Generic Company Squeeze Page vs Custom Landing Page

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Hi, my name is Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, the only podcast
which delivers cutting edge conversion strategies from the online trenches straight to
your earbuds. Download the transcript of today’s episode and all future episodes at
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List Builder’s Survival Guide” at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com/survival and now
once again it’s time to claim your List Building Lifestyle.

Jonathan: Yes, yes, y’all this is another edition of List Building Lifestyle bringing you what
you need to build your list, build your lifestyle, and be free. I have with me here,
Mr. Igor Kheifets. What is up, my man?

Igor: What’s up Jonathan? What’s up List Builders? Are you ready for another kick
ass episode?

Jonathan: I am ready but I’m going to read a review. So let’s jump back into the vault of
reviews since we’ve gotten so many. I think people like you Igor, I’m starting to
think people like you.

Igor: You know it’s weird because no one likes me in real life.

Jonathan: [laughter] They don’t really know you, do they? They just get the outside Igor.

Igor: Yeah, I’m never open up.

Jonathan: So here we go. This one comes from well there is no name, it says join M&M
and the title is “Exists My All Already High Expectations” and here’s what they
write. “I knew this was going to be good because Igor’s so successful but it has
been transformative and eye opening for me. I love his candor. It is a refreshing
change from being in a company where the primary teachers spoke in riddles.” I
don’t know what company that was but…

Igor: Every company, Jonathan. That’s what they do in every company.

Jonathan: They speak in riddles. That’s how they keep you confused and dependent on
them.

Igor: That’s right.

Jonathan: Cool man, so what do you have in store for us today, Igor?

Igor: First I wanted to thank the person that wrote that review. I appreciate it. I do my
best to keep the bar up. Today, I want to talk about the gateway to the list, to
your list, right, the landing page. I don’t think we have ever done an episode on
the landing page.

Jonathan: God, I spent my first two years online obsessed with landing pages.

Igor: Yeah, me too I used to split test them like crazy, completely ignoring the fact that
all that matters is sales not the opt in rate but you know you live and learn. The
best way to learn is through experience so today, I think it’s time we discuss
better, a generic company’s squeeze page or a custom landing page that you
create yourself. So what do you think Jonathan?

Jonathan: Well, I’m probably biased or maybe it just that I come from a technical
background but I usually like to create my own.

Igor: Yup, yup but it’s not a guaranteed set in stone kind of thing. Sometimes a
company landing page does carry pretty well, it really depends on who’s the
owner of the company. Sometimes the owners of the company are so oblivious
to marketing and to the basic marketing/copywriting principles they create just
horrible landing pages, ridiculously heavy – design heavy but very poor in direct
response marketing principles. On the other hand, sometimes every now and
again, you’ll get a company lander that actually looks good and it makes sense
too. Because the person who owns the company and started the company
actually gets marketing so you can tell what kind of books they were reading and
which kind of seminars they went to. This is rare, very, very rare.

Jonathan: Igor, I’m going to interrupt your flow because I feel like you mentioned
something that we haven’t talked enough about. You said direct response
principles. What is direct response?

Igor: Oh right. Well, direct response is when you market either one to one or one to
many and you’re trying to illicit a response, one specific response. So if you’ve
ever gotten a sales page or a sales video which tries to illicit just one response
from you and that is to buy the damn product that’s direct response sales video or
sales letter. A landing page is a direct response mechanism with one purpose in
mind and that is to squeeze your email. A catalog of some sort is a direct
response mechanism that tries to get you dial the Home Shopping Network or
whatever the sales people so that they can sell you whatever it is that there is in
the catalog. So anything that comes to marketing material that tries to illicit a
direct response from the reader or the listener or viewer is called a direct
response advertising mechanism.

Jonathan: Thank you.

Igor: And direct response in general simply means the science which is advertising,
right, because we have all seen these TV commercials that are all about brands
like Coca-Cola and McDonalds, right they don’t really tell you go to your local
McDonalds’ branch and buy this burger. They just give you pictures and images
and they want you to remember what McDonalds is and next time you walk past
a yellow looking M you kind of want to get a burger. However, these are just –
well I don’t like these kinds of ads because they are useless. Right, they cost too
much money and they can’t really be measured like the response of those ads
cannot be measured. So anything that you can measure with actual sales, opt in
rates, percentages and etc that’s direct response advertising so when we advertise
online, Solo ads, Facebook ads, Google ICO, Google Adwords all of these are
direct response advertising channels which you should be using because let’s
face it, you’re not stupid. You want your advertising dollars to actually produce
results and for that to happen, you first got to track that response and adjust
accordingly. So that’s my very short and very non-confusing way of explaining
what direct response is.

Jonathan: Thank you. Thank you for that. I wanted to make sure we were all on the same
page.

Igor: Great and now I forgot what I was talking about before you interrupted me.

Jonathan: Well, because one of the connections there that I wanted you to make
was that why were those landing pages bad and so the ones that are not performing
so well more like those McDonald’s pages which are branded about the company
where the ones that are good are more of those ones that are trying to get your
email more than they are trying to show off their product or how nice their design is.

