview. On the line

is a friend of mine, Chris Pizzo. I’ll let Chris talk about his

business a little more.

Quickly, I’ll tell you what I know about Chris. Chris is one of the

more interesting people I’ve ever been associated with in this

business. He is not afraid of anyone or anything. A lot of that

comes from his background which I’m sure he will go into.

He has a really cool business. It is safe to say it is in the selfdefense

market, but it has become more than that. Now it has a

lot to do with the nutritional aspect and things like that. Isn’t that

correct, Chris?

that is making a lot of money. He has one of the most prevalent

ads I’ve ever seen on the Internet before. He is all over the

place and, hopefully, we’ll get a chance to talk about that.

noticed it was saying that you have ads with multiple pages in

some of the self-defense magazines.

these calls with, he is someone who is out there doing it; he is

not somebody who is out there teaching it. We will get a chance

to dive into his business and find out what is working in his

business right now.

Before we get into that, give us a better explanation than I just

did about who you are, a bit about your background, and what

the heck it is that you do.

Captain Chris, World Leader in Self-Defense. Prior to that I was

better known as Lieutenant X, Scourge of the Martial Arts

Universe, and Most Hated Martial Arts Artist on the Planet.

We are the world leader in self-defense, close combat

companies; we’re a leader in self-defense training materials,

both in hand-to-hand combat and nutritional and military-related

nutrition and fitness products.

About five years ago, I was a public school teacher after my

military service was cut short with an illness. I decided I did not

like to be poor, so I used my spare time to put everything

together I had learned in the military and martial arts.

I put on the black mask and made what may possibly be

considered the worst self-defense videos ever made on the

planet. They were awful.

with the black mask people could hardly hear me. I used my

buddy who had no martial arts experience whatsoever. I thought

it would be cool if I showed a complete beginner and three

hours later he was totally capable, right?

That was my first time on video for anything and it was a

complete disaster. I sold about $2 million worth of those videos.

remote and I would just press Play and this guy and I just got in

front of the camera with the masks and beat the crap out of

each other. That was pretty funny.

I actually started getting requests from private military

contractors and companies. This was after 9/11 and people

were going over to Iraq. They were saying, “This guy knows

what he’s talking about. His videos are crazy, but we like him.”

After that I started making better videos as Lieutenant X. The

reason I was Lieutenant X at first is that I thought I was going to

be a high school administrator. I never thought this was going to

take off and I didn’t want videos of me teaching people how to

kill someone with their bare hands to be seen by parents. They

would ask, “Why is this guy teaching our kids?”

Anyway, that went rather well and I kept trying to expand and

push that business. I learned a lot about Internet marketing. We

all talk about the good old days when it cost $9 to get a

customer and stuff like that. It was a bit of the Wild West on the

Internet and even in the magazines.

I decided I wanted a real business, so I hired people. We always

joke about how if there is anybody who is not meant to manage

a business, it’s me. I drove that business completely into the

ground even with the sales.

A few years ago in 2007 we rebranded as Close Combat

Company and Captain Chris. I took on a savvy businessman as

my partner to manage operations and whatever else and we

completely rocketed past anybody that was doing anything

close to what we do in the martial arts and self-defense industry.

We bridged off again from the “how to kick someone’s butt”

video business into health, fitness, nutrition, and other lateral

markets like that.

Captain Chris, World Leader in Self-Defense. Chris is very

smart in that he has no problem dubbing himself and that’s

brilliant. However, some people think, “This guy is some cocky

dude.”

I’ve been in a mastermind group with Chris and have had the

opportunity to talk with him one on one. He is legit; he’s the real

deal. What year did you drive that business into the ground?

Was it 2007?

management.

However, he was able to take a business, be successful with it,

drive it into the ground, and then start over again basically from

scratch. At the time point he had a reputation that was arguably

tainted in his industry and he was able to turn that around in

about a year. He has become the number one biggest force in a

very competitive market with a lot of really, really sharp

marketers, names that the people listening to this would know.

All this is a testament to that fact that this guy is just a stud. With

that by way of an introduction, Chris, what is working now in

your business? Let’s dive right in.

is working right now.

beats up people for a living, right?

ears. I’m probably one of the few people that still touts the

benefits of banner ads. This is a subject I love to talk about.

Jump in and talk about what is working and what you’re doing in

banners and all that good stuff.

something and don’t repeat that mistake, the better you’re going

to be at it.

The biggest “aha” that I figured out with banners—and Ryan,

you actually helped a little with this from our mastermind

meetings as I saw what you were doing—is that banner ads are

just the online version of print and magazine ads which I am

pretty good at.

If you become good at banners, you’ll be good at print ads; if

you’re good at print ads, you should be good at banners. It is

basically the same, exact business.

It breaks down to four markets to target when you are going

after banners. The first is a direct, exact message to market

match. This would be people in your niche or the people looking

at or reading about exactly what you are selling.

