WEBVTT 00:00.020 --> 00:05.000 Welcome to this brand new section where it's time to start talking about paid advertising. 00:05.000 --> 00:09.980 And I'm going to kick off this first lecture with a question, a question that might surprise you. 00:09.980 --> 00:14.030 And that question is, do we have to even do paid advertising? 00:14.030 --> 00:16.190 Well, the answer to that is, in fact, no. 00:16.220 --> 00:21.020 You don't have to do paid advertising with all of the free and low cost techniques that I've showed 00:21.020 --> 00:21.230 you. 00:21.230 --> 00:24.650 You can definitely build out a very profitable business. 00:24.680 --> 00:30.110 And they even showed you a possible projection where you could be making up to $10,000 a month purely 00:30.110 --> 00:31.280 with those techniques. 00:31.280 --> 00:34.760 So if we don't have to do it, why even bother considering it? 00:34.760 --> 00:38.030 Why even have lectures on paid advertising? 00:38.030 --> 00:41.990 Well, the reason for that, of course, is because there are huge advantages. 00:42.020 --> 00:45.920 The first one being that it is an instant source of traffic. 00:45.950 --> 00:50.510 The moment you start paying for ads, you are going to get traffic to your site. 00:50.540 --> 00:55.160 Now you can see here that I've put here in brackets, it doesn't mean it's targeted traffic. 00:55.160 --> 00:59.090 And this is a really key point with paid advertising. 00:59.090 --> 01:04.080 It is, in fact quite easy to drive a massive amount of traffic to your store. 01:04.110 --> 01:10.200 However, it is a lot more difficult to drive the right traffic, a lot more difficult to drive the 01:10.200 --> 01:11.250 ideal customer. 01:11.280 --> 01:16.530 The people that are actually going to buy products from your store and of course it's those people that 01:16.530 --> 01:17.190 you want. 01:17.190 --> 01:23.550 But assuming you are driving targeted traffic, then that leads into the second advantage and that is 01:23.550 --> 01:29.490 that paid advertising really is the only way to scale your business ten X and beyond. 01:29.490 --> 01:32.160 And I don't necessarily mean ten x exactly. 01:32.160 --> 01:38.070 I just mean it really is the only method to take your business up many, many levels. 01:38.100 --> 01:43.980 A process that would be very difficult to do if you relied purely on free and low cost techniques. 01:43.980 --> 01:46.080 So those are the key advantages. 01:46.080 --> 01:48.360 But what about the disadvantages? 01:48.360 --> 01:52.890 Well, the main disadvantage, as you probably won't be surprised to learn, is that the moment you 01:52.890 --> 01:55.290 stop paying, you don't have any traffic. 01:55.290 --> 01:59.100 When you stop paying for ads, those customers will not be coming to your store. 01:59.100 --> 02:01.890 But of course, that's not the case with free traffic. 02:01.890 --> 02:07.410 Once you create that content, it is going to send a targeted visitors to your store pretty much for 02:07.410 --> 02:08.160 eternity. 02:08.190 --> 02:14.730 Now, the other main disadvantage is that it can get very expensive because almost all of these advertising 02:14.730 --> 02:17.280 platforms are in fact auctions. 02:17.280 --> 02:22.500 And what that means is that you are directly competing with your competition to show ads. 02:22.530 --> 02:27.990 And that means that if they are prepared to pay more to show the ads, you will be moved down in terms 02:27.990 --> 02:30.480 of how often or where your ads are shown. 02:30.480 --> 02:35.460 And if you want to beat out the competition, you often find yourself having to pay more and more. 02:35.460 --> 02:38.070 Now, paying more and more isn't a problem. 02:38.070 --> 02:43.530 As long as your paid advertising is profitable, it has to be profitable. 02:43.530 --> 02:48.360 And I know that might sound really obvious, but so many times people seem to think that just because 02:48.360 --> 02:50.760 they're paying somehow they've got a great business. 02:50.760 --> 02:52.650 And it simply isn't the case. 02:52.650 --> 02:58.620 And I'm going to give you two really basic examples here to illustrate how you need to approach this. 02:58.620 --> 03:06.270 So the first example is you spend $10,000 on ads and you get $10,000 in sales. 03:06.270 --> 03:08.400 That is not profitable. 03:08.400 --> 03:10.230 You are not making money with that. 03:10.230 --> 03:15.660 In fact, if you add on all your various other expenses, you are in fact losing money. 03:15.690 --> 03:21.930 However, in example two, you spend the same amount on ads, $10,000, but this time you're making 03:21.960 --> 03:25.440 $30,000 in sales that is profitable. 03:25.470 --> 03:31.140 There is, in fact an expression in business which you might have heard, which is sales are vanity 03:31.140 --> 03:32.820 and profit is sanity. 03:32.820 --> 03:34.890 And that perfectly illustrates my point. 03:34.890 --> 03:39.510 So many people seem to think that because they have good sales, they have a great business. 03:39.510 --> 03:43.830 They'll say something like, Oh yes, my business makes $1 million per year. 03:43.830 --> 03:47.250 And while that might sound impressive, that's the vanity part. 03:47.250 --> 03:52.650 Many times in reality, a business like that can in fact be making hardly any profit or maybe even losing 03:52.650 --> 03:53.070 money. 03:53.070 --> 03:53.580 Why? 03:53.610 --> 03:57.090 Because they're not focusing on profitability, the sanity part. 03:57.090 --> 04:03.090 And so with paid advertising, no matter how much you spend, please ensure that you are always profitable. 04:03.090 --> 04:03.510 Okay. 04:03.510 --> 04:06.210 I think I might have driven that point well and truly home. 04:06.210 --> 04:11.850 The next thing that I want you to really appreciate is that paid advertising is a real skill. 