Igor: Oh yeah, in fact often times, my split testing shows that ugly landing pages out
perform pretty ones so heavy design is actually not a good thing for landing pages at
least in the make money online space.

Jonathan: That’s right, ugly- I think it’s Ken McCarthy who says “Ugly almost always
wins” and so even though I would like prettier stuff, I tend to lean towards the
ugly stuff myself. Don’t tell my wife that. [laughter]

Igor: I was just about to make that reference myself. So you beat me to it, man
[laughter]. Anyway, circling back to landing pages when it comes to landing
pages, a custom designed landing page by someone who knows what they are
doing like yourself, who understands at least the basics of direct response
marketing will out perform the generic companies squeeze page is often created
by idiots. I’ll just be honest, I mean a lot of times I see pages by idiots and
dumbasses that do not understand a thing about what marketing really is.
Incidentally, the custom squeeze pages will also lead to higher sales conversions.

Jonathan: Really?

Igor: Yeah and I can’t explain why. Like you take the exact same sales letter with the
exact same page with the exact same credibility etc and you place it after an ugly
looking custom landing page that just follows the basic direct response principles
almost every single time this page, anyone who goes through that page is more
likely to purchase than one who goes through a generic company page. Why? I
just don’t know. I just know that you better use a custom lander.

Jonathan: You know what Igor, I think it has to do with congruency because if you’re doing
direct response principles on that lander than you’re already doing your
positioning for the offer that is coming behind it.

Igor: That and perhaps by pressing the right buttons, you also put them in state that too
may be a possibility, right because you never force a prospect to purchase a
membership into a business opportunity. They have to be in a heightened state of
mind. They have to be in a different state of mind then just being curious or just
being curious and skeptical at the same time. They have to be open to that
internal conversation about whether or not should they make a buying decision
right now. So we just finished a big campaign for example for someone who ran
300 clicks to a digital altitude sales funnel with our landing page because we
actually built landing pages for our clients for free when they order traffic with us
and guarantee 30% opt in rate and lo and behold he received six sales.

Jonathan: Wow.

Igor: Now out about 50% opt in rate which is 150 opt ins, 6 sales means one sale per
25 visit opt ins and here is the thing he never made sale ever.

Jonathan: Really?

Igor: Yeah. Not until he ran traffic with us. Now I don’t know if it’s my traffic or it’s
the landing page or a combination of both. The point is these are the
circumstances that led to him finally getting his business off the ground.

Jonathan: He must love you. [laughter]

Igor: You know I wish, however as you know Jonathan, clients can be weird
sometimes and you know what this guy wrote to us? He says, “Hey, how come I
only got six sales?”

Jonathan: What?

Igor: Obviously I want to write to him, “Dude go talk to your fellow members and see
how many sales they’ve gotten from solo ads they ran with other people.” More
often than not it’s like “oh I’m getting pathetic 7% opt in rate and no sales at all
and my list is dead.” But I guess it’s all a matter of perspective and this client
needs to be educated a little bit.

Jonathan: He never made sales before so he also has a list because it was your squeeze page
so he has a list to follow up with as well doesn’t he?

Igor: Absolutely. Again, he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. Many times even
before we go into the conversation of whether or not someone should run traffic
with us. I try to identify where these people are in their journey. Do they even
understand what a list is? Do they understand that they are not supposed to make
like a gazillion dollars as soon as they run the ad? Do they understand they’ve
got to follow up? All these things sometimes that we take for granted but often
times, people who come buy traffic don’t even understand that because no one
teaches them that stuff. Remember episode before last we discussed how people
get keys to a Ferrari but no one shows them how to drive it?

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: Well exactly the case, Jonathan, where they got a great system, they got great
traffic, they even make sales but even then they are frustrated and overwhelmed
and confused. They don’t know what to do, they don’t know what to expect,
they don’t know whether this is a good thing or a bad things when they make six
sales from a 300 click run.

Jonathan: Good grief, man. Well that’s the things, he’s new, and so he’s never done this
before. He needs to get kicked in the nuts once or twice and then he’ll see how
great this is.

Igor: Probably should invite him to become a member of my VIP Club but not until he
listens to a few episodes of this podcast to get educated.

Jonathan: Yeah, yeah so can you give us, not giving away all your secret sauce or anything
like that, but give us some pointers on what a good lander might include?

Igor: Well, landing pages are really simple actually. It all comes down to the headline
honestly. You’ve got a clean looking ugly design even a plain white background
if you want and just a good targeted hard hitting headline that gets the job done.
It’s about 80% of the success of your landing page. If you’ve got a great
headline then it’s almost guaranteed that you’re going to get a really high opt in
rate. This is like the big secret. If there is a 80/20 rule, the Perry Marshall, the
Pareto Principle.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: Then the headline is the 80% of a squeeze page and it really has to drive the point
home. Drive the big benefit or idea home for the readers so within a glance,
within just 1.7 second glance of that page, he knows or she knows do I proceed
or do I leave the page, is this relevant for me, do I want to know more about this
or can I just leave and forget about it?

Jonathan: Now, I’m going to push a little bit more here so a lot of people will put pressure
on themselves sitting there trying to come up with this wonderful headline. But
where do you get the inspiration for the headline? Where does that come from?

