Mindvalley Insights for Online Marketing Techniques

3 Things to Look for When Hiring Talent

Mindvalley Insights Team — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:58:42 +0000

Mindvalley CEO and co-founder, Vishen Lakhiani recently posed the following question on Facebook:

“So we’re looking to do new posts and videos for Mindvalley Insights. And I’d love to know – what would be your BIGGEST question for me on Mindvalley, our marketing model, operations, biz processes, or way of thinking? We’ll be answering the top question on Mindvalley Insights in the coming weeks. Go ahead, ask me anything. Leave a comment below. “

And boy, did the questions come in! We received loads of juicy queries so we frog-marched Vishen into the hot seat and filmed our new series, Q&A with Vishen.

To kick off the series, Vishen was asked to identify the Top 3 Tips for finding “Best Fits” for new Mindvalley recruits.

Watch this video to see why Vishen didn’t list Resumes or Skills in the Top 3, and why he says all you need is “Flow“.

Got a question of your own? Post it on our Facebook page and it could be featured in our next Q&A with Vishen!

How to Craft a Brilliant Guarantee with “Risk Reversal” (Part 1)

Vishen Lakhiani — Fri, 11 May 2012 00:20:00 +0000

What’s this “Risk Reversal” thing all about, I hear you ask?

Well to cut a long story short:

The concept of Risk Reversal is simple, but it requires some boldness and guts. Basically, it means that YOU, the businessperson looking to close a sale, should identify the various reasons a potential customer would hesitate to buy. You then think of little things you can do to overcome those obstacles.

Risk Reversal is like a Guarantee, but way more powerful.

It’s a guarantee on steroids. The Arnold Schwarzenegger of all guarantees. The kind a buyer cannot turn away from because the buyer has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Jay Abraham with Vishen and the Mindvalley Team, LA Jan 2012

Before we go there…let’s look at the Basic Guarantee that 90% of online and offline merchants usually have. Let’s label this Level 1 on the Scale of Guarantees.

Level 1 – The Standard Guarantee

A standard guarantee offers buyers a 30 day period to return the product for a full refund. This type of guarantee is required by law in many countries such as the USA.

Yuck. It’s mediocre and your competition probably offers it too. Boring, mind-numbing and barely even noticeable. Truly successful businesses always go beyond a Level 1 guarantee.

The next step is Level 2.

Level 2 – The Extended Time Period Guarantee

A Level 2 guarantee will extend this 30 day period to 90 or more days. Many sellers swear by the 90 day guarantee. By giving the customer a full 90 days to try your product you often lower the refund rate.

Here’s why:

Let’s say Mary buys a $90 set of aerobics DVDs from your online store with a 30 day guarantee. It takes 10 days to reach her. Mary now HAS to test the DVDs in the next 20 days to see if she likes them. But she finds herself too busy, all of a sudden she has only 2 days left to return the product for a full refund. It’s still sitting on her shelf untouched – feeling the pressure, she returns it unopened.

But if Mary had been given more time to try out the product, there’s a good chance she would not have felt pressured and may have taken more time to test, play and fall in love with the product.

If you’re selling products online, you can often create significant increases in sales AND lower your refund rate just by extending your guarantee to 90 days.

But Level 2 is nowhere close to what a guarantee can do.

Now we step into the Zone of Risk Reversal

A few years ago, a guy by the name of Nick Swinmurn got frustrated because he could never find the right kinds of shoes he liked in the local mall. Nick went home that day and went online hoping to browse through online shoe stores, but there were only a few of them set up back in 1999.

Nick wondered if he could establish his own online shoe store. The idea kept jumping around in his head and eventually he quit his day job and founded Zappos.

At first people told him he was crazy. Shoes are something you need to hold in your hand before buying. You need to try them on. Feel the leather. Have your spouse see them on you and let you know what they think. There were a multitude of reasons to NOT buy shoes online.

Yet Zappos thrived. In 2005, the 6-year-old company did $370 million in shoe sales!

How?

