Using Facebook to help build your business brand is more than just getting “likes” on your page. But how do you take those “likes” and turn them into a true business asset?
By using 6 key elements when setting up your Facebook business fanpage, you can actually use this social media platform to drive engagement, capture emails and generate sales for your business. These elements have returned an incredible increase in conversion rates, which in turn means more revenue for your business.
Nathan Latka, CEO of Heyo, has become the “go to” guy for Facebook fanpage building. He’s devised a 6-step matrix for helping businesses double their email lists with Facebook campaigns and contests. These lists then become an asset that these businesses have no matter where they go in the future.
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Rich Brooks: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of The Marketing Agents Podcast. Today we’ve got Nathan Latka on the show. Nathan is 24-year old founder and CEO of Heyo. Heyo is the most effective social media platform for small businesses looking to drive engagement, capture emails and generate sales on Facebook. Heyo did six figures its first year in business, and grew revenues 147% in its second year, while raising $2.5 million in funding. Heyo’s goal is to serve 500,000 customers by 2017 and maybe you’ll be one of them. Nathan, welcome to the show.
Nathan Latka: Thanks, Rich, for having me. I’m so thrilled to be here.
Rich: We’re excited to have you. I’m looking forward to today’s topic. Now, you’re only 24 years old – and I say that with awe – you’re running this successful company that’s helping people build their list and get engagement on Facebook, how did you get there?
Nathan: Well you know, it started about 3 years ago. I was surrounded in my dorm room – which was 10 foot by 12 foot all painted stark white – and I was hanging out below my bunk bed at my desk and it was after a long day where I had been an architecture classes here at Virginia Tech, and I heard that 5th years in the architecture program weren’t getting jobs. Now Rich, what happened 3 or 4 years ago?
Rich: Well, we had a basic economy bust and the housing bust.
Nathan: Exactly. No one was hiring architects, right? So I got extremely fearful because Tech was ranked #1 at the time in architecture, and I said “There’s no way I’m going to put myself through this for 5 years if I don’t have a guaranteed job at the end.” So I went back to my dorm room and I said “What can I sell online to remain independent and not rely on anybody else?” And I just started with Facebook, because I was using it as a college student, so I researched how businesses were using it and made the analogy in my head, when the dot.com boom happened, everyone wanted website builders. With the social boom happening, everyone wanted fanpage builders. So I was going to be the “to go” fanpage builder, and that’s how it started.
Rich: Fantastic. Now, it’s interesting, because both you and Pat Flynn come from a background in architecture, and you both basically blew up on the internet. I don’t know if maybe I should send my kids to architecture school so they’ll become internet millionaires when they grow up.
Nathan: Causation…correlation. I’ll let you connect the dots.
Rich: Now obviously your business, Heyo, is tied into Facebook. And there’s a lot of concern these days about Facebook brand engagement, small businesses not being able to reach their audiences, some companies have even opted out of Facebook, which seems extreme. Now what do you make of this, and what do you say to companies when they voice concern about Facebook as a platform?
Nathan: Yeah, so, I actually don’t think it’s extreme that people are completely opting out of Facebook. In fact, I think you’re going to see more and more people do it unless they realize the path to creating an asset from their Facebook presence – an asset they control. What’s happening is people aren’t realizing that there are ways to create an asset, they don’t know what those assets are, so they leave. So that’s one of the reasons that at Heyo we can care less about “likes”, we don’t care about this fluffy-duffy metrix. We help folks double their email lists with Facebook campaigns and contests. That email list, Rich, is then an asset that small business has no matter where they go.
Rich: Absolutely, I completely agree. We’ve had this discussion many times on The Marketing Agents Podcast, the different ways that “likes” are nice but they disappear. Facebook will disappear and become irrelevant, but your email list is forever.