In my case with martial arts, if they are on

martial arts and interested in learning more. Boom! My banner is

there, they click on it, and they buy.

There is a trade off, though. These are the best customers and

they’re very approachable, easy to get, and cost-effective, but

the problem is there are not a whole lot of them. No matter

which niche market it is, the more drilled down to message

match you get, the less traffic there is going to be.

I would say the second most powerful one is by psychographics.

This is what people are watching, what they’re reading, and

what they think about. That is a pretty hefty topic. I don’t know

how deeply you want to get into that.

“psychographics” and then lose everybody. The first one is

obvious, right? You’re selling self-defense, so you put banners

on self-defense sites. That’s the low hanging curve; it is easy to

get over that.

As you mentioned, the most obvious traffic is going to be the

most competitive, probably the most expensive, and there is

going to be less of it.

What you said there was good about the psychographic

element. Definitely talk about it and give us some examples.

information marketing or selling business is that it is all counterintuitive.

The people you think will be your customers are never

going to be your customers. It always ends up being the craziest

thing.

When I first started selling self-defense videos I thought my

typical customers were going to be guys around my age at the

time, 28, or guys that like watching ultimate fighting and

whatever else. However, the reality is that isn’t the case.

There are plenty of other self-defense businesses out there that

sell to those guys successfully, but for some reason they did not

relate to my sales copy, my product, or my offer. It wound up

that my entire customer base is 65-year-old men. These are

right-wing, gun-toting, freedom-fighting raving (I wouldn’t say)

nut cases, but you know what I mean.

It is very important that I figured that out. It took me a long time

to figure that out through surveys and whatever else. I finally

figured out who my customers really were when I got 10,000

customers and paid Nielsen Claritas to run a cluster report on

them. That gave me exactly everything.

are way too in depth to get near, but do you have a link where

people could go to get more information?

popular TV shows. They literally monitor what people are

reading, what they’re watching, and what they’re buying. This is

a very big company and they have a program called Claritas.

You can look up Nielsen Claritas online and I’m sure you will

find it.

If you have at least 10,000 customers with mailing addresses

and so forth, they will cluster them together based on

demographics group which we can also discuss.

Also, they cluster them on psychographics. Based on this guy’s

income, geographic location, age group, and buying habits, here

is exactly what he is watching, what he is doing, what he is

listening to, and so forth.

Obviously, this is powerful information because now you can go

out as far as banners are concerned and know where these

guys are going online, what magazines these guys are reading,

and what TV shows they are watching. My banners, my TV

commercials, my print ads, and even my direct mail campaigns

all slam right into these guys multi-media wise and drive them to

my sites.

the right-wing, uber-focused, gun-toting people. Perry, can you

give us a voice of this type of person?

being the weekend warrior guys who are like this.

keywords. With Google AdWords they have conditioned us to

think in contextual advertising, right? If you are using Google

and you have an offer related to self-defense, they will only want

to put you on self-defense sites.

What you realized and what banner ads allow you to do—which

is why I love banner ads—is to see, “Hey, this guy is reading a

column written by Rush Limbaugh,” and you know that if

somebody is reading Rush Limbaugh, there is a better than

average chance that he will also want to learn how to kill

somebody with his bare hands.

somebody.

a psychographical match there that broadened the number of

advertising places. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there are a lot

more sites dedicated to right-wing conservatism than there are

to self-defense.

and product line, so those guys also happen to have money.

It is important to say this. We know that marketers are a little

lazy and when they hear us talking about this they’re going to

say, “Oh! Chris is advertising on Drudge Report. I’m going to put

an ad on there!” Well, this guy is going to lose his shirt, if you

know what I mean.

All these sites that Ryan, Perry, and I have been talking about

are not cheap. Drudge Report is the top conservative news site

in the entire world. It’s not cheap to be on there.

who your customer is. That’s an important thing. Like anything

else in life, it takes a little leg work to be able to leverage

something.

low hanging fruit; we have the psychographics. What else are

you looking for when you are thinking about doing banner ads?

almost with fire; it’s just that you better have a lot of money or

be really, really good because the next section is demographics

which is who you are.

This includes how much you make, where you live, if you are a

boy or a girl, or whatever else. It has nothing to do with

psychographics. This is where cheap, easy, widespread ads are

available with everything from the Yahoo Network to whatever is

out there. They will just put it on by demographics.

It works if you have the first two things nailed down. A lot of

people start in this business by doing Pay Per Click and stuff

like that. That is the way I did it. That helps you with one aspect

and then you roll that into the psychographics. You then roll the

psychographics into the demographics.

The last one, of course, is just mass marketing. These are

things anybody and everybody could possibly be interested in,

things like lowering your mortgage or free money or whiter teeth

or clearer skin.