Igor: Well for one, Jonathan, I read a ton of copywriting books. So that’s a no brainer,
I’ve read almost everything by Dan Kennedy, Gary Halbert and anyone who is
considered to be an authority in direct response space and if you read enough
books you won’t have trouble coming up with a headline because you’ll realize
that it’s all about what the prospect wants and it’s about the fantasy the prospect
has and giving them this fantasy. Now sometimes this challenge is how do you
state something that has already been stated a million times before in a way that
is still inviting. This is where the experience comes through but if you don’t
have the experience and you don’t have the time read a ton of books then the
very least you can go into your marketplace and you can study – you can
examine the high performing letters, the high performing sales videos, or
anything that you know is converting really well right now, just create a swipe
file of winning ads and winning sales letters. Go through them one after the
other as if you’re trying to compare them side by side and within 30 minutes,
you’ll have at least a dozen headlines you could use simply because you’ve just
kind of started consuming all the great marketing out there and naturally your
brain start pumping this stuff up.

Jonathan: What about going into the actual sales material? So we talked about congruency
and on the other end of that opt in there’s got to be some sales material you think
you can dig into that stuff as well and find something that could be a winner.

Igor: That could be one of the shortcuts, yes. I’m not a big fan though. For some
reason, I don’t like doing that because everyone does it.

Jonathan: Ahh.

Igor: So I prefer to feed my brain, give it lots and lots of content, however let it come
up with the unique angle because again copywriting one of the challenges is
stating the same thing a different way.

Jonathan: Right.

Igor: Because the customer is like a rich person in a club full of poor people where all
the poor people try to come in and take their money. So you have to approach
the client, you have to show up and seem different. The first thing that is going
to be used to judge you is your headline. Does this sound like exactly the same
thing that I’ve said a million times before? If it does you’re automatically
disqualified. Then again if you’re brand new to this business, you do have
another shortcut, you can just ask us to build you a page when you buy traffic
and have us just commit to a 30% opt in rate. I mean that’s been pretty much the
simplest and fastest way to go about it but if you want to do it on your own then
do it right, okay and start reading, start consuming great marketing and before
you know it your brain will just pump out ideas like crazy.

Jonathan: So how many people in your industry actually commit to those kind of opt in
rates? Is that a normal thing, Igor?

Igor: No, not many at all. In fact most traffic sources never guarantee their traffic in
anyway so we were actually the very first ones to ever offer this and we had a
few other competitors knock this off of us however you definitely want to work
with people who are willing to stand behind their product. So whether it’s us or
anyone else who is willing to guarantee as long as they are legit, their work can
be trusted. By all means don’t go risking your hard earned dollars if you have a
chance to run advertising risk free. You know what Jonathan, the best part is that
Facebook doesn’t guarantee anything. Google Adwords doesn’t guaranteenanything.
No one guarantees anything but guys like us who actually want to see you succeed.

Jonathan: There is goes. I think we read a review somewhere where they were talking
about you actually care. What’s wrong with you Igor? You’re supposed to be an internet
marketer, what are you doing with all this caring stuff?

Igor: Well, I have this problem. I’m getting surgery next week so it should solve that.
You know how this movie, something to do with orange where the guy gets his
aggressive gene removed?

Jonathan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why can’t I think, it’s like a 1970s movie.

Igor: It’s like a mechanical orange or something.

Jonathan: Clockwork Orange

Igor: Clockwork Orange, that’s it. I never seen this movie but my friend is a big fan
and he just spoke about it so often that I have this image in my head of a guy that
was really, really aggressive and who I think went to prison or something, they
removed his aggressive gene and so I’m going to get my caring gene removed
next week for sure.

Jonathan: [laughter] What do you have in store for us next time, Igor, once your caring
gene has been removed?

Igor: Surprisingly, I’m hosting a guest, a very special guest who is the world’s number
one hypnotist. His name is Marshall Sylver. It was not easy to get him to do an
interview however he is one of the best influencers I know like the guy is
incredible. He’s got his own show in Vegas. He holds super expensive
masterminds in Vegas as well. He lives in a fricking palace like a 15 to 20
million home or something like that. He flies private only. He drives a golden
Rolls Royce or something like that. Look him up, Marshall Sylver. He’s just
insane. The guy is like the Midas King like whatever he touches turns into gold.
So it was really, really fun to interview him and I can’t wait to share this with the
List Builders.

Jonathan: Yes sir, I’ve seen him hypnotize a stage of people and have them asking like
farm animals. He’s an interesting fellow so looking forward to that. So that is a wrap for
another edition of List Building Lifestyle, we will be back in your brains next time.

Thanks for listening to The List Building Lifestyle Show, make sure to subscribe on iTunes
or Google. Play to never miss an episode because who knows just one conversion tactic
we share on the show might double your list and double your business. Download the
transcript of today’s episode and all future episodes at listbuilderslifestyleshow.com and
don’t forget to claim your complimentary copy of “The Wealthy List Builder’s Survival
Guide” at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com/survival . This is Igor Kheifets until next time
we talk, have a good one.

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