Online marketing is an interesting beast…
On the one hand, the internet provides an incredible vehicle to distribute content that has the ability to impact thousands. When you have a mission, there is no better way to share it with the planet than online marketing.
On the other hand, this industry is rift with terminology and tactics that are used to manipulate human behavior. The formulas have been essentially the same for 20 years, with nuances here and there, but in many (not all) cases are designed to manufacture scarcity and fear.
The way that I was taught to reconcile this as a student of internet marketing was through terms like “ethical bribery,” “tripwires” and “diminishing rewards,” and the idea that as a marketer, if I had confidence in the ability of the program, product or service to create transformation, than it was ok to do whatever it took to get people to separate money from their pocketbooks to be able to access my specific flavor of transformation.
Even if that meant tapping into fear, lack and scarcity.
These are not values that I am personally aligned with. They are not values that any of us here at Eyes Wide Open Life are aligned with.
From the very inception of discussing the strategic design of our recent launch of the Money Map, we knew that we were willing to take a risk and break these rules. We desired to create art. We desired a level of integrity, generosity and beauty that defied the old rules of the internet marketing game, after all – “it’s been statistically proven that ugly pages convert better!”… blech.
I am sharing this ‘behind the scenes of a launch’ with you because I want you to know that if you share our desire to embody your personal values in the way that you market your products and services, it is more than possible. We have some amazing discoveries and results to share with you.
Here’s a Peek Behind the Scenes of a Launch that is Breaking All the Rules:
Not everything we tried worked… our initial gateway into this launch, our much touted ‘visual meditation video,’ didn’t work. People didn’t get it right away and the average viewer only watched the first 30 seconds of the almost 7 minute video. And since it wasn’t behind an opt-in, we lost thousands of leads provided by our partners because the next step of opting in for the complete series was at the end. It was beautiful, yes. And it was not effective.
Another example is the several fairly intense debates on our daily team calls about how to complete this launch in the strongest way possible while maintaining our values.
One strategy that you’ll often see marketers use is to say that a program is closing to new enrollments, only to – surprise! – give you one last chance to allow the people who regret their decision not to join to bring in a final burst of sales. Although this strategy works revenue wise, (and we care strongly about revenue here at Eyes Wide Open – it’s the oxygen in a growing business) Amrita made the final call. We will not lie to you. We will not tell you that the program is closing when we know it’s not true.
Another often used strategy is to have disappearing waves of payment plans and/or bonuses. Nope. We’re not doing that either. We’re leaving them up until the cart closes. (Rather than give into knee-jerk reactions that cause marketers to turn up the scarcity volume mid-launch – believe me we were tempted.)
By far the boldest thing we did (near the start of the launch), with the most incredible results in terms of effecting change on the planet, was offering an Accelerated Money Map Course, which we could have easily sold for $500 or $1000 — for free. 5000 people participated and had the opportunity to get clear on their Money Map. We can see from the feedback we’ve gotten that this made a real and lasting impact on people’s lives – of course the greatest indicator of success of all… and also resulted in incredible exposure & attendance rates, and conversion of 16% on our cart open call.
Has it been perfect? Not even close. And even though we are not at the finish line yet, I am so proud to have been a part of this grand experiment.
We’ve been blessed to have two incredible assets: 1) our team. Wow. Their commitment to holding us to our highest intentions, even when we were scared and wanted to go back to playing by the old rules because, well… when it comes to making sales, they work – kept us from self-sabotaging our commitments to ourselves and holding you, our community as the dearest outcome of our work. 2) our coaches, especially Alex Mandossian, who understood what we wanted to do from the get go, and has held us to it in ways we could not have possibly seen for ourselves.
Last night Alex invited us to let go of our goals.
“The end results are none of your business,” he said. “Take care of people. Finish what you started with the integrity and commitment that you began with, and those who are meant to be with you will be.”
He asked to have the entire team share how they will be celebrating on Tuesday when this run is over.
Ultimately, we are reminded that we all show up. We all make mistakes. We all have wins that are important to recognize and celebrate. But ultimately, what matters is honoring our word, living our values and surrendering to exactly what is, learning from the experience and leveraging it to create more goodness in the world.