This is like the holy grail of selling, when you have something

that crosses that market. This is, obviously, very difficult to find

and I certainly don’t have that type of product; it is very niched.

However, we are constantly testing and tweaking to get as close

to level four as possible. The only way to do that is by starting at

the beginning again with the targeted, moving to

psychographics, playing around with the demographics, and

finally moving to mass market.

some of the people who want to do this on a lower budget. We

use Google Trends. It is not always perfectly accurate, but it is

fairly accurate at predicting where people are looking for certain

things.

If you know what your keywords are from your psychographics

targeting, you can go to Google Trends and find out where your

customers are, not only in the U.S. but, surprisingly, also around

the world.

rest of the world. We have a tremendous international customer

following, not only in the U.K. and Australia, but in Italy and

Finland. It’s almost weird. I’m too lazy to go get it translated, so

they are all from English banners. The placement of banners is

the key. It’s a pretty good resource.

well. He has an e-book business that does $3 and $4 million a

year. They are doing half their business now from Germany.

He had that book translated into German and half of his

business is from Germany. The traffic is dirt cheap and

everything about it is less expensive to operate.

That’s a different subject, but for people who don’t have the

resources to hire a large company to do some of their

demographics, Google Trends will at least show you some

really interesting things you wouldn’t have thought of.

I’m in the hotdog cart business, but most of my customers I

found through Google Trends, crossed it with my customer

base, and almost all of them are from Florida, New York, and

California; it is probably more than 70% of them.

The money I am spending on advertising everywhere else has a

limited affect.

utilize to do just that.

You figured out who your people are and where you need to

advertise. What, then, is your next step? Let’s talk a little bit

about negotiating and how you buy.

I think the biggest mistake a lot of people make, when I’m

talking about this, is to go out there to big banner ad networks

like Yahoo and say, “I want to advertise here.” Obviously, that

doesn’t work. Run us through your process.

these guys are used to exactly what you just said, Ryan. people

come on saying, “I have a $5,000 budget. Let’s try to do this and

I’m not going to track my results.” You know what I mean. When

they run out of money, they just go away and these guys have

to go out and find new people.

What’s cool for guys like us is that reps actually like working

with direct response marketers. It’s like a continuity program. If

they can provide us with something that works, they know we’re

going to be there forever.

like, “It depends on the ROI. If I have a positive ROI it is infinite.”

works or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t work, you get out, you regroup,

and you try something again.

Of course, once you find something that works you can always

go back. It depends on economic conditions. Two months ago I

completely renegotiated all our ad budgets and saved us a ton

of money because of the economic climate. It’s really not that

complicated.

If you are testing and tracking properly as everybody should, it

is kind of like Perry said, expand it until you hit the wall. When it

hits the wall, you step back a little bit and let it run. As long as

you keep your eye on the wall it should work rather well.

sometimes. We had something almost like a super cookie

programmed to go past the initial 30 days. We used everything

from HyperTracker to 1ShoppingCart and their tracking tools to

Hexa Track.

As I said, we now have that super cookie as part of a custom

programmed solution our programming crew made for us. I

don’t know if you guys have found anything perfect either.

of the questions I ask I know the answer to and it is for the

benefit of those listening. This time I asked for my own benefit.

We tried OpenX. I don’t know if you are familiar with that. The

problem is that these tracking tools aren’t that great, so you just

have to go with one and go with what you get. Anything is going

to be better than nothing.

Are they on the same computer? Did they clear their cache?

We find that a lot of people click on our banners and go to my

site; they to go my squeeze page and log in. Then they leave

and search for me on Google, hit one of our Pay Per Click ads,

and come back to the same page they were before.

Now it registered as a Pay Per Click sale through a branded

campaign as opposed to being from the banner. It completely

messes up the metrics and that’s one of the things, too.

Whoever can come up with perfect, congruent, end to end

tracking is destined to make some serious dollars because

we’re all looking for it.

“I’m not going to do it if nothing is available.” Obviously, at some

point good enough has to be good enough. You’ve grown a very

big company using the tools that are available.

We just do it through Analytics which is free. It is not perfect by

any stretch of the imagination, but it is free. You mentioned a

couple of others. Would you mind giving us those resources

again?

favorite ones. It is so simple.

tracking tools at all?

Once you get to the point of different CRMs and shopping carts,

it definitely gets complicated.

I use Google Analytics the most, too. Even that super cookie we

were talking about that was programmed for us, after a 90 day

period it almost has to kind of guesstimate what the conversion

ratio is after that.

If most people are looking to shorten the sales cycle in the first

30 days, which is important for banners, Google Analytics works

flawlessly and that’s a good thing.

that is hugely important.

To finish up the conversation on banners, you talked about how

you find them and you talked a bit about negotiation. Talk about

creatives and what you found works for your banner creatives

themselves.

banner has to go one way or the other and it is the same for

print advertising, too. I can look exactly like the rest of the

content on the page it is in. If it is running next to an article, then

your banner or print ad should look like an article or an editorial.