Well let me tell you what got me hooked on Zappos.

Sure, Zappos had a wider variety than a traditional shoe store. But it was Zappos’ Risk Reversal policy that really made me a loyal customer. I remember the decision making process I went through before buying my first pair of Kenneth Coles on Zappos.

* What if I don’t like that shade of brown? Can I return it? Zappos’ answer was yes.

* If I try it on and find it won’t fit – can I return it and get another pair? Their answer: yes.

* Will you pay for the shipping – and the cost of return shipping? Their answer was again: yes!

* If I buy it and then randomly change my mind – can I still send it back and get my dough back? Again, the answer was yes.

* If I bought it and then found one for a cheaper price on Canal Street, can I send it back? Again – yes.

They had an answer for every SINGLE doubt I had. They were prepared to lose a few bucks on return shipping because they were smart enough to understand that once I bought the shoes – I would probably really like it and want to keep it.

They knew their prices were good and they knew that once they got me hooked, I’d be telling my friends about them.

They were willing to bend over backwards to give me the best service possible and eliminate every single doubt from my mind. No physical shoe store I know would place that much trust in me as a customer.

Zappos had effectively reversed every single doubt I could have in my mind. They made it a no-brainer to be their customer.

I did buy a pair of $120 shoes from them. And I bought another one later that year. And I told 8 friends about them. And I’ve NEVER EVER shopped in a physical shoe store in New York since.

That my friend – is Risk Reversal.

If you missed Jay Abraham’s 2-min introduction to the Risk Reversal technique check out what he has to say for himself here - after all Jay is one of the online marketing greats!

But enough about my shoe buying habits – what are the best guarantees you’ve seen online? Share them in the comments section below!

P.S. Once you go beyond Level 1 and 2, there are 4 more levels of Guarantees that fall in the Risk Reversal Zone. I will cover this in a separate article soon and will alert you on Facebook once it has been published.

How to Boost Sales from Facebook Ads by using Payment Plans

Mindvalley Insights Team — Thu, 10 May 2012 07:46:41 +0000

There is a lot of buzz going on nowadays about the profitability of Facebook Advertising – but is it all hype?

The simple answer is no!

With over half a billion registered users, Facebook is THE platform to grab some high quality leads and unsuspectingly turn them into your most loyal customers.

After a year-and-a-half of experimenting and innovating on our Facebook Advertising campaigns, we have cracked the code on how to recuperate costs and start making profit two months after your Facebook advertising investment.

We have tons of material to share with you on how to turn Facebook Advertising into a sales machine. We’ll start with Tip #1 which will help put some “ompf” into your Facebook sales conversions and follow up with more tips in upcoming articles.

Tip #1: Make Payment Plans the Main Option on Order Menus

Payment plans are usually done in two installments: first during the main transaction and the second after 30 days. All of our products can be purchased with payment plans, but it has always been pitched as a secondary option to the main sales offer at full one-time-payment price. See our sales offer for Chakra Healing in which we already offer a 50% saving:

But this got us thinking – should the Order Menu on the landing page reflect the interest and the traffic source of the buyer? After all, a customer from a search engine who has been actively searching for your product is a totally different type of buyer compared to a Facebook surfer who stumbled upon your ad or was targeted by your campaign.

As such, we decided to run a test on our landing page for Chakra Healing by replacing the standard Order Menu by dividing the main sales offer price into three payment plans. As such, instead of offering the $199 product for one payment of $99 we split the 50% offer into 3 part payments of $33 each:

The following results from Website Optimizer were very interesting!

The new Chakra Healing Order Menu boosted sales by 75.6% and had a 98.6% chance of beating the original version:

There you have it – Tip# 1 to help ensure that your Facebook Advertising strategy doesn’t fall through at the last minute when someone clicks on your Facebook Ad only to turn away when they see the full product price on your Order Menu. Always make your sales offer is as appealing (and affordable) as possible, no matter the product price.

Let us know below whether this idea has helped or inspired you to implement a payment plan for your own Facebook landing page Order Menu.