Nathan: That’s exactly right. In fact, there’s a woman named Jessica Sitko, and she’s actually a lot like all your listeners. She knows a little bit about marketing, she is studying marketing right now, she’s an entrepreneur and her business is called Trademark Antiques. Soshe goes out, spends her weekends, her days, collecting awesome antiques – which she loves – and then she has to sell them to keep feeding her passion. Well, the way she does that is she launched a Facebook fan page. She got, I think, 3, 4, 5 thousand “likes” on the page. But she was having trouble getting those “likes” to turn into interest for her antiques. So what she did is she launched a campaign via an application using Heyo, and this campaign got 557 people to view it, so she got people to view it by posting status updates, things like that. And then from the 557 that viewed, go ahead and take a shot, Rich, at how many you think entered their email as a lead?
Rich: Well, I think a really good 550, if you got 50 people that would be pretty strong.
Nathan: Yeah, so that would be a 10% conversion?
Rich: Yeah, I’ve never been good at math, but about 9-10%. I was told there’d be no math.
Nathan: Sorry, sorry…surprises. So from 557 views Jessica captured 257 email addresses.
Rich: Oh my god.
Nathan: That’s 53% conversion rate.
Rich: That’s pretty stunning.
Nathan: Which is amazing. Now, I actually refreshed, I just got these numbers. She had 1,700 total “likes”, so she captures approximately ⅛ of all of her fan’s emails. She took a liability and turned it into an asset. Her business is growing so fast right now. She is moving antiques, she is doing what she loves and it’s because she focused on social to build her email list.
Rich: And I think that’s critical. And I’ve seen this time and time again where I might have 10,000 Facebook fans or 10,000 Twitter followers or 10,000 on my email list, but when I send out something to sell, it’s that email list that converts. So I’m totally on board with this. Can you break down at all any of the things she did, or are you going to go over maybe some of the tactics that she used, when we talk about these different ways of building our email list through Facebook.
Nathan: Yeah, let me go in specifically. So, over the past 3 years, we’ve tested every element to literally a microscopic, sweat dripping off our nose degree. We’ve launched over a quarter million Facebook campaigns and we split test in every category. So when you set up a Facebook page, you have to select what category to put it in, we’ve run at least 5,000 tests in every category. So what that means is, we’ve identified 6 critical pieces that every Facebook contest needs to convert – like Jessica – at 53%. And so, if it’s ok with you Rich, let me ask you a question. Would you say a lot of your listeners right now are potentially in the content publishing or kind of author and speaker space?
Rich: I would say a certain percentage of them are, for sure, in fact we had Jonny Andrews here just the other day talking about how to “hack” an audience for an upcoming book, and we got some good response from that. So, I know that a lot of people are in content creation or authors.
Nathan: That’s great. So, we have an author, his name is Dinesh. And his social media manager, Chad Abbott, was frustrated, and here’s why. They have a lot of Facebook fans, but he doesn’t know how to code and he doesn’t have a lot of time and energy to work with a freelance developer. So what he did is, he knew he wanted to launch a campaign to capture emails. What he did is he used Heyo and the 6 elements I’m about to go over. And I’ll give you a preview to the results, I’ll tell you first that they captures 4,501 impressions without a single cent in ad spend. Let me walk through the 6 steps and show you why it worked.
The first critical piece of these campaigns is that you have to put a really strong incentive in the upper right of the campaign. I don’t know if you’re guilty of this – I know I’ve done it in the past – when you can’t think of a good prize or incentive for your brand, what do you typically use?
Rich: Um, free? I’m not sure.
Nathan: Yeah, you throw up a free ipad or something, right? Like, here’s a gift card for a Christmas gift, I don’t know what to get you so here’s some cash. My point is, the dollar has no empathy. What does have empathy with a fan base is, it could be cheaper than a dollar, it could be more expensive than a dollar, but you need to do something that emotionally aligns with your brand. So what Chad did for Dinesh , who’s the author, the incentive that he put in the upper right was a signed copy of Dinesh’s new book that was coming out. And so that was the incentive – emotionally impactful. That’s the first thing.