The other option is to go completely the other way. In the middle

of an article you put some flaming, screaming, neon yellow thing

that still attracts the people you are looking for.

What is important to state regarding the whole banner

conversation is that once you get past that level one, exact

market to message match, you are not interrupting the pattern

of these people. Whether they are reading something, looking at

something, quickly browsing on the Internet, or flipping through

a magazine, whatever they are doing you are now interrupting.

You have to get them to stop and engage or else it is a waste of

money and time and effort.

that works for you and you have a creative that works for you; it

is just tooling along. What about the life of that ad to the media?

Do you change the creative a lot? Do you usually leave it alone

for a long period of time? Do you just wait and see how long it

works?

aggressive. Drudge Report is a good example. Drudge Report is

pushing the bounds of my customer’s psychographic right into

demographic. It is big, but it is kind of famous. The serious

conservative, 65-year-old guys don’t read the Drudge Report;

they read in other places. Drudge Report is crossing over from

level two psychographics to level three demographics.

When I went on there, it was the number one clicked ad. This

was a huge site. However, it peters off and that is what you are

talking about.

Did I try other creative? No, I didn’t because even after the big

initial surge of traffic I was still getting the clicks I needed.

audio and the listeners can’t see it, but it is just awesome.

squeeze page and when you log in, my headline on that first

page is something like, “Warning: If you have any ethical, moral,

or religious reasons against hurting, maiming, or even killing

someone who attacks you, your family, your kids, or your wife,

then don’t read this.” The same thing is on our banner.

Like I said before, it is a headline that mimics the editorial

design of a lot of the sites that I am on. Obviously, I change it

depending on the site, but after ten seconds it flashes to a

three-frame animated gif of me punching some guy in the face.

Then it goes back to the text-based editorial ad. It is pretty

funny. Yes, we have been kicked off of quite a few sites.

“killing, maiming, moral,” all of that combines as a battery cable

to the ear lobes.

business that Perry coined. What is it, Perry? It’s a what in a

punchbowl?

you’ll notice it right away; it gets your attention.

talked about this because it is a medium that is underused by

too many marketers. Everybody is so dependent on Google and

it’s a shame.

Some of our best, highest converting, and, in a lot of cases,

cheapest traffic comes from banner ads. The key is to blend in

seamlessly or stick out like a turd in a punchbowl. Is that fair

enough?

arts market or even anybody who is competing against big

dudes in the industry.

Obviously, Pay Per Click advertising is one of our platforms

along with print media and we drive up the cost to enter the

market in Pay Per Click every single day to drive everybody on

the bottom out. I know a lot of other guys are doing this, too.

If somebody is new to the market and they don’t think they can

compete in Pay Per Click, it’s like you said, Ryan, banners are

great. If you find a good place in a tight niche or a tight

psychographic match, keep your mouth shut and go cash your

checks.

earlier that I definitely want to talk about and that was

shortening the sales cycle. First, talk about what that means and

then how you tweaked your marketing and your front end

customer acquisition to do that.

haven’t seen anything until they get to the martial arts industry.

There are only literally three ways to make money in the entire

martial arts industry.

First, you can go get your head beat in with ultimate fighting or

something like that. Today’s ultimate fighting champion is

tomorrow’s garbage man. Do you know what I mean? It is not a

very good career.

You can open a school which is actually a really good business,

if you are willing to do that. The third option is to make videos.

Obviously, the most leveragable of the three is to make videos.

Even if you have a school or you are an ultimate fighter, you can

still make videos. It is really the only way to make serious,

serious money in the martial arts industry.

Like you said in this call, there are a lot of good marketers. What

is good for me is that they are all bad businessmen. That’s a

good thing.

was able to outsell my horrible business management skills.

Just like anything else in life, sooner or later, that topples it over.

That is definitely a topic for another time.

What was the point of me saying this? We were talking about a

sales cycle, right?

Shortening the sales cycle is getting as much money from

somebody as fast as possible. When I was talking about the

competitive nature of the market I am in, we realized very

quickly is garbage in, garbage out.

You can attract the low-brow customers looking for crap, no

matter what it is; they may be looking for free stuff or whatever.

Well, guess what? You’re going to have all sorts of problems.

You will have retention problems, problems with selling,

systems problems, and it is just a disaster.

We made a conscious decision— because we have our

tentacles out all over the place in other markets also—to sell

what is probably the most expensive package in the industry

right out the door.

It is a relationship game. By that I mean that people sometimes

buy our stuff two years after they sign up with the autoresponder

or with the e-mail list. It is a very long system.

Getting back to our tracking conversation, that’s all well and

good. If Drudge Report gives me a lead today that converts 24

months down the road, there is no accurate kind of tracking

metric to do that.

could get you a ten to one return on that investment. However,

it’s going to take three years.” For a dollar you may say, “Okay,

cool.”