We will be publishing more tips to help you improve your Facebook Advertising strategy, so keep an eye on our MVI Facebook page for Tip# 2 – Free Shipping for Facebook Users.

Risk Reversal: My favorite Jay Abraham Technique for Kick-Starting Your Online Sales (Insight #3)

Vishen Lakhiani — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:02:00 +0000

This is the final content of the 3-part series of Jay Abraham Insights and it’s my personal favorite!

Many moons ago I attended one of Jay’s seminars where just this ONE idea of Jay’s boosted my sales by 50% – and Jay is now sharing this concept with you.

Whatever your trade, the risk reversal technique applies to your business – provided that you have an honest belief and confidence in your product. Why? Well, if you don’t believe in the quality and benefits of your product then why should John, Dick or Harry?

Ultimately it comes down to this, your task, as a business owner is to reduce the risk that burdens your customer during a sales transaction. And if you can reduce customer risk by offering a guarantee then you could also see your sales double.

Watch Jay’s 2-min intro to risk reversal above and if you want to find out more check out my article Choosing the Correct Risk Reversal Guarantee For Your Business Needs (Part 1), coming soon.

Missed out on Jay’s first two insights on brand domination and positioning your brand in the market? Then check out his two short videos Building Brand Awareness and Understand Brand Positioning in 2-mins now.

A Simple Method to Increase Pricing by 300% or More

Mindvalley Insights Team — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 02:57:41 +0000

Finding the perfect price point for your product(s) is a challenge in itself let alone attempting to play big and increase prices!

Too high and customers turn away, too low and customers become suspicious of the quality of the product.

So is it possible to increase prices AND keep customers happy enough to add to cart?

Yes of course it is!

Meet product launch specialist, Alex Ngheim.

Alex has a simple method for increasing product prices overnight (literally) without having to splash the cash on market research, change the product or spend months testing and testing. He shares his method here and all within 14 minutes!

If you are a coach, speaker, author, entrepreneur or even a corporate executive, this method will give you the know-how to increase your product price point by 300%, 500% or even 1000%.

Watch out for key pointers on recognizing, targeting and reaching your premier buyer and identifying the benefits you want to deliver to that specific market. Share you thoughts on this simple method below.

Understand Brand Positioning in 2-mins – Jay Abraham (Insight #2)

Mindvalley Insights Team — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:12:12 +0000

Do you know what it takes to have a customer pick you over a competitor?

It’s all about finding your niche, and it’s one of the single best bits of advice the $9.4 billion man Jay Abraham can give you. Ranked by Forbes as one of the best business consultants in the country, Jay has helped over 10,000 clients in over 400 industries and he is here to help you!

Jay is a master of identifying patterns that increase productivity, induce creativity and massively boost profits.

In this second video in his 3 part series with Vishen, Jay explains the importance of brand positioning and why you need to set yourself apart in order to get ahead.

Check out Jay’s first video “Building Brand Awareness” .

Building Brand Awareness – Jay Abraham (Insight #1)

Mindvalley Insights Team — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:53:23 +0000

America’s number one marketing wizard. The $9.4 billion man. One of Forbes’ top 5 executive coaches in the country. When Jay Abraham talks, businesses listen. Which is why this video is unmissable.

Vishen sat down with Jay recently to record a series of videos revealing 3 simple ideas to take your business to the next level. This is the first insight in that series.

Starting with the importance of market domination, Jay discusses why now more than ever, you need to establish yourself as the benchmark of excellence within your market.

The key to achieving this lies in a concept known as Preeminence. You’ve got to fall in love with your clients. It’ll all make sense once you watch the video. Get your notebook out for this one.

Optimize Your Website Conversion Rate With Alex Mandossian

Mindvalley Insights Team — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:23:16 +0000

When the door buzzer rings at Mindvalley HQ, it’s usually a courier or a pizza delivery boy. But once every month or so, someone special walks in.