The second thing is creating urgency. So about ⅓ down the left side of the page, you want to include a countdown. Now, have you run a campaign before? Even on your website, or have you entered any?
Rich: Oh, absolutely.
Nathan: Ok, and what typically drives you to enter?
Rich: Well, for the Agents Of Change Conference for example, we have an early bird discount. So I’m always talking about the fact that you’re going to have to spend more money if you don’t make a buying purchase immediately.
Nathan: And usually it’s “buy before x date before prices increase”, right?
Rich: Correct.
Nathan: So, the reason that folks do that, just on the general internet, is because people’s attention spans are very short, you need to get them to take action now. Guys, breaking news, when you’re on Facebook, when that little, red notification pops up, you’ve lost the person viewing your campaign. They’re going to click the notification and you’ve lost them. In fact Rich – interesting statistic – if you’re looking at a Facebook app on average, there’s about 153 other links a viewer could click on besides entering your contest. Talk about a leaky bucket.
Rich: Yeah, it’s a sieve.
Nathan: Yeah, it’s really, really bad. So that countdown, you want to have less than 7 days on it. If it’s more than that, the person won’t enter, because they can tell themselves they’ll come back later. And if it’s less than that, you’re not letting your contest run long enough to get momentum.
Rich: So what was that optimal time again?
Nathan: 7 days or less.
Rich: 7 days or less.
Nathan: Yup. And you put that ⅓ down the left side of the page. So again: incentive, countdown. The third thing is making it really easy to remember, right under the countdown, is where you want to put your email opt in. And it doesn’t matter if you’re using Infusionsoft, Aweber, MailChimp, Constant Contact, GetResponse, iContact, they all integrate beautifully. And what happens when I say they integrate is…
Rich: Oh no Nathan, I think I just lost you. [Rich takes a few moments to wrestle with the internet and wins!] Ok, some slight technical difficulties there, sometimes that happens with the internet. Nathan was just telling us all about how these different email service providers integrate beautifully. Nathan, take it away…
Nathan: Sorry about that Rich. So the reason I said that was because most people when they launch a campaign or contest, they’ll actually make it very difficult for someone to just enter their email and move on. They’ll put 7 steps before the opt in, they’ll make it complicated, so using the structure you put the first step to enter the campaign in to win – in this case, Dinesh’s book – is put your email in. That email then gets dropped directly into MailChimp or AWeber or Constant Contact, whatever email marketing provider you use. Which one do you use?
Rich: Constant Contact is my ‘go to’, although I am also using MailChimp and AWeber because we have different clients.
Nathan: Got it. So, you have commitment problems?
Rich: Constant Contact has been a big supporter of flyte and the Agents of Change for years. they always pick up the phone when I call, though, so that goes a long way. I like to say I play the field.
Nathan: I’m kidding. So, the cool thing here is once they opt in the important thing is you can put them im a drip campaign or an autoresponder to keep them re-engaging with the campaign over the 7 days. So again, to summarize so far: 1) the strong incentive – in Dinesh’s case it was his signed book, 2) 7 day or less countdown in the upper left – great urgency, 3) make it easy to enter with the email opt in, 4) Now this is how Dinesh got 4,500 free impressions without spending a dollar on ads. Right under the email, you want to say “2.” click ‘like’ “3.” ‘share’ “4.” click “tweet”. What that does is, you get a “like” for your fan page, they then share it with their friends to pull in their friends as new traffic, and they share it with their twitter followers to pull in their twitter followers as new traffic. So you enable them to become a marketing force for you. And we’ve actually modeled this mathematically. There is an equation of how to actually mathematically prove when something is viral and when it is not. This structure and layout is the structure that comes as close as you can mathematically to guaranteeing virality. Now you can never guarantee anything, but it’s the closest you can get. And what that means is, if you’re starting with 10 “likes” on your Facebook page, the theory is if you can get one of them to enter the campaign and share and tweet, they’ll get at least 5 other people to enter, five will turn to 50 and so on and so forth. That’s what happened with Dinesh. So that’s the 4th – make it easy for them to market for you, your fans. The fifth is brand consistency. So you want to put your logo in the upper left, and in the bottom right, below the incentive which is Dinesh’s book. Dinesh would say something like, “Hey guys, if you loved my content in the past, then grab my signed book for free, follow the steps on the left for your chance to enter and win.”. Alright, so that’s what he’d say there. And lastly is, you want to make sure that when you publish this campaign, it also is mobile optimized. Rich, I’m sure you’ve done studies on mobile traffic, right?