However, when you’re buying advertising and somebody says,

“Look, to play here it’s going to cost $10,000, $20,000, $60,000,

$40,000, or $50,000, and the return on that investment down

the road is going to be great,” from a cash flow perspective you

are going to be broke before you ever get around to making that

money.

business. The more you move towards mass market, the more

you can churn and burn. However, many people are working in

almost a finite universe and waiting 24 months for that kind of

conversion is going to absolutely crush your business.

From a cash flow point, sure, you could keep on going, but how

many more times can you place that advertising if you’re waiting

so long for that dollar to come in?

Getting back to the point of shortening the sales cycle, closing

that sale in the way you want or need as soon as possible and

extracting as much money as you can at the point of purchase

or within the next 30 days is of vital importance when playing in

the banner game.

Once you exit that exact message to market match arena, it can

be challenging and a little dangerous if you’re not doing what

you’re supposed to do.

going which is painful to cash flow and can hurt a business, how

did you fix it?

for us with Pay Per Click is not what necessarily works for every

banner. It works for some, but not for most of them.

We have to go back and find out optimum selling strategy.

Honestly, that is everything. The marketing game is finding that

optimum selling strategy.

For every different kind of media—whether it is niche media,

industry publications, online with Pay Per Click, or banner ads to

an expanded psycho or demographic audience—there is

probably no chance that what works for one is going to work for

the other as well.

Like I said, right now for Drudge Report, while it was initially a

huge hit for us, it eventually petered off and we had to pull out

and are back to the drawing board trying to find the optimum

selling strategy just for people from that site.

a little more about what you mean and give us an example of an

optimum selling strategy.

even on. We’re willing to go $100 to sell a $100 item because

our back end system is so fantastic.

With banners we are not willing to go below a 1.5/1 ratio. If

we’re not making money on that banner, we’re losing money.

Again, this is talking about shortening that sales cycle. Based on

that 1.5/1 ratio, I have an ad budget for banners and I have to

make it work.

My Pay Per Click model of selling that $100 item is not working.

I have to go back to the drawing board. Are they going to buy a

$29 item? Are they going to take advantage of a free offer?

There is something cool here. If you know who your customers

are, you also know if they have money or not. For me, Pay Per

Click generates the worst customers on earth.

They are the worst because these are guys looking up martial

arts and self-defense and they are already skeptics. They took

Tae Kwon Do when they were five and they think they’re Ninjas

and stuff. They get on the discussion boards and whine and

complain and they are the worst customers ever. The only

reason we deal with them is due to the 80/20 rule; 20% of them

are really nice guys and become avid fans of what we do.

There is one good thing I know about banner ads. If they are

reading the Drudge Report—based not only on my

psychographic report that we have but also based on our

Drudge Report demographics reports that they give out to

potential advertisers—we know these guys have money.

Presenting them with a free offer today is much more likely to

pay off tomorrow than giving a free offer to the dregs of society

coming in through Pay Per Click, right?

We can bend reality to manipulate the numbers to work in our

favor.

strategy. A lot of times people will say, “Okay, here’s now this

whole marketing things works. I want to drive traffic to my

squeeze page. Then I want to send that squeeze page traffic

here. Then I want to try to sell them this.”

The key to an optimum selling strategy is looking out there and

figuring out how in some cases it is going to work and in some

cases it isn’t. What you realize when you get into this business

is that the way you go about selling to your customers is going

to depend more on the media they are coming from than just

about anything else.

In a lot of our niche businesses, instead of sending Pay Per

Click traffic directly to a sales letter, we were far better off

sending them to a squeeze page and then to a sales letter.

On the other hand, with banner ads in the Forex market, rather

than sending people to a squeeze page for information and

things like that, we have to send them straight to a Webinar

sign-up form where we sell them. Just like you said, we need to

get the money from them faster. Sending them to a squeeze

page and all these other things takes longer and delays the

buying cycle.

qualified. They have the money; you don’t have to convince

them to save up for it.

your Web site right now. Where do you see this working really

well as in the differences between Pay Per Click and other

mediums. We don’t want to get into the specifics of your

business, so share as much as you are willing and able to

share. Obviously, we have some competitors on the line.

What do you see right now that is working really well from a

front end customer acquisition standpoint?

media they come from. The way we sell guys from print media is

completely different from the way we sell guys from Pay Per

Click which is completely different from the way we sell guys

from Drudge Report which is completely different from the way

we sell somebody on one of the banners on the Yahoo Network.

Do you know what I mean?

There is no simple answer here. It is work.