A few weeks back, that someone special was Alex Mandossian – the inventor of the teleseminar, the online marketing legend, the all-round nice guy with that infectious catchphrase:

“Yes or YES???”

Alex rocked our socks when he delivered one of the most spirited, paradigm shifting presentations we’ve ever seen right in our Hall of Awesomeness.

In 45 minutes, he revealed his personal secrets for instantly boosting conversions, writing killer headlines and making GOOD mistakes.

It’s not every day you get to learn from a man who’s made over $300 million for his clients, and worked with icons like Mark Victor Hansen, Jack Canfield, Joe Vitale and Michael Masterson.

So get comfy and press play.

How Amish Shah pulled off a $5.1 million product launch on his first attempt

Mindvalley Insights Team — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:49:22 +0000

Some people have the uncanny ability to make more in a week than most will earn over a lifetime. What’s better, they do it all the time.

Amish Shah is one of those people.

If you’re wondering where you’ve heard the name, he is the man behind the famous ‘Magic Bullet’ courses and is also known as the ‘$100k man.’

Last year we brought him to Mindvalley’s annual master mind. Recorded on that day, Amish explains the basics behind his record-breaking launches, his tried and tested theory on how to humanize your work and how to overcome the single biggest hurdle that all affiliate marketers face – credibility.

In this video, he shares how he launched an internal software he had created for his company to the marketplace at the prodding of no other than Frank Kern himself. And in the process generated around $8.6 million in sales over just over a year.

Copy Matters: Email Split Testing

Vishen Lakhiani — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:38:36 +0000

One of our top copywriters at Mindvalley, Omar, sent this out last week to our Team and I thought it would be useful for anyone out there who is involved in Email Split Testing.

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To Anyone Involved With Email Split Testing,

I’ve been noticing that we’re sometimes unable to get enough insights from our subject line test results.

Why? Because at times we fall into the trap of testing for the sake of testing. As an example, here are two of the most common types of tests that would give us NO valuable results:

The “Too Similar” Test

Variation 1: Laura wants you to see this Variation 2: Laura asked me to show you this

The “This Is Too Random” Test:

Variation 1: the book is on the table Variation 2: my chihuahua wants you

These tests are pointless because they fail to answer the single most important question that every test should tell us:

“Where do I go from here?”

Our tests need to give us a tangible insight that will help us write future emails with higher open rates and CTRs. To do this, we must always make sure that our tests follow a particular theme or template.

Here are 4 to get you started:

The “FIRSTNAME” Test:

Variation 1: {FIRSTNAME}, there’s a fly in your soup Variation 2: there’s a fly in your soup

Why it works: You’ll find out whether your list responds better to their name being in the subject line

The “Does Size Matter?” Test:

Variation 1: utterly unbelievable Variation 2: oh my god i’m in shock, that was just utterly unbelievable Why it works: You’ll find out whether your list responds better to long or short subject lines

The “Question Or Command” Test:

Variation 1: have you watched avatar yet? Variation 2: you MUST watch avatar

Why it works: You’ll find out whether your list responds better to questions or statements

The “Tease Or Sleaze” Test:

Variation 1: watch this video Variation 2: jack canfield explains the 7 secrets to success (video)

Why it works: You’ll find out whether your list responds better to vague or specific subject lines

Here are a few more things you can keep in mind:

Analyze your test results not just individually, but in one and six month blocks. Look for patterns that will help you interpret the long-term behaviour of your list. Remember, every email you send out is only a small piece of the big picture – your relationship with your list.
No singular theme will ALWAYS work for your list. For example, an initial test result that shows your list prefers a question as opposed to a statement subject line does not indicate you should change ALL your subject lines to questions! Mixing and matching is key to keeping your list engaged, so instead save your most effective templates for important emails that bring in the $$$.
Always remember to check the unsubscribe rate in your emails. But, do keep in mind that a higher unsubscribe rate sometimes only occurs because more people opened the email in the first place.
Remember to test as many types of templates as possible.
And… test like your life depends on it!

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