Rich: Oh, absolutely.
Nathan: Through the roof. What are you seeing on average of online traffic and social traffic as it relates being attributed to mobile?
Rich: Well, to be honest, it always depends on the different industry you’re in because of the audience that you’ve got. But what are you seeing?
Nathan: So, we’re seeing over 50% on average, using Facebook on mobile. Now this data I’m about to give you is from Facebook’s Q1 earnings call – 48% of Facebook’s daily users only use Facebook via a mobile device. So that’s telling, 48%. Additionally, every month the average Facebook user is spending 914 minutes using Facebook mobile. It’s significant.
Rich: Those are huge numbers. We’ve all seen people sitting in line somewhere waiting for something to start and basically catching up on Facebook.
Nathan: Exactly. So here’s what I’ll tell your audience. You guys are definitely losing at least 50% of your email leads with your campaigns if you don’t have a mobile optimized version, for sure 100%.
Rich: But, isn’t it difficult for people to enter their email address on a mobile device? It always seems like anytime we ask them to type anything, we start to lose some of their interest. Have you seen any numbers around that, or do you have any tips for us?
Nathan: You know, I think it’s interesting. But Rich, if I asked you what’s the #1 app that you use on your mobile device, what would your answer be? Well unfortunately, it’s this really weird Dungeons & Dragons Dog game – BUT – outside of that, it’s probably Twitter. I’m more of a Twitter than a Facebook guy. Now think carefully, what app are you opening the most? Is it truly Twitter?
Rich: For me it is.
Nathan: Ok, for me, my first is email.
Rich: Mmm, that is a strong one, too. Actually, that’s probably neck and neck. And I probably spend more time in email than I do in Twitter, quite honestly.
Nathan: And my point for bringing that up is, I’m returning probably 30% of my emails right now using a mobile device, which is a bunch of typing.
Rich: That’s true. If only they would make the @ symbol on every single keyboard rather than 2 or 3 buttons away.
Nathan: So now what I can tell you is the campaigns that we run where Chad Abbott – who is an author/speaker – launches a campaign that’s not mobile optimized versus mobile optimized, the increase in options has been almost double, 150% and more. So it is significant, people really are missing out on at least half of the traffic and conversions if they don’t have a mobile version. And the trick is, once you launch that mobile version, you want to use a smart URL. Think of this, Rich, you probably know this, but for your listeners, it’s like a URL with a brain. So when somebody clicks it – whether it’s via mobile device or desktop – they’ll click that same link and go to different versions depending on what piece of hardware they’re on. What makes it easy for the marketer is you only have to use one link.
Rich: Right.
Nathan: So all of those things I just articulated: 1) strong incentive, 2) create urgency with a countdown,3) make it easy to enter with email opt in, 4) let them market for you by asking them to share & tweet,5) put in your brand logo and voice and 6) make it mobile optimized. Those 6 pieces together in the exact structure that we have in our contest template, it’s the first thing you see when people go to Heyo and sign up for a free trial on the right. When they pick that, that is the most optimal version if you’re looking at driving email conversions. And so for Chad and Dinesh, when they launched their campaign I told you they got 4,500 impressions. Go ahead and give a guess – now you’ll be more aggressive this time I bet – give a guess of how many emails you bet that captured.
Rich: 4,500! No..again, I mean, I’d say they’d be totally stoked to have about 900.
Nathan: So, 4,500 impression they converted to 50%, so they grew their email list by 2,282 emails. How many of you guys would love to double your email list, or add thousands of emails?