Web ads from the same media providers. You were talking

about that earlier about buying ads on

Belt Magazine or you have in the past, right?

how you sell differently to people in magazines versus the

people on the Web site. Could you tell us about the differences

between the two and which leads you found to be the most

valuable? I assume that the print leads are more valuable, but I

don’t know that. What are the nuances between the two?

are when we order a direct response list and mail that list. By

the way, we don’t send them a sales letter. We send them

postcards and sales letters that direct them back to the Web

site.

using direct mail to drive traffic where you are selling them

online.

tracking. It is all driving people back to a Web site.

mail is just what you said. You either send someone a sales

letter with an order form in there or you two-step and send

somebody a postcard, they request information, you send them

the information with a sales letter.

You’re not doing any of that. You’re sending them a postcard or

a large direct mail piece to drive them online where you are

doing the bulk of the selling. That is very cool.

Magazine are actually just as valuable as the people that visit

When we were running our infomercial, first of all, it only works

in certain cities at certain times in certain places. Once we

isolated those cities, it was the same thing.

When we isolated those cities and we played those

infomercials, any other advertising we did just added to the

effectiveness of the infomercial. This is why tracking is such a

pain in the neck.

We ran banner ads on local news sites where that infomercial

was running; we sent out direct mail pieces; we advertised in

local magazines. That marketing synergy of just being

everywhere in their face, as long as one media works we can

kind of manipulate reality. We can beat them over the brow until

they buy or they don’t.

Click, what are you sending people to? What’s working right

now with Pay Per Click? Are you sending them to squeeze

pages?

testing, testing, and testing to see what works best for us. What

works best for us is not necessarily going to work best for you or

for everybody else.

in someone else’s business. That’s a good point to start with. If

you have somebody who started Pay Per Click, I can tell you

right now we’re sending our Pay Per Click traffic to squeeze

pages and Chris is doing it, too.

you have the best chance of selling somebody if you can forge a

relationship with that person. The only way to do that is to keep

in constant contact with them.

people in exchange for their opt-in?

I’ve tried everything to get them to give me their e-mail and

whatever else and the best thing that has worked for me is

curiosity.

On Pay Per Click, they are already looking for it. They are

already looking for the answer, so if they have clicked on my ad

I know they are at least interested in it. All I have to do is get

that e-mail out.

you’re looking for some stuff. I have it inside, so log in and I’ll

give it to you.”

sales letter.

think I just say, “Hey, I’ll see you on the other side.” I’m taking it

for granted that they’re going to log in. I’ve had that same walk

on video now since November 2007 and nothing I can do videowise

beats that kind of conversion rate on that thing.

It is pure curiosity. Again, it is counter-intuitive. I don’t

understand how it works so well.

squeeze page or they go straight to a full contact information

squeeze page. We put them on our monthly physical newsletter

for free and eventually they buy something.

My newest thing is that I am going to try to send some of the

AnnCoulter.com has never worked for us. I get clicks but no

conversions.

month, so I am going to try to direct that right to Amazon or

maybe article to Amazon to sell the book. In essence, the article

is just a long sales letter they’re paying for. It’s an entertaining

sales letter, but it is still a sales letter.

The thought process behind that is simply that it is cheap, these

guys are interested in this because they clicked in the first

place, and based on the demographics that AnnCoulter.com

has provided I know these guys have money.

considered.

You know what? You skipped over something earlier that

piqued my curiosity. You said you were cool with breaking even

on PPC, but you wanted a 1.5 minimum equation on banner

advertising. Why is that?

to be too cut and dry there because it works, especially if you

are selling something for $2,000 and you can recoup it.

However, going negative is a losing proposition. You need to be

making money on that initial purchase, even if it’s one cent.

Every single day lead acquisition gets more and more

expensive. Testing takes more and more time and as more

technology comes out, guys like all of us start pulling away from

the pack and doing crazy stuff.

For banners, the reason for that 1.5 as opposed to a break even

is simply because I know these guys have money. If I can’t get

the money out of them, then I have to change my strategy.

and not on the other. What’s the difference? I guess because

you can make more mistakes with banners and lose money?

spending for that customer. With banner ads you don’t. Like I

said, that synergy thing just doesn’t go. They have money, so

the match should work out.

It’s not an arbitrary number, but it kind of is, speaking of that 1.5.

I couldn’t get two. I couldn’t get a two to one return all the time,

but with the metrics on the 90 days we have pretty accurate

tracking on, the 1.5 makes us money. It’s not set in stone, I

guess.

unrealistic and I don’t want people thinking that.

The other disclaimer we need to make is that this is the number

that makes sense for his market and his stuff. In your market it

may be a little different.

The big takeaway there is something I am so glad to hear you

validate with me and something I’ve been saying for years.

Banner ad traffic is actually targeted banner ad traffic. You’re

not going out there and buying banner ads on networks from

who knows where. Banner ad traffic, when you hand select

sites, is a higher quality traffic than Pay Per Click; it just is. You

should expect a bigger, faster return on your investment.

something—even though you can kind of do demographic stuff

on there—and they go all over the place, they’re going to lose

their shirt.