04:11.850 --> 04:16.650 The problem, if you like, these days, is that the Internet makes it very easy for anybody with a 04:16.650 --> 04:20.850 budget to set up a paid advertising account and start running ads. 04:20.850 --> 04:23.580 But that doesn't necessarily mean they know what they're doing. 04:23.580 --> 04:27.660 It doesn't necessarily mean they're going to drive the right traffic to their site. 04:27.690 --> 04:28.290 Why? 04:28.320 --> 04:30.570 Because it's not their area of expertise. 04:30.570 --> 04:35.670 Marketing is a real skill which in many cases can take years to learn how to do it properly. 04:35.670 --> 04:40.740 And in addition to that, even if you were to do it yourself, it would take up a massive amount of 04:40.740 --> 04:41.400 your time. 04:41.400 --> 04:46.500 You cannot simply approach marketing as something you do at the end of the day for ten minutes. 04:46.530 --> 04:48.960 It has to be front and center of your business. 04:48.960 --> 04:54.600 It is incredibly important and therefore it will take up a considerable amount of time. 04:54.600 --> 04:59.310 Now in addition to this, there is another problem, and sorry if I've already suggested this in the 04:59.310 --> 04:59.880 course. 05:00.000 --> 05:05.940 But there are so many people on platforms like YouTube telling you that marketing is really, really 05:05.940 --> 05:12.210 easy and that paid advertising is so simple that if you just give them $2,000 for their course within 05:12.210 --> 05:17.640 one day or two days, you're going to be running ads and making an incredible amount of sales. 05:17.670 --> 05:21.430 I am here to tell you that that is sadly not the case. 05:21.450 --> 05:27.870 Please do not invest in one of these courses unless it's from a really reputable source and you really 05:27.870 --> 05:30.830 have the time to apply the techniques that they will teach. 05:30.840 --> 05:34.590 So with all that said, how should you approach paid advertising? 05:34.590 --> 05:40.350 What is in fact the most intelligent way to use your money to the greatest effect? 05:40.380 --> 05:45.320 Well, in my opinion, that is to outsource your marketing and your paid advertising. 05:45.330 --> 05:51.660 There are tons of people, particularly on Fiverr.com, that have real expertise in these areas which 05:51.660 --> 05:55.140 will run campaigns for you at very affordable costs. 05:55.170 --> 06:00.310 Now, on that subject, of course that's an additional expense you will need to pay them, but once 06:00.310 --> 06:03.430 again, it's all about getting a return on your investment. 06:03.430 --> 06:09.580 If you pay somebody $1,000 a month to run your campaigns for you, and as a result of that, you make 06:09.580 --> 06:13.900 2000 more dollars in sales per month, it's completely worth doing. 06:13.900 --> 06:15.340 It totally makes sense. 06:15.340 --> 06:20.710 And in addition to that, you have all your time free to focus on other parts of your business. 06:20.710 --> 06:27.670 And so by way of quick example, let me just go over to Fiverr.com where you can see I've entered Facebook 06:27.700 --> 06:29.400 advertising, Shopify. 06:29.410 --> 06:34.840 So imagine I wanted to advertise on Facebook, for example, and you can see there are many, many results 06:34.840 --> 06:35.650 that pop up. 06:35.650 --> 06:40.030 This very first one, for example, I will set up Shopify Facebook ads campaign. 06:40.030 --> 06:44.140 ET Cetera, five stars, 397 reviews. 06:44.140 --> 06:48.280 So if I click on this, this person has an excellent reputation. 06:48.280 --> 06:53.050 And then over here you see the prices so you can get going for basically $100. 06:53.080 --> 06:58.750 Then if it works out for you, you can upgrade to the standard version more or less $200 and then finally 06:58.750 --> 07:00.730 to premium at $300. 07:00.730 --> 07:07.000 And as I say, as long as they are making at least that for you in profit, then it is totally worth 07:07.000 --> 07:07.410 it. 07:07.420 --> 07:13.480 In addition to Fiverr, you also have sites like Freelancer and Upwork, which can also be great sources 07:13.480 --> 07:14.950 of expertise. 07:14.980 --> 07:20.440 Now it's also likely at this point that you're going to come across digital marketing agencies where 07:20.470 --> 07:26.020 basically they're offering similar services, but in most cases for a much more inflated price. 07:26.020 --> 07:28.450 And I'm not suggesting that they are bad in any way. 07:28.450 --> 07:33.970 Many of them are excellent, but you will probably have to commit more money up front to get started, 07:33.970 --> 07:38.980 which is why I believe that starting with gigs like this on Fiverr really is the perfect way to get 07:38.980 --> 07:39.670 going. 07:39.670 --> 07:44.260 And talking of getting going, when should you in fact start paid advertising? 07:44.260 --> 07:46.900 Well, here there are really two key points. 07:46.900 --> 07:51.610 First of all, you should have profit from your free and low cost techniques. 07:51.610 --> 07:57.580 In other words, your business is making money and you can reinvest that money into paid techniques. 07:57.580 --> 08:03.310 And the second point, which you probably won't be surprised to hear, is please do not start this until 08:03.310 --> 08:09.160 you truly understand your ideal customer, because if you do not understand your ideal customer, if 08:09.160 --> 08:13.960 you do not understand who you are targeting, whether you are going to do the marketing yourself or 08:13.960 --> 08:18.790 you're going to pay somebody to do it, it is highly unlikely that you will be profitable. 08:18.820 --> 08:25.660 But if you have spent the time understanding who your ideal customer is, that knowledge in combination 08:25.660 --> 08:30.670 with the right expertise can absolutely take your business to the moon.