Rich: Yeah, I think everybody listening would. And I’m pretty sure that I’m going to go and start doing some additional Facebook to email marketing right after I finish with you today, my friend.
Nathan: Hey, look, it works. If you don’t lose sight of the fact that “likes” do not matter, it’s about building an asset, and that’s what Heyo’s here to do, that’s where we help.
Rich: And I think these are the kind of conversations that I think it’s important for small businesses to hear and be part of, because there probably will come a day – even though it seems impossible – that Facebook is not going to be as relevant as it is. We started a social media club with a local, catholic high school here and we did marketing with them – the girls actually did the marketing, I just kind of sat in the background – and one of the things we realized is that Facebook is only good for engaging alumni and parents, the kids really weren’t using it. And they said, “Facebook is kinda dead to us.”. Now that may change as they get older and get into the workplace, but the bottom line is it is very possible that it will become less relevant and if you built all of your property on someone else’s land you lose that if that land becomes not valuable anymore. And that’s why I think everything that you’re saying about using Facebook to start a conversation but to engage and build that email list where you can have more business-oriented conversations is critically important to everybody listening today.
Nathan: Absolutely. There’s a guy that I spoke with – actually he followed up with me after I was on a podcast several weeks ago – and he said, “Nathan, I’d love to do this, but I’m not a developer so I don’t know any code, and I’m also worried. I’m in a weird industry, will I still be able to use this concept to capture emails?.” Well, the industry that he was in was a chip company, his name is Dylan and his chip company is called Burt’s Chips.
Rich: Are these potato or computer?
Nathan: Potato chips, sorry. Great question. They’re based in Devon, Britain – a little city in Britain – foggy morning, crisp afternoons. And what they did is they launched this. They were going to give away an ipad and I said, “No!”. What they did is they gave away literally $1 bag of chips along with some unique sea salt they crafted, which is what they put on their chips. This campaign got 4,300 impressions, captures 2,700 emails for 64% conversion rate in a wierd industry by somebody that knew nothing about coding. So it works.
Rich: Wow. And were they giving this bag of chips away to everybody who entered, or is that like a prize, how did that work that in just out of curiosity?
Nathan: Yeah, so the verbiage under the chip incentive – which again, was in the upper right – “Hey, enter your email on the left for your chance to win a bag of chips and our secret sea salt.”.
Rich: Excellent. This has been just an incredible, invaluable amount of information. I’m sure everybody listening is going to want to take some action right after this. And I know a number of people are going to want to learn a little bit more about you, a little bit more about Heyo, where can they go online to learn more?
Nathan: They should go – if they want to use that structure I articulated, the one that’s converting the best right now – they can actually go directly to Heyo.com\rich.
Rich: Really?!
Nathan: For 2 reasons. It’s your name and it’s what everyone wants to be, typically.
Rich: Excellent. So you had this set up before, it’s always been “rich”, and it just happened to be that it worked out today because it’s my podcast.
Nathan: That is exactly right.
Rich: Alright everybody. Well, I want everyone to go use that particular URL so you show Nathan the love. Nathan, anywhere else we can learn more about you, or should we just focus on Heyo today?
Nathan: Anyone listening right now that wants to talk to me, whether it’s about working together for your specific brand, if you’re an author or speaker and you don’t have ideas, or maybe you want me to write a story for your blog or something like that, you guys can just text me actually. My number is 703-431-2709, that’s the quickest way to get me. Or if it’s less urgent, you can email me at [email protected].
Rich: That is some serious access you’ve just delivered. I hope your phone doesn’t ring off the hook now.
Nathan: I hope it does.
Rich: Nathan, thank you very much for everything you shared with us today and I appreciate the time.
Nathan: Rich, thanks for having me, my friend.
Juicy Links:
- Get in on the early bird discounts for Agents of Change!!
- Grab your seat for the free list building webinar I talked about on 7/24/2014!
- Check out Heyo for building your email list through Facebook