That’s right, Ryan. With every one of these sites I have to hand

pick, negotiate, and get it done, but once I have one then it’s

worth it.

like you said, when you get one of those things negotiated, you

might have to pull out for a month or two and let it die down, but

once you have those going they are incredibly predictable and

incredibly repeatable.

You said something else a minute ago. You keep dropping

these little bombs, but it is huge, huge stuff. You mentioned that

you are sending your banner ad traffic first to an article. You

said that in mastermind and it blew my mind.

It is a fairly legit article, not like a disguised sales letter. You are

sending them to an article and the article sends them over to the

sales letter. Is that right?

only 10% less on just through traffic. Do you know what I mean?

Somebody going from our banner ad to our site would be 100%.

With the opt-in rate it was only a 10% drop off in the traffic, but

there was a 20% increase in the opt-in rate.

It is preframing, I think. Like I said before, you are interrupting

their day with your turd in the punchbowl ad, right? Now you

have to almost preframe them.

Sometimes I put that article on a landing page that looks exactly

like the site they were just on. If they go from

violate their trade rights.

negotiate that stuff sometimes. You can’t say, “This is a site of

BlackBeltMag.com,” but you can put, “Recommended by

BlackBeltMag.com,” or, “As seen on…,” and stuff like that. You

obviously have to get permission before you do that stuff.

That article I gave out to mastermind which is on one of my

branded sites works, too.

subscribers to take away. Chris, you know Jesse Cannone

because he is also in our mastermind group. We interviewed

him and I was fascinated then that he was actually improving his

conversion rates by adding a step to his process.

He was sending people from Pay Per Click ad to squeeze page

to sales letter and then he went Pay Per Click ad to blog post to

squeeze page to sales letter.

You’re doing something similar. You are taking them from

banner ad to article to squeeze page to sales letter. It’s an extra

step in the process and conventional wisdom says if you add a

step you are going to decrease response.

You said you would only lose 10%, so 90% of the people that

click on that article also click to go onto the next page. Because

of that extra step, the extra commitment device, and because of

the better framing they convert considerably better. You actually

make more money by having the extra step.

more of a tip or a helpful thing?

bridge that takes them from what they just clicked on to what

they’re about to see.

If you click on the banner warning “Don’t read this” and so on

and you see me hitting some guy in the face, it looks kind of

crazy so you click on it, right? That is the bridge. It says, “Here’s

what you clicked on. This is the semblance of the context and

now it bridges over.”

This works well for some places. With Pay Per Click like Jesse

is doing, it did not work well for me.

employing that strategy on Facebook.

Facebook didn’t work for you before, but you were probably

sending traffic from Facebook to the squeeze page.

certainly going to drive my spam complaint right through the

roof. I’m going to stay away from that.

media doesn’t work for them, many times it can work but they

have to go out there and try a new selling strategy.

Maybe in the past sending them from that media to a squeeze

page didn’t work. Maybe you need to try sending them straight

to a sales letter or before you even send them to a squeeze

page send them to some kind of bridging content mechanism.

Maybe it is too much of a jump from where they are now to a

straight selling environment and it needs a bridge. Maybe you

need to ease them in and you need a transition.

This is why I like to hear what different people are trying

because I never would have even tested that in a million years.

Let’s say one of the guys in my office said, “Hey, Ryan, why

don’t we try putting an article in front of a squeeze page and

then sending it from the squeeze page…” I didn’t even have a

squeeze page in there. I was sending them straight to a sales

letter.

I would have said, “No way!” I wouldn’t even have tested it.

That’s why I’m glad I get to hang out with people like you who

have the guts to test a lot of this stuff. It blows my mind that this

actually works, but it fits right in with everything else we’ve

talked about.

It is about trying different stuff and your optimum selling strategy

is going to be different from media to media.

direct market to message match, you can get that to work. Then

I throw whatever I have into tests and testing that same

situation. If I can get two conversions, no matter what the cost, I

know there is something there and then I do exactly what you’re

saying.

for those who stuck around until the end here. Say that again.

out for me yet.

Instead of wasting my time trying to figure out initially what

would work, I put my first optimum selling strategy—our stability

platform which happens to be Pay Per Click—and if it worked

for Pay Per Click, I know it’s not going to work ultimately for Ann

Coulter.

I put that on there anyway just to see if the media would work

and the media did give me two conversions. One conversion

can be a fluke, but not two. Now I know that there are people

that will buy. This is besides the click-through ratio which is not

everything; untargeted traffic is just a waste of money.

If I can get two people to convert, then I will spend my time and

effort to formulate a unique optimum selling strategy for that

media.

I know how much AnnCoulter.com costs and I know it does

convert. Now I will spend some time figuring out how to make it

convert better. If there is only one conversion or zero

conversions, I’m not going to bother.

money are you going to risk? Let’s say you did the

AnnCoulter.com thing and it didn’t work for you, so you’re going

to take another run at it. Each time you do that, what kind of

money do you have to spend?

are pretty much between $500 and $1,000. They are always

around $2.40 per thousand impressions, but I make sure to

always have a 48-hour out clause. We’re direct marketers and if

it doesn’t work in two days, it isn’t going to work.

You really need to run it for six to eight weeks to get a feel for

the market.” What do you think about that?

placing ads and not taking responsibility for their media

performing.

That is why right now in this economic climate you can call up a

magazine and pay half of what you are paying now. You can

call up wherever you are placing banners and pay half of what

you’re paying now. They are just thankful you’re there because

things have gone south for some people.

You know, you can’t fool everybody all the time.

marketer on the planet to step up to the plate and negotiate

good ad rates and take home the lion’s share.

two-sale. That’s the kind of stuff that I hope will give people the

confidence to go out there and give this a shot.

I hear a lot of people say, “I don’t want to do banner ads

because they’re too risky.” Now is the best time to go out there

and give paid media a try.

The traffic is cheaper because there are not as many people out

there. Traffic costs are down and inventory remains the same.

There are still as many people going to these Web sites as

there were before. There are fewer advertisers, so you have

less competition and you have to spend less money.

Now is the time to go out there and give this a shot. With these

ad reps, ask for it right up front. Say, “I want 48-hour out.” You

can negotiate.

The ad buy may be $15,000, but you don’t stroke a check for

$15,000 and then they start running your ads. Usually, you don’t

even have to cut them a check. Once you have some credit built

up with them, sometimes you don’t have to cut them a check for

30 or 60 or even 90 days.

You can tell them, “Look, $2.50 CPM,” and after two days you

have enough. Maybe you only owe them $200 and you’re out.

AdWords account can get you credit with putting Google as your

credit reference. If you’re running Pay Per Click ads as your

only reference, it will give you credit with most of these ad reps.

be way over the heads of most people. Explain what you mean

by credit because that is something most people don’t realize.

I remember the first time I tried to place an ad and they were

like, “Okay, send in a credit application.” Talk about credit

quickly and then come back and explain what you mean by

having Google in there.

shorten the sales cycle, business is all about cash flow. If you

blow your wad on your entire ad budget of $15,000 on the first

of the month, now you’re in the hole. You can’t pay rent; you

can’t pay your phone bill and so on. You are left waiting for the

money to recoup.

With regard to credit with the media, most of them are willing to

do it if you ask for it. They will now let you pay after the media

has run. That may be 30 days net terms or a lot of magazines

have 90-day net terms.

You can pay after the sales come in, but they are going to ask

for a credit reference. If you have not had credit with any

vendors before, well, we all run Google AdWords and Google is

a big, major company. It is very hard to get them on the phone.

You want the media sees you are playing with Google. You

don’t even have to specify that you have a Google AdWords

account. Just put Google in there with their 1-800 number as

your credit reference.

beginning I would put Google and Yahoo and put the account

rep. Obviously, you’re not going to get in touch with anybody

from Google, but they’ll see that you’re working with Google. It

got the ball rolling for us.

worth a lot already, but that was worth many times the

investment in many of these calls. That’s one that caused Perry

and me to look at each other in amazement. That’s a good one.

The time has whizzed by and we’re actually over the time. I

want to make sure I am respectful of your time. Do you have

any parting words of wisdom for everybody?

do.

I’m sure you guys would agree with me that the hard part is

getting started. In the martial arts industry, the industry I know,

everybody always talks about making videos. I said it is the

most leveragable way to make money in this market.

Even guys who own schools talk about making videos. It is so

simple. I make fun of myself putting on the black mask with no

cameraman and stuff. It is so easy to do and that’s the first step.

If you can do that, trying all the banner stuff is everything

because that will multiply the business. people don’t want to do

any work, so if you are willing to do some work, you might as

well invest the money and the time and the effort into growing

your business. Otherwise, you might as well just hang it up and

get a job.

great call. I’ve been excited about getting somebody on who

does a lot with banner buying and other media buying.

In our business everybody is into PPC, FCO, and social media

traffic. Nobody really talks about what the big boys are playing. I

think it’s been a great call for that. It’s always fun to have you

on.

more information about you and give you money.

to kill someone with your bare hands.

on killing anybody, I still absolutely recommend that you go

there, sign up, get on Chris’ list, and buy his stuff.

Buy his stuff and give it to a friend who does like killing people

or whatever. It will be one of the best marketing courses you

could ever buy. Buy his stuff, get on his list, and watch how he

markets to you. It will be a tremendous marketing lesson.

Like I said, Chris is one of the few guys out there who is doing it

and doing it big in a really competitive market. Chris, thank you

again, man. I really appreciate it and can’t thank you enough. I

look forward to being able to return the favor. Take care.